Short of Glory

by Alan Judd

  Jim held up his hand as if to stop Patrick arguing. Patrick had made no move. ‘Imagine if overnight you had a majority of West Indians in Britain outnumbering you three or four to one and a system of government that kept you on top. Most of them would be apathetic so long as they were comfortable but some of them would hate you because they’d sense that you hated them. A lot of my countrymen, the working class ones, hate blacks – really, simply, completely hate them. It would be the same in your country. How many whites would vote themselves out of power and a black majority in? If they did the civil service, the police force, the army – maybe not the air-force and the navy because blacks aren’t too hot on technology – would all be black. And the government would be completely black because blacks vote for blacks like whites vote for whites. People want to be ruled by their own kind. Do you want to be ruled by a bunch of West Indians? If you think you do, take a look at the West Indies. Who would you vote for?’

  Jim moved into the middle of the room and faced Patrick. He held his glass in both hands. Patrick did not want an argument but wanted even more to avoid more personal topics. ‘It’s not a question of who I’d vote for. It’s a question of the blacks having the same right to be represented as I have. That’s an absolute right; it’s not dependent upon consequences. It’s the same with your blacks here. They have equal rights to your freedoms, or should have.’

  Jim waved his hand. ‘Of course they should have, and they know it, those that think at all. But that’s not the point I’m making. You don’t see what I’m saying. You’re like all these liberals, you talk in theory. I talk about what is.’

  ‘Theory shapes fact. Liberal values are no more theoretical than the system here. I mean, you claim a theoretical basis, naturally or divinely ordained, for white supremacy.’

  Jim slapped his glass, spilling some of it. ‘That – all that’s shit. You might find a few who still say that but it’s just an excuse so that they can dress up their loathing for blacks. That’s what it is, you see, loathing. It is universal. Even the Indians and Chinese. They’ve been here for generations – longer than some of the blacks – they hate them too.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why?’ Jim raised his eyes. ‘I don’t know why. I could list all sorts of reasons but they wouldn’t matter. Why don’t dogs like cats? Because they’re different.’

  ‘But we’re not dogs and cats.’

  ‘True, but we’re not so far from them that we’re never like them. I don’t know why other races don’t like blacks. Maybe because blacks are more physical, because they’ve got beautiful strong bodies. Envy and fear. Maybe that’s why.’

  Patrick still spoke slowly, trying to sound relaxed. ‘Then if people didn’t think of themselves simply as bodies they wouldn’t envy or fear other bodies.’

  ‘But they are bodies, aren’t they? Very much so.’ Jim spoke quietly. He emptied his glass and pointed at the bottle on the table. ‘May I?’

  Patrick nodded. ‘You’re wrong, nonetheless. It’s unjust and injustice is wrong. Everyone yearns for justice, you included. That’s why you talk about it so often, to appear justified. Even the great slaughterers – Stalin, Mao – try to appear justified.’

  Jim replaced the bottle heavily on the table and turned awkwardly. ‘Sure, but you’re still missing my point. We know what we ought to do. We don’t do it because we don’t want to. It’s easy for you. You’re not going to bring up your children here. We are and we’re going to keep it as it is.’

  He moved to the other end of the mantelpiece and leant against it. He put his arm along the top and turned his glass slowly in his hand. He looked relaxed.

  Patrick turned to face him. ‘You’re still wrong, even leaving aside the moral issue. You’re wrong because you’re doomed, because it can’t last. The world has turned against what you stand for. You’ll be forced to change.’

  ‘Who by? The Russians maybe. Sure, they’ve got the political will and muscle but they wouldn’t be doing it for moral reasons. They don’t give a damn about blacks. They’d only do it for their own advantage. You and your kind, you’ll never force us. You’re not going to kill hundreds of thousands just so that you can make a moral point when the immorality is no threat to you. You’re never going to do that, are you? Eh? How many deaths is a moral point worth?’ His dark eyes half closed. He drank again and moved closer along the mantelpiece, then held up his free hand in an exaggerated, stagey manner. ‘Look – we’re born, we live – comfortably if we’re lucky – and we die – not too uncomfortably if we’re lucky. What else is there?’ He closed his eyes and lowered his head. ‘When I speak like this I wonder why I feel about Joanna as I do. It’s funny to have feelings and beliefs so different.’

  In the pause that followed Patrick could hear the hum of the fridge from the kitchen.

  ‘I know about it,’ Jim continued. ‘She told me.’

  Patrick swallowed some whisky. ‘What did she tell you?’

  Jim looked up. ‘When she told me she was going to have lunch with you I knew.’ He held up his hand again. ‘Don’t misunderstand me. She doesn’t go jumping into bed with everyone. It’s just that when she said she was going to have lunch with you I knew – I just knew immediately – how it would end. I saw her this evening and I knew I was right. She didn’t lie to me. I didn’t ask her. There was no need. She knew I knew. We didn’t even talk about it.’

  Patrick felt like telling him that nothing had happened, as if that would make a difference, but he was ashamed of the idea.

  ‘I knew you hadn’t gone back to the embassy and I guessed why.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘My job. I told you, we look after you people.’

  ‘Check on us?’

  Jim drank again. ‘Was she here when I brought your cheque back?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Jim nodded very slightly. ‘Funny, you set out to do one thing when all the time there’s something else going on which makes what you do seem completely different – afterwards, when you know about the other thing.’

  Patrick again heard the hum of the fridge. He had nothing to say. To apologise would be insulting and insincere. Being brazen would be the same. The pause lengthened. He saw there were tears running down Jim’s face. He hoped at first that it might be sweat but knew that it was not. Jim looked past him rather than at him, making no effort to wipe his tears.

  ‘Why’ – Patrick swallowed at the wrong moment and had to clear his throat – ‘why didn’t you try to stop her?’

  ‘You can’t change people, you can’t make them different. It’s like all that I was saying earlier. People do what they want first and then justify it. She wanted you. I hope she enjoyed it.’ He spoke quietly and looked again at Patrick, the water standing in his eyes. ‘No, I don’t. I hope she didn’t enjoy it. I hope she didn’t like it.’

  Patrick still said nothing.

  Jim gulped his whisky. When he spoke again his voice was lower and thicker. ‘Only she’ll come back to me, you see. She always will. I’ll be here and she’ll be here when you’re gone. You’ve got her on loan, that’s all.’

  He held up his empty glass for Patrick to fill then leant both shoulders against the mantelpiece with his arms spread along it. ‘I don’t know why she chose me. We’re unlike in a lot of ways and she doesn’t agree with much of what I think. Not on the surface, anyway.’ He looked up and grinned but did not take the glass that Patrick was offering. ‘Anyway, loan I said and loan I meant, okay?’

  He put his right hand on Patrick’s shoulder, as in a comradely gesture. Patrick never knew whether Jim planned it or whether it was simply the feel of his rival’s body that provoked him. He was suddenly and violently bent double, his head so firmly locked against Jim’s hip that he nearly passed out. Both glasses fell to the floor by his feet but he did not hear them. His lips were crushed against the seam of Jim’s jeans and he could taste blood. His neck was twisted at an ever more painful angle as Jim dragged him towards th
e centre of the room.

  His first thought was that Jim was going to run the top of his head against the wall or through the window. Forgotten practices of schoolboy rugby came to his aid; he caught Jim by his legs, and pulled his knees together at the same time as pushing forward. When they hit the ground Jim’s grip was momentarily weakened. Patrick pulled his head downwards but could not completely free it. He humped his body and pulled again, pushing his elbow in Jim’s crotch.

  His head was free and his ears ringing. He hesitated and was kicked sideways. Jim’s arm locked around his neck again. They rolled against the sofa and then away. Their feet tangled in wires and the radio crashed to the floor.

  Jim’s personality was his body, concentrated now, no longer diffuse as in social dealings. He was strong and determined but not cunning and not vicious. Patrick, weaker and at one disadvantage after another, was obdurate. He could never achieve an ascendancy but was never so subdued that he could not escape from a position that was becoming critical to another not yet critical. They wrestled and kicked but they did not hit and they did not bite. As Patrick’s flesh weakened the warmth and strength of Jim’s seemed to increase. Patrick’s movements became desperate and ineffectual though as both bodies became slippery with sweat he could wriggle out of Jim’s holds more easily.

  The end was sudden and undeclared, like the beginning. They almost sprung apart after Patrick got his elbow beneath Jim’s sternum and pushed with all his strength to free his head again. For a few seconds they lay panting and quivering, watching for a resumption but both reluctant to make it. Patrick’s muscles trembled and he felt drained. Jim’s T-shirt had risen to his armpits and his tanned skin glistened with sweat. The dark hairs of his abdomen were matted and wet. He rolled on to his back and let his arms lie by his sides.

  ‘You’re a slippery bastard,’ he whispered as his chest rose and fell.

  Patrick stared at the ceiling. A vein in his throat pumped wildly. They lay in companionable silence and for a while their breathing was in time, as in the aftermath of gratified desire.

  Jim reached across and let the back of his hand fall heavily on Patrick’s shoulder. ‘I could do with some water.’

  Patrick got up slowly and went to the kitchen. His thighs were still quivering and he felt dizzy. Snap was still in his basket. When he returned with two glasses Jim was sitting cross-legged on the floor fiddling with the radio.

  ‘Can’t get a squeak out of it. I’ll get you a new one.’

  ‘Wait till I see what’s wrong. It may be repairable.’

  ‘Have you got a licence yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then it isn’t. I’ll get it done for you. Trust a policeman.’

  Patrick slumped on to the sofa. He drank half his water then lifted his head and poured the rest over his face. It ran over his bare shoulders and down his chest and back with shocking, delicious coldness.

  ‘Mind if I piss in your garden?’ Jim walked slowly out on to the veranda, straightening his T-shirt and rubbing one of his shoulders. ‘You ought to do something about that pool of yours,’ he said when he came back.

  ‘I’ve done everything the instructions say you can do to a pool.’

  ‘Couldn’t be any worse if I pissed in it. Get a firm in.’

  ‘One day when I’ve had a good night’s sleep.’

  Jim grinned as he picked up the two glasses. ‘At least it’s only a government carpet.’ He put them on the mantelpiece. ‘I hope you won’t think it’s unfriendly of me if I go now.’

  Patrick went with him to the door. ‘I’ve got a cheque for you.’

  Jim stopped but did not look round. ‘Okay.’ Patrick wrote it slowly because his hand was still unsteady. Jim put it in the back pocket of his jeans without looking at it and stared at the sky. The night was more oppressive than ever and the air still. The clouds on the horizon reflected a constant dance of lightning. ‘It’ll rain tonight.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘You like the rain?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So do I.’

  Patrick locked the door and picked up the truncheon thinking he might have done better to keep it with him. He felt physically tired but mentally restless. He would not sleep for some time. His neck ached and there was a pain on the right side of his ribs which hurt whenever he breathed deeply or turned incautiously. He decided to have a shower and had just got under it when the telephone rang.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Joanna’s voice was low and urgent.

  ‘Yes, I’m all right.’ He hesitated. His mind was more on Jim. It was not that he had forgotten about her so much as that Jim had snatched dramatic priority. It was impossible to think of her without thinking of Jim.

  ‘I was afraid that Jim might come and see you,’ she continued quickly. ‘He was here earlier and stayed for dinner with my brother and sister-in-law and just sat there and made himself drunk. When they’d gone he hardly spoke, he just sat. And then he suddenly got up and went. I couldn’t sleep because I was sure he was upset about you and me and I kept thinking he might come and beat you up or something. I mean, he didn’t say anything but I could tell. After he’d gone I rang him but there was no answer. He might have gone drinking with some of his friends or gone back to work. He does that sometimes when he feels like it. He’ll just go and work all night whether he has to or not. Then I lay in bed and couldn’t sleep. I kept looking at the lightning and thinking: what if he’s gone to see you and taken his gun or something awful? The more I thought, the worse it got. You must think I’m really stupid. I am sorry to have woken you but I really was worried. I am sorry.’ She laughed nervously.

  Patrick felt as elated now as he had been depressed earlier. ‘You haven’t woken me. I was in the shower.’

  ‘In the shower?’

  ‘Jim’s just left.’

  ‘Patrick, what’s happened? Tell me.’

  He basked in her concern. It was the first time she had said his name. ‘Well, we had a talk and then we had a sort of fight, a wrestling match, really. We’re both okay. He’s gone now.’

  She said she would come over straight away. She would wake Beauty and tell her she was going out. Belinda was asleep, anyway. Patrick said that there was really no need but then quickly added, in case she changed her mind, that he would like to see her. He offered to come to her. She asked several times if he was sure he was unhurt and stopped only when he told her to bring plasma.

  He returned to the shower and stood with his forehead against the wall so that the hot water streamed over his stiff neck.

  Her hair was loose when she arrived. She did not step straight in but remained on the doorstep looking at him. She smiled only when he did. ‘I am sorry,’ she said.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For Jim.’

  ‘I’m not.’ He took her hand and led her upstairs, leaving the rape-gate open.

  ‘I only came to talk,’ she said, ‘and to see that you really are all right.’ Her tone was more resigned than determined. He shut the bedroom door, held her and kissed her. She broke off, pushing with her hands against his shoulders. ‘I want you to tell me what happened.’

  He undressed her as he spoke. She was more interested in what Jim had said than in the fight. He knelt to take off her shoes and at one point she laughed as she had to put her hand on his head to balance. When he stood and held her to him he felt in her lips, in her moving hands and in the pressure of her body the beginning of her passion.

  ‘Fighting must be good for you,’ she whispered.

  Outside the first rain dropped heavily on to the veranda roof, spattering against the bedroom windows. It fell slowly as if delaying its full effect so that there was time to anticipate. Heavy single drops became a regular beating, the beating became a drumming, and the drumming a torrent. Soon the rushing, gurgling and spluttering of water was all-enveloping and the room was the only dry, hidden and secret place.

  Her long hair spread across the pillow and was damp with swe
at. She breathed gently. They lay side by side, as he had lain with Jim. When dawn approached the sky brightened enough to show the falling grey rods of rain. It had continued unabated throughout the night. Patrick turned his head to look at her. He almost wished himself alone though without wishing her away. He had had a glut of impressions which could be properly assimilated, and so fully experienced, only in recollection. While she was there the flow continued like the rain and he could stop or separate nothing.

  She opened her eyes. ‘What did he say about me?’

  He had thought her asleep and was resentful that she should have been thinking about Jim. ‘He said that you would go back to him, that I had you on loan.’ The rain emphasised the silence that followed. He felt his heart beginning to quicken. ‘What are you going to do about him?’

  ‘Do?’ She turned her head. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Aren’t you going to – well – explain things to him?’

  ‘There’s nothing more to explain. He knows already. I don’t have to say anything. It wouldn’t do any good to go on about it.’ She rested her head on his chest. ‘He’s – it’s not what you might think. We’ve known each other for over four years now.’

  He carefully removed some of her hair from his mouth. ‘Has he ever asked you to marry him?’

  ‘Yes, often.’

  ‘Why don’t you?’

  She turned over on to him and pressed her chin between his upper ribs. ‘You’re not very diplomatic, Mr Stubbs. There are some things which might not be good for you to know and they’re none of your business anyway.’

  He hugged her and they rolled over. ‘I thought you came here to talk.’

  She stretched her arms behind his head and pulled him to her. ‘Tell that to the marines.’

  The rain was gentle when she left. It made countless disappearing rings in the dull water of the pool. The trees dripped and the air was fresh. Scents he had never noticed rose from the garden. She had to be back before Belinda awoke.

  He held the car door. ‘Tonight?’