‘You’re early,’ she said. ‘We didn’t expect you yet. She’s not ready for you.’
She stood deliberately blocking up the doorway.
‘Don’t be a pig, Sybil. Let him in at once. Of course I’m ready.’
The voice was Lady Anne’s. Sybil Prosser drew the corners of her mouth down, and shrugged her shoulders.
‘As you please,’ she said.
It was not into the bedroom that she led Harold, but into the white, countryish-looking sitting room into which Lady Anne had first invited him. An easy chair had been drawn over to the window, and Lady Anne was sitting back in it, her legs stretched out on the cretonne-covered squab in front of her.
‘I can’t get up,’ she said. ‘I still go all shaky. But you can see how much better I am, can’t you?’
She turned herself towards him as she was speaking. It was like the action of a child. She was waiting to be congratulated.
‘Better. But not well,’ Sybil Prosser reminded her.
‘I think you look marvellous,’ Harold told her.
Lady Anne was pleased. She nodded.
‘Don’t take any notice of Sybil,’ she said. ‘She’s been perfectly horrible all day. I don’t know what’s the matter with her. I think she’s jealous, or something.’
‘Jealous of him?’ Sybil Prosser suddenly stuck her chin out on the end of that ridiculous long neck of hers. ‘Why should I be?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lady Anne replied. ‘But first you wouldn’t phone him, and the way you didn’t want to let him come in. It’s obvious.’
She turned to Harold again.
‘But we mustn’t be nasty to her,’ she said. ‘She’s been wonderful. An absolute angel. I wouldn’t be alive now if it hadn’t been for her.’
She looked over to where Sybil Prosser was standing.
‘Well, I wouldn’t, would I?’ she asked. ‘You told me yourself I wouldn’t.’
Sybil Prosser ignored the remark, and turned to Harold.
‘I’m going to have a drink,’ she said. ‘D’you want one?’
‘What about me?’ Lady Anne tapped on the arm of her chair as she said it.
Byt Sybil Prosser continued to ignore her.
‘It’s no use,’ she said. ‘She’s only allowed wine, and she won’t drink that. So what can you do about her?’
‘Wine’s silly between meals,’ Lady Amie said. ‘And you can’t drink it at tea-time. It’s dipso.’
Sybil Prosser went over to the side-table where the bottles were, and Lady Anne sat staring out of the window.
‘I did think everything was going to be so nice here today,’ she said. ‘Just the three of us. That’s why I had everyone else sent away. I wanted it to be just like old times.’
The hiss of the soda-water syphon stopped suddenly.
‘It can’t be,’ Sybil Prosser said. ‘Not after what happened.’
She came over and sat down on the only high chair in the room. She had her drink in her right hand. It was her left hand that she didn’t know what to do with. In the end, she let it simply hang down. No colour came into it, but the veins began to swell.
‘Tell him what we agreed,’ she said.
Lady Anne looked up for a moment.
‘Oh for God’s sake can’t you take that awful apron thing off, can’t you?’ she asked, ‘it makes you look like a cook or something.’
Sybil Prosser did not move.
‘Go on,’ she told her.
‘Which bit?’
‘Everything.’
Lady Anne did not look at anyone while she was speaking. She kept her eyes down to the pattern of faded red roses and pale green leaves on the cretonne-cover.
‘You see, I didn’t really know what was happening,’ she began. ‘Nobody told me anything. The doctor wouldn’t let them. I didn’t even know about the new Governor.’
She was speaking very slowly and carefully, almost as though she had learnt it all by heart, and was trying to remember.
‘What difference does that make?’ Harold asked.
‘Oh, I can’t possibly stay here,’ Lady Anne told him. ‘Not after he arrives. It just wouldn’t be right.’ She paused. ‘Gardie wouldn’t have wanted it,’ she added.
‘Then what are you going to do?’
‘Move into Crown Cottage,’ Lady Anne replied. ‘It’s quite big enough just for the two of us.’
Harold got up and poured himself the drink that Sybil Prosser had not given him.
‘You don’t have to bother,’ he said. ‘Mr. Frith says he’ll move in there.’
‘Oh no, he won’t. That’s where we’re going. We’re decided.’ It was Sybil Prosser who had spoken. The corners of her mouth came sharply down as she said it. ‘After what she’s been through, she’s entitled to some consideration,’ she added.
Lady Anne interrupted her.
‘It’ll be just right for the trial,’ she explained. ‘The Courthouse is so near. And it isn’t long now. When d’you say it is, Sybil?’
‘On the third. Four weeks exactly.’
‘And you mean you’re going to be there?’ Harold asked. ‘D’you think you’ll be strong enough?’
‘I shall be by then,’ Lady Anne told him. ‘I’m getting so much better every day: Sybil says so. And, in any case, I’ve got to go. I can’t bear to think of Old Moses being kept there in prison until I feel well enough. It’s just not fair to him.’
‘Does Mr. Frith know?’
‘Mr. Frith doesn’t know anything. Not about the trial, or about Crown Cottage. Nobody knows. You’re the first person we’ve told.’
‘We thought you’d like it better that way,’ Sybil Prosser observed from somewhere behind him.
Lady Anne gave a little sigh.
‘I feel so terrible about Old Moses.
‘After what he did?’
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘He must have been mad at the time. That’s obvious. They do go mad quite often these natives, you know. Gardie used to say it was witchcraft. It must have been something, because Old Moses never used to be like that. He simply adored Gardie.’
She broke off and began staring down at the cretonne roses again.
‘They won’t hang him, will they?’ she asked.
Sybil Prosser got up to put her glass down.
‘How can Harold possibly know what they’ll do?’ she asked. ‘It’s not his business. Or ours, for that matter.’
Chapter 36
In addition to his editorials, Mr. Talefwa had his ‘Save a Brother’ campaign to run.
Right from the first moment when he sensed how sensational the trial was likely to be, he had set his heart on getting someone to come out from England. During his stay there, Mr. Talefwa had spent quite a lot of his time hanging round the Law Courts—and he had come away with a deep respect for English justice—its politeness, its decorum, the high damages which were sometimes awarded against even quite important companies; but, above all, for the way in which the obviously guilty got off just as often as the innocent. Mr. Talefwa would have gone for an English K.C. every time.
There was certainly no one at the Amimbo bar: they were all too frightened, and ordinary. Besides, the significance of the fact that War Drum had been forced to look outside for its champion would not be lost on the people. But where to find him? There was Nigeria, of course. People were always going to law in Nigeria. But Mr. Talefwa didn’t like Nigerians; he would have felt ashamed to turn to Nigeria when it was Amimbo itself that was in trouble. Or Uganda. They were altogether nicer people in Uganda, more advanced in every way and well on their own road to independence some day. But was it likely that one of their acknowledged leaders from Entebbe would be ready to risk his own career in a great free Uganda for the sake of an eighty-year-old murderer, with no tribal connections, in a little tucked-away place like Amimbo?
It looked, therefore, as though it would have to be Mr. Chabandra Das, from the Gold Coast. His record was distinctly promising: he
was young, he was a fighter, and he was as Europeanised as Mr. Talefwa himself. The only trouble was that Mr. Talefwa didn’t like Indians, really. They came into Africa with their superior education and a credit account at one of the Asian banks and, before you knew what was happening, they were running the place.
Mr. Talefwa decided, however, to put racial prejudice to one side, and invite him. He was even now writing out the telegram. Not that he liked telegrams. Too many other eyes always saw them. And for the moment, it was essential that he gave nothing away.
He therefore drafted it in terms that even the most inquisitive would find baffling, ‘REQUEST YOUR ADVICE GRAVE LEGAL DIFFICULTIES IMPORTANT MATTER STOP PERSONAL ATTENDANCE AMIMBO ESSENTIAL STOP SEAT BOOKED YOUR NAME CORONATION FLYER SEVENTEENTH INSTANT STOP PAYMENT GUARANTEED STOP PLEASE CONFIRM PREPAID.’
The fact that he signed it ‘NGONO’ made everything quite safe. Mr. Ngono was always engaged in important matters and he loved sending telegrams. No one in G.P.O., Amimbo would be in the least surprised to learn that in the course of one of them he had run into grave legal difficulties.
Mr. Talefwa even took the precaution of sending the form round to the Post Office by one of Amimbo’s entirely nondescript messengers. There were plenty of them, these private-enterprise common-carriers. They sat about on the pavements all day, waiting for someone to hire them to take something somewhere to someone else. The messenger that Mr. Talefwa chose quite often ran errands for Mr. Ngono. Because he was quite illiterate, the discrepancy of the signature could hardly bother him; and, because the Post Office building was exactly opposite, Mr. Talefwa from his front window could keep an eye on the messenger, and the money, all the way.
Even then, however, Mr. Talefwa could not afford to relax. He had other enquiries to make; and, because they were confidential, he preferred to make them himself.
It was Sunday, and the booking-clerk was wearing his best shirt. White like the others, this one had small, shiny stars woven into it. It had come from far off—all the way from Hong Kong, in fact—and the booking-clerk was very proud of it.
He was almost asleep, gazing out across the empty platform onto the deserted track, when Mr. Talefwa arrived. And naturally he was pleased to see him. Mr. Talefwa was a much pointed-out figure; a person of some importance—though dangerous and not to be seen with out of office hours, of course. The booking-clerk assumed that things in Amimbo had temporarily got too hot for him, and that he was intent on getting out of the place.
Mr. Talefwa’s request for a booking to Amimbo therefore floored him. Not only did it shatter his theory about Mr. Talefwa’s use of the railway as an escape route, but he didn’t know how to issue such a ticket. In all his six years’ experience, he had done nothing but issue outgoing tickets—all three classes, half-price for children, special excursion rates; returns many of them, but always leaving Amimbo in the first instance.
The last thing the booking-clerk wanted was to give Mr. Talefwa the impression that he was foolish and ignorant and then, when the whole incident was over, find a funny paragraph about him appearing in the War Drum’s influential gossip columns.
He therefore went into the operation professionally, as he had seen busy clerks do in banks and post offices and other places where people wait. He did a lot of writing down in pads and tearing out of carbon-counterfoils, vigorously stamping things with the Company’s stamp as he went along. Caught up in the excitement of it all, he began improvising. He invented fresh routines, new procedures. He wrote out the name of the railway company every time in full. He initialled the counterfoils. He wetly inserted the date in red.
Mr. Talefwa leant amiably on the little counter in front of the grille.
‘And are there already great preparations in hand for the reception of our new Governor?’ he asked.
The booking clerk thrust his green eye-shade up onto his forehead, he relaxed.
‘The area in which you are now standing,’ he said, ‘will be completely roped off. The Station Master has been told so. It will become official. Also, the centre of the platform from the parcels office to the lavatories. Even the main exit will be closed. Ordinary passengers arriving by the same train will have to cross the tracks and make their leave through the goods-yards.’
‘Altogether quite an occasion,’ Mr. Talefwa remarked.
‘But still inconvenient and undignified,’ the booking-clerk observed, because it was the kind of anti-Establishment remark that he thought Mr. Talefwa would find pleasing. ‘For those not holding Government passes it will be quite a scramble.’
Mr. Talefwa merely shrugged his shoulders.
‘New Governors do not arrive three-hundred-and-sixty-five days in the year,’ he remarked. ‘I take it that No. 2 Platform will remain open?’
The booking-clerk marvelled at Mr. Talefwa’s self-control, his moderation.
‘That is reserved for friends of the Station Master’s wife,’ he said. ‘It is not official, but still strictly private. And only the top end of the platform, of course. Further down would be useless, because the train itself would be in the way. Our new Governor would be entirely obscured.’
Mr. Talefwa gathered up the inky duplicates that the booking-clerk had thrust through to him.
‘You have been most helpful,’ he said. ‘Let us only hope for the reputation of Amimbo that everything goes off according to plan.’
Mr. Das’s reply was immediate. He liked railway journeys, and he saw a bright new future opening up ahead of him as he zig-zagged across the Continent at other people’s expense giving urgent professional advice to unknown businessmen in grave legal difficulties. Alone in his bed-sitter in Accra he spent long, useless hours wondering who on earth could possibly have recommended him.
And Mr. Ngono for his part was equally puzzled. Out of the blue, from someone he had never heard of, he had received an over-night telegram which read: ‘HAPPY TO BE OF GOOD ADVICE STOP ADMIT NOTHING STOP ENDEAVOUR RECOVER ALL DOCUMENTS BEARING YOUR SIGNATURE STOP MAKE NO FURTHER PAYMENTS STOP DO NOT RETURN GOODS ALREADY IN YOUR POSSESSION STOP LOOK FORWARD MEETING YOU PERSONALLY STOP DAS.’
The advice certainly seemed sound enough, but Mr. Ngono could not for the life of him imagine why this mysterious stranger should suddenly have his interests so closely to heart.
When Mr. Talefwa explained it all, Mr. Ngono was first very angry, then distinctly flattered. He was also secretly rather pleased. There were, as it happened, several little matters which, on the side, he would be delighted to discuss with any lawyer who showed such a sound grasp of legal principles.
‘Then it is quite clearly understood that I shall be the one who steps forward personally to meet the eminent Mr. Das when he arrives at our terminus?’ Mr. Ngono enquired. ‘No bloody jostling from behind, I mean, to get in the first big handshake.’
‘No one is going to greet Mr. Das personally,’ Mr. Talefwa replied. ‘As he steps down onto the platform, there will be a stampede. It will be seen by the amazed authorities merely as a great rush of bodies, a human avalanche that is quite irresistible. I shall, of course, arrange to have my staff photographer present.’
The possibility of a photographer as well only made Mr. Ngono even more unhappy.
‘And even with my name on the telegram—a damn illegal forgery, by the way, carrying extremely enormous damages if I should choose to complain—I am still not to appear with special prominence anywhere in the whole picture ?’ he demanded.
‘It would be most unjudicious,’ Mr. Talefwa told him. ‘The police would immediately become suspicious.’
He took Mr. Ngono’s hand while he was speaking, and pressed it hard.
‘Remember that you are to be the surprise witness,’ he reminded him, ‘the key figure in the whole trial. Who else is there on whom we could rely for your scandalous revelations?’
Mr. Ngono withdrew his hand and sat there, head bowed, looking downwards. He was sulking.
‘Considering the occasion, and the exceptionally large n
umber of keenly interested spectators, it is still a most keen anguish,’ he said at last. ‘People not knowing the truth will look at me and say: “There is that idle, sight-seeing Mr. Ngono again, come here merely for the spectacle. He is no different in importance from all the rest of us.” ‘
This time, Mr. Talefwa put his arm right round Mr. Ngono’s shoulder.
‘That is what people may say at the time,’ he replied. ‘But what will they be saying later when all the facts come out into the open? Then those same people will point to you and say: “There goes the clever Mr. Ngono, the deep one, the man who knew everything and said nothing until the right moment!”’
Mr. Talefwa paused.
‘It will even be as “Mr. Ngono, the truth-teller” that I shall refer to you in all editorial articles,’ he added.
Mr. Ngono was silent for so long that Mr. Talefwa became worried. He began to wonder what new arguments he could use.
‘I have not yet told you,’ he said, ‘that I have booked the ticket for Mr. Das to arrive on the same train as the new Governor. I shall give both items equal space in my newspaper.’
But Mr. Ngono interrupted him. He had jumped up and was smiling again.
‘I have,’ he said, ‘already most fundamentally improved upon the whole idea. In my new plan, everyone on the platform will carry an extremely large banner. The banners will say “Welcome” and “Amimbo greets you”, and “Happy stay among us”—that kind of thing. The official party will think the banners are in honour of the new Governor and will allow us to approach very closely, quite intimately, in fact. But in plain truth the banners will bloody well be for Mr. Das.’
Mr. Talefwa held out his hand.
‘It shall be so,’ he said.
‘But the banners?’ Mr. Ngono asked. ‘Is not that a damn marvellous idea?’
‘Brilliant,’ Mr. Talefwa replied. ‘Absolutely brilliant.’
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