by William Boyd
In Sgt Mbele’s fetid detention hall Morgan had two hours in which to repent that decision. Finally he managed to impress Mbele, a grinning stubborn man, with, also, the help of a thirtybob bribe, that as he was First Secretary at the Commission he possessed diplomatic immunity, and that he would take it as a personal favour if the sergeant wouldn’t mention him in his report. H. E., though profligate himself, admired a sense of decorum in his subordinates.
Leaving the police station Morgan decided there and then to abandon his car at Spinoza’s and instead go to the club – a ten-minute walk – and get drunk. The Recreation Club, as it was inspiringly named, had been built for the expatriate population of Nkongsamba in the heady days of the Empire. A long rambling high-ceilinged building, surrounded by a piebald golf-course and tennis courts, it preserved, with its uniformed servants and airmail copies of British newspapers, something of the ease and tenor of those times. As Morgan approached it became evident that quiet inebriation was out of the question. Gerry and the Pacemakers boomed from the ballroom, coloured lights and streamers were festooned everywhere. It was the Christmas Party. Morgan, scowling and black-humoured, brutally shouldered his way through the crowd around the bar and drank three large gins very quickly. Then, moderately composed, he sat on a bar stool and surveyed the scene. The men wore white dinner jackets or tropical suits and looked hot and apoplectic. The women sported the fashions of a decade ago and appeared strained and ill-at-ease. There were few young people; young people did not come to the tropics from choice, only if they were sent, like Morgan.
‘Um, excuse me,’ a tap on his elbow, ‘it is Mr Morgan, isn’t it?’
He looked round. ‘Yes. Hello. Mrs . . . Brinkit, yes? Erm, let me see. Queen’s Birthday, High Commission last year?’
‘That’s right.’ She seemed overjoyed that he had remembered. She was tall and thin and just missed being attractive. Thirtyish, late, probably. She wore a strapless evening gown that exposed a lot of bony chest and shoulder. Her nose was red, she was a bit drunk, but then so was Morgan.
‘Doreen,’ she said.
‘Sorry?’
‘Doreen. My name.’
‘Christ yes. So sorry. And your husband, ah, George, how’s he?’
‘It’s Brian actually. He would be here but Tom, our dachshund, ran away and Brian’s been out all night looking for him. Doesn’t want him to catch rabies.’
‘A la recherche du Tom perdu, eh?’ Morgan laughed at his joke.
‘Pardon?’ said Doreen Brinkit smiling blankly and swaying gently up against him.
Morgan drank a lot more and danced with Doreen. They became very friendly, more by force of circumstance – they were both alone, unattractive and needing to forget it – than by desire. At midnight they kissed and she stuck her tongue in his ear. There was no sign of Brian. Morgan remembered them now from the cocktail party at the Commission. Brinkit small bald and shy. Doreen six inches taller than him. Brinkit telling him of his desire to leave Africa and become a vet in Devon. Wanted kids, nothing quite like family life. No place for children Africa, very risky, healthwise. No place for you either, Morgan had thought, as he looked at the man’s little eyes and his frail earnest features.
Some time later in a dark corner of the ballroom Doreen squirmed and hissed ‘No! Morgan! Stop it . . . honestly, not here.’ Then more suggestively, ‘Look, why don’t I give you a run home. I’ve got the van outside.’
Breathless with excitement and lust Morgan excused himself for a moment. On his way to the lavatory he reflected that possibly it hadn’t been such a bad day after all. God. A real white woman.
But then a five-minute session of searing agony in the gent’s toilet brought home to him – with an awful clarity – the nightmarish significance of the lyrics in Jerry Lee Lewis’ ‘Great Balls of Fire’. He reeled out of the toilet, eyes streaming, teeth clenched, and collided with a small firm object. Through the mists of tears the prim features of his doctor shimmered and formed, mouth like a recently sutured wound.
‘Oh! Morgan, it’s you. Well, I won’t waste any words. Save you a trip tomorrow. Bad news I’m afraid. You’ve got gonorrhoea.’ As if he didn’t know.
The VW bus was parked up a track off the main road some miles out of town. The jungle reared up on all sides. Heavy rain beat down remorselessly. Inside, lit by the inadequate glow of a map light, Morgan and Doreen Brinkit lay in the back, spacious with the seats folded down. Doreen moaned unconvincingly as Morgan nuzzled her neck. His heart wasn’t in it. His mind was obsessed with a single image, rooted there since he’d heard the appalling news, of a rancid gherkin astride two suppurating black olives. With a shudder he broke off and took great pulls at the gin bottle he’d purchased before leaving the club. His brain seemed to cartwheel crazily in his skull. Bloody country! he screamed inwardly. Bloody filthy Patience! Three rotting years just to end up with the clap. He drank deep, awash with self-pity. A tense frustrated rage mounted within him. Distractedly he looked round. Doreen was tugging at the bodice of her skirt, all tulle and taffeta, reinforced with bakelite and whalebone. She pulled it down revealing an absurd cut-away bra that offered her nipples like canapés on a cocktail tray. Morgan’s rage was replaced by a spasm of equally intense lust. What the hell, he was on the next boat from Douala, clearing out. She was desperate for it. He reached up and switched out the map light.
But then somewhere in the prolonged pre-coital tussle, Doreen’s dress concertina-ed at her waist, Morgan’s trousers at his knees, the rain drumming on the tin roof, the air soupy with sweat and deep breathing, Morgan took stock. Perhaps it was when, spliced between Doreen’s pale shanks, she breathed ‘come on Morgan, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s the safe time of the month’ and Morgan looked up at the windscreen awash with water and images began to zig-zag through his mind, like bats in a room seeking an open window. He thought of his testicles effervescing with bacilli, he thought of pathetic Brian Brinkit searching for his fucking dachshund in a downpour, then he thought of impregnating Doreen, his putrid seed in her womb, Brian’s innocent alarm at the diseased monster he’d inadvertently produced. He thought of Brian diseased too, a loathsome spiral of infection, a little septic carbuncle festering in Africa behind him. And he realized as Doreen’s grunts began to reach a crescendo beneath him that, no, in spite of everything – Patience, Keats, Pious, Mbele, the stinking heat and the clap – it just wasn’t on.
He withdrew and sat up breathing heavily.
‘What is it, Morgan?’ Surprised, a tint of anger colouring her voice.
What the hell could he say? ‘I’m sorry, Doreen,’ he began pathetically, desperately running through plausible reasons. ‘But . . . it’s just, um . . . well I don’t think this is fair to Brian. I mean . . . he is out looking for Tom, in this rain.’ Then, despite himself, he laughed, a half-suppressed derisive snort, and Doreen abruptly burst into tears, sobbing as she tried to cover herself up. Morgan sat and finished the gin.
‘Get out!’ Morgan looked round in alarm. Doreen, hair all over the place, face tracked with mascara, shrieking at him. ‘Fucking get out! How dare you treat me like this? You filth, you fat sodding bastard!’ She started to pummel him with her fists, pushing him towards the back of the van with surprising strength. Somehow the door sprang open.
‘Hang on, Doreen! It’s pouring. Let’s talk about it.’ She was hitting him about the head and shoulders with the empty gin bottle, screaming obscenities all the while. Morgan fell out of the back of the van. He scampered out of the way seconds later as she reversed violently down the road. Morgan sat on the verge, the jungle at his back, rain soaking him completely. ‘Jesus,’ he said. He wiped his wet hair from his forehead. For some curious reason he felt light-headed, suddenly hugely relieved. He got to his feet noticing unconcernedly that his trousers were covered in mud. Then, for a brief tranquil moment, the rain beating down on his head, he felt intensely exhilaratingly happy. Why? He couldn’t really be sure. Still . . . He set off down the track, a bulky
dripping figure, humming quietly to himself at first, and then, spontaneously, filling his lungs and breaking into a booming cockney basso profundo that spilled out into the dark and over the trees.
‘Hyme a si-i-inging in a ryne, hyme a singin’ in a ryne.’
Cicadas trilled in his path.
Gifts
We land in Nice. Pan Am. I go through customs without much trouble and stand around the arrivals hall wondering what to do next – if there’s a bus into town; whether I should get a taxi. I see a man – black hair, white face, blue suit – looking curiously at me. I decide to ignore him.
He comes over, though.
‘Tupperware?’ he asks unctuously. He pronounces it tooper-wère.
‘Sorry?’ I say.
‘Ah, English,’ he says with some satisfaction, as if he’s done something clever. ‘Mr Simpson.’ He picks up my suitcase, it’s heavier than he expects. He has tinted spectacles and his black hair is getting thin at the front. He looks about forty.
‘No,’ I say. I tell him my name.
He puts my suitcase down. He looks around the arrivals hall at the few remaining passengers. I am the only one not being met.
‘Merde,’ he swears softly. He shrugs his shoulders. ‘Do you want a ride into town?’
We go outside to his car. It’s a big Citroën. The back is filled with plastic beakers, freezer boxes, salad crispers and such like. He puts my case in the boot. He shovels stacks of pamphlets off the front seat before he lets me into his car. He explains that he has been sent to meet his English opposite number from Tupperware UK. He says he assumed I was English from my clothes. In fact he goes on to claim that he can guess any European’s nationality from the kind of clothes he or she is wearing. I ask him if he can distinguish Norwegians from Danes and for some reason he seems to find this very funny.
We drive off smartly, following the signs for Nice centre ville. I can’t think of anything to say as my French isn’t good enough and somehow I don’t like the idea of talking to this man in English. He sits very close to the steering wheel and whistles softly through his teeth, occasionally raising one hand in rebuke at any car that cuts in too abruptly on him. He asks me, in French, how old I am and I tell him I’m eighteen. He says I look older than that.
After a while he reaches into the glove compartment and takes out some photographs. He passes them over to me.
‘You like?’ he says in English.
They are pictures of him on a beach standing by some rocks. He is absolutely naked. He looks in good shape for a forty-year-old man. In one picture I see he’s squatting down and some trick of the sun and shadow makes his cock seem enormously long.
‘Very nice,’ I say, handing them back, ‘but non merci.’
He drops me in the middle of the Promenade des Anglais. We shake hands and he drives off. I stand for a while looking down on the small strip of pebble beach. It’s January and the beach is empty. The sky is packed with grey clouds and the sea looks an unpleasant blue-green. For some reason I was expecting sunshine and parasols. I let my eyes follow the gentle curve of the Baie des Anges. I start at the airport and travel along the sweep of the coast. The palm trees, the neat little Los Angeleno-style hotels with their clipped poplars and fancy wrought ironwork, along past the first of the apartment blocks, blind and drab with their shutters firmly down, past the Negresco with its pink sugary domes, past the Palais de la Méditérranée, along over the old Port, completing the slow arc at the promontary of Cap St Jean, surmounted by its impossible villa. I see the ferry from Corsica steaming gamely into harbour. I stand looking for a while until I begin to feel a bit cold.
It’s Sunday so I can’t enrol for my courses at the university until the next day. I carry my case across the Promenade des Anglais, go up one street and book into the first hotel I see. It’s called the Hotel Astoria. I go down some steps into a dim foyer. An old man gives me a room.
I sit in my room reading for most of the evening. At about half past nine I go out for a coffee. Coming back to the hotel I notice several young girls standing in front of brightly lit shop windows in the Rue de France. Despite the time of year they are wearing boots and hot pants. They all carry umbrellas (unopened) and swing bunches of keys. I walk past them two or three times but they don’t pay much attention. I observe that some of them are astoundingly pretty. Every now and then a car stops, there is a brief conversation, one of the girls gets in and is driven away.
Later that night as I am sitting on my bed reading there is a knock on my door. It turns out to be the fat daughter of the hotel manager. He has told her I am English and she asks if I will help her do a translation that she’s been set for homework.
I enrol at the university. This takes place at a building called the Centre Universitaire Méditérranéan or CUM as it’s generally known (the French pronounce it ‘cume’). The building is on the Promenade des Anglais and looks like a small exclusive art gallery. Inside there is a huge lecture room with a dull mythological mural on three walls. This morning I am the first to arrive and there is a hushed marmoreal stillness in the place. In a small office I enrol and pay my fees. I decide to postpone my first class until the next day as I have to find somewhere to live. A secretary gives me a list of addresses where I can rent a room. I look for the cheapest. Mme D’Amico, it says at the bottom of the list, 4 Rue Dante. I like the address.
As I leave the Centre I see some of my fellow students for the first time. They all seem to be foreign – in the sense that not many are French. I notice a tall American girl surrounded by chattering Nigerians. There are some Arabs. Some very blonde girls whom I take to be Scandinavian. Soon the capacious marble-floored entrance hall begins to fill up as more and more people arrive for their classes. I hear the pop-pop of a motor bike in the small courtyard at the front. Two young guys with long hair come in talking English. Everyone seems happy and friendly. I leave.
Rue Dante is not far from the Centre. Number four is a tall old apartment block with bleached shutters and crumbling stonework. On the ground floor is a café. CAVE DANTE it says in plastic letters. I ask the concierge for Mme D’Amico and am directed up three flights of stairs to the top floor. I ring the bell, mentally running through the phrases I have prepared. ‘Mme D’Amico? Je suis étudiant anglais. Je cherche une chambre. On m’a donné votre nom au Centre Universitaire Méditérranéan.’ I ring the bell again and hear vague stirrings from the flat. I sense I am being stared at through the peep-hole set in the solid wooden door. After a lengthy time of appraisal, it opens.
Mme D’Amico is very small – well under five feet. She has a pale thin wrinkled face and grey hair. She is dressed in black. On her feet she is wearing carpet slippers which seem preposterously large, more suitable for a thirteen-stone man. I learn later that this is because sometimes her feet swell up like balloons. Her eyes are brown and, though a little rheumy, are bright with candid suspicion. However, she seems to understand my French and asks me to come in.
Her flat is unnervingly dark. This is because use of the electric lights is forbidden during hours of daylight. We stand in a long gloomy hallway off which several doors lead. I sense shapes – a wardrobe, a hatstand, a chest, even what I take to be a gas cooker, but I assume my eyes are not yet accustomed to the murk. Mme D’Amico shows me into the first room on the left. She opens shutters. I see a bed, a table, a chair, a wardrobe. The floor is made of loose red hexagonal tiles that click beneath my feet as I walk across to look out of the window. I peer down into the apartment building’s central courtyard. Far below the concierge’s alsatian is scratching itself. From my window I can see into at least five other apartments. I decide to stay here.
Turning round I observe the room’s smaller details. The table is covered with a red and brown checked oilcloth on which sits a tin ashtray with ‘SUZE’ printed on it. On one wall Mme D’Amico has affixed two posters. One is of Mont Blanc. The other is an SNCF poster of Biarritz. The sun has faded all the bright colours to grey and blue. Bia
rritz looks as cold and unwelcoming as the Alps.
I am not the only lodger at Mme D’Amico’s. There is a musclebound taciturn engineer called Hugues. His room is separated from mine by the WC. He is married and goes home every weekend to his wife and family in Grenoble. Two days after I arrive the phone rings while I am alone in the flat. It is Hugues’ wife and she sounds nervous and excited. I somehow manage to inform her that Hugues is out. After some moments of incomprehension I eventually gather that it is imperative for Hugues to phone her when he comes in. I say I will give him the message. I sweat blood over that message. I get my grammar book and dictionary out and go through at least a dozen drafts. Finally I prop it by the phone. It was worth the effort. Hugues is very grateful and from that day more forthcoming, and Mme D’Amico makes a point of congratulating me on my French. She seems more impressed by my error-free and correctly accented prose than by anything else about me. So much so that she asks me if I want to watch TV with her tonight. I sense that this is something of a breakthrough: Hugues doesn’t watch her TV. But then maybe he has better things to do.
Almost without any exertion on my part, my days take on a pattern. I go to the Centre in the morning and afternoon for my courses. At lunch and in the evening I eat at the enormous university cafeteria up by the Law faculty. I return home, have a cup of coffee in the Cave Dante, then pass the rest of the evening watching TV with Mme D’Amico and a neighbour – a fat jolly woman to whom I have never been introduced but whose name, I know, is Mme Franchot.