by Alan Judd
‘You said that?’
Chatsworth nodded, his mouth full. ‘I didn’t say you wanted the variety. I said I did.’
Patrick ran to the telephone in the study. Beauty said that madam had gone. He slammed the receiver so hard that the plastic case splintered and bits flew across the room. It left the guts of the telephone exposed. Surprisingly, there was still a dialling tone.
Chatsworth looked in, still chewing. ‘Did I get it wrong?’
‘You did.’
‘Wrong emphasis?’
Patrick nodded.
Chatsworth made to go and stopped. ‘They never leave you, you know, just for treating them badly.’
Patrick swung the receiver to and fro on its cord. ‘That’s not the point.’
‘Does the phone still work?’
‘Seems to.’
‘Good.’
Chatsworth went to his room. Patrick remained sitting in the study for some time before slowly picking up the bits of shattered case. Later there was angry barking from Snap. ‘Some men are come in a car, massa,’ said Sarah.
‘What men?’
‘Black men. I don’t know them.’
There were two of them in a battered Ford estate. One was half out but paused when he saw Patrick. They looked anxious and resentful. Snap hurled himself against the garden gate.
The driver explained, not very clearly, that they had come to pick up some things of Stanley’s, some boxes. They were not the men for Rachel’s boxes, as Patrick had assumed.
‘Where is Stanley?’ he asked.
The man looked sullen. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You must know if you’re taking boxes to him.’
‘They are not to him.’
‘But are they his?’ He was aware of sounding angry.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘He is in Kuweto.’ The driver started the engine. Both men now looked nervous.
Patrick told them to wait while he fetched Sarah. She spoke to them in Zulu but they did not say much. She wiped her hands repeatedly in her apron. They drove off abruptly whilst Patrick was telling her to ask more.
Sarah seemed less concerned than he was. She shrugged. They say they know him but they do not know where he is. They say he keep moving with other people. I tell them he is to come and get the boxes himself. Then I will take him home.’
Chatsworth joined them. ‘Better take him in the bakkie, tied down in the back,’ he said.
Sarah laughed. ‘Tie him like a goat.’ She shook her head and dabbed with her apron at the tears on her cheeks.
There were two small boxes at the far end of the garage that Patrick decided must be Stanley’s, though no one knew when or how he had put them there. They were partially shielded by Rachel’s. He opened the nearer one. It was filled with black consciousness and anti-Lower African leaflets. Sarah put her hands to her face. ‘Oh, massa, this is big trouble. He will go to prison.’
‘We’ll burn them when we come back from the weekend,’ said Patrick. ‘Meanwhile, keep the garage locked so that no one can come in and get them.’
‘I can move them so you can get the car in better,’ she said anxiously.
‘No, don’t worry.’ He realised she thought he was irritated with her.
‘But I can do it. Is easy job. I can clean the garage.’
He put his arm round her shoulder. ‘No, Sarah, you clean the house whilst we’re away. Get rid of all the noo-noos.’
Chatsworth shifted the other box a little. ‘No trouble. Not too heavy. They’d go on top of the others.’
‘There’s no point in moving them now. Leave them.’
‘Why?’
Patrick turned on him. Everything angered him now. He felt like shouting but kept his voice quiet. ‘Just leave them.’
Chatsworth shrugged and went back into the house.
20
It was hot when they set off. At first Patrick thought of nothing but Joanna. He went over their conversation of the day before and rehearsed imaginary alternatives resulting in reconciliation and happiness. What gnawed at him most was being unable to ring and explain. Chatsworth was inclined to talk but gave up in the face of Patrick’s unresponsiveness.
After a couple of hours, though, the exhilaration of the drive across the high veldt, the sun, the fresh air, even the gleaming red of the bonnet made themselves felt. Patrick’s spirits lifted. He began to feel slightly guilty at having been unfriendly to Chatsworth, though he had not yet forgiven him.
‘Miss Teale tells me that my car, the one being shipped out from England, is at the docks. I should be able to pick it up after the holiday.’
Chatsworth nodded cheerfully. He did not bear grudges. ‘That’s right, she rang about it yesterday when you were out somewhere. She said you should’ve been at work but she couldn’t find you. Apparently there’s some problem about the documents. The customs say the car’s been imported illegally and they’ve impounded it. She wanted you to see her about it. I forgot to tell you.’
There was another silence. Patrick felt less guilty.
Chatsworth added, ‘You’ll know Whelk when we see him, will you?’
‘No, I’ve never met him.’
‘But you’ve seen photographs?’
‘No, I assumed you had.’
‘I haven’t.’ There was a pause until Chatsworth laughed and slapped his thigh. ‘I love these cock-ups. They’re delicious. You’ve got to laugh at them otherwise you’d despair. Colonel Sod is everywhere. Very meticulous staff officer. The only way to get your revenge is to anticipate the next cock-up.’
‘What do you think that will be?’
‘Haven’t the faintest. I reckon he’s keeping all his options open.’
The realisation that neither would be able to recognise Whelk did in fact make the journey more cheerful. It added a sense of irresponsibility.
The route lay across a dam famous for being the only large expanse of water within a day’s drive of Battenburg. It was popular with sailors and anglers and there were traffic jams where the road wound in single lane through blasted rock. After this they passed several small villages but only one town, a long strip of hamburger bars, supermarkets, car showrooms and petrol stations. Bakkies were drawn up on both sides of the broad street with their noses towards the buildings as if tethered like horses.
After this the road led through vast fields of crops. Occasionally there were dirt tracks leading off with signs pointing to farmhouses several miles away. There was no livestock apart from a few distant cattle. Now and again a lone black man could be seen standing motionless on the veldt, or slowly walking, seemingly from nowhere to nowhere.
‘Kaffirs,’ said Chatsworth, using a word which Sir Wilfrid had once sent an assistant military attaché from his dinner-table for using. ‘They walk for miles in the bush. Don’t seem to know where they’re going half the time but that doesn’t matter. They just go walkabout.’
Patrick drove at a steady speed, his elbow resting on the opened window. He knew the sun was scorching his forearm but the wind cooled it. The puncture occurred not long after they passed the entrance to some distant platinum mines. It was in the nearside rear wheel and he knew it when he felt the bakkie drag heavily on a bend.
The spare wheel was in the back but both the jack and the wheel-brace were missing. ‘Colonel Sod,’ said Chatsworth. ‘It’s because we didn’t anticipate this.’
‘Or didn’t check before we left.’
Chatsworth shook his head. ‘Would’ve been something else if we had. That’s two things. They come in threes.’
Car after car swept past, leaving dust and sudden disturbance in the hot air. The entrance to the platinum mines was only half a mile back but there were no buildings nearer than some miners’ houses, their red roofs shimmering in the sun on a hillside about half a day’s march away. Many of the cars that rushed past were new Mercedes or BMWs. Chatsworth tried waving one down and just escaped. He swore at
it. ‘They don’t like helping people in this bloody country. Have you noticed they never smile, never say “please” or “thank you” in the shops? That BMW probably lives round the corner from you, too.’
‘Nothing to be done,’ said Patrick, with a certain satisfaction.
‘That’s a pretty constructive attitude.’
‘Well, we could toss a coin to see who lies down in front of the next one. It’s the only thing that might stop them.’
‘It wouldn’t. People are taught not to stop for bodies in the road in Lower Africa. It’s a favourite robbers’ trick. The body has some vertical mates in the bush and they all jump out and slug you.’
They sat for another ten minutes or so, occasionally waving at the speeding cars. The sun was hot and there were smells of tar and dry grass. If it weren’t for the puncture it would have been a pleasant enough way to pass the day. ‘All I can say is Sin City must be a hell of a place to bring all this lot and at that speed,’ said Chatsworth. ‘There’s nowhere else they can be going. I mean, no one goes to Bapuwana itself.’
What did stop was a small Ford lorry, open-backed and crammed with black farmworkers. The farmer was white. He had a lean craggy face and blue eyes permanently screwed up against the sun. He wore a broad-brimmed khaki hat and was grim and unsmiling.
He preferred grunts to speech and the few words of English he permitted himself were warped by his Lower African accent. When the problem was explained to him he spoke quickly in Lower African to his workers. They jumped out of the lorry and stood chatting excitedly round the bakkie whilst he got a spanner from his cab. When he was ready they lifted the back of the bakkie and the wheel was changed.
He pointed at his workers with his spanner. ‘I have a high jack that would do it but it’s quicker to use them.’ Patrick thanked him and shook his hand. ‘We always help travellers, those of us who live here.’ The words came reluctantly as if he either had difficulty in choosing them or was loathe to speak at all. ‘It is the law of our land because you never know when it might be you. You always help the traveller.’ He waved his spanner again. ‘But you two are plain stupid to travel without tools and water. How are you for petrol?’
‘We’re all right for that,’ said Patrick.
‘Just remember the garages closed at noon today for the whole holiday, just like they do on Saturdays for the weekend. It’s the government trying to save petrol. You’re not allowed to carry any spare, remember that. If you haven’t enough to get you where you’re going you should turn back now. Where are you headed for?’ When they told him he pulled at the brim of his hat and turned away. ‘Well, that’s your business. The laws are different there. You’ll get fuel and everything else you want, I daresay.’ He climbed into his lorry and rejoined the stream of Mercedes and BMWs.
The border with Bapuwana was marked only by a signpost, like county boundaries in Britain. Although the landscape was the same on both sides, everything immediately became more haphazardly African. The road worsened, the bush looked somehow less tidy, there were mud-huts and people. Most squatted or stood near the road gazing at the cars. There were also wandering cattle – high, skinny, hump-backed beasts with wide horns.
The green and brown hills that concealed Sin City rose abruptly from the plain. It had been built by Lower African businessmen in collaboration with The Lion of Bapuwana whose personal wealth, as well as that of his relatives and friends, was said to have benefited enormously from the project. It was a popular boast that the city would one day out-Vegas Las Vegas.
The winding road led through a gap in the hills into a wide green bowl, rimmed by more hills. The city was a large complex of casinos, hotels, bars, restaurants, sports and shopping facilities, with more being built. It dominated the entrance to the bowl like a great white fortress, built deep into the hillside and tapering outwards in a curve like the horns of the Bapuwana cattle. The concrete gleamed in the sun and six storeys of darkened windows reflected a dazzling gold. Trees and shrubs grew in profusion on the terraces and balconies, giving the effect of something constructed in a vast hanging garden. There was a large swimming-pool and beyond that palm trees, tennis and volleyball courts and bowling greens. An eighteen-hole golf course, startlingly green, stretched the length of the valley floor. To one side was a manmade lake.
It was big, brash and successful. Patrick, somewhat to his surprise, was impressed. With more enthusiasm than knowledge he told Chatsworth that the valley had been landscaped with a boldness and vision not seen in Europe since the end of the nineteenth century.
Chatsworth rarely complimented anything without denigrating something else. ‘Anywhere else in Africa this would be hailed as a masterpiece. It would’ve taken twenty years to build with scores of millions of foreign aid and then it wouldn’t have worked. Here it’s taken for granted. Only the Lower Africans could do it.’
After the long drive in the bright sun it seemed when they entered the building that they walked into near-total darkness. To the right were rows of illuminated fruit-machines. They could hear but not see them being operated continuously. There were sounds of people moving about. After a few moments their eyes adjusted well enough for them to make out darkened mirrors and strange reflecting surfaces the colour of dull gold. There were no windows at all but high in the blackness there were lights, some of which moved. Others, they slowly realised, were reflections of reflections.
The large central area was on at least three levels connected by lifts of darkened glass, the corners edged by beads of light. In the centre was a mass of gambling machines, illegal in Lower Africa. They stood in rows being played by scores of people. In a glittering ring around the central area were casinos, bars, restaurants, cinemas and strip clubs.
They made their way to two armchairs not far from the reception desk, intending to sit until their eyes were fully acclimatised. Patrick felt for the arm of the chair and lowered himself into it. There was a powerful squirming convulsion beneath him. He leapt from the chair as a small black boy clambered over the arm and scampered off into the gloom.
Chatsworth slapped his thighs repeatedly as he laughed. ‘All I could see was the whites of his eyes, then he was off like a rabbit. You shot up as if you’d got a snake up your arse.’
‘I thought I had.’
‘I like this place already. We’re going to have fun here.’
They took a lift to a veranda bar where the daylight was dazzling. After a beer each they descended a flight of stairs to a restaurant overlooking the valley. It was too late for lunch and too early for dinner, but they were hungry. They were served by a pretty black waitress whose name-tag announced her as Gift.
Patrick looked for anyone resembling a British diplomat in disguise.
‘He’s short, isn’t he?’ asked Chatsworth.
‘And dark.’
‘Had a moustache.’
‘Yes, but he might have shaved it off before he went missing. No one can remember. You know how unobservant people – we – are.’
‘What d’you think he’s doing here – running a brothel?’
‘Or playing golf.’
‘Could do both. Lot of people do. Does he play golf?’
‘No idea. There weren’t any clubs amongst his things.’
A couple of tables away were three whites. One was a fat, dirty-looking girl with blotched skin and lank brown hair. The two others were men, one obese. His belly bulged over his belt. He had dark curly hair and bloated, brutal features. Twice he sent back his steak, bullying the frightened and silent Gift. The other man was thin and pock-marked and had a crushed bitter expression that became cruel when he smiled. He offered a flick-knife when the fat man was having trouble with his steak.
‘D’you think they’re British?’ asked Patrick.
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the British are ugly.’
‘But are they British? They look more than ugly.’
Chatsworth walked over to the balcony and
stood near their table looking out. ‘Lower African working class,’ he reported when he came back. ‘Poor whites. Backbone of the system. I suppose I ought to approve but it’s hard to love faces like that. The blacks are more pleasing to the eye.’
Gift took their orders with her thighs pressed against their table. Patrick asked her what the three had said to her. She smiled and looked embarrassed. ‘They don’t like the meat. They want it blue but there is no blue meat. I don’t know why they must eat blue meat.’
‘I want to eat black meat,’ said Chatsworth. ‘You.’
She giggled and put one hand to her face. ‘Then you would be sick.’
‘Why?’
‘I am not cooked.’
Chatsworth put his arm round her waist. The group at the next table stared. ‘I will make you very warm.’
She laughed again but did not move away. ‘Please, I must be working now. Will you have a bottle of whisky?’
Chatsworth smiled. ‘We haven’t eaten yet. We’ll have wine with our meal.’
‘But if you have a bottle of whisky it is more money for me.’
‘If I buy a bottle of whisky may I eat you?’
‘Maybe, if you like.’
The three whites still stared. ‘Don’t let me cramp your style,’ said Patrick when Gift had gone.
Chatsworth looked wistfully after her. ‘Would be nice, wouldn’t it? It’s certainly there. I’d have to borrow the money from you, though.’
After their meal they walked outside, past the pool and on to the golf-course. There was no proper twilight in Lower Africa and the dark was closing in fast. ‘Might as well walk round with illuminated placards saying, “British diplomats report here”,’ Chatsworth gloomily observed. Patrick asked if a Mr Whelk were booked in at the hotel but was told there was no one of that name staying. They considered putting a call over the public address system but decided to leave it as a last resort in case it frightened him off.
Chatsworth made enquiries in the restaurant for Gift but she too was not to be found. ‘Someone’s got her already, I bet.’