A Good Man in Africa

by William Boyd

  He left Fanshawe’s office and walked moodily back to his own. On the way he bumped into Jones.

  “Hello there, Morgan,” said the little Welshman cheerily. “Don’t worry, man. Worse things happen at sea.”

  “What?” Morgan said, irritation giving an edge to his voice.

  “Cheer up. You look dreadful.”

  “Do I?” he said, suddenly alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s your chin,” Jones quipped. Morgan touched his jaw. Had one of Murray’s chancres suddenly bloomed there like a septic flower?

  “My chin?” he said, mystified, feeling its contours.

  “Yer, it’s dangling round your ankles. You’ll trip over it any second.” Morgan did not find this funny.

  Jones went on unperturbed. “What’s happened? Arthur chew you up for something?”

  Morgan wished Jones would go away. “No,” he said shortly. “Things on my mind.”

  “You want to relax a bit, my boy. Working too hard. Why don’t you come to the dance tonight with me and Geraldine?”

  “What dance?”

  “The club dance. The usual monthly one. Come and have a meal first and we’ll all go down later.”

  Morgan was surprised at Jones’s thoughtfulness. “No thanks, Denzil. But it’s good of you to ask. I’ve got other things on.” Dinner with Jones and his wife was the last thing he required. Why was Jones being so nice though?

  “Well, don’t work too hard,” Jones advised. “Leave some of it for the new man. He’ll be here next week.”

  Morgan sat at his desk and stared out at the familiar view of Nkongsamba. The afternoon sun was filtered through a dust haze and the distant hills on the horizon were softened like an aquatint. He had visited the lavatory twice that day with no ill-effects or recurrence of his symptoms and some of his fears were beginning to recede. Perhaps Murray’s supposition was correct: it was probably some horrible coincidence, the climate, his sex-life, a temporary malfunction of his metabolism. Christ only knew, it was easy enough to happen in this place. He decided he’d just have to look after himself a little better. He made up his mind to have a quiet evening at home tonight: a couple of paperbacks, get Moses to cook him one of his specialities. As he was feeling a little improved he allowed himself a wry smile at the thought of his fierce embarrassment in Murray’s consulting room. The man was unbelievable, he thought; he couldn’t detect a trace of compassion in him. He ran that clinic as if it were a meat-processing factory or an army barracks.

  The phone on his desk rang. He picked it up. “Leafy,” he said.

  “Morgie,” came a familiar voice. It was Priscilla, naturally. “I’m back,” she informed him.

  “Marvellous. When did you arrive?” He felt a surge of momentary elation. This was what he needed after his shocks of the morning.

  “Late last night. We had a lovely time.”

  “Good. Good.” To his mild surprise and annoyance he couldn’t think of anything he wanted to say to her.

  “I’d have phoned you earlier but I’ve been at the club with Mummy. We had lunch.”

  “Uh-uh. Good. Good,” Morgan remarked. He was now a little alarmed. This total inability to converse with the girl he loved was absurd.

  “Morgie, they’ve got a dance on there tonight.”

  “Yes, I know.” He wished she wouldn’t call him that.

  “Honestly! What’s got into you today?” she said impatiently. “Let’s go to it, shall we? It’ll be fun.”

  “What? Oh yes, if you like. Of course.” He paused. What was happening to him? “I’m sorry, Priscilla, I’ve been working all day. Not thinking straight.”

  “Pick me up about eightish?”

  “Sure. On the dot. Ah, looking forward to seeing you,” he added with grotesque formality.

  “Me too. Miss me?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Miss me, silly.”

  “Oh … terribly.”

  “Oh good. See you tonight. ’Bye.”

  Morgan put down the phone. He felt an immense lassitude descend on him, and he realised that he still didn’t feel like going out tonight. And, what was more perturbing, he didn’t particularly want to spend the evening with Priscilla.

  Chapter 9

  Priscilla was wearing a new dress, or at least one that Morgan hadn’t seen before. It had a white bodice with thin straps tied in a bow at her shoulders, a red plastic belt and a navy-blue skirt. Her tan had deepened as a result of her days on the coast and she looked healthy and efficient, like a successful sales promotion girl or an air hostess. Tonight, also, she was wearing pinky-orange lipstick and pale-blue eyeshadow. Her cheeks and forehead were still red from sunburn and her nose was peeling slightly.

  “You look great,” Morgan said, a sherry poised in his hand. “Doesn’t she?” he turned to Mrs. Fanshawe for confirmation.

  “She’s always been fond of clothes, ever since she was a tiny baby,” Mrs. Fanshawe declared proudly. “I remember once when she was in her pram …”

  “Oh, Mummy,” Priscilla interrupted with a laugh, “please don’t tell that story again. I’m sure Morgie isn’t the slightest bit interested.” Everyone tittered politely. “Morgie” took a sip of his sherry and placed the glass on the table beside his armchair as Mrs. Fanshawe dutifully completed the anecdote. For the first time he sensed Priscilla’s parents eyeing him as a potential suitor for their daughter and this realisation brought with it its usual cargo of conflicting emotions. He glanced at Mrs. Fanshawe, smoke curling from her cigarette jammed in its black holder, her teeth clamped on its stem, her wide pale face beneath the jet black hair, the immense prow of her chest. He tried to imagine her talking with his mother and Reg at the wedding reception and panic fluttered for a moment in his belly like a trapped bird. Chloe Fanshawe would be his mother-in-law.… He abruptly stopped that train of thoughts from going any further.

  “We’d better be off,” he said with a nervous smile.

  Priscilla ran up the stairs to fetch her handbag and Morgan stood alone in the centre of the room, like a slave at auction, conscious again of the Fanshawes’ evaluating stares.

  “Priscilla enjoyed her day’s fishing,” Fanshawe said. “Sounds like quite a place. Must take me up sometime, Morgan.”

  Oh no, Morgan thought. “Gladly,” he said. He felt the bosom of the family mushily enfolding him with slow inexorability. He should be pleased, he realised; he firmly told himself he was. Then Priscilla arrived and the Fanshawes walked them to the door and waved them down the steps.

  “Have a good time, you two,” Mrs. Fanshawe cooed at them as they got into his car.

  When they arrived at the club Morgan and Priscilla kissed restrainedly for a while in the car-park. Priscilla put her arms round him and squeezed.

  “I have missed you,” she said. “Mummy and I talked a lot about you when we were staying with the Wagners.”

  “You did?” Morgan said uncertainly.

  “They’re both very fond of you, you know.”

  “The Wagners? But I’ve only met them once.”

  “No, dopey!” Priscilla poked him in the side. “Mummy and Daddy.”

  “Are they?” he said in considerable surprise, but then covered this with a hasty “of course, I’m very fond of them too,” amazed at his ability to form the words without choking. Everything, he remarked to himself, seemed to be advancing with exceptional smoothness. Perhaps tonight would be fine after all. He kissed Priscilla again to remind himself why he was going through with this factitious exchange of vows. He put his hand on her knee and ran it up her thigh under her dress until his fingers met the cotton of her pants. To his astonishment the expected reproachful wrist-slap was not forthcoming; in fact her own hand applied gentle pressure to the small of his back. They broke apart, her eyes bright and smiling. The familiar suffocating feeling established itself in Morgan’s chest; it was like having your lungs stuffed with cotton wool. The evening was shaping up in an incredibly good-natured, accommodating way.
Tonight could well be the night.

  They walked arm-in-arm into the club where the dance was under way. The club had a regular dance once a month. There was nothing special in this, it was simply a way of bringing people in, of injecting a faint sense of occasion into Nkongsamba’s unremarkable social life, and giving a boost to the restaurant and bar sales. Sometimes they hired a band but tonight Morgan saw they were relying solely on records. The lounge area had been cleared, the chairs pushed back to the wall and the central lights switched off. The armchairs had been arranged in intimate groups around small tables upon which candles burned in old Chianti bottles. A young man—manager of Nkongsamba’s Barclay’s Bank and social secretary of the club—sat behind the table that held the record player, flanked by two large speakers, leafing self-importantly through a pile of LPs. Some indeterminate jazz was playing, a clarinet dominant. Morgan found the music soothingly melancholic. A few people sat in the armchairs and three couples danced stiffly on the loose parquet flooring that rattled gently beneath their feet like distant castanets. The bar was busier, surrounded by people who looked only slightly better-dressed than usual: a tie there, a dab of makeup here, a string of pearls; but the atmosphere was little different from the one that usually prevailed in the club. This came as no surprise to Morgan—the monthly dance, for all its aspirations, had never brought out the best in Nkongsamba’s avid socialites—but Priscilla seemed to be disappointed.

  “I thought there’d be a band,” she wailed sadly.

  “There is sometimes,” Morgan apologised.

  “But they’re not even trying,” she protested. “It’s like a party in somebody’s flat.” Morgan had to agree. He put the blame on the unimaginative social secretary, who, as if to confirm this adverse judgement, replaced the jazz with cha-cha and successfully cleared the dance floor.

  “It gets better as Christmas approaches,” Morgan said in compensation. “Honestly. Anyway, let’s have a drink.”

  Morgan and Priscilla danced. They held each other close and moved slowly to and fro as somebody sang “Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play.” Morgan rested his cheek on Priscilla’s head. He smelt her straight clean hair, shiny and fine. It seemed to him, a little fancifully he had to admit, to be a symbol of everything his life was shortly to become. He shifted his erection against Priscilla’s belly and dropped his head to kiss her bare shoulder. She locked her wrists around his neck and pulled him closer to her. Her prim façade was rapidly falling away he realised; she was probably missing Chinese Charlie’s attentions by now. She had drunk two large scotches and had been very flirtatious in her own way; he had quite enjoyed himself. He squinted at his watch: it was twenty to ten; they had been here just over an hour.

  While standing at the bar shortly after they had arrived, Jones and his wife accosted them. Jones had seemed somewhat put out to find Morgan at the club after refusing his invitation, and the Welshman had accepted his excuses with bad grace. The bloody oaf, Morgan thought to himself as he swayed gently with Priscilla in his arms, it should be pretty obvious to him by now why his offers to dine chez Jones were so regularly turned down: the drab unintelligent wife, the squalling brats who always woke up, the inferior food. Poor Jones, he thought, poor bloody Jones. The inept social secretary again demonstrated his sensitive feel for the mood of a party by playing some loud rock and roll and the dance floor soon emptied once more. Morgan and Priscilla stood undecided between the lounge and the bar. Priscilla looked like she had just been woken up.

  “Drink?” Morgan suggested.

  “Oh, let’s not stay on,” she said suggestively. “Can you wait a minute? I just want to go to the loo.” Morgan said that would be no problem. He watched her go, watched her firm-muscled calves, the shimmying buttocks beneath the blue skirt. He felt his heart begin to beat faster; the house was tidy, there was drink and food if necessary, by chance clean sheets had been placed on the bed only yesterday—all was in order.… Apart from himself, he thought, acknowledging the inopportune nag of his conscience at the memory of his visit to the clinic and the dreadful affliction Murray had mentioned: non-gonococcal something. But surely not, he thought, persuading himself. Even Murray had been happy to suspend his verdict. Furthermore, there’d been no repetition of the burning pain, not another besmirching drop of discharge either. It must be alright—just a scary coincidence. However, he told himself, to satisfy his own mind finally, and quieten his conscience, he’d make one last check. He slipped off, humming the catchy refrain of the rock and roll number that was still blasting across the empty dance floor, by-passed the crowd around the bar and strolled jauntily down the passageway that led to the lavatory.

  He stood in front of the urinals and passed water without so much as a twinge. He smiled to himself: he’d squared up to his responsibilities, he couldn’t be accused in any mental tribunal of evading the issue. He’d done all that could reasonably be asked of a man about to bed his loved one. He zipped up his trousers and washed his hands. He considered his reflection for a moment in the mirror, straightened his tie and cautiously touched his hair with his hands. He wondered cursorily if he ought to grow a moustache—one of those fashionable droopy ones—it would probably suit him. “Narcissist,” he fondly accused his reflection, and turned away.

  He stepped out into the dark corridor and bumped into someone. They both backed off apologising. Morgan recognised Murray’s accent before he distinguished his features. But this evening his benevolence could include anyone—even Murray—so he said pleasantly, “Evening, Doctor. Here for the dance?”

  Murray didn’t reply straight away. “No …” he said thoughtfully, as if remembering something. “The library.”

  “Didn’t think you were a dancing man somehow, Doctor,” he observed facetiously, almost enjoying what he interpreted as the first signs of discomfort he had ever witnessed on Murray’s face. “Well, goodnight to you,” he said gaily, moving off.

  “Mr. Leafy,” Murray said, calling him back. “I suppose it’s all right for me to tell you now. We’ve had the results of the tests we ran. I’m afraid I was wrong in my preliminary diagnosis.” He looked over his shoulder to ensure they were alone. “About the non-gonococcal toxemia.”

  “Ah-hah,” Morgan said triumphantly. “I thought you probably were. No more symptoms by the way. Everything tip-top, never felt better. But don’t worry, Doc,” he added boldly, “can’t win ’em all.”

  “I was about to say,” Murray went on, “I’m afraid it’s not non-gonococcal.”

  “I … I don’t quite understand,” Morgan said falteringly, doubt spreading through his mind like a rumour of war. “What are you saying?”

  “That it is gonococcal. I’m sorry to say this, but you have gonorrhoea, Mr. Leafy. It’s nothing to be alarmed about, but it’s definitely gonorrhoea.”

  When Priscilla came down the stairs from the ladies’ powder room she commented on Morgan’s flushed appearance and asked him if he was feeling alright.

  “I’m just a bit hot,” Morgan said dazedly. In fact, he felt his head was about to explode, as if primed by the fatal words he had heard. Murray had calmed him down after his initial hysterical reaction, telling him repeatedly that it was nothing to worry about and to come to the clinic the next day as planned. “I wouldn’t drink anything more tonight if I were you, Mr. Leafy,” he had added. “In fact, just let abstinence be your watchword all round for a while.”

  Morgan felt like a frustrated Samson chained between the two mighty pillars of his predicament. On the one hand was the frightful sentence of sexual disease, and on the other was the daunting prospect of the next hour or so. As he had stood there immobile, waiting for Priscilla to reappear, all he could say to himself in futile repetition was “What am I going to do? What am I going to do?” Somehow he managed to chat until they reached the car where, once inside, Priscilla flung herself on him, her tongue scouring the inside of his mouth, her teeth clashing painfully on his. He responded as best as he could, agonisingly a
ware of his total detumescence. My God, he screamed to himself in sudden horror, what if I become impotent? He thought of the swarming regiments of bacilli at this very moment billeting themselves throughout his body, searching out the most comfortable spots. And anyway, he moaned, what happened to you when you had gonorrhoea? Did your nose fall off? Did you go mad? Did your balls swell to bloated pumpkins? He felt like weeping hot bitter tears of rage and disappointment.

  “Morgie, you’re not listening,” Priscilla complained petulantly.

  “Sorry, um, darling,” he said, with a crazy smile. “What is it?”

  “What are we doing now?”

  “Shall I drop you off?” he said unreflectingly.

  “Morgie!” she cried. “That’s not funny!”

  “Sorry, sorry,” he insisted again. “Dreaming, don’t know what I’m thinking about.” He kissed her distractedly; whatever happened she must never know. “Let’s go to my place,” he suggested as he knew she wanted him to. He needed time, he thought, time to calm down, to think of some way out of this filthy dilemma.

  They pulled out of the club car-park and quickly drove through the seedy quarters of Nkongsamba, past the glowing fires, the bright youths, the screeching clubs. Car headlights flashed in his eyes, the tooting horns and booming radios assaulted his ears. It was like some African bedlam. He thought of black Bosch-like devils with long pincers and barbed tridents grabbing and prodding at his vitals.

  Priscilla wound down the window and leant her head back against the seat. Her hot palm rested casually on his thigh. “Gosh,” she giggled. “I’ve had too much to drink. When I shut my eyes the car feels like a roller-coaster.”

  Morgan didn’t reply. As some semblance of order returned to his jumbled brain a single question obsessively edged its way to the forefront of his mind. If he had gonorrhoea, how, pray, how in the name of God had he contracted it in the first place? There was, he knew, only one possible answer which might have been emblazoned along the horizon in mile-high letters of fire it was so obvious. HAZEL! Hazel. The slut, the whore, the rancid filthy tart! It was her and her yobbo boyfriends—she had given it to him!