The White Father

by Julian Mitchell

  “He’d be no use to you, I’m afraid. He has a horror of work.”

  “Wait and see,” said Edward, trying to control himself. What his father thought worth doing was contemptible, fiddling with other people’s money on the stock exchange and talking as though you were vital to the country’s economy. “Just wait and see, that’s all. If there was anything in the world worth doing, I’d do it.”

  Shrieve looked at him, amazed. “Nothing worth doing?” he said. He sounded shocked.

  “Worth doing, worth doing,” said Mr Gilchrist. “I’ve never heard such nonsense, and I don’t expect Mr Shrieve has, either.”

  “I’ve read in the papers,” said Shrieve pacifically, “that the young are discontented, or disillusioned, with the world their elders have made.”

  “Disillusioned?” said Edward. “Don’t tell me you think illusions are worth having?”

  “I’ve never thought of myself as exactly deluded,” said Shrieve. “But I’ve always liked my work.”

  “I can see that. Obviously it’s fascinating work. But I can hardly do it, can I? We’re being chucked out of everywhere—and quite rightly. And the only equivalents—the United Nations, UNESCO, those things—they’ve all got far too many English people already. We’re stuck in our own country now for good.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it like that. I can see it must all seem quite different for you. I suppose people of my generation must be the last to have had a clear run in that way.”

  “It’s terrible,” said Mr Gilchrist. “Just what’s going to happen when you chaps leave, that’s what I want to know?”

  “I’m afraid it’s something we all want to know.”

  “It’s simply not fair. And when I hear my own son saying there’s nothing worth doing, it makes me despair for the future of this country, really it does.”

  “Do you have no idea at all of what you want to do?” said Shrieve to Edward. “Surely you must at least have inclinations?”

  Edward smiled warily. “I’m waiting to hear the Oxford results. I may go back and do some research.”

  “I’m afraid,” said Mrs Gilchrist, who had manœuvred Mrs Shrieve over towards them, “that what he really wants to be is one of those dreadful young men who howl on the radio all day long. It’s degrading, but that’s what he wants.”

  “It’s not degrading. It’s simply a very good way of making an awful lot of money extremely fast.”

  “I don’t know,” said Mrs Gilchrist, turning to Mrs Shrieve. “Our cook has the radio on all the time. I simply don’t know how she stands it. It’s moaning and screaming from morning till night.”

  “The B.B.C.,” said Edward between his teeth, “seems to think that the Palm Court Orchestra is the very latest musical sensation. There are only about two programmes a day of genuine pops, and as for jazz——”

  “I can’t say I ever listen to the radio,” said Mrs Shrieve. “I seem to have so much to do, always.”

  Edward looked at her in disbelief. He turned to Shrieve and said, “It’s the generations gap. My parents think that because I prefer to dress comfortably——”

  “Sloppily,” said his father.

  “——my mind must be, all right, sloppy, too. But I’ve got a perfectly good mind, and if I don’t accept the things they believe in, it’s because I can see just how sloppy they are, all lip-service and dressing-up, no reality. I’d rather have nothing than the tired old lies masquerading as middle-class morality.”

  “Your son is an idealist, I see,” said Mrs Shrieve. “I remember feeling just the same when I was your age, Edward. And look at me now!”

  Edward looked at her. Her smile became a little fixed.

  “All nonsense,” said Mr Gilchrist. “It’s simply a question of what works. If we’re hypocrites, and perhaps we are in some ways, at least we’re charitable hypocrites, we help our neighbour and so on.”

  “Indeed we do,” said Mrs Shrieve.

  “There’s nothing hypocritical about your dislike of pop music, though,” said Edward. “You think it’s degrading. But degrading whom? And from what?”

  “Degrading popular taste,” said his father.

  “What do you know of popular taste?”

  “I’m afraid our family arguments can’t be very entertaining for you, Mr Shrieve,” said Mrs Gilchrist.

  Shrieve was smiling. He was about to say something when Jane came into the room.

  “Good evening, Mrs Shrieve,” she said.

  Mrs Shrieve pressed her hand and said, “And how are you, my dear? Got over that strained muscle?”

  Jane looked puzzled. She hadn’t strained a muscle for months. But she smiled and said, “Oh, yes, thanks.”

  “Have you met my nephew?”

  “How do you do, Mr Shrieve. Goodness, from what Mummy said, I wasn’t sure you weren’t coal black.”

  “There are people who think I’ve gone native, Miss Gilchrist. But one can’t, without a lot of effort, change the colour of one’s skin.”

  “Dear me, no,” said Jane, in her best party manner. She gave a silly laugh to annoy Edward, who, she could see, was cross at having his conversation interrupted.

  “You know,” said Mr Gilchrist, who had gone back to brooding on Shrieve’s African problem, “the fact is that these Lugu—Luagu—these lugubrious people you were talking about, they respect force.”

  “I’m afraid so, yes.”

  “Nothing to be afraid of, I should’ve thought. It’s the same in Kenya. Toby Welch-Jackson—he’s my distant cousin—says you have to walk softly and carry a big stick.”

  “It’s not been my policy exactly,” said Shrieve. “But it’s certainly true that the Luagabu carry big sticks. They’re fond of long knives, too, as a matter of fact.”

  “They’re not ready for independence,” said Mr Gilchrist positively. “And now they’ll jump up in the United Nations and spew out a lot of bilge about colonialism, I suppose.”

  “It’s probable.”

  “Hugh, dear,” said Mrs Shrieve, “I think it’s time we were going home. The Gilchrists are probably panting for dinner, and ours will be cold unless we leave at once.” She smiled sociably around. “It’s been so nice. You really must come and have a look at my garden, Mrs Gilchrist, it’s at its best now.”

  “It’s been a good year for gardens,” said Mrs Gilchrist. “In spite of those awful gales in April. One night I thought the whole house was going to be blown down. But the flowers always manage to survive somehow.”

  “Are you staying down here for long?” Edward asked Shrieve.

  “Just a couple of days. The conference doesn’t begin for a fortnight yet.”

  “You must go and look at Edward’s excavation, dear,” said Mrs Shrieve. “Tomorrow, perhaps.”

  “It would be interesting,” said Shrieve.

  “Oh, Teddy and his archaeology!” said Jane. “He’ll have you grovelling on hands and knees, peering at a bit of mud, while he tells you it’s a fireplace or something. He makes it all up, I think.”

  Shrieve smiled at her uneasily, then said to Edward, “I would like to come, if I may.”

  “Of course. Whenever you like.”

  “Hugh, we really must go.”

  “See you at work, then, tomorrow,” said Shrieve.

  Edward nodded, wondering if he wasn’t being condescended to. Behind the departing backs Jane made a face at him.

  “How beautiful it is here!” said Mrs Shrieve, crossing the lawn with Mr Gilchrist.

  “Yes, it’s not a bad place. Costs the devil of a lot to keep up, of course.”

  Mrs Shrieve raised her hands in silent acknowledgement of the cost of everything nowadays.

  As her car, a black Humber, disappeared round a corner of the drive, Mr Gilchrist said to Edward, “Nice enough chap, I thought, didn’t you?”

  “Very nice.”

  “The trouble with people like him, though, is that they see everything from too close to the ground. They forget what civilised
life is like, being with the niggers all the time. It takes a pretty rum kind of man to spend his life contentedly among a lot of black savages.”

  “I don’t see why you find him so rum. You’re always talking about a sense of service. I’d’ve thought Mr Shrieve is one of the few people you’ve ever met who actually has one.”

  “It’s odd, all the same, to spend your life miles away from home. He’s rather reserved, isn’t he, even if he does talk about his blacks quite fluently. I always think there’s probably something that’s gone wrong with people like that.”

  “Really, Daddy. It’s much more likely that he lives in Africa because he wants to spread sweetness and light than to forget a woman.”

  “Not married, though, is he?”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “It’s not a life I’d choose.”

  “No one’s ever asked you to choose it. Anyway, I should think you have to have a vocation. That, and tremendous patience and application and self-sacrifice.”

  “Balls,” said Mr Gilchrist. “Utter balls. People don’t stick in the jungle unless they want to. D’you know it’s the first time he’s been home in years?”

  “Perhaps he doesn’t like England” said Edward. “It’s a pretty stuffy country to someone who’s been living in Africa, I should think. God, it’s stuffy enough to me.”

  “Huh,” said his father. “You!”

  *

  “Such a difficult child,” said Mrs Shrieve as she drove home. “The Gilchrists really don’t know what to do about him.”

  “He seemed fairly bright to me. He’s young, that’s all.”

  “Oh, he’s clever enough, there’s no doubt about that. But why won’t he do anything with his cleverness?”

  “He is doing something. He’s digging up a Roman villa.”

  Mrs Shrieve sighed impatiently. “They say things haven’t been the same with those children since just before we arrived here. Of course, Mrs Gilchrist has never spoken to me about it, we don’t know each other that well, but one picks things up.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Oh, it’s only gossip, I suppose. But it seems there was some trouble in the town the summer before we came. Hooligans, Teddy boys, that sort of thing.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought Edward Gilchrist was exactly a Teddy boy.”

  “Oh, no, not at all. But I believe there was rather more to it than just hooliganism. Mind you, it’s only what I’ve pieced together from various hints. There was a young man called David Mander—he was the vicar’s nephew—you’ve met Mr Henderson, haven’t you?”

  “I think so.”

  “A nice man. A very nice man. But his nephew, they say, wasn’t a bit nice. He went after the village girls, and then there were drinking parties on the islands in the gravel pits, and I don’t know what else besides.”

  “What’s all that got to do with the Gilchrist children?”

  “Well,” said Mrs Shrieve, “I shouldn’t really say this, because it is only gossip, of course. But apparently he had an affair with Jane. She was one of his victims.”

  “I suppose she is quite attractive.”

  “Anyhow, that’s what they say. And they also say that neither Jane nor Edward has been the same since.”

  “I don’t see how Edward fits in.”

  “Nor do I, to be honest. But it’s what they say. I thought you might be interested.”

  “Oh? But you haven’t told me anything at all, except that Jane Gilchrist, who is an attractive girl, may have had an affair two years ago with someone I’ve never heard of.”

  “And neither she nor her brother has been the same since.”

  “Really, Grace, you surprise me.”

  “I’ve found that Miss Spurgeon is usually right.”

  “And who is Miss Spurgeon?”

  “She’s one of the old ladies I visit.”

  “I see.”

  “There’s no need to be stuffy, Hugh.”

  “I’m not being stuffy.”

  “You are. And now I’m going to ask you to do me a favour. Will you go and visit Edward’s excavation for me? He seemed so anxious that I should go, but I really don’t understand archaeology. It’s more for a man, I think. Would you mind?”

  “Not at all. I expect it’s very interesting.”

  “Good boy,” said Mrs. Shrieve. She took a hand from the wheel and patted him on the knee. He winced.

  4

  “THIS,” said Edward, pointing into a trench, “was probably the main living-room. There isn’t time to do a thorough excavation this year, so we’re not too sure about all the details, but the general outline is clear. Between the house, where we are now, and the outbuildings over there, there ran a sort of corridor which I’ve been unearthing for days. I’ll show you that in a minute. If you come over here, you can see a corner of the mosaic we’ve discovered- –it doesn’t look terribly interesting so far, but we’re leaving it till last in case it’s worth rolling up and taking away. Otherwise it’ll just be covered over, and I suppose no one will uncover it again for centuries.”

  Shrieve was in his overcoat, and still felt cold enough to keep his hands in his pockets. He listened to Edward’s explanations, looked dutifully into a large number of similar holes and trenches, and shook Armitage’s hand when it was offered.

  “Mr Gilchrist’s been showing me round most admirably,” he said. “I almost feel I’ve been digging here myself.”

  “It’s a jolly little site,” said Armitage. “Pity we haven’t got more time. There’s never time for a really lengthy dig these days. It’s all rescue work, taking a quick glance at a site already half ruined by bulldozers before it’s covered over with layer upon layer of reinforced concrete.” He smiled briefly and went over to a new transverse ditch to see if any of his predictions looked like coming true.

  “I dare say your Ngulu don’t leave much in the way of traces, do they?” said Edward. “Do they build with stones?”

  “No,” said Shrieve. “The Ngulu were already an extremely backward people even when the Romans came to England. Their chief interest, to some anthropologists, is that they have survived at all.”

  “You’ve virtually seen it all now,” said Edward. “Unless you’d like to look at the stables—they’ve only been excavated in spots.”

  “All right.”

  They walked past mounds of earth towards the area of the outbuildings, and found Belinda Hayes, her bottom rather too big for her jeans, bent over a small patch of burnt earth.

  “Hello,” she said, straightening. “I don’t think this should be here, do you? Mr Armitage didn’t say anything about finding fires over here.”

  “The house was almost certainly burned down,” said Edward. “There are marks of burning all over the place.”

  “I think I’d better tell him,” said Belinda. She rubbed her brow with a dirty hand and said, “Phew, but I get giddy bending down all the time.”

  Shrieve and Edward went back to the corridor Edward had been so patiently uncovering. Workmen employed by the Ministry had removed all the topsoil for ten yards of a wide trench. Below lay another foot of mixed earth, with fragments of wood and occasional patches of different coloured soils: this showed, said Armitage, that the roof had fallen in. The villa could have been burned either before or after the roof collapsed, however: the signs of burning might indicate no more than that the debris had been used by beggars, of a much later period, to keep themselves warm in what remained of shelter. Coins found on the site suggested that the villa had been abandoned some time after 480. A great many things could have happened in nearly fifteen hundred years.

  “It’s not very interesting,” said Edward, looking dispassionately at his pavement. Its single strip of red ran monotonously along one side, occasionally lost in the eruption of a root, but always reappearing a little further on.

  “I think it’s fascinating,” said Shrieve. He squatted down and touched the stones with hi
s finger-tips. “You know, you may think Roman Britain was primitive, but in my part of Africa you won’t find anything as simple—and difficult, of course—as mosaic. Yet it’s such an obvious idea, and they don’t lack for stones.”

  “Oh, it’s all to do with the climate. People in cold climates have to think of things to do to keep warm.”

  “Perhaps. The climate certainly makes for laziness where I come from. Tell me, now, why should this place have been abandoned?”

  Edward assembled his fragmentary knowledge of the departure of the Romans from Britain. His dates were not too certain, but his general air was impressive enough to convince Shrieve.

  “It may not have been abandoned—it could have been sacked. Some people stayed on, even though they were cut off from Rome. These Romano-Britons may have been descendants of generations of intermarriage, perhaps. Anyway, they probably stuck it as long as they could, until one of the endless series of raiders came and beat them up, killed them or drove them away, and sacked the farm. Otherwise, the farm may simply have been abandoned when the owners followed the legions back to Rome—deciding there was no future in England any more. I don’t really know about that, to be honest. But there was no constitutional conference or independence day, with fireworks and so on. I think things just drifted for fifty years or more. All the evidence is very tentative. But once the farms were left to rot, then the locals probably pillaged them, taking stone for their own houses, carrying off useful beams. After a time there wouldn’t be anything to see except a patch of nettles and foxgloves, and perhaps a bit of broken wall. Trees grew over and got their roots in everything, as you can see. The grandeur that was Rome became a dank spot in the woods.”

  “A dank spot in the woods,” said Shrieve. He looked sad.

  “The foundations remained,” said Edward. “They built pretty well, the Romans.”

  “It’s an eternal process, isn’t it?” said Shrieve. “Colonisation and collapse, colonisation and collapse, with the colonisers collapsing and being colonised in their turn.”

  “Who do you think will be the next lot to colonise us?”

  Shrieve laughed. “I must be getting back for lunch,” he said. “It’s really been most interesting.”