by William Shaw
Tozer arrived at 8:30 and said, “Double brandy. Sorry I’m late. Why are you only drinking a half?”
Breen had never noticed her wearing full makeup before. Blue eye shadow and pinkish lipstick. She had dressed for the occasion, wearing a knee-length green frock and heels that Breen thought looked too feminine on her, though he said, “You look nice.”
“Do I? I feel ridiculous. I never wear dresses. I didn’t know what the code was for a shindig. The girls made me buy it today. You look nice yourself. That shirt suits you. It makes you look younger.”
The blue shirt he’d bought from Martin & Dawes. He should buy more new clothes, he thought.
The pub was crowded, so Breen offered her his stool to sit on. She shook her head and stood. She leaned over towards him so he could hear above the noise and said, “There was talk this morning at the section house. About you.”
“My ears were burning,” he said.
“They were saying you’d gone mental again yesterday.”
Breen nodded.
“Why are you smiling? It’s serious.”
“I’m not smiling. I know it’s serious. I can’t help it.”
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Jones had arrested this guy for a robbery, but he hadn’t charged him yet. I let him go.”
“So he was innocent?”
“Not exactly.”
“What then?”
“I was doing Prosser a favor.”
“By letting the guy who stabbed him go?”
Breen paused. “Sort of.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Can we leave it just for now? I don’t want to say. Not yet.”
“You still don’t trust me, do you?”
She was wearing earrings too. Small silver birds that hung from each ear.
“I do.”
“No you don’t.”
“You think everything is about you just being a policewoman, don’t you?”
“You’re not going to tell me why you let that guy who stabbed Prosser go, are you?”
“No.” He paid for her drink and another half-pint.
“Well, you keep it all to yourself, then,” she said. “Keep it all bottled up in there.”
“I will.”
“One day you’ll go really mental. Really, really mental. You’ll explode.”
“Are you Sigmund Freud now?”
“It’s no wonder you don’t have any mates.”
“I do have mates.”
She laughed. “Who exactly?”
“Carmichael for one.”
“I see more of him than you do.”
“What do you mean?”
“None of your beeswax. So when did you last meet up with your great friend outside of work?”
He tried to remember. “The last few months have been different.”
She made a face.
He said, “And I’m out with you, aren’t I?”
“Aren’t I the lucky one?” She took too big a gulp of brandy and then burst out coughing until Breen slapped her on the back. “Went down the wrong way,” she said when she’d got her breath back.
“Maybe this party isn’t such a good idea.”
“Sorry, Paddy. I’m in a bad mood. All day shopping for clothes in Oxford Street. Give us another brandy and I’ll be nicer. What’s that white stuff they’re drinking? Maybe I’ll try that.”
He turned back to the bar, trying to attract the attention of the barman who was filling a tray with glasses of Pernod.
She made a face after the first sip, but after the second she decided she liked it.
The basement of the St. Moritz was already full by the time they arrived. The crowd was mostly black, but there were a few white people there. There was loud African music, full of drums and spiky guitar lines. A long table down one side of the room was piled high with food that included a big bowl of rice with unfamiliar looking meat in it and a large pot of dark brown stew. Breen peered in. “Groundnut stew,” said a voice next to him. “It’s very spicy. Very delicious.”
Breen recognized Mrs. Ezeoke; she held out her hand to him.
“I didn’t know Sam had invited you,” she said. She was wearing a loud pink-and-gold floor-length African dress with a matching cloth headwrap.
“He didn’t. Mrs. Briggs invited us.”
Breen noticed how Mrs. Ezeoke’s smile disappeared at the mention of her name. “Are you a friend of hers?”
“No. We just met her at the hospital…She gave us tickets.”
At the end of the table was a large silver bowl, full of coins and notes. A sign read: Donations.
“And you have brought your policewoman friend. How nice.” Mrs. Ezeoke held out her hand to Tozer. The African woman wore a thick bangle on her wrist. It looked huge next to her small hand. “You look very pretty, my dear,” she said to Tozer.
“I love your bracelet,” Tozer said, fingering the metal. It was a heavy piece of patterned bronze. Breen wondered how drunk she was already.
“Thank you.”
“And your dress is fabulous,” Tozer went on. “A British woman would never dare wear anything so gorgeous. Where did you get it?”
Mrs. Ezeoke’s smile remained fixed. “I think you have met Mr. Okonkwo?” she said.
Breen recognized him as the man they’d met at the Ezeokes’ house; older than the Ezeokes, a short, wiry man holding a plate of food.
“Ah, the detective. We meet again. Did you find your murderer?” He laughed.
Mrs. Ezeoke was not the only woman there in traditional dress. Every black woman in the small club was wearing voluminous bright clothes and elaborately folded headdresses. A few were dancing together, holding one hand up in the air, shuffling their feet around in circles.
A young black man in a suit approached. “You are much too thin. Eat, eat. We have plenty of food. You need African food,” he said to Tozer. “Have you ever eaten jollof?”
Tozer laughed. “I need a drink first.”
Okonkwo said to Breen, “Do you think it strange to see us dancing while our brothers are fighting a war?”
“What are you raising money for?”
“We must convince the politicians and the journalists of our cause. We must let them know about the crimes being committed by the Federals and by the British. Money helps change minds.”
“British crimes?”
Okonkwo smiled. “Don’t look so shocked. Even the British are capable of crimes. Our Biafran people are being systematically starved to death by an army that your government is supporting. Even in the Second World War the women and the children were spared. Not in our war. You are supplying an army that is creating a total blockade. It is indiscriminate warfare. Their original intention was to kill us all. Now they have found a way to do it with the world’s approval.”
There were banners on the wall: God bless Biafra—Free Biafra—Biafra ga adi ndu!!—Biafra win de war!! Balloons hung from the ceiling.
“But I am sure you are a good man,” grinned Okonkwo. “You would not support this. Your government keeps you ignorant. Nobody in Britain has heard about how tens of thousands of our Igbo people have been slaughtered in the north by the Moslems, urged on by the Federals. And when people are ignorant, a word is worth a thousand guns.” He paused and looked at the dancers. “Although not everyone agrees. They would rather just have the guns.”
Breen spotted Ezeoke on the dance floor, in the middle of a circle of women, dancing with one hand on his belly and the other in the air.
“I am sorry. You are a policeman. You are not interested in politics. Come and sit with me while I eat,” said Okonkwo. He took a chair against the side of the room. Breen looked around for Tozer, but she was still talking to the young African man, so he found a seat beside Okonkwo under a large handmade red, black and green flag, fixed to the wall with drawing pins.
“I do not enjoy parties anymore,” said Okonkwo. “I am too old. The music is too loud and you can never hear p
eople speak properly.”
It was hot. Condensation ran down the walls. Behind the bar a middle-aged woman hoicked the tops off bottles of beer and laid them out on the counter.
“And tonight is to raise money for the Pan-African Committee for a Free Biafra?”
“It was Mrs. Briggs’s idea. She believes that all causes must throw parties.”
“She is on the committee?”
“She is a friend of Ezeoke’s. Her husband is the Senior Registrar at the hospital. She is the Secretary, of course. I am the Chair and Sam is the Treasurer. It helps to have someone respectable on board.” He smiled. “And she is in love with Sam, of course.”
Breen looked around for Frances Briggs. She had been standing by the entrance, welcoming guests, but now she was on the dance floor with the others.
“You are an art dealer, I seem to remember,” said Breen.
“Art, artifacts, antiques. I sell the culture of Africans to Europeans. It is very fashionable. And to men like Sam Ezeoke, who want to become more African.” He laughed.
“How could Ezeoke be more African?”
“You see? It works.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am sorry. I am teasing you. You did not know that Ezeoke was raised in Britain? That is why he is my best customer. I sell him African paintings and African masks so he can become more African.” Okonkwo was picking at his plate of food, taking delicate mouthfuls.
Tozer came by with two bottles of beer and handed one to Breen. “Don’t thank me,” she said. “My admirer over there bought it.” She turned and waved to the young man in the suit. Breen raised a hand in thanks.
“How come Ezeoke was raised in England?”
“He was adopted. His father was a chief, a friend of the British Colonial Governor. He died before Ezeoke was born, and his mother, thinking she was doing her child a service, asked the Governor to adopt him. So he did. They took him to England to civilize him. He went to Rugby and Cambridge. We grew up hunting snakes and birds,” Okonkwo said. “He hunted foxes. Why do you think he is the most successful man amongst us? You English adore a black man who talks the Queen’s English. They wouldn’t let an ordinary African man become a consultant in your hospitals.”
“He doesn’t talk about it.”
“He does not advertise it. He did not have a happy childhood. He once told me he did not even know he was black until his parents sent him to an English boarding school. Can you imagine not knowing what you are? That is why he is desperate to be African. Can you blame him?”
“How terrible.”
Okonkwo looked at Breen. “You have sympathy for a man who feels out of place?”
“I suppose I do,” said Breen. He watched Ezeoke, bending at the knees, descending lower and lower as the others danced around him.
“He is a great man. This committee would be nowhere without him. He has given more to the cause than any of us. Of course, he was much richer than any of us to start with.” He laughed again. “But perhaps he won’t be soon. He sold his house for the cause, you know. I don’t think his wife has quite recovered from it.”
“I wondered. When we visited them they had far more packing cases than seemed to fit into the house.”
“I shall have to be careful of you. You are a very observant young man.”
Breen looked across the room. Mrs. Ezeoke was standing by the food table still, watching her husband buying drinks for a large crowd, passing the bottles around to eager young men. Her arms were folded, a look of intense disapproval on her face. “Mrs. Ezeoke. She was born in Biafra?”
Okonkwo smiled. “Oh yes. She is African. One hundred percent. Sam wanted to be African, so he went and got an African wife. My niece, you know.”
“She is very beautiful.”
“Isn’t she? The most beautiful girl in the world,” said Okonkwo.
Now Tozer was on the dance floor, led there by the young man she had been speaking to earlier. The young man’s face remained serious as he danced, his motions much less effusive than Ezeoke’s; Tozer danced around him like a teenager on Ready Steady Go. Ezeoke was wiping the sweat from his forehead, grinning, as five women danced around him. One of them was Frances Briggs, who danced closer than the others, pushing her body against his.
“See. Now he is a very modern African,” Okonkwo said drily.
Breen looked around to find Mrs. Ezeoke. She was leaning against the wall, glowering at her husband as he danced with Mrs. Briggs and the other women. Breen looked from one to the other: Frances Briggs flirting with Sam Ezeoke while his wife watched. Ezeoke saw them looking at him and broke away from the dance floor, pushing through the tightly packed crowd. He leaned down towards Breen. “Your girlfriend is a good dancer,” he shouted.
Breen said, “She’s not my girlfriend.”
Ezeoke reached down and took Breen’s arm. “Why are you talking to this old man? You don’t come to parties to talk. Come and dance with her.” He took Breen’s left arm and yanked him up, away from Okonkwo.
Tozer was grinning broadly, sweating on the dance floor. “I didn’t think you could dance,” she said. The brass and drums were deafening. Compared to this, Irish dancing at the Garryowen looked like croquet.
“What was Eddie Okonkwo talking to you about?” Ezeoke leaned in towards him.
“You,” said Breen.
“His favorite topic of conversation.”
“He admires you.”
Ezeoke began to dance as Breen stood woodenly on the dance floor. “He was telling you that I was not a true Biafran, I expect.”
“He said you were raised in England.”
“The mother country,” he said, unsmiling.
A cheer went up from the Africans as a new record started. “Do you like high-life music?” shouted the dapper young man dancing with Tozer. Above the polyrhythmic tumble of guitars and drums Breen could hear a chorus singing in a language he did not understand.
“Be careful of Okonkwo. He is a wily old devil,” said Ezeoke. “Come on. Dance. I will teach you.” He took Breen’s hands and started to pull him one way and then the other.
“You don’t like him?”
Ezeoke was shouting so Breen could hear, but the words were indistinct. “Of course I like him…” Ezeoke talked on, but his words disappeared into the roar of voices and the pulse of the music around him. The dance floor was full now with people jostling for space, bumping into each other, not seeming to care. If it had been sweaty before, the air was now thick. Breen’s shirt stuck to him.
Breen had hardly ever danced. He tried to follow the movements of the Africans, making small, quick movements with his feet, but despite their encouraging shouts he was conscious of looking absurd. He tried copying Tozer’s wild gyrations, but that was worse. He caught sight of Okonkwo grinning from his seat at the side of the small room. Was that an encouraging smile, or was he laughing at him?
Frances Briggs was leaving the dance floor. Breen followed her.
“Are you enjoying yourself, Mister Policeman?”
“This is not like any other fund-raiser I’ve been to,” he shouted above the music.
“It’s not exactly a village fete, is it?” She laughed. “The Biafrans are marvelous people. Africans still have the connection. It’s like being set free. You should do it more often.”
“Do I look like I need to be set free?”
“Oh yes. I suspect you’re terribly like my husband. Very English and correct. And dull. He just sits in the corner looking awfully uncomfortable. And he doesn’t approve of politics. I don’t invite him to our parties anymore.”
“I’m not English,” he said. “I’m Irish.”
“You’ve no excuse at all, then.” She picked up a gin and took a gulp. “Come on and dance.” She took his arm.
“I don’t think so.”
“Don’t be boring.” She was dragging him onto the dance floor again now.
He was saved when, with a loud bang, the amplifier blew a fuse.
The music stopped abruptly, the lights snapped off, and the room was filled with a giant groan of disappointment. The dancing wound to a halt.
“There will be a short interval,” somebody quipped in the darkness.
“Someone go fix the gen.” A laugh.
A girl’s abrupt scream was followed quickly by a slap and a shout: “E netulum aka! Keep your filthy hands to yourself, old man.”
“Give me a kiss!”
“Go away. The darkness does not stop you being ugly.” An even bigger laugh.
A couple of people found their lighters and dark faces shone in the blackness.
“Blackout. Now I am homesick.” More hilarity. More matches lit.
They stood there in the thick, sweaty darkness, waiting for the lights to come back on, jostling for space, until someone started to sing a slow, solemn song.
“All hail Biafra, land of the rising sun,” came a rich baritone. Voices joined in. “We love and cherish.”
Soon the whole room was filled with singing. In the dim light Breen could make out a young man with diagonal scars cut into his forehead raising his arm in a stiff military salute. Breen watched eyes stream with tears, damp cheeks that shone in matchlight. “We have vanquished our enemies, all hail Biafra.” Voices quavered. Harmonies thickened the song. Men reached out and held hands with other men. Breen looked over towards Okonkwo. In the darkness he could just make him out too, standing, almost shouting the song. “We have emerged triumphant from all our foes.” And Ezeoke, holding Frances Briggs’s hand, chin jutting out, chest full, crying like a child as he sang.
Afterwards, the party moved outside onto Wardour Street, where Ezeoke handed Breen an opened bottle of beer. Still hot from the nightclub, women fanned themselves with leaflets about the war, men leaned against the shop windows and smoked cigarettes. The amplifier had blown. The music was over. After the singing, the atmosphere was subdued.
Breen found Tozer talking to Mrs. Briggs.
“Of course it’s a real photo,” she was saying, “the boy is starving.”
