The White Father

by Julian Mitchell

  “You just have to act on the assumption that there isn’t going to be a war.”

  “Oh, I try. I mean, I do act on that assumption. It’s still very hard to think of anything worth doing. The whole atmosphere, as it were, is poisoned by the very possibility of war.”

  “There’s always pure selfishness,” said Shrieve. “You could do something well-paid simply in order to get enough money to do a few things you like. And talking of selfishness, may I have some more soup, please?”

  Edward poured the last of the soup from the jug. “But that’s exactly what my singing is—a way of making lots of money very fast against long odds. But I don’t really want to do it, because—well, perhaps it’s like this. Education encourages us to have high standards, to do what’s right and good and so on. Only there isn’t any right or good, so we’re always looking for something that’s not there, and we feel guilty at not finding it.”

  “I see,” said Shrieve. He blew on the soup. “I see. I should have thought that by any empirical standard the British way of life, though not perfect, is quite good. Our standards of public conduct are very high. Compared with the vast majority of other countries, English life is at least better, if not absolutely good. Only a monk or an idealist asks for perfection. I, for instance, have always felt that what I was doing was worth doing for life, though naturally neither I nor the job was perfect.”

  “But you were. I mean, are. Doing something worthwhile.”

  “The tense is about to change. You say you find it hard to decide what to do. I’m probably going to find it hard to get anything at all to do at my age.”

  “Oh, nonsense, there’s always room for men of probity like you. Doesn’t the Colonial Office make arrangements?”

  “I’m not sure. There’s the question of my wife, you see. Perhaps I’d better start singing—I understand there’s no colour-bar in the musical world.”

  “Oh, I don’t think you’d like that,” said Edward. “The only real point about pop music is that it’s consumable, it leaves virtually no trace. It doesn’t involve anyone in anything. It’s true that it makes a lot of money for people like Mr Brachs, and they’re pretty nasty people. But it doesn’t actually do anyone any harm, in spite of the people who fulminate against it. And you can commit yourself to music wholly, whether it’s classical, pops, or jazz, because it’s morally neutral.”

  “I see that,” said Shrieve. “Though I think it’s sad for you not to have anything less abstract to commit yourself to.”

  “Like God, you mean?” He took the soup plate and the jug and put them on a tray.

  “No. I mean people, really.”

  Edward looked at him curiously. “I have lots of friends,” he said. He took the tray into the kitchen.

  Shrieve said after him, “I don’t mean that. Nor sex, nor sexual love. I mean a feeling about oneself in relation to the rest of the human race.”

  “Do you starve a fever and feed a cold, or vice versa?” said Edward from the kitchen.

  “I can’t remember. But I’d like to be fed lightly, please. What I mean is a more general kind of love than the personal one, a love, quite simply, for one’s fellow men. It’s not Christian, especially.”

  “My fellow man’s all right,” said Edward. He broke an egg into a bowl.

  “Perhaps you can only express your feeling in your music,” said Shrieve. “I’ve always thought that the really great artists wrote and painted and so on with such marvellous conviction because they were somehow detached from everyone else, and could only express their love by indirect means.”

  “You may be right,” said Edward. “I haven’t thought about it, honestly. Nowadays everyone’s calling for politically committed art, but I don’t see how you can make jazz politically committed without messing it up and missing the point. When I’m playing what I really like, cool jazz with my friends, it’s all a matter of technique and concentration, of getting everything exactly right. The feeling’s all in the technical excellence. Do you see what I mean? I get a sort of inexplicable joy when the music goes right.”

  “I understand precisely,” said Shrieve. “It was what I was saying. You have detachment—even when you’re singing your rubbish, too, no doubt. You must have, the words don’t mean anything. All that matters is the expression—or rather, the technique behind the expression from your point of view. I think, my dear Edward, that you may be a true artist.”

  “It’s most unlikely,” said Edward. He felt very pleased that Shrieve should have called him “my dear Edward”. But he didn’t know what to call Shrieve back. He felt “Hugh” would have been brash, “Shrieve” too public school, and “Sir” out of the question. They had rarely called each other anything,

  “You never can tell,” said Shrieve.

  “Do you like your omelettes runny or hard?”

  “Runny, please. Have you seen today’s papers? They’re full of pictures of the Africans. If you want to know what a Luagabu looks like, just glance at Bloaku, he’s a classical specimen.”

  “I can tell you one thing I’m committed to,” said Edward, reappearing with the omelette and bread and butter. “That’s your Ngulu. I’m really beginning to care about them. They have an English fan.”

  “I’m sorry there’s been so little for you to do.”

  “I see myself as the devoted nurse of the Ngulu’s Big White Chief.”

  “They tend to regard illness as possession, you know. They’re always seeing gods and spirits in people. Once there was an old man who was always silent when he saw me, though he jabbered away the rest of the time. He thought he saw their god Khamva in my eyes, though Khamva has enormous eyebrows and I certainly don’t. The others couldn’t see Khamva, but they accepted that he did without question. They wouldn’t even explain it to me till afterwards, because Khamva might really be hiding in me, watching them. Then one day the old man came up to me and congratulated me on recovering from my sickness. Khamva had left me, he said. I’d never felt better, as a matter of fact, but they use the same word fot sickness and possession by a god. So now I must be possessed.”

  “Can’t see anyone myself,” said Edward. “Eat your omelette. Would you like a banana or an orange to follow? I think an orange would be best. Vitamin C is good for colds.”

  “All right, an orange.” Shrieve enjoyed the omelette for a few moments. “You’re rather a good cook, you know. Where did you learn?”

  “It’s leading the lonely detached life of an artist,” said Edward. “I always thought real artists had a faithful woman choring away in the background, adoring without ever understanding.”

  “Those are the lucky ones.”

  Edward sat on the edge of the bed. “What have you arranged with Patrick Mallory about this letter?”

  “I rang him this morning. Or rather, he rang me. We’re to go round at four—that’s when the last post arrives. It’s all gone extremely well. Seventeen signatures already.”

  “Anyone failed us?”

  “One of the ex-civil servants. He says he doesn’t understand what it’s all about, and besides, his name has been on six letters in the last nine months.”

  “Can they really do any good, these letters? Who are they for? Us, to make us feel we’re getting somewhere? The government, to make them realise people care?”

  “I think they’re for men like Mallory, to give them a sense of importance. They surround themselves with an air of activity, while they’re not actually doing anything except dishing out a little sherry. Mallory wasn’t a private secretary to that Princess for nothing. He knows how much appearances count in his world.”

  “I could,” said Edward, who had been dipping into a cookery book, “try and make you a soufflé, if you like. But I think it might take rather long. Will an orange do?”

  “Perhaps two oranges.”

  “I think you should have them with lumps of sugar. They’re better that way for an invalid.”

  “All right. I must be fit for the afternoon po
st.”

  “I don’t see why. I can easily go alone. All Mallory will want is for me to run some stupid errand for him. I expect I’ll have to deliver the signatures to The Times by hand.”

  “He did say something about that.”

  “I knew it. Why that secretary of his can’t do it, I really can’t see. He’s following in his master’s footsteps—he prefers organising to doing.”

  “The trouble with you young people,” said Shrieve, “isn’t that you’re cynical or frightened of the Bomb, as you like to suppose. You’re just bloody lazy.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Edward. “It’s nice, though.”

  “I’m sure it is. Yet you don’t seem to lack initiative. It’s more a sense of direction that’s missing.”

  “Myself,” said Edward, “I’d blame it on the Tory government, wouldn’t you?”

  They both laughed, then Shrieve said, “Hand me the aspirin, would you? I’m going to try and doze. Come back at half past three. If I’m not feeling too good, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t go alone.” He blew his nose. “Oh, and would you pass me a clean handkerchief? Top right-hand drawer.”

  “It’s your last. I’ll buy you some Kleenex.”

  “You will not,” said Shrieve. “I have some principles, even if you haven’t. Get me a dozen linen handkerchiefs.”

  “Of course, your generation was brought up in a luxury mine has never known,” said Edward. “We think we’re very lucky to have Kleenex.”

  “Just something else to be thrown away, like orange peel. You’re such consumers. You don’t value the things that endure.”

  “You’re ill,” said Edward. “There’s a tiny god glinting in your eyes. Now lie down and go to sleep. I’ll call you at three-thirty, and if you’re no better I’ll go and inspect Mallory’s autograph collection by myself.”

  “All right.” Shrieve snuggled down into the bed.

  “My generation doesn’t go to bed with colds,” said Edward, as he gathered the debris of the meal and went out. “We think that’s simply pampered.” He heard Shrieve snort behind him, then sneeze. He went to do the washing-up.

  *

  Fred Martin sat at his desk, waiting for his television set to come on. He had received a message ten minutes earlier telling him to be ready. The ten minutes had passed uncomfortably. Messages from Mr Brachs’s floor were always frightening till you heard them, and sometimes even more frightening afterwards. Fred Martin hoped desperately that it wouldn’t be Mr Brachs himself on the flickering blue screen.

  He lit a cigarette and gazed out of the window. The view was magnificent, but he wasn’t appreciating it. He was wondering what on earth he would do if Mr Brachs sacked him.

  The set crackled briefly and Mr Brachs’s day confidential secretary appeared on the screen.

  “Good afternoon, Mr Martin.”

  “Good afternoon, Mr Bray.”

  “Mr Brachs has read your report on the audition of Edward Gilchrist.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “Mr Brachs has also listened to the records made by Chet London.”

  There was a pause. Martin supposed that he was about to be fired. Gilchrist and London were both his responsibility. But Bray had called him “Mr”, which was a hopeful sign.

  “Mr Brachs is satisfied with Chet London, but does not think that he will do for the Sway. Mr Brachs says that he wants someone who can give his name to the Sway. Someone without whose name no one will ever think of the Sway. Mr Brachs does not see Chet London in that role.”

  “I see, Mr Bray.”

  “Mr Brachs wishes me to tell you that he thinks Chet London is essentially a man for the square dancers.”

  Martin laughed loudly and falsely.

  “Mr Brachs thinks that Edward Gilchrist may be the man to carry the Sway to the people of this country.”

  “Edward Gilchrist?” said Martin, his laughter abruptly stopped.

  “Mr Brachs says that Gilchrist is an average singer, with an ordinarily pleasant voice. The organisation has too many ordinarily pleasant voices on its books. Mr Brachs states that Gilchrist will not be employed as an ordinarily pleasant voice, but as Sammy Sweet. Of Sammy Sweet and the Sway.”

  “Sammy Sweet,” said Martin, wonderingly. “That’s a good name.”

  “The choice,” said Bray, “was Mr Brachs’s own. He wants you to listen carefully to Sammy Sweet as he sang the Sway at his audition this morning. He was reading it for the first time, remember. He had never seen the music before. Mr Brachs is much impressed with Sammy Sweet’s vigorous delivery.”

  Bray pressed a switch and Edward Gilchrist’s voice came bawling over the television. Martin listened to it with an expression of enthusiasm, trying to cover his amazement. Bray’s face remained impassive.

  “Mr Brachs wishes you to engage Sammy Sweet for a recording session as soon as possible. He is not, however, to know that it is anything more than a test-recording. He is not to know that his name is now Sammy Sweet. He is not to be given any indication of the way we are thinking. Mr Brachs wishes you to remember that there may be other and better Sammy Sweets.”

  “Yes, Mr Bray.”

  “Mr Brachs is putting you in sole charge of the development and exploitation of the Sway, Mr Martin. You are to have a free hand. You may use what advertising resources you wish. The Brachs empire is at your service. Special consultants on clothing and hair-styling will be attached to your staff. You may choose your subordinates from anywhere within Champney, Morrison, Dulake. If you wish for outside help, you may obtain it, after the customary clearance through the personnel department.”

  “Thank you,” stammered Martin. He was overwhelmed. “Thank you very much indeed.”

  “I will convey your thanks to Mr Brachs,” said Bray. “Mr Brachs wished me to remind you that he will be taking a personal interest in every aspect of the development of the Sway.”

  “I shan’t forget it,” said Martin.

  “Mr Brachs says that he hopes he will not have to consult with you too frequently, but that you are to feel free to seek his advice at any time, through me.”

  “I am most grateful.”

  “Good day, then, Mr. Martin. Mr Brachs wishes me to extend you his congratulations on your new appointment. It is a pleasure to add my own.”

  “Thank you, Mr Bray. Please tell Mr Brachs that I feel deeply honoured.”

  “Good day.”

  The picture vanished from the set. Fred Martin mopped his brow. Then he jumped up from his chair and strode to the window. It had stopped raining, and a watery sun spattered yellow light across wave after wave of roofs. Martin swelled his chest. His big chance had come at last.

  *

  Although he wasn’t feeling really ill, Shrieve decided not to go to Mallory’s.

  “I just don’t feel like it,” he said to Edward, and he telephoned Mallory to say he was in bed.

  Mallory was almost unnecessarily solicitous. “Have you seen a doctor?” he said. “We don’t want you coming down with anything, do we?”

  “I shall be all right tomorrow. I just feel as though my head is full of old nails and boots and things. It’s always like this the first day of a cold. It’ll go away in the night and I shall be all right tomorrow morning—just snuffling like anyone else.”

  “If you need a doctor, don’t hesitate to ring me,” said Mallory. “Don’t just go to the nearest quack. I know a really first-class man.”

  “Thank you,” said Shrieve. “Shall I send Edward round?”

  “Edward? Oh, your young man. Yes, do. I’m up to my ears as usual with work. Perhaps he wouldn’t mind taking the signatures round to The Times for me.”

  Shrieve winked at Edward and said, “Oh, I’m sure he’d be pleased to do so. He’s always complaining at not having enough to do.”

  Edward made a face.

  When Shrieve had finished his conversation, he put down the phone and said, “I knew you’d be pleased. Off you go, now.”

  “Damn it,�
� said Edward, “some people get paid for being messenger boys.” He fussed briefly with Shrieve’s bed, tidying it, made him some tea, and left.

  When he reached Davies Street, Mallory was affably offhand as they waited for the post.

  “We’ve really done most awfully well,” he said. “Seventeen out of twenty. That’s eighty-five per cent. Of course, it’s not a very controversial matter, but I wasn’t honestly counting on more than fifteen. This should make the Africans think.”

  “I hope so,” said Edward. “And the British, too.”

  “Of course. They’re so bland, our people. Charming, but bland.” He seemed to like the word.

  “It’s been quite fun, anyway,” said Clive Carver.

  “Oh, fun!” Mallory shrugged broadly. “Yes, it is fun in a way, of course.” He wrinkled up his eyes, conscious of his age and importance before the two young men. “And thank God for that, it would be impossible otherwise.”

  The post arrived, a butler bringing it on a silver tray. There was a further signature, and a card announcing that the remaining one they wanted was on holiday with its owner and wouldn’t be back until October.

  “Eighteen!” said Carver. “That’s wonderful, really wonderful.”

  “Not at all bad,” said Mallory. “But how stupid of me not to remember that Paddy Murchison’s gone to Japan. You should have reminded me, Clive.”

  “I’m sorry, Patrick. It was my fault. But we’ve got eighteen all the same. I’d have thought that was enough for the Ngulu.”

  “Oh yes, we’ve done very well. Really very well.” Mallory rubbed his hands. “I wonder if we mightn’t have made the letter just a little bit stronger after all, you know. Never mind. I’ll just write a brief note to go with all the signatures, Gilchrist, and then you can take them round. They’re expecting them—all you have to do is hand them in. I sent them a copy of the letter in advance, and they said it would be perfectly all right. They even offered to send me a proof, would you believe it? I shan’t be a minute.”