Such was the excitement aroused by this question that pandemonium reigned in the Chamber; Members jumped to their feet and waved pieces of paper in the air and cried out, ‘Knock ’em for six!’; some cried, ‘Shame!’ though that looked the least of their feelings; and they broke into that curious chant I had heard among the sports lovers on the train to London, that double-beat of the war cry ‘Eng-land! Eng-land!’ accompanied by the steady stamping of the right foot. And I realized that the Members on the green benches were but the parliamentary faces of the gangs on the train. Several were staring hard at the gallery where we sat, and I murmured to my mentor that I thought Mr Conbrio’s question showed a lesser understanding of parliamentary process than I had hoped.
The ex-Bishop, rising quickly to his feet, indicating that it might be polite to withdraw from the gallery at this juncture, muttered that, far from misunderstanding our needs, Mr Conbrio had showed a knowledge of parliamentary process, and a feeling for what the House wanted to hear, which would take him a very long way.
Getting out of the gallery was not easy. Several members of the public took hold of the Bishop, showing no respect for his cloth; others tried to grab me, though Heaven’s ex-aviator thrust me behind his skirts.
It was then that my field training came into its own. Turning to the menacing crowd, I announced in pleasant tones that, personally, I blamed the French. Whereupon those who had tried to stop us leaving fell into such a prolonged state of nodding approval that we were able to slip safely away.
Once outside, I was astonished to see, hobnobbing with members of the Party of the Press, who had so recently contributed to his downfall, the very ex-Minister who had slunk from the Chamber crushed and defeated. Yet he exhibited a gaiety which seemed extraordinary.
How was it that he had recovered his spirits so quickly? Minutes before he had been ruined. Yet now he was shaking hands with the very people who had destroyed him with a series of accusations, merciless and unprincipled, unleashed with the sole aim of driving an effective Minister from office. How could he extend the hand of friendship to such individuals?
What I was seeing, Mr Farebrother explained, was not the hand of friendship; it was the handshake of the newly employed journalist on a good contract. For such was the strength of English democracy that a politician destroyed by the press on Monday would very often be asked to write for them on Friday.
But what would happen, I demanded, if this individual then accused his accusers?
My guide replied that I still had some way to go before I really got the hang of things. If the ex-Minister attacked the press in the press, why, that was his democratic right. More likely, he would defend in print the right of any newspaper to destroy him. That was why no other country could hold a candle to the freedom of the English press – if I did not mind him saying so.
I did not mind him saying so. After what I had witnessed, I would have said so myself.
I had seen that a man is not cast aside when he falls from grace, but is taken up by his enemies, who bind his wounds and set him on his feet. How very different from our poor country, where a man broken on the wheel will be thrown to the butcher-birds or made a supper for jackals.
My reception in the Mother of All Parliaments had not been all we might have hoped for, declared the wingless holy one, but we were not cast down. Not a bit of it. A spot of local difficulty, certainly. But once more into the breach… My camouflage was sound, my demeanour acceptable, my phrasing spot-on, my leather satchel stuffed – all vital attributes marking out the man who was going places. What we needed now was a fast track to the top, and he knew just the one for me.
Oh, really? I replied.
While commending my mastery of the language, he deplored the scepticism he detected in my voice. Small men with facial failings, or language difficulties almost as bad as mine, culturally deprived, financially challenged, from preposterous countries with unpronounceable names, had found England the land of opportunity. Some had begun in the Old Country in a modest way, selling raincoats; others rubber goods, or batches of cheap newspapers which they had parlayed into a press empire, and pension funds so magnificent people could not see where they began or ended. A sheaf of aliens had risen to become peers of the realm in two shakes of a duck’s tail. In our case, time was so tight the proverbial duck would be allowed no more than a single shake. And he said this with that curious glance I had earlier noted and had not much liked.
He took me then to a grand hotel, a palace in itself, situated beside a park they call Green, guarded by a jolly fellow dressed in crimson coat and tall chimney-pot hat who greeted each guest at the door, swearing what an honour it was to have me staying with them once again, as if I had been doing this all my life. He showed me to a room as large, I swear, as the old synagogue in Calvinia, and a bed as big as a potato field. Any misgivings about my friend’s curious haste to leave me at such short notice were swept away when I saw that this very establishment, at its southern extreme, provided a wonderful view of Buckingham Palace. He seemed to have thought of everything. My fears were stilled, my resolve steeled, my ears ready to hear his plan. Which was as follows.
I must be marketable, said the failed aviator. I must appeal widely. So he would announce me to the great and the good as an Egyptian gypsy. A millionaire from the slums of some dusty desert place. And now dreaming of settling in England. Yes. For, once upon a time, I had been plucked from my hovel by an elderly maiden Englishwoman who had taught me the language and the National Anthem. Ever since, I had harboured feelings of affection for the Old Country. My huge fortune, acquired selling English tea and roast beef – in a word, groceries, so dear to the English heart – was a burden to me. Now this grateful Egyptian gypsy wished to repay his dear dead benefactress, and the greatest country on earth, by making a series of donations to important national institutions.
From that point on, it would be plain sailing, the ex-Bishop promised. And he would quietly bow out. He had absolutely no doubt that I would receive the rewards of generosity. In fact, he would not be surprised if – very soon – I found myself kneeling before the throne, while Her Majesty enjoined me to Arise, Sir David! Even as likely, he continued, warming to his theme, was my elevation to the nobility. If you looked at the numbers of those business people ennobled for giving generously to certain funds, you saw that such wise donors were destined for greatness far more often than any other branch of society.
I was caught up in his enthusiasm now and begged him to stay at least until the call came from the Palace, but he lifted a lofty hand and reminded me that he had erred in making me follow his timetable. He now held to his resolution to encourage Third World persons to run their own lives. He was providing aid without strings. Did I fish? No? Well, if I had done so, I would have known that when you give a man a salmon you feed him for a day, but give him a fishing rod and you feed him for life.
Then he fell on my neck, begging me to remember him to Her Majesty if ever I found myself kneeling before her or, more likely still, when I donned ermine and took my seat as Baron Booi of the Karoo or wherever it was I came from … Running his hands through his dark, sharp tufts of hair, which reminded me again of the spikes of the aloe, and turning his anxious eyes full on me for one last time, he bade me goodbye, for ever. And he set off to spread my name amongst the greatest in the land: a grateful grocer come to town with a well-stuffed wallet, eager to express his appreciation to Queen and Country.
I am ashamed to confess I barely missed him because within hours I was besieged by visitors, party chairmen, fund-raisers and political leaders of every complexion, who took me to their bosoms; all of whom, after brief opening compliments about Egypt, its pyramids, its warmth, its culture, followed by succinct expressions of admiration about Romany life, its mobility, its caravans, its lively dances and so on, went on to say how very touched they were to meet a foreigner so wedded to England and English institutions: cricket and clergy and monarchy and groceries and so on. How very mu
ch they hoped I would make my home amongst them. How very grateful they would be for any donation I made to party funds. If I took their drift?
I took their drift. I had met Mr Conbrio, had I not?
Yet I was still foreign enough to be amazed at the extraordinary adroitness of these political chieftains and their wonderfully understated acceptance of my donations, very often non-vocal; the wink, the barely perceptible nod of acknowledgement, the ghost of a smile or twitch of the nose. And, before you could blink, my leather satchel was suddenly lighter. Some of my visitors so enjoyed meeting me that they spent the night in the hotel, accommodation which I was careful to pay for, and I drew from the chieftains much praise for my legendary gypsy hospitality. So many foreign benefactors confined their offers of free hospitality to important persons in hotels abroad: it took rare insight to offer free hotel rooms to important persons where they needed them most. At home, in England!
I was delighted with the speed at which my pouch emptied. What had seemed so plentiful vanished like snowflakes that fall in the desert. And once all my money had gone, my visitors stopped arriving to enjoy my hospitality. It was, I supposed, testimony to their calibre. Again that delicate understanding of the English gentleman showed itself. One simply did not barge in on a fellow who has given his all and is awaiting the call.
But someone did barge in. A very vulgar fellow, the guardian of the hotel, who without even doffing his hat, demanded money, saying that I had settled for the rooms of my friends, but I had paid nothing on my own account. And he was not having Egyptian gypsies running up huge bills in his hotel.
With quiet dignity, I informed him I would not be a gypsy for much longer.
Once a gypsy, always a gypsy, the hateful fellow replied.
Maintaining my dignity, I said that my application for citizenship was receiving sympathetic consideration.
He grew even angrier and regarded me the way policemen do in the Karoo when they spy our donkey carts traversing a farmers fence. Such a glance is usually the prelude to searching our bags for stolen meat or firewood.
But I had no bags, except the leather satchel, and that was empty.
Determined to put him in his place, I said that I expected to be made a knight shortly. If not a baron. I was awaiting the call.
The wretch returned that had he known I was connected to nobility when I checked into his hotel, he would have demanded his money in advance. And, without more ado, he ejected me into the street.
1
The allusion is to Kipling:
I have drunk with mixed assemblies, seen the racial ruction rise,
And the men of half Creation damning half Creation’s eyes
I have watched them in their tantrums, all that pentecostal crew,
French, Italian, Arab, Spaniard, Dutch and Greek and Russ and Jew,
Celt and Savage, buff and ochre, cream and yellow, mauve and white,
But it never really mattered till the English grew polite;
(‘Et Dona Ferentes’, 1896)
2
Booi’s visit to the House of Commons must have taken place before the death of the Labour leader, John Smith, in July 1994.
Chapter Eleven
A dark and stormy night in a Royal Park; back to basics; the genius of the English, yet again revealed; Her Majesty – her story; the last safari
Nightfall found me, seated on a bench in the Royal Park called Green, watching a crowd of ducks squabble gently. I had been there for hours. My hunger was growing and something more than hunger – impatience. I had come to this place because it was perfectly placed for my final assault.
The gates of the park were closing. One by one the last of the loiterers slipped away. A group of youths I had watched earlier, as they removed their shirts and stretched out on the grass in the watery sun, were now pulling them over their maggoty-pale bodies. I noticed that the sun had caught only the vulnerable part of them, the national nakedness, and turned it to the mottled pink of the fleshy pods of the clapper bush; each young man flew the familiar flag of the English when they visit the Countries of the Sun, a red neck.
Last to leave the park were several gentlemen in long coats who had spent their time strolling up and down with their hands in their pockets. I had taken them for philosophers. Until a woman approached and I saw them, suddenly and expertly, open their coats. To my astonishment I spied that they were quite undone. One had the strong impression that this was an age-old custom. Red necks and exposure; these rites had probably been taking place in English parks for centuries. The woman on the receiving end of the unexpected manoeuvre screamed and hurried from the park. But no one seemed (or cared) to notice.
The park emptied. The gates were locked, leaving the world to darkness and to me. Beside the lake I built a shelter of willow branches; with fire sticks from my quiver I started a small, discreet blaze. I consulted my hunger. I studied the ducks. My cardboard suitcase abandoned, my precious gifts for Her Majesty lost, reduced to nothing more than a few last coins from the Farebrother donation, I cut a very sorry figure for the ambassador of the Red People about to present his credentials to the Queen of England.
I found myself hungering for the land I had left behind me: for gemsbok cucumbers, salt yet sweet; brandybush berries; and the woody delights of the Kalahari truffle that grows when the rains have been fat.
The rain began falling, yet it did not break the drought in my heart. This may have been the weather the cuckoo likes, but I could not say the same. I thought bitterly, what good is a shower of blessings upon atheists?
Too much water is never good; it sends people mad. !Kwha gave his creatures dry seasons, deserts, thirsts, so that they should ache for the love of the All-High and pray for his gift, the sweet she-rain to fall and make all below grow fat and moist. For everything God loves is wet.
In my country when it rains all creatures pray, for then all the world is holy. The green succulents step closer to the edge of the old dam that has not seen water in living memory. After the rains the replenished dam sends streams of water down the cracked, weed-choked stone channels no one has cleaned in years into the peach orchard, where the fruit, heavy on the boughs, aches to be picked, as cows with swollen udders groan to be milked. The little half-frogs, with tails between their legs, that are also the rain’s things, lie just beneath the surface of the water, eyeing water-spiders and flies that come for their first taste of life in a burning world. And, in the reeds, the black duck clears his throat. Once, twice. And coughs. Reeds that have had to live all their lives with their ankles in dust are suddenly up to their waists in water, and stand shaking their hair in delight, like girls bathing before weddings.
But in England their rain means nothing to them; they consider it merely water. What heresy! Windmills make water; clouds make water; man makes water. But only God makes rain. Blessed be the name of !Kwha.
If ever one of mine should read these lines, they should think this of me; there is a corner of some foreign field that is for ever Bushmanland.
A dinner of ducks roasted over a discreet fire. A shelter of willow branches. A hollow for my hips, lined with down. Then I laid me down to sleep. I turned to the east, as we do, at the very last; I watched as the moon began the nightly hunt through the dark fields of Heaven. Then I called on the High God by his seven holy names.
Come to my help. See your child is hungry.
Your child sets off into the bush.
Help him to find an animal, even one dead,
Which he can carry home to his hut,
And live in your sun for another day.
I slept as I imagine one will sleep at the last, when the after-world awaits, a land – it is said – of locusts and honey. Those of my family, knowing that water and melons and meat cannot last, will build me a shelter against wind and sand and hyena and, leaving what little they can in the way of wild onions and brandybush berries, slip away for ever.
I awoke to find on my cheek the warm touch of a miracle. The
sky was high, dry and blue; the sun blazed; it was the finest hunting weather I had known since arriving in England. The High God heard my prayer; he whispered in my ear the old truth: ‘If the hunter does not go into the bush, how will Kaggen find him meat?’
And I knew shame. Was I not a Man of Men? A Red Man? A Man of the First People? The happy recipient of a culture so ancient it remembers the Early Times when animals were still people and all life slept together beneath the Great Tree?
I thought, yes, by George, now I will arise and go now. There is more than one way of frying a locust.
The perimeter wall of the Palace, I saw, was fortified. Barbed wire, and the metal spikes were sown upon the nape of the wall, and I could guess what lay beyond: trip wires and spy cameras. I recognized a system very much like that employed by most of our farmers, who do not move without their walkie-talkies and their Alsatians and their shotguns. Much the same security arrangements as are enjoyed by the Dominee in Lutherburg, who has ringed his Pastorie with razor wire and searchlights and great notices proclaiming that he enjoys armed protection from the ‘Make My Day!’ 24-Hour Mobile Firepower Unit. ‘Rooting For You! Shooting For You!’ The difference, I suppose, being that the Minister in Lutherburg cowers behind his razor wire because he believes his parishioners plot to steal his milk, and tup his wife, and hobble his cattle, and poison his wells. Whereas the Queen of England only protects herself from the love her subjects bear her.
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