by Alan Judd
‘And so,’ Sir Wilfrid concluded, now staring aggressively at his audience, ‘we must not forget that at the very time when one set of expectations is coming into being, another, opposing set may be created amongst those who seek to protect their own superior positions.’ He emptied his port glass to grunts of approval. The wine waiter stepped forward and filled it. Sir Wilfrid looked again at his papers. ‘I must emphasise,’ he read, raising his voice a little, ‘that although the British Embassy guarantees the continuing presence and the law-abiding behaviour of Mr Chatsworth pending investigation of his alleged offences and pending also developments in other areas of current concern to the Lower African government and to the British Embassy, the British Embassy is not in any way to be held responsible for offences that Mr Chatsworth may be found to have committed before he was placed under the charge of the British Embassy.’
Patrick reached for his wine.
Sir Wilfrid turned the page and continued reading the next, which dealt with the extent to which political expectations could be bought off, delayed or even stilled by the prospect of yet further economic advance.
Patrick stared at his empty plate, waiting for the expected interruption or apology, but none came. The ambassador continued reading in the same effortless and confident voice. Clifford was still slumped in his chair, his jowl bulging over his collar. The Progress Association did not react. Some members pulled on cigars and gazed dreamily at the smoke, others fiddled idly with any small objects on the table. Many were comatose. Patrick lowered his empty glass.
Sir Wilfrid ended with a moving and sincere appeal for understanding, economic justice, legal reform and action now – above all, action now – before it was too late. His raised voice, sweeping arm and evident seriousness roused the audience to sit up and glance at their watches. The applause was loud and prolonged. Some men clapped ostentatiously, cigars in their mouths. Others banged the tables with their palms. Clifford clapped and called, ‘Hear hear’ several times. There was a toast of thanks, a renewed hubbub, a scraping of chairs and a rush for the toilet. It was one-thirty.
Patrick touched Sir Wilfrid on the elbow. ‘I must have the letter now, sir. They want it immediately.’
‘Letter? Lord, haven’t had a chance yet. Better do it. Where is it?’
Patrick extracted one of the sheets from Sir Wilfrid’s speech. The other was discovered by Sir Wilfrid in his pocket. His pen was by the pepper. He nodded as he read. ‘Yes, yes, this will do. You’re learning, Patrick. The essence of good drafting is to be both clear and comprehensive which is never easy. This isn’t bad. The essence of good diplomatic drafting is where possible to avoid saying anything that admits of only one meaning. That’s why good diplomatic drafting is bad, but you have yet to learn that, fortunately.’
Patrick ran from the room while the ambassador was saying something about the need to keep the whole business under wraps. He took the steps outside four at a time, dodged the beggar’s chair, then hesitated. He went on, hesitated again, started, stopped. He was suddenly superstitious. The motive was unworthy but it was the money not the thought that counted. He put all his loose change and a couple of notes into the empty trilby. The beggar barely nodded.
The same two earnest young policemen were in the outer office. Jim was on the telephone but put one hand over the receiver and beckoned Patrick in. He was clearly busy, which was good because it would save explanations.
He took the letter. ‘Okay?’
‘Okay, all agreed.’ Patrick backed towards the door. ‘Let me know when you want us to pick him up.’
Jim nodded. ‘Have a nice lunch.’
They were to meet in the roof restaurant of the Lion Hotel. She rather than Jim had suggested it this time. Patrick sprinted through the streets and arrived in the busy foyer panting and sweating. The lift elevated him so quickly through the thirty or so floors that he was still breathing deeply when the doors opened. His hair was tousled and he felt hotter than ever. It was ten to two.
The restaurant was filled with plants and foliage, some of it twelve to fifteen feet high. White tables showed between the leaves and sometimes waiters and waitresses, dressed all in white. There was a high domed roof of tinted glass, the two halves of which had been opened a few feet at the centre to let in the breeze. The room was shades of green, sunlight and shadow. Patrick made his way warily through the foliage but found it much thicker on the outskirts than within, where there were a large number of tables clustered around a sparkling green pool. Like all pools it reminded him for a moment of his own, because it was so unlike it.
At first he could not see her. The Lion was famed for having no colour bar but it happened that day that all staff and customers were white. His eyes slid from table to table, narrowed against the brightness and failing to pick out features. The tables nearest the pool had glass tops and it was noticing the swift dexterity with which a waiter passed between her table and the pool that made him see her. She wore tight white jeans, a cream silk blouse, a black belt and the black boots she had worn at the party. Her blonde hair was caught up in a bun and held in place by a black comb. She was reading a book and did not see him approach.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, grinning with relief that she had waited.
She smiled. ‘I thought you might be busy at the embassy, whatever it is you do there. That’s why I brought a book.’
‘What is it?’
She dropped it into her handbag. ‘It’s rubbish. You wouldn’t approve.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Because you’re a snob. You’d think it was beneath you.’
‘You mean it isn’t really beneath me?’
She laughed. ‘Of course it is. Why d’you think I’m hiding it?’
He told her why he was late, omitting only any mention of Chatsworth and Jim.
‘You mean you’ve already had lunch in the Gold Club?’ she asked.
‘No, I didn’t eat anything.’
‘Wasn’t that a bit difficult?’
‘Well, no, I was only there to give the ambassador a paper he wanted.’
‘Why did he need a paper at lunch?’
‘Well – he needed to read it. It was his speech.’
‘Tell me about the Gold Club. I’ve never been in. Women can’t, can they?’
He described the club, then the beggar who sat outside. He did not mention his offering.
‘How awful,’ she said.
‘I’m told he’s put there deliberately. Someone’s making a rather obvious point.’
‘Rather obvious.’ She mimicked his accent and laughed. ‘Very British. Overdone, would you say? A little crude, perhaps?’
‘Unsubtle.’
‘You’re worse than I thought.’
‘At least that’s possible.’
She laughed once more, and smoothed the sides of her hair with her hands. Her uplifted arms stretched the blouse tightly across her breasts. ‘We’ve got a whole lunch to get through. It may not remain possible.’
The waiter appeared between their table and the pool almost as if from the water. They chose seafood salad and a light white wine from the coast. Patrick suggested oysters, having once been told that they were an aphrodisiac, but she wouldn’t have them. The wine came first. Following the drink in the club, it soon made him feel pleasantly light-headed. The sun warmed his back. He took off his jacket and tie and rolled up his shirtsleeves.
‘Getting down to business?’ She smiled.
They talked about the embassy, about diplomatic life again, her marriage, childbirth, crime, Battenburg, censorship, the prisoners he had met that morning and, because the interest that two people have in each other may for a while be reflected in even the most opaque of subjects, the problem of chemical balance in his swimming-pool.
With the second bottle of wine they spoke about the problems of Lower Africa and agreed on the need for something to be done.
‘I could join a civil rights group or something like that,�
�� she said, ‘but it’s only tinkering with the problem, really. You’re permitted so long as you’re not a serious threat and the moment you look like becoming one they sit on you. And that’s not so easy to contemplate when you have a child to look after.’
‘Jim wouldn’t be very happy if you did, would he?’
‘Jim doesn’t mind other people having their views.’
‘It didn’t strike me that way.’
She picked at something on the glass table with her fingernail. ‘He feels threatened by you. That’s why he threw the glass.’
‘How do I threaten him?’ He recalled his remarks about Jim’s need to justify himself but they were not the answer he wanted. His heart was beating faster. He hoped it wasn’t obvious.
She stopped picking at the table and smiled. ‘You tell me.’
He was not ready to do that. Not having thought how to put it, he did not know what to say. ‘He seems to want everything to be bad. He was trying to tell me that racial problems in Britain would end up by being as bad as here. Then I discovered he’s never even been there.’
She shrugged. ‘Well, I daresay he’s wrong. I hope he is. I think he might be wrong quite often but he’s not wrong about everything. He’s nobody’s fool, you know, Jim.’
He talked energetically about Lower Africa, about how it had to change if only because the world itself was changing and no country could hold out for ever. The sun and the wine lent urgency to his seriousness and she eagerly quoted examples and incidents. They competed in establishing claims to right-minded views. From this the conversation moved back to diplomatic life, in which she was more interested than he. He put this down to his knowing it better. As they talked scenes from the embassy, snippets from the ambassador’s speech, echoes of Clifford’s complaints, a picture of the serious expression on Chatsworth’s face as they parted bubbled through his mind and burst harmlessly on contact with the pleasure of being with her. Nothing else mattered at that moment. He was vividly aware of enjoying himself.
Nervousness disappeared with the wine. He poured the last of the second bottle. He felt lucky. ‘Are you and I going to have an affair?’
She smiled and looked away from him. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘I suppose I’m drunk enough to say what I think.’
‘Perhaps it’s the altitude.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘So what do you think?’
‘I think we are.’
She lifted her glass to her lips. ‘You’re very sure of yourself, Mr Third Secretary Stubbs.’
He was less sure than he appeared. He tipped back on the hind legs of his chair, balancing with his knee against the table, and smiled whilst he tried to think of what to say next. His smile broadened as the pause lengthened; as also, imperceptibly at first, did the angle of his chair to the ground. The moment of helplessness at the start of the fall was actually pleasant, though short-lived. Awareness and alarm returned as his feet came up hard against the underside of the table. There was a crash and a muted cry that might have been hers.
The water struck him like a prolonged slap. It was particularly cold after the warmth of the sun on his shoulders. His backward somersault was completed beneath the surface. It felt a slow, even graceful movement. He would have preferred to stay under for some time.
He heard nothing as his head broke the surface but when his ears cleared he heard laughter and applause. Fortunately, he had gone in at the deep end. He swam a circuit of the pool. When his trousers and shoes were beginning to feel heavy he heaved himself gracelessly on to the side. A smaller pool immediately began to form on the floor. People at the farther tables stood on their chairs to see him. Waiters joined the applause, their trays tucked under their arms. He waved an acknowledgement, which provoked good-humoured shouting and encores, and walked back around the edge of the pool. The table had not toppled although a plate and his wine glass had slid off and were broken. A waiter and two waitresses, brisk and delighted, were clearing up.
Joanna was still laughing, one hand over her eyes and the other holding her stomach. He sat carefully on the edge of his chair so as not to touch his jacket. ‘Don’t tell me that was the altitude, too.’
It was a few seconds before she could speak. ‘I’m sorry. I was worried at first, really worried. I thought it might be shallow and you’d cut your head open or cracked your skull or something awful like that. Then when I saw you swimming I just—’ She put her elbows on the table and her hands over her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, I must stop. It’s not funny for you. Shouldn’t you get changed?’
‘I didn’t bring a spare set of clothes. Let’s have coffee.’
‘You really should go home and get changed.’
‘Come with me and we’ll have coffee there.’
‘By your pool?’
They made their way out between the plants and tables. The restaurant manager would take no money for breakages and facetiously invited Patrick to return and perform at any time, clearly pleased with himself for having thought of saying this. A small puddle formed around Patrick’s feet in the lift.
They took the bakkie as the embassy was nearby and Joanna’s car was parked some distance away. She was to pick it up when he drove back to work later.
Being wet made him feel carefree at first. It did not matter that he was less than sober. He felt capable enough but his limbs, his voice, even his skin seemed to be someone else’s.
By the time they reached the house it was no longer refreshing to be wet and he felt thoroughly himself again. Sarah would be having her siesta, which was just as well since although he was reasonably confident she would be asleep, he felt uneasy at bringing another woman into the house. Sarah did, after all, go to church regularly. Not even the occasional presence of Sarah’s man, Harold, made him feel entirely free to claim the same indulgence for himself.
Snap met them noisily at the front door but was quickly quietened and introduced to Joanna. Patrick was aware even then of something different about the house but paid no attention. With Snap sniffing his wet trousers he followed Joanna through the hall and into the sitting-room.
She stood by the sofa and looked around. ‘Do you always live like this?’ There was an echo to her voice.
‘Like what?’
She held up her arm. ‘Like this.’
It was then that he noticed that all the paintings, all the ornaments and most of the furniture had gone. One carpet remained but the expensive rugs did not. The PSA tables and chairs were there but none of the old chests, none of the shooting trophies, none of the books. He went into the kitchen. Crockery, cutlery and cooking utensils had gone, save for a few bits and pieces stacked on a shelf in the larder. The fridge and stove remained but all trace of Arthur Whelk had disappeared.
‘No, not usually,’ he said eventually. ‘At least, not until today.’ He wished he were more imaginative. ‘It was fully furnished this morning with stuff belonging to the last chap but they must’ve come and packed it.’
‘Strange you didn’t know.’
‘Yes, it is, rather.’
‘Where’s he gone?’
‘I’m not sure.’ She looked disbelievingly at him. He wondered whether Jim had told her about Whelk. ‘I mean, I don’t know exactly where he is at the moment.’
‘Where’s he going next?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, where are they sending his things?’
‘I don’t know that either. You see, it’s nothing to do with me. I never actually met him.’
She shrugged and turned away. ‘Anyway, it’s a lovely house. Wasted on a bachelor.’
‘Yes, it is.’ He pulled at his trousers where they were sticking to his thighs. He was reluctant to wake Sarah but wanted to know whether Whelk had been there. ‘Look, hang on here a moment and I’ll have a word with Sarah.’
She was dozing in the armchair in her bedroom. He waited outside while she fumbled for her slippers and glasses. ‘The men come and take
it away this morning, massa,’ she explained.
‘Which men, Sarah?’
‘I don’t know. I never seen those men before. They say the embassy send them for Mr Whelk’s things. They have a list and a big lorry.’
‘Was anything written on the lorry?’
‘I don’t know, massa. I don’t see it because it is parked on the road and they take everything down the drive to it.’
‘Did they give you a receipt, a piece of paper?’
‘No.’ She shook her head and smiled unhappily. ‘I am sorry, massa, they say they from embassy—’
He put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure they were.’ The embassy was a world far removed from Sarah’s and infinitely powerful in her eyes; she had never seen it. In reference to this world any oddity of character or event was at once inexplicable and acceptable since its causes and meanings were wholly elsewhere. In any case, it was still possible that Sir Wilfrid or Clifford or Miss Teale had arranged for the removal of Whelk’s possessions without bothering to tell Patrick. ‘You did the right thing, Sarah.’
She ceased her unhappy smile but looked embarrassed. ‘Massa, you are wet.’
‘Ah yes.’ He picked at his clammy shirt. ‘I’ve been in a swimming pool.’
‘With your clothes?’
‘Yes. It was an accident.’ She nodded solemnly. He wondered if she were afraid to laugh at him. ‘I fell in backwards,’ he added, with a smile.
‘You fall in?’ Wide-eyed behind her thick spectacles, she began to laugh with a high delighted giggle. She clutched his arm, pushing it roughly backwards and forwards and shaking her head. She wobbled the whole of his upper body. ‘Oh massa, massa, sometimes you do damn silly thing.’
He steadied himself, laughed and gripped her hand. ‘Yes, Sarah, sometimes I do many damn silly things.’
‘I make you tea.’ She let go of him and straightened her apron.
‘No,’ he said. She looked surprised. He had never before refused tea. ‘I have to get changed and then I must rest. You carry on with your rest.’
‘Yes, massa.’
He turned away, then stopped. ‘Did they – as a matter of interest – did they leave enough things to make tea with, or coffee?’
