by William Boyd
The car-park was busy with cars. Squatting in the shade of the verandah were three African mothers with sick children. Morgan walked uneasily past these tiny wracked faces and went into the main waiting room. On the wall was a prominent notice detailing hours for students (7-10), junior staff (10-12), and senior staff (12-2). Morgan checked his watch—five to two—he had just made it but he couldn’t afford to hang around; the Fanshawes were due to arrive at a quarter to three. The rows of black plastic chairs were occupied by various senior staff and Morgan smiled at a couple of faces he recognised. The building was clean and functional and the familiar brain-pickling smell of hospital disinfectant pervaded the atmosphere. In the far wall was a hatchway with the sign “reception” written above it. Behind a glass window sat a dapper little clerk. Morgan approached the guichet. It was like a bank or a railway station.
“Good afternoon, sah,” the clerk greeted him.
Morgan leant on the narrow counter. “I’d like to see Dr. Murray, please,” he said. “As soon as possible.” He glanced at his watch to indicate pressing time.
“Dr. Obayemi and Dr. Rathmanatathan are on surgery today. Please take a seat, your name will be called.”
Morgan wasn’t used to this non-preferential treatment, but he’d met this bureaucratic self-importance many times before and he knew how to handle it. “Is Dr. Murray actually here?” he asked inoffensively.
“Yes, sah,” said the clerk. “But he is not taking surgery.”
Morgan smiled icily. “Will you tell him that Mr. Leafy from the Commission is here. Mr. Leafy. The Commission. Yes. Go on. You tell him.” Morgan thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. These little men, he said to himself, you just have to know how to treat them.
The clerk came back in two minutes. “Dr. Murray will be here soon,” he said peevishly. “Please take a seat.”
Morgan allowed triumph briefly to light up his face, then sat down. Various doors and a passageway led off the waiting room, the floor was terrazzo tiling, there were no paintings or posters on the walls, just a clock, and no magazines to read. The afternoon heat outside made the room warm and muggy.
Five minutes later Murray appeared down the passageway. Morgan rose to his feet expectantly but Murray didn’t beckon him forward. Instead he came on into the room. Morgan vaguely recognised him; he appeared to be around fifty, was tall and slim wearing grey tropical-weight flannels, a white shirt and blue tie. He had short wavy grey-brown hair and a weatherbeaten, freckled look to his face. He held out his hand. Morgan shook it. It was cool and felt dry and clean. Morgan was conscious of his own sweaty palm and the fact that his fingernails needed cutting.
Murray introduced himself. “I’m Alex Murray,” he said. His gaze was direct and evaluating. “I don’t think we’ve met before.”
“Morgan Leafy,” Morgan said. “I’m First Secretary at the Commission.”
“What can I do for you, Mr. Leafy?” Murray had a noticeable Scottish accent, plain and unlocatable. Morgan took half a step closer to him.
“Actually I’d like to see you about something,” he said, a little discomfited at having to explain in mid-waiting room. He sensed people’s attentions turning towards him.
“Oh,” Murray said. “A health matter. I thought this was Commission business—the way you had my clerk introduce you.”
“No,” Morgan admitted. “It’s a personal matter.” Murray eyed the clock which had ticked on past two. Morgan interpreted his glance and added, “I was here before two.”
“What are your objections to my colleagues?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I take it you have some objections to seeing the two doctors who are on surgery today. I’m not,” he concluded pointedly.
This was going a bit far, Morgan thought; he was becoming tired with this grilling. Who did Murray think he was talking to? Some lead-swinging undergraduate? It was time to throw a little weight about.
“I’ve been at the Commission a couple of years now,” he said with a confident smile. “As we haven’t had the pleasure of meeting and as this is my first visit to the clinic I thought I might mix business … with business. If you see what I mean?” He paused to allow his genial authoritative tones to sink in. “I’ve absolutely no objection to Dr. Obayemi or Dr. Rathna … math … what’s-his-name …”
“Dr. Rathmanatathan. What’s-her-name.”
“Yes, quite. But they aren’t British—I assume—and you are. And as I haven’t seen you up at any of our Commission do’s or get-togethers I thought it might be, you know, nice.” That should do the trick, he thought, though he resented having to invent a reason in public. Murray made no apologies.
“Come this way,” was all he said and led Morgan down the passage to his consulting room. It was large, uncluttered and bare of decoration, containing a desk, two chairs, a high examining couch and a folding screen. The bottom half of the windows were painted white. Through the top half Morgan could see a bough of a tree and a corner of the sick bay. An air-conditioner was set into the wall; the cool was delicious. They both sat down.
“Marvellous machines,” said Morgan amicably, “saved Africa for the European, mnah-ha,” he gave a brief chuckle. After the guarded, slightly frosty nature of their exchange outside, and remembering what he was in fact here for, he was concerned to establish a more amenable atmosphere.
Murray, however, seemed not prepared to indulge in any preliminaries. He went straight to the point. “What exactly is the problem?” he asked.
Morgan was surprised at this. “Well,” he said, somewhat flustered. “It was Lee Wan who suggested I come and see you. About my little difficulty.” He smiled in the way that lets the listener know he’s about to hear an intimacy of sorts—a trifle silly, but only too understandable between men of the world.
“Yes,” Murray said curtly. “Go on.”
“Oh. Right. I’ve, ah, got this girlfriend, you see.”
“Is she pregnant?”
This was all wrong, Morgan thought; it shouldn’t be going this way. Murray had screwed up his eyes slightly as if a bright beam of light were shining in them.
“Lord no,” Morgan tried laughter again, but to his ears it sounded uneasy, almost perverse. “No, no. That’s what I’m interested in preventing. You see I was hoping you could prescribe the pill for her, the contraceptive … Lee Wan suggested that you … that it might be possible.” To his dismay Morgan felt his ears beginning to warm with the onset of a blush.
Murray leant forward. His eyes were cold. “Let’s get a couple of things clear before we go any further, Mr. Leafy,” he said evenly. “First Mr. Lee Wan doesn’t run this clinic so his knowledge of the services we offer is not to be relied on.”
“Gracious,” Morgan protested. “I wasn’t trying to suggest …”
“Second,” Murray went on regardless, “if this ‘girlfriend’ of yours is a member of the university, send her along at the relevant time and we’ll see what we can do. If she’s not, then I’m sorry. She’ll have to go elsewhere.”
“Well, she isn’t actually,” Morgan said apologetically. “She’s a young, ah, girl I met—from the town … I just thought …” he felt a complete fool.
Murray sat back in his chair and pointed a biro at Morgan. “Mr. Leafy,” he said in a more reasonable voice. “You can’t honestly expect me to provide oral contraceptives for all the girlfriends of my patients.” He smiled. “Every tart in Nkongsamba would be queueing up outside the door.” He got to his feet, the meeting was over. Morgan pushed back his chair as Murray came round his desk. “Take her to a doctor in town. Shouldn’t cost you too much.” He put his hand on the door-knob. “Can I give you a word of advice, Mr. Leafy?” Murray said. “I’ve been in Africa over twenty years now and I’ve seen a lot of young men in here, very like you, enjoying certain freedoms that the life out here offers.” He paused, as though debating whether to go on. “I’ll be frank. If you’re having sex regularly with a girl … from town, it’s a go
od idea to use the sheath. It’s a barrier of sorts against infection. It can save a lot of trouble and embarrassment.”
Morgan felt outraged; it was like being lectured to by your headmaster on the perils of masturbation. He tried to make his voice as icy as possible. “I don’t think that will be necessary. This girl doesn’t live in a brothel, you know, she’s perfectly respectable.”
“Good,” said Murray. He seemed quite unconcerned. “It’s just something I point out, as a matter of course. A piece of advice, that’s all.”
Fine, Morgan thought blackly, well, you can stick your advice up your tight Scottish arse. He couldn’t believe it; British people just didn’t speak to the Commission staff like that, they were respectful, deferential. He’d never been so humiliated, so disgracefully spoken down to, so …
He crunched the gears and drove off with gravel spattering from his rear wheels. It was incredible, he told himself as he roared out of the university gates; Murray just assumed he was screwing some tart, took it for granted she was black, it went without saying she’d be diseased. The fact that he was right on two counts at least didn’t matter a damn. He smiled cynically to himself: Lee Wan was an appalling judge of character.
He was still fulminating as he pulled into Nkongsamba’s small airport. He saw Peter, the Commission’s driver, standing beside the official gleaming black Austin Princess. Morgan parked his car and walked over to join him. The heat was intense and Morgan felt the sun burn through his thin hair, roasting his scalp. The haze rising off the apron in front of the low airport building made the tarmac look as though it was on fire, about to burst into flames. His eyes were dazzled by flaring spangles of light exploding off the chrome fenders and glasswork of the parked cars. The Kinjanjan flag hung limply down the flagpole beside the squat control tower. Morgan took his sunglasses out of his breast pocket and put them on. Everything calmed down; the colours looked less bleached, the windscreens were striped and speckled like mackerel.
“Plane on time, Peter?” he asked the driver.
Peter saluted. “Ten minute delay, sah,” he said, grinning, exposing the prodigious gaps between his teeth.
“Oh bloody hell,” Morgan said angrily. He inspected the car, the polished sides reflecting his body back, crushing him like a concertina, making him look like a walking box. He ran a finger round his sweaty collar and straightened his tie.
He strolled across the car-park to the airport building, a modern prefabricated structure. Inside it was only marginally cooler. An African family sat at a table in front of a small refreshment bar. A military policeman dozed by the arrivals door. Outside on the tarmac stood an ancient Dakota in the Kinjanjan airways livery, one engine nacelle draped with a tarpaulin. In the shade cast by the fuselage two mechanics slept on straw mats.
Morgan hoped everyone was awake in the control tower. He went over to the refreshment bar. Beside it stood a revolving rack of well-thumbed magazines. He selected a two-month-old Life and flicked through it. Muddy terrified GIs in Vietnam; mind-boggling shots of the Earth, seen from a space-probe; a centre-spread feature on a movie-star’s Bel Air chateau. Life.
The family at the table were all wearing their best clothes. The husband sported yellow and purple robes, the young wife, her face paled with powder, was in silvery lace, a massive knotted head-scarf towering on her head, the two little boys in scarlet pyjama-suits. They were probably meeting an important relative. The little boys were noisily draining soft drinks. It seemed like a good idea to Morgan, especially as above the front of the bar it enticingly advertised “Coca-Cola. Ice Cold.”
Morgan looked over the bar. A sulky girl in a tight faded dress sat on a beer crate. “I’ll have a Coke, please,” Morgan said. She slowly rose to her feet and walked across to the bottle cooler. Lassitude certainly ruled here, he remarked to himself, wiping a bead of sweat from his eyebrow. He knew that his pale blue shirt, fresh this morning, would now have two soup-plate-sized dark navy stains at either armpit, and possibly an intermittent streak down his spine. He should have worn a white one, he thought angrily; it was going to look marvellous when he greeted the Fanshawes’ daughter, as if he were the “before” sequence of an underarm deodorant advert. He’d just have to keep his hands pinned to his sides.
The girl behind the bar idly searched through the bottles in the cooler. She had powerfully muscled buttocks that caused the dress to bunch in tight creases across the small of her back. She selected a bottle and brought it over to the bar. Her eyes were blank with boredom and fatigue. She was about to lever the top from the bottle when Morgan noticed it was a Fanta Orange. “Hold it,” he said. “Wait. I ask for Coca-Cola,” he dropped naturally into pidgin English, unconsciously adopting its thick-tongued, nasal accents.
“No Coke,” the girl said, and flipped the top off the bottle with her opener. She chose a straw and dropped it in. “One shilling,” she demanded.
Morgan felt the ribbed bottle. Warm. “Why he nevah cold?” he asked.
“Machine done broke,” she said, shuffling back to her seat with the shilling.
“OK,” he said. “Make you give me one Seven-Up instead.” Warm lemonade would be more bearable than warm sweet orange, just.
The girl looked at him as if to say don’t fight it, mac. “Only Fanta,” she flatly pronounced.
Bloody typical, Morgan thought as he took a reluctant sip at the cloying warm liquid, bloody typical. His headache was getting worse.
The Fanshawes’ plane—a Fokker Friendship—proved to be forty-five minutes late. Morgan watched it turn and bank over Nkongsamba, the sun flashing on its wings, and straighten up for its approach to the runway. He called Peter into the arrivals hall to help carry the luggage. The plane landed and taxied onto the apron, coming to a halt beside the Dakota. The sleeping mechanics did not stir. Steps were wheeled out and a trolley trundled over to collect the cases. The Fanshawes were first to appear, Mrs. in a creased pink dress and matching turban, Fanshawe himself looking hot in a brown suit. But it was the daughter that engaged Morgan’s attention. She was far more attractive than a knowledge of her parents could have ever led him to expect: mid-twenties, he calculated, wearing a short white dress with a pattern of red dice all over it, her face shadowed by a white straw hat with a very large floppy brim. Morgan informed the sleepy MP that this was the Deputy High Commissioner arriving and he snapped out a salute as Fanshawe came through the door.
“Morgan,” Fanshawe said. “Glad to see you. Been waiting long?”
“Not at all, not at all,” Morgan lied, anxious to please. “Enjoy your leave?” he asked Mrs. Fanshawe, who looked tired and sweaty. Morgan noticed she was limping, her feet, swollen from the flight, bulging out of high-heeled shoes. She managed a weak smile of assent.
“Priscilla darling,” she called to her daughter who was selecting a red vanity case from the pile of luggage that had been deposited in the arrivals hall. “Come and meet Mr. Leafy.”
Priscilla came over, taking off her stupid hat. Morgan saw firm legs, a trace of hockey-player’s calves, slimmish body and unimaginably sharply pointed breasts, or sharply pointed bra, perk beneath the cotton material. He looked into the face below the fringe and saw the supercilious plucked eyebrows and privileged, lazy eyes. He saw too the unfortunate ski-jump nose. But he ignored all this, he didn’t care, he was thinking elatedly: she is for me, she is more than I could have hoped for, beyond my wildest dreams, this girl is the one I have been waiting for.
“Phew,” she said. “Terribly hot!” The accent was gratingly posh. Morgan wondered if this was oblique comment on the widening stains beneath his armpits. For a panicky moment he debated whether—not daring to look down—the damp circles had spread across his chest to meet beneath his tie.
“Priscilla,” said her mother, putting an end to further speculation. “This is Mr. Leafy, our First Secretary.”
“How do you do, Mr. Leafy,” she said, shaking hands with him.
“Morgan, please.” He smiled his most
winning smile.
The ladies were shortly ensconced in the oven of the waiting car. There were yelps of discomfort as thighs and buttocks made contact with the burning leather upholstery.
“Good Lord, it’s hot,” Fanshawe exclaimed, as he and Morgan stood supervising Peter loading luggage into the boot. “Nothing but heavy frost and fog our last week home.”
“Sounds sublime,” Morgan ventured enviously.
Fanshawe rubbed his hands together, looking speculatively around the airport car-park. “Very interesting few months ahead, Morgan, very. Bags to discuss,” he added keenly.
“Have we?” Morgan said. He couldn’t think what Fanshawe was referring to.
“The elections,” he enthused. “At Christmas. Oh yes, yes. Very important.” He paused. “I’ve been briefed of course. Unofficially mind you, but it’s clear what has to be done.” His eyes were alight with excitement. “It’s a golden opportunity.”
Morgan, still baffled, raised his eyebrows. “Really?” he said.
“Oh yes. Astonishing stroke of luck. For us, that is.” He laughed to himself quietly. “They’re even flying us out a new expat. staff member, take over routine duties, leave our hands more free. Should be here in a couple of weeks.”
“Our hands?”
Before Fanshawe could enlarge on his cryptic fervour, his wife stuck her pink moist face out of the rear window. “Arthur,” she exclaimed angrily, “we’re roasting in here.”
As Fanshawe climbed into the car he said conspiratorially over his shoulder, “See you tomorrow. We’ve got a Royal visit too—well, semi-Royal. Christmas, it’s all happening then.”
As the car drove off Morgan thought the girl gave him a little wave. Just in case she had, he waved back.
Chapter 2
Fanshawe called Morgan into his office the next day and explained matters in greater detail. It seemed that some people he had seen at the Foreign Office while he was on leave were concerned about the coming elections in Kinjanja. Kinjanja’s recently discovered oil reserves showed every sign of being more substantial than was at first estimated, and as a result the question of who won the next election had assumed a far greater importance within the unstable sphere of West African politics. Some preliminary sounding-out had already been done on the major parties in the country and one had emerged as being potentially more pro-British than the others. This party also stood a reasonable chance of unseating the present unpopular government and accordingly all four Deputy High Commissioners had been enjoined by the FO cautiously to evaluate the regional power bases of this party, calculate its true motives and alliances and assess its potential as a possible friend to Britain, one who would secure, maintain or even encourage her interests. Fanshawe related this quickly as if it were official gospel. But then his agitation became noticeably more visible. “The party in question,” he said, “as you’ve probably guessed, is the Kinjanjan National Party, the KNP.” Morgan hadn’t guessed; he had made a big effort to learn as little as possible about the coming elections. But he nodded sagely all the same. “Anyway,” Fanshawe continued, “its nominal leader is some old Emir from the north—an established religious and tribal figurehead, but who’s respected and has a loyal following. What’s more important as far as we are concerned are its two young turks—so to speak.” Morgan forced, then wedged, his slackening features into a semblance of passionate interest, which involved knitting his brow into a gnarled frown and taking his bottom lip between his teeth. “Yes,” Fanshawe went on, “one of them is a lawyer—Gunlayo or something—based in the capital, who’s their legal brain and constitutional expert, but the other one, the one with responsibility for foreign policy and international affairs is … guess who?”