Brazzaville Beach

by William Boyd

  “Really? Why?”

  He didn’t answer. “We miss him terribly, though, old Timbo. Specially the girls.”

  “I bet they do.”

  “Anyway. There we go.” He pulled a smile. He looks like a man in agony, Hope thought, dying to escape me.

  “How about a refill,” he said abruptly, snatching her glass away. He went in search of more champagne and Hope turned to her nieces, Carol and Diana, pretty in their party dresses. She wished she liked them better.

  Hope was wearing an old black velvet dress with long sleeves and a V-neck. She had pinned her hair up loosely round her head and at her throat she wore an old pearl choker that belonged to her mother. She idled unnecessarily in the kitchen, reluctant to rejoin the throng in the drawing room again. Most of the guests had arrived by now, about eighty all told, and the volume of noise was growing by the minute as they drank champagne and guzzled canapés.

  Little Diana came into the kitchen with an empty tray and Hope gave her a new one filled with miniature vol au vents.

  “What’re these, Auntie Hope?” Diana said.

  “Vol au vents. And please don’t call me Auntie, Diana, OK?”

  “What should I call you then?”

  “Hope. That’s my name.”

  “But Mummy says—”

  “Tell Mummy I don’t mind. Off you go.”

  Hope followed her out. The room was tight with people. The men, young and old, in black tie; the women—so many blondes—painted and lacquered. The noise was insufferable.

  “Hey, Hope! Hope Dunbar!” someone drawled loudly at her elbow.

  She looked round. It was a young man, fair-haired with a flushed, bright face that was vaguely recognized. She couldn’t remember his name. He kissed her cheeks.

  “How are you? Haven’t seen you for…God, how long? You committed matrimony recently, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did. I mean I am married.”

  “Been away? You’re very tanned. D’you ski?”

  “No. I spent all summer working out of doors.”

  “Really?” He was genuinely astonished. “What are you? Some sort of riding instructor or something?”

  “I’m an ecologist.”

  “Oh…” A worried look came into his eyes. “Sounds great. Anyway.” He began to look around the room. “Where’s hubby? Love to meet him.”

  Hope stood beside her mother as the guests filed into the marquee. Round tables had been set out in a semicircle facing a wooden dance floor. On a dais beyond that, the band’s instruments stood—piano, drums, a double bass leaned against a high stool, and a saxophone held in an iron frame—awaiting their musicians. The tables were covered in pink cloths, the marquee was lined in ruched bands of pink-and-white material, and white flower arrangements stood on truncated doric columns here and there. It looked pretty and tasteful. Everyone knew where to sit. Eleanor Dunbar smiled sweetly at her guests as they moved by.

  “It looks lovely,” Hope said.

  Her mother looked at her. “So do you,” she said. “In an untidy sort of way.” She gestured at Hope’s hair. “Should’ve let me put it up for you.”

  “I’ll be back in the woods tomorrow. It’s hardly worth it. Should we sit down?”

  Her mother held her back a second. “Keep an eye on Ralph, will you, darling?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I have to table-hop and while I’m away he’ll drink too much.”

  “It is his seventieth birthday.”

  She didn’t smile. “Of course it is. But I don’t want him falling down drunk before the main course. Just…watch him for me.”

  They moved toward their table.

  “He seems all right,” Hope said.

  “You haven’t been here for a while. He’s not funny anymore.”

  Her mother’s face was expressionless. Hope felt a sudden tightness, a coiling, inside her.

  “I am sorry, Mummy,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

  Her mother stopped, looked at her and smiled formally.

  “Don’t pity me, Hope. I won’t have that.”

  Hope felt a real depression settle on her when she saw she was sitting between Bobby Gow and a man called Gerald Paul, an old friend of the family. He was a retired theatrical agent whom her mother had worked for before she married Ralph. Hope rather suspected that they might have been lovers in the past. Perhaps they still were, for all she knew.

  Bobby Gow actually turned away from her when she sat down, so she was obliged to talk to Paul. He had a thin, wide mouth full of what looked like brown impacted teeth, set at all angles. Oddly enough, his breath did not smell disgusting, only slightly sweet, as if he had rinsed his mouth with vanilla essence.

  “Wonderful to see Ralph looking so well,” Paul said, looking across the table. “And your mother. Gorgeous creature.”

  Hope looked at her parents: her mother, licked by the salacity of Paul’s gaze; her father, listening, his hand constantly stroking his beard…. To his left, Faye gave Carol a sip from her glass of champagne. Paul was reminiscing about “wonderful Eleanor.” Hope closed her eyes and felt a sudden desire to be in Little Barn Wood. She decided she would leave the room while the speeches were made.

  She took a deep breath and spooned out a ball of avocado from the pear in front of her. A waiter came and leaned over her mother, then circled the table to her.

  “Mrs. Clearwater, telephone for you.”

  She excused herself and went through to the sitting room. It must be John, she thought, as she picked up the receiver. It was Graham Munro.

  “What is it, Graham?” she said, interrupting his apologies.

  He explained. That afternoon three of the Knap estate farm workers had been passing through the beech wood near the old manor house when they heard an unusual noise. On investigating, they discovered a man digging a “trench system”—Munro’s words—on the lake bank. Apparently some forty yards of trench over three feet deep had been dug. The workers challenged the man and remonstrated with him. Then they frog-marched him to the estate offices.

  “It seems he became violent and tried to run away at that stage,” Munro said, his voice sonorous with unspoken apologies. “I’m afraid the men had to restrain him forcibly.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “Just cuts and bruises. I’m told.”

  “Haven’t you seen him?”

  The estate office, having established John’s identity, phoned Munro in West Lulworth. He, in turn, telephoned John and told him to go to the cottage and wait for him there.

  “Unfortunately,” Munro said, “I couldn’t go straight away and by the time I got to your place there was no sign of him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’d gone. The lights were on and the front door was unlocked.” He paused. “That’s why I thought I should phone you. There was a note as well.”

  “What does it say?”

  “I can’t read it. It’s just a scrawl. It does say London on it, though. I think.”

  “He’s probably gone home. Thanks, Graham.”

  When she hung up she thought instantly: stupid, stupid bastard. And then, selfishly, that here was the perfect excuse to flee the party. Her mother came out to find her and Hope explained the problem, saying only that John had fallen ill and that she thought she should go straight home. For a moment Eleanor looked like she was going to protest, but she thought better of it.

  “Well…just say goodbye to your father before you go. I’ll get him for you.” She leaned forward to give Hope a kiss.

  Hope felt her mother’s soft breasts squash against her and her nose was filled with the scent of rosewater perfume. She held her for a while.

  “Come down and see me, will you, darling? When it’s quiet. Just spend a little time with me.”

  “Of course. Very soon.”

  “I never see you these days.” She looked at her fixedly. “I miss you.” Then she smiled. “I’ll get Ralph.”

  Ho
pe went upstairs and packed her case quickly. She didn’t bother to change. She pulled on her coat and took the combs out of her hair.

  Ralph was waiting for her downstairs. She told him quickly what the problem was.

  “I suppose you’d better go,” he said glumly and grudgingly, and kissed her. “What’s wrong with John? Has he gone mad or something?”

  Hope managed a laugh. “No, of course not. Why do you say that? He’s just working too hard.”

  “Big mistake.”

  She squeezed his arm. “Have a lovely party.”

  “Fat chance.” He walked her to the door. “Trouble is,” he said, “I’m so fucking bored. That’s why I drink. I know your mother isn’t happy, but I just can’t help it, you see.”

  Hope thought he would begin to cry at this, but his eyes were clear and his voice firm. “I hate this,” he said.

  “Come on, Ralphie. Enjoy yourself. All your family’s here. We all love you and so do all your old friends.”

  He looked at her. “All my old friends…what a crowd of shits.”

  She caught the local train from Banbury to Oxford. She would be in plenty of time to catch one of the last trains up to London. She sat in the overlit, overheated compartment looking out at the black countryside and seeing only her own reflection in the window staring back. She thought about John and forced herself to recognize that eccentricities were becoming problems, and that quirks of behavior were developing into warning signs…. But there was a reluctance in her to take this recognition any further. And when she started to ask herself what she should do next, she seemed to run into a thick smog of inertia and apathy. Nothing was clear; no direction out seemed obvious.

  That mood gave way to something colder: a kind of anger began to grow in her. She had not bargained for this. She had not expected this turn of events. Her brilliant, unusual man was not meant to fall ill in this way, to become unstable and troublesome.

  She confronted her selfishness in the same way as she faced her image in the black cold glass of the railway carriage and told herself to reconsider. To her vague alarm she realized she was not prepared to do so.

  At Oxford station she had a wait of twenty minutes. She sat in the grimy cafeteria amongst the usual collection of lovelorn teenagers, very poor people and mumbling drunks and felt her anger still lodged hard within her, like a brick beneath her ribcage.

  No, she said to herself, this is unfair. What right did he have to behave like this? To be so perverse and heedless? She thought of him now, waiting for her in the flat, and tried to imagine what mood he would currently be occupying: breezy and indifferent, perhaps? Or zany and amused? Or mute and helpless, or sulky and withdrawn?…She knew them all by now, she realized, far too well. And she could hear in her head the respective monologues being played out. I didn’t mean…I never thought…I wasn’t sure…I don’t give a damn….

  She felt weary and careworn, in the way one often does before the big job of work is tackled; that sense of premature or projected exhaustion that is the breeding ground of all procrastination.

  The London train pulled in and pulled out again. Hope sat on in the squalid buffet, thinking, and then took a taxi to Meredith’s cottage. There were still lights on upstairs in the bedroom. Meredith came to the door, tousled and bland in her dressing gown.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Copping out.”

  THE HAPPINESS OF THE CHIMPANZEE

  João told me a story one day while we were out in the field. We were watching Rita-Mae with Lester and Muffin. Muffin was playing with Lester, Rita-Mae joining in from time to time, tumbling the baby over, or checking Muffin when the fun became too rough. It was quite obvious to me that, as they romped and scampered, the young chimpanzees were enjoying themselves; they were having a good time. They were, not to beat about the bush, happy.

  On our walk back to camp João told me this curious fable that he had heard from his father.

  Two hunters, Ntino and Iko, were out strolling one day through the forest. They came across some chimpanzees who were playing in the branches of a mulemba tree.

  “Look at the chimpanzees,” Ntino said, “look how they swing so easily through the branches. This is the happiness of the chimpanzee.”

  “How can you know?” Iko said. “You are not a chimpanzee. How can you know if it is happy or not?”

  “You are not me,” Ntino said. “How do you know that I do not know the happiness of the chimpanzee?”

  I never found the remains of Lena’s baby. We searched all the nest sites we came across, hoping to discover some shred of skin or tiny bone that I could present as Exhibit A, but we failed completely to discover whatever Rita-Mae had done with the raggy scrap of a body she had carried off over her shoulder, that afternoon under the fig tree.

  For several days after the killing we saw nothing of Lena either. And then one day she turned up again. She kept her distance from Rita-Mae, but otherwise there seemed no real change in her attitude to the others, nor theirs to her.

  Indeed, the same apparent normality also existed between me and my colleagues. I told no one, apart from João and Alda, of the killing, and I was pretty sure Mallabar had been as discreet as he had promised. There was still a good deal of residual sympathy around for me as fire-victim—which did not diminish—and which, I supposed, was the best evidence that he had kept his word. Mallabar himself was perfectly cordial. I did not apologize or retract my story, but he acted as if I had done so: a momentary aberration for which he had forgiven me.

  I kept smiling and each night worked on my paper.

  One morning I left the camp early and set off for a rendezvous with Alda. As I passed the Artificial Feeding Area, I heard my name called. Mallabar was standing in the middle of the cleared area of ground. He waved me over.

  It was just after six and the sun had not yet risen above the treeline. The light was the color of white wine and the air was cool. As I walked over, I checked to see if there was anyone in the hides but they were empty. This was the first time we had been alone together since I had told him the news of Bobo’s death. I offered Mallabar a cigarette, which he declined. I lit up myself. I noticed there were three big yellow chandeliers of bananas propped against the concrete feeding cages.

  “You’re off early,” he said.

  “I’ve got to check on something,” I replied, trying to be as cryptic as possible.

  “I was wondering if you’d like to join us here today.”

  I glanced at the bananas. “Big feast?”

  “Yes. My American publisher’s arriving and I want to show him our chimps.”

  “I’ve got too much to do today. Sorry.”

  “Shame.” He shrugged. “You’d like him. Might be useful to meet. Good man to know.”

  “Another time. But thanks anyway.”

  “You don’t approve of all this,” he said abruptly.

  “What?”

  “The AFA.” He gestured at the cages and the bananas. “Hope, the stickler.”

  I looked at him. “It’s a machine. An artificial and bountiful food source switched on and off at your whim. I don’t think…” I paused. “It’s got absolutely nothing to do with life as wild chimpanzees live it, that’s for sure. You attract two dozen chimps here and let them gorge. It’s unnatural. You’ve dumped a banana machine down in the jungle. You’re playing God, Eugene. It’s not right.” I smiled at him. “But then I’m sure you know all the arguments against.”

  “Most of them formulated by me.” He sat down on the concrete cage and leaned back, crossing his legs. He was very relaxed, very sure of himself. I dropped my cigarette on the ground and stepped on it.

  “Hope, I like you,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Despite our…methodological differences you’re exactly the kind of person we need in this team.”

  I waited. He flattered me some more. Now that the war was virtually over, he said, and the new grants were coming through, G
rosso Arvore would soon be back to its original size—in fact it would probably expand. He was thinking of opening another station, another camp, ten miles to the north. I happened to be precisely the type of person he imagined running it.

  The first rays of sun had cleared the treetops and I felt their warmth begin to spread across my face. I wondered vaguely, and not for the first time, if Mallabar had a sexual interest in me. I certainly had none in him, but I knew that for some men such indifference was a powerful aphrodisiac.

  “Is that a job offer?” I asked.

  He lost his composure for a second.

  “Well…let’s say, let’s say it’s a—a distinct possibility.” He stood up and rubbed his hands together as if he were washing them.

  “I just wanted to let you know how I felt,” he went on, his assuredness rushing back. “And how things lay ahead. There are no flies on the early bird. There’s a future for you here with us, Hope, something considerable.” He let his hand rest momentarily on my upper arm, and looked me candidly in the eyes. I felt the hot glare of his sincerity. “I want you to understand that,” he said.

  “It’s understood.”

  Alda met me at our prearranged spot and led me east to the area where he had seen the six unidentified male apes. There were no cut trails out here, just ancient bush paths, but the farther east we went, and as the ground began to rise slightly, so the vegetation thinned.

  He showed me the path where he had spotted the chimpanzees. He had followed them for ten minutes before he had lost sight of them in the undergrowth. I checked our approximate position on the map. If these had been northern chimps, then they had crossed the Danube and advanced almost a mile into southern territory. When Alda had lost them, he said, he thought they had been heading back north again. He showed me where this had happened. The Danube was eight hundred yards away through a thick screen of trees. It was a reasonable assumption.

  Looking at the map again, I thought it was another reasonable assumption to conclude that these chimpanzees had made an exploratory incursion, an arc swinging through the southern area covering a mile or two…. An analogy kept nudging itself into my head.