by Alec Waugh
He knows, Maxwell thought, he knows.
4
He must know. How can he not know? Yes, but what can he do?
So Maxwell argued with himself as he sat with his family at lunch. Euan Templeton was there, seated next to Jocelyn. He ate with his right hand, she with her left. They did not talk a great deal but there was an air of repose, of calm about them; of fulfillment. Jocelyn hadn’t a trouble in the world. He envied her, but not aggressively: not as he would have done four months ago. He did not resent her being happy. He did not even feel he had himself been cheated. He had no one but himself to blame.
His father at the head of the table was discussing the morning’s meeting. On the whole he did not think Boyeur had made himself ridiculous. He had said his piece, established himself as a force among the other councilors.
“But he’ll have to be careful,” he insisted. “He’s put H.E.’s back up. Your father’s a disciplinarian, Euan. A no nonsense man. He’s not going to have his authority flouted.”
“It’s not a job I’d care to take on myself,” said Euan.
There was a laugh at that.
Jocelyn asked Maxwell if he had spoken.
“No, I’m waiting till this afternoon. I didn’t want to echo Boyeur, that’s all I could have done.”
This afternoon he would as likely as not be on the other side. He had thought out his argument. He had telling things to say. His first speech would be as effective as Boyeur’s had been, more effective actually, because he had kept silent that morning. If he played his cards carefully he would earn the reputation of being a man who only spoke when he had something of consequence to say. Not like Boyeur, jumping to his feet at every opportunity; speaking for the pleasure of hearing his own voice. Boyeur, how he hated him. He saw him in memory striding into that avenue of light, looking up to the platform with supercilious triumph: heard again the contempt in his voice as he had said, “Come on, there’s nothing to amuse us here”; saw himself standing speechless while the crowd dissolved. Boyeur stood for everything he detested. Boyeur: he’d get his own back in the council.
5
“I therefore suggest, sir,” Norman concluded, “that a subcommittee should be formed to examine the possibilities of developing Grande Anse as a tourist resort and to report on the amount of capital that it considers necessary.”
He had been speaking for a quarter of an hour. Julian Fleury rose to second the motion.
“I will be very brief, sir. I am in such complete agreement with what the Honorable Member has just said that I have little to do except endorse his opinions. There is one point, however, that I should like to make. We need, in my opinion, the advice of an expert. We are all of us here amateurs in these matters. We do not know what kinds of entertainment Canadian and American tourists will expect in a place like this. We have to give something that other islands have not got. We cannot go into competition with Jamaica, Bermuda, Nassau. Nor for that matter can Barbados, but Barbados has found the means of providing special attractions of its own, and we in Santa Marta ought to be able to do the same. But we need the guidance of an expert.”
He elaborated his thesis briefly and with effect.
“The first duty of this subcommittee should be to select that expert,” he concluded.
The Governor tapped with his gavel. “The following motion has been moved and seconded.” He read out the motion. “It is now open for discussion by the House.”
Maxwell and David Boyeur were on their feet simultaneously. The Governor looked from the one to the other. Maxwell had not spoken yet. He was entitled to speak first. But Boyeur had been subjected to reproof. It was better that he should not be allowed to feel that that reproof now entailed reprisals. A reprimand was a punishment and the slate was clean now. He caught Boyeur’s eye. Maxwell sat down. Hell, he thought. It was his turn surely.
“May I say, sir,” Boyeur started, “that with one remark of the Honorable Member who spoke last I am in complete agreement. We are, he said, amateurs in this business. We are, and for that reason we should move with the greatest caution.”
He spoke with an easy fluency. Maxwell glowered, envious and resentful. Why had he not himself this gift? Of all the capacities in the world it was the most superficial, the most trivial yet the most valuable. Good plans sound inefficacious if they are presented clumsily; a persuasive speaker could gain attention for the most flimsy schemes. It was such a minor talent. The pitching of a voice, the turn of a phrase, a smile at the right moment, a gesture, a movement of the head or hand; they counted for so much. Why should they? It was not fair. Why should a glib tongue achieve more than solid arguments backed by research?
“I will say, frankly, at the start that I shall vote against this motion,” Boyeur was announcing. “I say that to make my position clear. We are amateurs in this business and we have not the right to ask Government to finance a venture run by amateurs. We have been assured that the development of Grande Anse will prove a good investment, will bring hard currency into the colony. But if that is so, why has not private enterprise developed Grande Anse? There is a great deal of capital in this colony. There are many capitalists. We are always being assured, we socialists, that private enterprise is infinitely more efficient than a State-run proposition. In a State-run proposition no one cares about making profits. ‘Jobs for the boys’ that is all that matters. I disagree most heartily with that contention, but the Honorable Members on the other side of the House endorse it. Why then are they suggesting that Government should finance this venture? If the development of Grande Anse is such a gilt edged proposition why have they not formed a syndicate, invested their own money in it, organized it with that extra skill, that extra energy that are, so they tell us, the essential accompaniments of private enterprise, and in the process not only brought hard currency into the colony, but earned rich rewards for themselves.
“Sir, it is my suggestion that private enterprise has been warily noncommittal because it has no confidence in the dividend-earning prospects of this scheme. The capitalists of Santa Marta are not simpletons. Let Government put up the money, they say to themselves, and we will make our incidental profits as middlemen, supplying goods and services; cinemas, bars, hotel rooms, taxicabs; then when the balance sheet shows a deficit we can shrug our shoulders with a ‘What can you expect when Government runs a show? Think of all the boys who have to get their rake-off.’ No, sir, I am convinced that if the capitalists of the colony were convinced that money could be made out of developing Grande Anse, they would not at a boom period such as this have handed over to Government this chance of lining their own coffers.”
He smiled as he made his speech. There was no note of anger or indignation in his voice. He was not being the demagogue, as he had that morning when he had talked on his motion of “my poor people.” His self-control made him the more effective. He did not give the impression of having any personal ax to grind. Maxwell was acutely conscious of Boyeur’s success. His resentment was quickened by the fact that Boyeur was using many of the arguments that he had planned for his own speech. He too had meant to oppose the motion; why could he not have been given the first innings? It was not fair.
“There is another point which I want to make,” Boyeur was continuing. “I want to ask, sir, whether an influx of tourists is really desirable in a small island such as ours. It would bring prosperity to individuals, it would bring hard currency into the colony, but there are things more important than a balance sheet in the black. I would remind the house that the once French island of Haiti was never more prosperous in terms of bullion than it was during the months before it collapsed into anarchy and civil war. In those plush days a canker was eating at its heart. A balance sheet in the black is of less importance than a system that is free from canker. I would remind the house, sir, that at the present this colony is paying its way. We have no immediate cause for concern on that account. But our internal health is a plant we must tend carefully. We have, and we must ad
mit that we have, a color problem here. Let us consider how the sudden influx of a group of Canadian and American tourists will affect that problem.”
Maxwell clenched his fists. This was another of the points that he had meant to make. His speech was being pulled apart. There would soon be nothing left of it. And he had planned it all so carefully, written it out, memorized the phrases. He might not have been able to deliver it with Boyeur’s ease of manner; but the arguments were sound enough to have told even if they were not mouthed by a rhetorician. He should have made his mark with this speech. As it was he would be left with only a few scattered comments. All the best points, the opportunities for punching phrases, had been stolen.
How he hated Boyeur. Boyeur typified everything he detested in West Indian life. In the same way, though in an obverse, exactly opposite way, that looking at Sylvia across the table he would note adoringly each loved feature, so now he marked with fascinated repulsion each detested feature: the black skin, the short crinkly hair, the wide purple dark mouth, the dazzling white even teeth, the widespread nostrils, the flattened nose, the naked-looking eyes; he watched the long-fingered hands gesticulate. What an animal Boyeur was, with the arrogance, cunning, cruelty of a panther. He remembered Boyeur swaggering into that long avenue of light. How he had longed at that moment for revenge: how impotent he had felt, standing on that platform, with Sylvia an indifferent and disdainful witness.
His blood had boiled that night: it had been boiling on the next morning when he had read that article in The Voice, had boiled as he had driven into Jamestown to demand reparation. It had been still boiling that night as he had strode toward the club, as he had checked in the street to talk to Carson. How much of his fury was not due to the humiliation he had endured the night before at Boyeur’s hands. Who could pinpoint the exact source of one’s moods, one’s actions? But for Boyeur, he might have been spared this torturing doubt, this invading menace, this blight that soured what should have been his sweetest hours. Boyeur.
“It is a delicate situation that we must handle delicately,” the speech continued. “On the whole we may consider ourselves lucky here. We all know each other. We have known each other all our lives. We are bound by the bond of being Santa Martans. We go our separate ways; we have our separate clubs; we know how to avoid friction. But let us consider, sir, the very different people who will be coming here from America and Canada. They too have a color problem; at least in America they have, but it is a very different problem from our own. They boast in America that they have no racial discrimination, and perhaps they haven’t, before the law. But there is complete segregation of the races. White and colored groups do not meet socially. How will these visitors react when they find colored families using the same bathing huts that they do, and sitting at the same bar? Jamaica is so large that the visitors to Montego Bay are not socially aware of the existence of African Jamaicans; and in Antigua there has been created at Milreef a club that is cut off so completely from the life of the visitor that members there might fancy themselves in Florida. But here it is very different. We are a small island. We see each other all the time.”
It was another of the points that Maxwell had proposed to make. What was left now of his speech? His temper mounted, the same black ungovernable temper that as a child had made him scratch at his nurse’s face, stamp on his toys, throw a lesson book across the room; the temper that had flamed up in him through boyhood into manhood, that after the Governor’s party for his son had made him fling Sylvia through the mosquito net; the same black blind frenzy that on that moonlight night had driven him, kneeling across a pinioned body, to batter a head against the floor: a fierce blinkered atavistic frenzy that knew no mastery beyond its own blind need for self-assertion.
“It is for these reasons, sir, that I shall vote against the motion.”
Maxwell was on his feet before Boyeur had sat down. His blood was boiling; he was passionate for revenge, in a need to hit back, to wound, to cause pain. He sought for the searing words and in the inspiration of hatred came on them.
“Sir, I must warn the Honorable Members of this Council against being swayed too easily by the eloquence of the Honorable Member for St. Patrick’s. May I congratulate him on his speech. We are indeed fortunate to have the privilege of listening to such oratory. His presence here, and his contributions to our deliberations will make our attendance not only a duty but a pleasure. At the same time, sir, we must be on guard against his eloquence, particularly on the question of color.
“It is a very tricky situation for all those of us, and we are the majority, who have African ancestry. Such ancestry in many parts of the world is looked on as a stigma. It is not here any longer, but because it is elsewhere, we are liable to take a biased, a parochial view of the subject. We imagine slights where no slight was intended. If we fail in any enterprise, we attribute our failure to that African ancestry. We have been passed over, we tell ourselves, because we have colored blood. Whereas in fact we have been passed over because we were the wrong man for the job. We have all of us got to be on guard against this tendency, in ourselves and others. The Honorable Member for St. Patrick’s is as vulnerable on this point as the rest of us. He made, sir, a particular point of the attitude that might be adopted toward our womenfolk by North American tourists who do not realize that the young women of Santa Marta have to be treated with the same respect as their own sisters and daughters are back north. Now that is a point that bears out precisely what I have been saying.”
He paused. Now is my chance, he thought. Now for the phrase like a knife. He was still turned to the Chair.
“A traveler may condemn an entire town because he has been insulted by a waiter or cheated by a taxi driver. In the same way a man of color—” he paused, he turned his head and looked at Boyeur. Now, he thought, now—
“A man of color who has been abandoned by his mistress in favor of a handsome young English officer…”
He said it slowly. There was venom in his voice, contempt in his voice. It was a challenge and Boyeur knew it. Boyeur jumped to his feet; his fist banged on the table, rattling the inkpots.
“You dare to say that. You dare to say that to me,” he shouted.
The gavel beat upon the table. The Governor was standing. Maxwell sat down at once: his heart was pounding. He had succeeded beyond his dreams. Boyeur looked round him, dazed, flabbergasted: opened his mouth, changed his mind, sat slowly down.
“I will call upon the Attorney General to read Standing Order No. 6,” the Governor said.
By Standing Order No. 6 a member was not allowed to address another member unofficially, or by name.
“I will now ask the Attorney General to reread Standing Order No. 7, which he has already read to us this morning.”
It was the order dealing with the disciplinary action which might be taken against a member who disregarded the authority of the Chair.
“I will now,” the Governor said, “call the attention of the Council to the behavior of the Honorable Member for St. Patrick’s. Mr. David Boyeur.”
As he sat down he looked toward Julian Fleury. Julian Fleury rose. Within ninety seconds it had happened. The motion had been proposed, seconded by Norman and carried without a dissenting voice, that Mr. David Boyeur be suspended from the service of the Council.
Heavens, Bradshaw thought, when the British move fast, they certainly move awful fast. He watched Boyeur gather together his papers, rise, bow to the Governor, turn and walk toward the entrance. Boyeur did not look at the crowded benches nor at the girl at Bradshaw’s side. How was she taking it, Bradshaw wondered. Purposely he did not look at her.
The gavel was tapped upon the table. “The business of the Council will now be resumed,” the Governor announced. Maxwell stood up.
“Sir, as I was pointing out, a traveler judges a town …”
Bradshaw heard a rustle at his side. His eyes followed Muriel Morris as she tiptoed to the entrance. She paused at the policeman’s side, tur
ned, bowed to the Governor, then hurried down the colonnaded passageway to where Boyeur waited. She slipped her arm through his, and they walked together down the steps.
“What does this involve?” Bradshaw’s colleague whispered.
“Nothing very drastic; an apology from Boyeur next time the Council meets.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
1
His Excellency had been trained under a system of “On parade, on parade: off parade, off parade.” You did not talk shop in the mess, and the fact that your adjutant or company commander had abused you to high heaven that afternoon for a breach of procedure at the rifle range would not prevent you from sitting next him that night at dinner and arguing over Middlesex’s chances in the county championship. Templeton bore no more ill will to Boyeur than he would have to a subaltern he had reprimanded. He considered that Boyeur should look on the incident in the same light. But he was aware that Boyeur had not been acclimatized to that atmosphere. It would be as well to show him that no personal relations were involved and that when he reappeared at the next meeting of the Council, the incident, after the preliminary apology, would be considered closed. It was up to himself to make a gesture; and the fact that Boyeur had recently become engaged to the Attorney General’s sister seemed to provide an appropriate occasion.
“I want Boyeur and his fiancée up here to dinner,” he told his A.D.C. three days later. “Fix a date with them for next week. Put it to them as though it were a party in honor of their engagement; no perhaps not quite that. Say I want to wish them luck. Make it look like a party for them. Let them choose their day; but the real purpose of the party is that Boyeur and young Maxwell should make up their quarrel. You’ve heard all about it, I suppose.”