by Peter Rimmer
“My dear, don’t be silly. Only common people are journalists. They are vulgar and rude, pointing their cameras where they have no business. I mean, look at the Royal Family. Really. Every Tom, Dick and Harry poking their noses in. If you ask me, this freedom of speech has gone too far. Isn’t one’s privacy worth more than another man’s freedom to speak? Your father won’t approve of journalism. I don’t think he’ll pay for that kind of degree.”
“He won’t have to; I won a grant.”
“You don’t have to be rude, Gillian. You find yourself a nice young man and have some children. Oxford is the perfect place. You’re attractive, and sometimes I think you may have brains. You go back and finish your English degree. You could easily find a young man with a title and money. Money and position are the only things that count in this world, despite what all these socialists have to say for themselves. Thank goodness for Margaret Thatcher. Now she doesn’t stand any nonsense.”
Ben Munroe had been giving the public the news they wanted to read for twenty years. He had a nose for it, a communication with the millions of people who read his words and agreed with what he said. Ben liked to be in agreement with people and talking to the readers was no different from talking in a bar. Once you understood the other man’s point of view, you brought up subjects that fed his opinion and everybody had the kind of evening they most enjoyed. Many times Ben changed his opinion in mid-sentence to coincide with the popular thought.
Among people, Ben was a regular man, popular, sought after and always listened to with respect. The few people he attacked in his articles were the fools who were out of tune with popular opinion, and they were the best ones to rip apart, the small minority, the ones who would not affect the circulation of a newspaper. He was forty-two years old, had married twice with no children, and at the top of his profession where he intended to stay for as long as possible. If he was a cynic, he never admitted it to himself.
His father had left his mother when he was two years old, married again and forgotten the kid. There had been neither love nor money from his father, so his mother married again, three more times, alienating Ben more each time. The kid was a nuisance, a mistake; the stepfathers had no time for him and neither had his mother, who was too busy ingratiating herself with her lovers.
Where his mother went wrong, and Ben saw the lesson, was to agree with what the men were saying. Ben worked out at an early age that you had to feed new ideas, ideas that instinctively you knew would be agreeable, making the other person feel good. The sweetest sound to young Ben’s ears was someone saying just within earshot, “I like that Ben Munroe. He’s a real nice guy.” Making other people feel good about themselves was the secret, not fawning at their feet.
At fifteen, he left home and joined a newspaper, but it took years for them to take him seriously as a writer. Young Ben was there to fetch and carry. Young Ben was there to tickle their fancy. No one ever thought he could write articles and have them taken seriously. One needed a good school to be a journalist. The days of starting at the bottom without a qualification were long gone in America.
It had been slow, but persistence had brought its rewards, and with it a journalist with the genuine common touch. He knew what the public wanted to hear and when, on the third day of chasing Gilly around his flat, she had come to the point and shown him what she had spent the previous four years investigating, he was horrified. Out of sheer amazement, he read it right through and then he did the last thing Gilly Bowles ever expected. He laughed.
“Are you serious?”
“Why ever not?” she flashed at him.
“You want to go for the anti-apartheid movement, and you want me to help?”
“It’s a communist front.”
“You don’t understand, lady,” Ben exclaimed, amazed at her naivety. “It’s the anti-apartheid movement. They can all be red, including your bishop, which I doubt, but it doesn’t…”
“The KGB have infiltrated the Russian Orthodox Church. The top monks and priests are communists. I think they’ve done the same with the Church of England and it controls the biggest church in Africa. That’s the best bit of investigative journalism you’ve ever seen, and you know it. That’s the truth…”
“Maybe. But one swallow doesn’t make a summer. Some of the AAM may be communists.”
“Then it should be reported,” she insisted.
“You got to grow up if you want to be a journalist,” Ben informed her, a little condescendingly. “You can prove our Ted Kennedy’s a sex maniac, but no one will print the story. He’s a Kennedy and a democrat. Both his brothers got knocked off fulfilling the American dream. Everyone seems to think the brothers were banging Marilyn Monroe, but nobody cares except their wives. Even the kids probably think daddy was a sport. I’ll tell you one thing for sure; Newsweek won’t touch it, and neither will Private Eye.”
“The whole thing’s a fraud. A communist plot to take over Africa,” stated Gilly strongly, beginning to feel indignant.
“They take over a bit of Africa for ten minutes, and we take it back again. We’ve got the bucks they don’t have. But what stays in Africa and in America is the black man, and no journalist with any feel for self-preservation insults that wave of consciousness. Was that what you came for?”
“Yes.”
“You’re honest… If you want to be a journalist, best thing you can do is move in here and listen. Maybe, five years down the line, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Then, with your other talents, you’ll get a story the people want to hear. What you got here is journalistic suicide.”
Luke Mbeki had come to the same conclusion as Gilly Bowles but, having the same instinct for self-preservation as Ben Munroe, he kept his thoughts to himself. And, if the communist influence over the ANC suggested a hidden agenda, they paid the bills, and when the revolution was over the true believers in the welfare of the people would take control and taxpayers’ money would take the place of Russian patrimony and charity. But who would actually be left to pay the taxes? Even Ben didn’t want to think about that.
But Luke did, and he wasn’t too sure. If those who created the wealth were rendered impotent or driven out, who was left to take up those skills? The black man was, by and large, incapable of doing so, thanks to the racial system which saw him as no more than a hewer of wood and drawer of water. The black man had never been taught the skills required to build wealth; it would take many years to learn – and what was the point if a communist government was to take all his wealth from him in the end, anyway? Was it a vain hope that, when the ANC was confronted with the realities of running a country, communism and command control would give way to pragmatism?
Luke often smiled at all the rhetoric and, having been into Russia, Angola, Mozambique and East Germany, he knew that the system of controlled capitalism was the only one that created lasting wealth, a sustainable and growing standard of living. Political freedom without economic freedom, he told himself, was as much use as a vote of thanks to the board of directors. Money controlled destiny. Money controlled the ANC. And it was his job to go around the world telling the ANC story and looking for funds.
Chelsea refused to move out of Lisbon, and the distance between them was more than mere kilometres. She had her job in the First World where everyone bought insurance to provide for a comfortable old age. The wealth was prodigious. Luke dealt with poverty and the way to drag his people out of the quagmire. Abject poverty was a condition only of man. Nature took care of the animal population, except for man in Africa, where Western influence had interfered with the nature of things. The black man had to gain the same knowledge and means of production if he was to feed the exploding population. They had to catch up to join the clean world of plenty. With his education, he was able to see quite clearly what had to be done.
The only place that Luke could call home was a one-roomed flat in the southeast of London, where he shared a bathroom with six black families. His few possessions were in the room and
he cooked on a small gas stove built into an alcove opposite his bed. The walls he had painted himself, and on one was a big, beautiful photograph of John de La Cruz, his son. The boy had turned six in September, two months earlier.
The Portuguese were more interested in their new democracy and their own problems, and to them the ANC was merely another liberation movement, no better than Frelimo or the MPLA. The Portuguese had been physically thrown out of their colonies after four hundred years and they were not inclined to give away money to an organisation that they considered would reduce another part of Africa to anarchy.
Over most of former Portuguese east and west Africa, Mozambique and Angola, the AK47 assault rifle ruled. The coffee and sugar estates, the mines and factories were overgrown with weeds, and any crops that were grown were stolen by the warlords. Luke had not been to Portugal for over a year. There were no funds for him to raise there and he had no money for private journeys. Anita Hylan found Luke through the AAM and, when he opened the door to his room, she immediately put the baby straight in his arms. It took a moment to recognise the woman he had met while fund-raising in Stockholm. He looked from the baby to the blonde woman in amazement.
“This one’s yours. No mistaking that” She put a small bag on the ground and turned to leave.
“What’s all this about? … Do you want to come in?”
“No, thanks. If you don’t want him, get him adopted in England. In Sweden no one seems to want him.”
“But he’s your baby!” Luke’s face was horrified, and the baby’s bottom was wet and smelly.
“I’m too selfish. The idea seemed good, but the practice is no fun. You’ve got that lady in Portugal. Maybe she’ll look after ’im. I’d make a lousy mother.”
“And your father?”
“The child’s black, Luke. He belongs with you. I’ve signed some papers. He won’t have any kind of life in Sweden. Believe me. Whatever they say about racism, they don’t mean a word. Funding the AAM is great fun so long as they don’t have a racial problem of their own.”
“Are you sure it’s mine?” demanded Luke, aghast
“You’re the only black man I ever slept with. There’s an affidavit to that effect, too. You work out the dates. Perfect. You’re the father all right.” She turned and ran off down the cold corridor. Her high heels clattered down the stairs to the ground floor while Luke stood alone with the child, listening to her sobs as she went.
“They don’t want nothing to do with us, Luke,” said a black woman emerging from the next room. For a change, August in England was hot, and she had kept her door open to cool down the room. “Whatever they say. That lady’s right. Better you look after that boy. She said ‘he’ so I presume that baby a boy. Poor mite, not even three months old. Bring ’im here, Luke Mbeki. That’s a woman’s job. You wouldn’t even know how to heat the bottle but you don’t need much of that in this heat. Worse than Trinidad. There we had the sea. First let me clean ’im and feed ’im, then you think. Give me that bag. She didn’t look the type to breast-feed. You be more careful where you put that thing of yours, Luke.” They went back into Luke’s room and the woman began to change the nappy.
“It was kind of a condition,” Luke began to explain, rather weakly.
“Tried everything but never had a black man?”
“Something like that… Poor little fellow. He never did anything wrong.”
“Your woman in Portugal?” suggested his neighbour.
“She wouldn’t take him.”
“You can’t take a baby on your travels. What you going to do?”
“Send him home.”
“To South Africa? That’s where every damn one’s a racist.”
By the time the British Airways Boeing 747 landed at Heathrow airport, Gilly Bowles had faced the realities of her life. The briefcase was still under the seat but her toes had not once touched the handle. Her days as an investigative journalist had come to a shattering end. She was not going to see her name in Time or Newsweek. She was probably going no further in journalism than she had already gone. Personal fame was not to be a reality, and the alternative was very simple.
Once again her mother was right. A woman’s place was in the home looking after children, not proving a bishop was a communist. She knew that Hector was a communist; she even knew the name of his handler and had some good photographs of the two together. But he did not know that she knew, and life in the Surrey countryside, bringing up a son who would play cricket and a daughter who would ride horses, was not unattractive. She felt resigned to her fate, rather than bitter.
The man was rich; she had no doubt about that. Every man had the need to leave a son behind and, if she played on the prospect of a son and heir, she just might convince Hector to propose marriage. Their backgrounds were similar, both enjoying the privileges of British upper middle class, even if Hector wished to change the world into a one party state. His dream, like hers, had no chance of success. People were too greedy. They wanted more than the next man, not simply the same, however much the same might be. Man was always trying to prove he was better. Women, too. What was the women’s liberation movement all about?
“You may disembark, madam.” said the air hostess, bringing her back to the real world.
Gilly looked at her brightly. “No point in standing to let the others off. Thank you for a nice flight.”
“You’re welcome.”
Gilly waited until the weekend before travelling down to Surrey. She would give her lover a surprise. The train arrived at Godalming and she took a taxi to the Fortescue-Smythe estate. Even if Hector was away, she had the key, and the servants treated her almost like the mistress of the house.
The summer fields were full of butterflies flitting over rich yellow buttercups, and the thought of living the rest of her life in the country was made easier by the rare sunshine and the beauty of a perfect summer’s day. She let the taxi drive up to the front door, and for the first time looked at the old house as a prospective home.
She would join the local hunt and have a tennis party every Wednesday in the summer, and if it rained they would talk and exchange the local gossip.
The children would enjoy being brought up in the country and, when the Soviet empire collapsed, Hector would forget about a world government and accept the realities of an imperfect but workable British democracy. It was Winston Churchill, she thought, who said that democracy was the worst form of government except for all the other forms of government that had been tried.
England was all right. It had survived the war and the peace, and as part of Europe the island would prosper, if not quite as much as the Germans. She gave the taxi driver a good tip and rang the front-door bell.
“He’s coming back tomorrow. Been away a week. Come in, Miss Gilly. He’ll like to find you’re here when he comes home.” Gilly smiled at the housekeeper. “Can I make you a nice cup of tea?”
The rooms were large and full of light from the sash windows, and throughout the house were bowls of flowers.
“He likes flowers. But you know that. Wouldn’t have time to do it tomorrow.”
There was a large parcel on the hall table as Gilly looked through the mail. Sometimes her own mail came to the house, along with her Newsweek. She had time to read only in the country. London was too hectic.
“Who’s the parcel from?”
“Addressed to the occupier. One of those free samples, I should think.”
“Big for a free sample. . . Where are the dogs?
“My husband took them for a walk. Full of energy, those dogs. If they don’t get a walk, they tear the place to pieces. You want a scone with your tea? … We had a calf on Wednesday. Lovely little thing. I like cows when they’re small.”
Gilly picked up the parcel and two copies of Newsweek, and took them through the lounge out on to the terrace, where she put the parcel on the white wrought-iron table. She went back into the house, collected the chair cushions, and made herself comfortable in the sh
ade of the great oak that made the lawn and the terrace so pleasant in the summer.
She looked out over the Surrey countryside and could hear in the far distance a lone motorcycle. It was a sleepy, hot late afternoon, and when the tea came with the scones and fresh farm cream and a large bowl of strawberry jam it all looked delicious. The contents of the briefcase back in her flat in Kensington were as far away as the moon. The sound of bees and occasional birdsong high in the afternoon sky was a perfect surround.
She poured a cup of Hector’s mother’s blend of tea, half Indian and half China that was made up by Fortnum and Mason, the same blend that the family had been drinking for fifty years. When taken with a thin slice of lemon, Gilly found the tea perfect. She flipped through the earlier Newsweek but found the whole thing boring. After all, she was not going to be in one of them.
Then she unwrapped the brown paper parcel and found inside a Walkman with a tape and a letter. She had not looked at the postmark or she would have seen the Johannesburg date stamp. The letter said the company had a magnificent offer for a time-share in the most exclusive private game park outside the Kruger National Park. To give the carefully selected prospective buyers a taste of the sounds of Africa, the enclosed would enable them to play the tape through the headphones, close their eyes and imagine dusk falling across the bush, the sun blood-red behind the mopani trees and hear the roar of the lions, the laugh of the hyenas and the sound of game drinking at the waterhole close to the thatched chalets that the lucky few could buy on time-share.
Curious and never having been to Africa, Gilly put the tape into the machine and fitted the headphones comfortably over her ears. On pressing the start button, she received a blast through her head that killed her instantly, bringing the housekeeper running out on to the terrace to see the horror.
