by William Boyd
Chapter 14
Morgan slipped his feet into his shoes and stood up. The sun had nearly set; he could see its orange syrupy light gilding the flat leaves at the top of the higher teak trees. He stretched and rested his side for a moment against the warm metal of the Peugeot. He was naked. He peered into the car and saw Celia dabbing at herself with a tissue.
“Just off for a pee,” he said. He strode a few yards into the teak trees, his shoes crushing the brittle leaf-carpet with resounding crackles, and drenched a column of ants with his urine stream. The column broke up in confusion, and he entertained himself picking off stragglers while the pressure lasted. He wondered what the ant-world would make of that little episode. Did it, he wondered, somewhere fit into the scheme of ant-things?
He made his way back to the car, ducking under branches, brushing aside some of the lower boughs carelessly. He felt a slight breeze on his naked body and felt his skin respond with goosepimples. He heard the moronic unvaried chirrup of crickets and the beeping sonar of a fruit-bat on the wing.
“One man against nature,” he said to himself in a deep American accent, “nood, in the African farst.” For a second or two he tried to imagine himself thus exposed, a creature of pure instinct. The setting was right: dusk, heat, foliage, animal noise, mysterious crepitations in the undergrowth. But he was wrong. What would anyone think if they saw him? A naked overweight freckled white man pissing on some ants. He looked down at his feet. And, he added, wearing brown suede Chelsea boots.
As he approached the car he plucked off a teak leaf and held it over his genitals. Celia sat in the rear seat, her head resting in the angle its back made with the window. She had a dreamy, peaceful look on her face. She saw him and laughed.
“And they saw that they were naked,” he said in a sonorous voice, “and were sore ashamed. Come on Eve, make thyself an apron of teak leaves.” He flung his leaf into the car and clambered in to join her. He pressed his face into her lap feeling the wiry moistness of her pubic hair on his cheek and nose. He smelt the spermy salty smell of their sex.
She ran her fingers through his hair. He wished she wouldn’t do that.
He sat up and looked at her. He traced the areola of her nipple with his fingernail, watching it pucker and thicken. He pressed it as if it were some kind of fleshy bell-push.
“OK?” he said. She nodded, still smiling. “Recovered?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you, Adam dear.”
“It’s God, if you don’t mind. I’ve just drowned a few hundred ants out there.”
“Why God, you sod!”
He gave her a kiss. “We’d better go, I suppose.”
“There’s no hurry,” she said, stroking his face. “I told you, Sam’s away until tomorrow.”
“Great,” he said. “Why don’t we go and have a drink somewhere then?”
They dressed, got into their separate cars and drove carefully up the track and on to the road. Morgan looked in his rear-view mirror and saw the lights of Celia’s Mini close behind him. He felt stiff, tired and, remarkably, he thought, happy.
About two miles from Nkongsamba he pulled into the carpark of a largeish hotel at a major road junction. It was called the Nkongsamba Road Motel. In Kinjanja names moved between extravagant metaphorical fancy or prosaic, no-nonsense literalness. There was no in-between. They went into the bar which was lit with green neon and decorated with soft drink and beer advertisements. There were a dozen tin tables with chipped and peeling chairs round them. On one wall was a large poster of Sam Adekunle, and the message “KNP for a united Kinjanja” below it.
Celia smiled grimly at Morgan. “Can’t seem to get away from him, can I?”
“Do you want to go somewhere else?” Morgan asked, feeling an acid sickness spread throughout his stomach at the sight of Adekunle’s face.
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I don’t mind and there’s no chance of anybody recognising me.” She sat down to put a stop to any further argument and Morgan ordered two beers. The bar was quiet at this time of night; there were a couple of the inevitable sunglassed youths and a table of four soldiers. Morgan and Celia attracted curious but unhostile stares; the Nkongsamba Road Motel didn’t entice many white clients.
They sipped at their beers in silence. Morgan felt ill at ease though, with Adekunle’s face staring at him over Celia’s shoulder.
“Relax,” she said. “It’s only a poster.”
“But he’s looking straight at me,” Morgan said only half-jokingly. “It’s uncanny the way his eyes follow you round the room.” He held up his beer. “Cheers,” he said, “here’s to the Garden of Eden.” They clinked glasses.
“It’s hot though, isn’t it,” Celia said. “Can’t you do something about the weather, God dearest?” Morgan smiled, it was their first private joke, sacrosanct, like a code no one could crack.
“Bloody uncomfortable as well,” he said. “I shall have to get on to Peugeot’s design team. They’ve slipped up badly with their back seat, I must say. Real lack of foresight.”
“Oh for a bed,” Celia sighed.
“I’ll drink to that.” He raised his glass again.
“Guess what,” Celia said, dropping her voice to a husky whisper. “I can feel you slowly oozing out of me while I’m sitting here.” For some reason the unadulterated candour of this statement left him at a loss for words.
“Sorry,” was all he managed to come up with.
She reached over and laid her hand on his arm. “Don’t be sorry,” she said softly. “It’s lovely.”
They finished their beers and went back out to the car-park. A nail-sickle of moon hung suspended over Nkongsamba. “Morgan,” Celia said, “why don’t you come back tonight? While Sam’s away.”
“Are you sure?” Morgan questioned seriously. “Isn’t it a bit risky?”
“Please,” she said. “The kids’ll be back in a week. It might be our only chance.”
He hesitated. “Well, if you’re sure it’s not too difficult.” He paused. “This sounds absurdly Victorian,” he said, trying not to smile, “but what about the servants?”
She was not so inhibited and gave a high clear laugh. “Don’t worry,” she said eventually. “I can easily take care of them. Come on.”
He lay on Celia’s bed. His head was propped on some pillows. A glass of whisky balanced on his chest. He squinted at it hypnotically as it tipped and wobbled with the rise and fall of his breathing.
“Do you feel at all guilty?” he asked. “About Sam?” It was a question he asked of all the wives he slept with. Celia put her drink down on the bedside table and slipped in beside him. Morgan steadied his glass.
“No,” she said bluntly, as they all did. Celia leant back against the headboard and drew her knees up. “Why should I? He’s been through all his so-called cousins and nieces who hang around the house. God knows what he gets up to when he’s away from home.”
“Is this the first time you’ve …?” He let the question hover unfinished in the air.
She looked at him steadily. “No. But let’s not talk about that.”
“OK,” he said. “Sorry.” He wasn’t sure how he felt about that admission. He had thought he was something of a liberator—exclusive. He put it out of his mind.
Celia had gone to the house in advance of him, told the servants they could go home and, as soon as the coast was clear, had driven back to where he had parked the Peugeot—three hundred yards down the road—and picked him up.
Bereft of the pragmatic necessities brought about by sex in the back seat of a car their love-making had taken on a new and unfamiliar character that Morgan had found strange and a little discomfiting. It had been passionate and emotional—largely on Celia’s part—straightforward and humour-free. She had caressed him almost maternally, whispering endearments, holding him tightly to her and he had felt like saying “Hang about, just stop there a minute. This is sex, mature pleasure, not a love affair.” But he hadn’t, and to his consternation had
found himself joining in, closing his eyes, gasping romantically, dabbing little kisses here and there.
When the lights went back on things had sobered down, and the loosed and soaring emotions had been wound in like kites. Morgan lay on his back thinking about it all, a frown on his face. He wasn’t sure if this was the way he wanted his relationship with Celia to go.
“Penny for them,” she said.
“What? … Oh, not worth it,” he smiled. She snuggled up to him and he put his drink on the bedside table. The air-conditioner was on and the roof fan beat above the bed, too. The sheet lay dry across their two bodies. Morgan relished the absence of sweat. “It’s been a marvellous day,” he said, half-meaning it.
She kissed his chest. “Hasn’t it,” she agreed with enthusiasm, “hasn’t it just.”
Morgan whispered goodbye as Celia let him out of the front door. It was nearly four o’clock and still quite dark. He cautiously walked up the wide drive, through the open unattended gates and along the road to where he’d left his car. He felt tired, mentally and physically. The prospect of work in four hours was singularly unappealing.
He fumbled in the dark for his car keys.
“Good morning, Mr. Leafy,” came a deep voice at his shoulder. The shock was so great his heart seemed to leap from his chest and bounce off the inside of his skull. He whirled round in fear and appalled surprise, his pulse thumping wildly somewhere in the region of his throat. It was Adekunle.
“Oh my God. Shit. Jesus,” Morgan whimpered in frantic despair, the keys falling from his hand to tinkle on the road. Adekunle bent down to retrieve them for him. Morgan accepted them back with trembling fingers.
“Did you have a pleasant night?” Adekunle asked sardonically, no trace of anger in his voice. “Did you ‘make a catch’ with my wife?” His cultured tones accentuated the Kinjanjan expression; he seemed astonishingly calm.
“Listen,” Morgan began defensively, trying to control an overpowering urge to take to his heels. “I don’t want you to think …”
“Don’t tell me what to think, Mr. Leafy,” Adekunle interrupted, hostility creeping into his voice. “I don’t need your observations on that matter. At all.” He paused. “No, we have a problem with you here; the cat is now among the pigeons, as the saying goes, don’t you think?” At the word “we” Morgan looked around and saw two dark figures standing some yards off. Adekunle allowed him to take this in before saying, “I wonder what your Mr. Fanshawe will say when I make my protest to him about the … ah, nocturnal activities of his staff.” He poked Morgan savagely in the shoulder. “What do you think his reaction will be, Mr. Leafy?” Morgan couldn’t answer; he was trying to stop himself being sick all over Adekunle’s shoes. Adekunle prodded him again. “You are a very greedy man, Mr. Leafy. Very big appetite. My wife and your black girl in town.”
Morgan felt his legs were about to collapse spastically beneath him. He leant shakily against his car. “How do you know all this?” he asked faintly. “About Hazel and … and tonight?”
“It’s my business to know these things,” Adekunle said silkily. He said it “beezness,” emotion cracking his Western accent. “I have some very loyal servants working for me. No small detail escapes them.”
Morgan strove to make out Adekunle’s features in the gloom. He felt queasy with fear and terror-struck anticipation. Surely Adekunle wouldn’t go to Fanshawe with this? he reasoned; the shame, the loss of face would be too acute. But then he remembered that Hazel was to be reckoned with too. Perhaps it might be best if Adekunle simply set his hefties on him.
“Look,” Morgan began desperately, “I don’t know what you mean to do but I think you …”
“One moment, Mr. Leafy,” Adekunle broke in venomously. “You are making an error there. It is a question of what you are going to do. For me.”
Morgan felt hysterical laughter rise in his throat. “Me?” he repeated slowly as if he were mentally retarded. “For you?”
“You have hit the nail on the head first time, as the saying goes,” Adekunle congratulated him. Morgan saw with a sudden terrorised clarity the impossibility of his situation. If Adekunle went to Fanshawe that would truly be the end, there would be no conceivable way he could talk himself out of it. He groaned softly to himself. Sleeping with Kingpin’s wife! Fanshawe would go mad. And he could imagine how Adekunle could play it up; Fanshawe would see it as the end of all his expansionist dreams—the oil refinery, the investment, his new posting—he’d take it as a personal affront. And there was Hazel too. Morgan felt the blood drain from his face. If he wanted his life to continue in anything like the way he’d planned he would have to do whatever Adekunle asked of him. The alternatives were too mortifying and disastrous to consider. Adekunle had him in the palm of his hand.
“What are you going to do?” Morgan croaked. He didn’t care—as long as he could save his neck and his job.
“As I told you, Mr. Leafy, I am going to do nothing. Absolutely nothing. In return for which you will do me a favour—nothing too difficult for a man like you.” He paused. “We are both civilised people, men of the world, Mr. Leafy. I think we can both benefit from this … this indiscretion on your part. You retain your job, your status and your reputation. While I …” He left it unsaid.
“What do you want me to do?” Morgan said tiredly. He couldn’t see how he could be of any benefit to Adekunle; he just wasn’t powerful enough.
“All I want you to do is get to know somebody,” Adekunle said. “That’s all. Just get to know him.”
“Who is this somebody?”
“Dr. Alex Murray. Perhaps you’re familiar with him already?”
Chapter 15
Adekunle gave him other instructions that night. First, he was to stay away from Celia—their affair was effectively over. Adekunle, it soon transpired, was making his London trip in three days’ time and under no circumstances was Morgan to approach Celia while he was away. He assured Morgan that he would know immediately if he made any attempt to get in touch. Second, he was never to tell her about their meeting tonight; Celia was to remain ignorant of Adekunle’s knowledge of the affair. Morgan dolefully agreed to every condition—the only contact he was permitted to make was to be in the form of a brief note pleading a sudden increase in work or any other rational excuse he could think up.
As for Murray, Adekunle told Morgan that he wanted him to become an acquaintance, a friend if possible, but, failing that, someone who had social contact with him, moved in the same circles.
“That’s all I’m asking you to do,” Adekunle had said, the creeping onset of dawn revealing the pale gleam of his teeth as he smiled. “Not a very onerous task in return for an error as potentially damaging as yours. Starting from tomorrow I want you to … to cultivate Dr. Murray, get to know him, let him get to know you. I don’t think that will be such a difficult job.”
Good God, thought Morgan, if only you knew. “But why?” he had asked wretchedly. “Why Murray? What’s he got to do with you?”
“Let us say that at this stage, it is a precautionary matter,” Adekunle had replied. “I will tell you in good time.” He tapped the bonnet of Morgan’s car to emphasise his words. “What you do not know cannot hurt you, as the saying goes. And believe me, Mr. Leafy, I do not want you to be hurt in any way.”
Morgan smiled edgily. He didn’t believe him at all. What, to him, was just about as worrying as hearing that Murray was the target was the almost complete absence of cuckolded rage on Adekunle’s part. It crossed his mind for a moment that the whole thing had been allowed to develop—with him and Celia unwitting players—precisely with this contingency plan in mind. Adekunle was behaving more like a man disputing a reserved parking place than an irate husband confronting his wife’s lover, and Morgan found this reasonableness, this lack of justifiable wrath most disturbing. What did it all signify? he wondered, searching Adekunle’s features for a clue. Either he didn’t give a damn about Celia’s extra-marital flings or else his pressgangi
ng of Morgan as temporary ally for purposes unknown greatly outweighed in importance any injured pride or anger which he might feel like giving vent to. Both might be true of course, but Morgan came down heavily in favour of the last explanation. He felt sure that if he couldn’t have served any purpose Adekunle’s revenge would have been swift, no-nonsense and severe. He felt his chest seemingly fill up with something hard and solid—like quick-setting cement—as he contemplated this and the testing time that surely lay ahead.
That had been ten days ago. Stricken with cowardice he wrote a brief note to Celia informing her about the bales of paperwork that had suddenly appeared on his desk. He had Kojo and Friday intercept all his calls at home and office with stories of Herculean busyness and endeavour and soon Celia stopped trying to get through. He became wary of seeing Hazel too, suspecting Adekunle’s agents in every passer-by, and only visited her twice. Hazel didn’t seem put out by this neglect; there was a new sleekness and confidence in her, he thought, no doubt fostered by the move to her own apartment. He suspected she was entertaining her own friends there—against his strict instructions—but was too preoccupied to do anything about it.
Half-heartedly he set about trying to follow Adekunle’s directives. He made some surreptitious inquiries amongst his university acquaintances about Murray and it soon became clear that, as he had instinctively sensed, Murray was not a social man, seldom visiting the university club. He did have some close friends but saw them privately. Short of bearding him at the clinic, ambushing his car as he drove home from work or gatecrashing his dinner parties Morgan could see no way of easing himself into Murray’s life. He would sit and fret about his task at home, woefully conscious that time was running out. Adekunle was due back from London in a matter of days and would be expecting him to have made progress. What, he kept asking himself all the time, could be the link between Adekunle and Murray? They seemed about as far apart as it was possible for two people to be.