by Alan Judd
‘Been in the wars?’ he asked. ‘Or is it too many late nights?’
Patrick had forgotten about his face. His explained briefly.
‘Just as well you had Chatsworth with you. You seem rather prone to fall into these scrapes, left to yourself. He’s earned his keep, that man. I shall write to his firm and tell them what a good job he’s done. We could do with one or two like him in the Service.’
Patrick went straight from the residence to Joanna’s. She should have got back that day. He still did not know what he would say to her. He did know he wanted no awkward telephone calls. Perhaps the simplest would be best; there was no longer any need for secrecy and so he could explain why he had had to go to Sin City and hope she believed him. If necessary Chatsworth could be produced as a witness. Or Jim, if he were free.
He scoured Battenburg for flowers but nearly every shop was closed and he ended up with a box of chocolates, dusty and probably stale. He drove confidently to her bungalow but her car was not there. It had not occurred to him that she might stay on at the coast. Beauty would know but he did not want to ask. He drove slowly away.
It was as he turned on to the main road home that he saw her car turning off it. She saw him and stopped. After turning the bakkie clumsily, because it hurt to twist in his seat, he pulled up behind her. She waited in her car. ‘Patrick, your face,’ she said, as he approached. ‘And your clothes.’
The concern in her voice made him feel confident again. ‘I had a fight. Shall we go back to your place? I’ll tell you about it there. I’m all right.’
She had been to her brother’s. Belinda was at home with Beauty. He did not say he had already been there. ‘How was the coast?’
‘Beautiful. How was Sin City?’
‘Pretty awful.’
She started her car. ‘It looks it.’
Once in her bungalow he talked quickly, nervously and too much. He had hoped she would laugh at the misunderstanding about why he had to go to Sin City but she did not. Once or twice he was facetious but soon stopped. She poured drinks, listened – sometimes distractedly – and asked questions. It was as if she were weighing what he said against a different version she had heard from someone else. He had never felt less at ease with her.
She several times interrupted abruptly, going back to something he had said and ignoring what he was presently saying. ‘But I don’t understand how Jim got hurt if they didn’t hit him.’
‘Neither do I. I was at the bottom of it all. It may have been accidental or he may have been protecting me, I don’t know. It could’ve been the guard afterwards.’
She asked twice more about Jim’s injuries. ‘I mean, they weren’t as bad as mine,’ Patrick said eventually.
She looked at his face again. ‘Are you sure they’ll let him go?’
‘Not sure, no, but they said they would let us go and they did. Also, they’d bring trouble on their own heads if they locked up Lower African policemen.’
She fidgeted with the tassles of a cushion, saying nothing.
‘Shall I open some wine?’ he asked.
She nodded. He debated whether he should ask to stay the night or say nothing and simply not go. She went to the kitchen and began preparing dinner. During the meal she was friendly but gave no sign of affection.
‘It’s good to see you,’ he said after a pause.
She ignored the remark and talked about her friends on the coast. He felt increasingly lonely. However, she laughed when the chocolates turned out to be mouldy. ‘That’s so typical of you. I knew they would be before I opened them.’
He sat on the sofa and put his arm around her. He felt ridiculous and gauche, as in the early stages of courtship, and more estranged than if they had never made love at all.
She carefully removed his arm and moved herself farther along the sofa. ‘Are you on a one-way ticket?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Will you go away and not come back?’
For a moment he was irritated. ‘Why do you keep on about my going away? You always mention it.’
‘I just have this feeling that you will. I can’t believe you’ll stay. You always seem like someone who won’t stay.’
‘I’ve no plans to go away.’
‘D’you have any plans?’
‘No, not really. Everything can change in a week, anyway. What should I plan?’
‘You live for the moment, do you?’
Her expression was taunting and her tone slightly bitter. He disliked the cliché and the assumptions that went with it. He put his head in his hands.
‘I thought of you all the time in Sin City. I’d been round here looking for you when we met.’
At first she did not react but then she smiled and stretched her leg along the sofa, prodding his waist with her bare foot. ‘I hoped you had but I thought you’d never say so.’
They made love that night with a passion neither manufactured nor feigned. Afterwards she wept and would not be comforted. He felt hopelessly distant and unwanted. Eventually he offered to make tea, the most comforting thing he could think of. She shook her head.
‘Glass of water?’ he asked. She nodded. When he returned with it she sat up in bed and dried her eyes. She sipped the water and said nothing. The brightness of the light, the crumpled bed and their clothes strewn where they had fallen made everything seem tawdry and hopeless. He lay on his back and closed his eyes.
‘Have you ever loved anyone?’ she asked.
He looked at her. The love of which people spoke so familiarly found no corresponding reality within himself. When he thought of her he could convince himself it did but faced with her he did not know what it was. ‘No.’
After a while she put out the light and they lay together in the darkness. She turned restlessly two or three times, then switched on the light and sat up.
‘Please go.’ She pushed the hair back from her face. Her mouth was set hard, showing little lines where she normally smiled.
He felt willing to say whatever she wanted if it would make her fond once more but instead he sat up. ‘D’you really want me to?’
‘Yes. I can’t sleep and I – I’d just rather you weren’t here.’
He dressed in silence, then went in search of his shoes which he had kicked off by the sofa. She followed him in a blue dressing-gown and stood by the mantelpiece. Her arms were folded beneath her breasts.
He hesitated by the door. He knew he would fully experience what was happening only in retrospect when he ran and reran it over in his mind. Whatever happened he would see her tomorrow. He would not tell her that now. ‘Goodbye, then.’ He felt absurdly British.
‘Goodbye.’
He opened the door and stepped out. He surprised himself by reflecting with complete detachment that this was what it was like to be finished with. It had never happened as definitively before.
As he walked down the gravel path he heard her gasp as if in pain, then begin to cry. He stopped. The moonlight cast a sharp-edged shadow from the inevitable jacaranda.
He had left his jacket behind. That did not matter, of course. He could collect it the following day or not at all if she refused to see him; it was only a jacket. What did matter was that he should have made her so wretched. Perhaps there was something evil in him or some lacunae in his moral and emotional responses which he could only guess at by other people’s reactions. Her sobs were loud enough to be heard in the street.
She might in any case send the jacket on and now was perhaps the worst time to try to comfort her. She might not want to be seen until she felt stronger. On the other hand, perhaps she most needed comfort when she was most wretched and if he went back later he might reopen a wound which had already begun to heal. He stood at the edge of the shadow. Then went back.
She bent as she sobbed, holding on to the mantelpiece with one hand. She shook her head at him. ‘You shouldn’t have come back.’ She half ran across the room, her hand over her face, and pressed her head into his shoulde
r.
They were awoken very early by the doorbell. Joanna got up immediately, as if she had been expecting it. She put on her blue dressing-gown and was gone for some time. Patrick could hear voices. When she returned she smiled. ‘Jim’s here.’
‘Here? Now?’
‘He’s come to see you. Come on.’
Jim still wore the clothes he’d worn in Sin City. One of his teeth was missing. ‘I went to your house. Guessed where you must be. Sorry about the interruption.’ He grinned. ‘You look worse than me, even if you have kept your teeth.’
‘Did the guards do that to you?’
‘No, they were all right – just. I don’t know who did it. It was someone’s boot. I was on the floor with you – trying to protect you, for God’s sake, you bugger.’ He laughed and held out his hand. ‘We should shake on that, you know. We fight together, we fall together. I was saying to Joanna, it’s not only her we have in common.’
She smiled at him. ‘Shut up, Jim. I’ll make some coffee.’
Patrick felt disadvantaged by Jim’s early morning vigour and cheeriness. Joanna moved briskly about the kitchen despite her admonitions to them to be quiet and not wake Belinda.
‘I hear it’s thanks to you that me and Piet got off lightly,’ said Jim. ‘That almost makes up for getting into trouble in the first place.’ He held up his hand. ‘No, no, I know it wasn’t your fault, you didn’t cause it. It’s just that it wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for you. Trouble happens round you, Patrick. You come through all right.’
‘Who were those people, the ones you were with?’
‘Friends of Piet’s. Bums. Talk about them later.’ They sat at the table. Joanna offered toast but neither wanted it. She said she’d make it anyway and both accepted.
‘I didn’t come here to thank you,’ Jim said. ‘I’m doing you a favour. I’m breaking rules.’
Patrick waited.
‘Sarah’s boy was arrested in Kuweto yesterday with a lot of others. They’re in headquarters. They might be brought to trial, they might not. They don’t have to be. I don’t know what he’s in for, it’s not my department. But he’s there and they’re talking to him.’ He buttered his toast. ‘I’m telling you so that if Stanley’s left anything he shouldn’t round your house or in Sarah’s quarters you can get rid of it fast. If they turn the place over and find just one propaganda sheet there’ll be trouble. Burn it before they get there. Don’t think they won’t come because it’s embassy property. You’re all right with diplomatic immunity – the worst they’ll do is kick you out. But they’ll lock up Sarah for a long time.’
Joanna glanced at Patrick when Jim mentioned his being kicked out. Patrick did not respond. He thought instead of Stanley’s two boxes in the garage. ‘I’ll have a look. I’ll talk to Sarah.’
‘Don’t tell her they’ve got him. The only way you could know would be through me.’
‘How long have we got?’
Jim shrugged. ‘Could be any time. They’ve had him since yesterday. He’ll talk quickly. They always do.’
‘Will they interrogate him?’
Jim dipped toast in his coffee. ‘Something like that.’
‘You mean they’ll beat him, torture him?’
Jim put the toast in his mouth. ‘It’s not exactly unknown in this continent. Anyone arrested in Africa expects a beating. We’d have all got one last night if Arthur hadn’t wanted to do a deal with you. It’s how we live here. It’s how you’d live if you came from here. But you come from somewhere else.’
His manner was relaxed, cheerful and heartless. Patrick wondered whether it was assumed in order to annoy him or to hide embarrassment. ‘Thank you for the favour.’
‘Don’t bother. It wasn’t for you.’
‘More coffee?’ asked Joanna. She seemed to regard the conversation about Stanley as none of her business.
‘I’d better go,’ said Patrick.
At the door he started to say he would ring or come round later but she clutched his arm. ‘You’ve forgotten your jacket. It’s in the bedroom. I’ll get it.’
When she returned Jim came to the door. He had his hands in his pockets and was still munching toast. He looked at Patrick. ‘They won’t do much. It doesn’t take much.’
Patrick climbed into the bakkie feeling that he, not Jim, was the interloper.
As he drove into the garage he saw that Stanley’s two boxes were still there, at the back.
Sarah came out of the house, smiling and wiping her hands on her apron. ‘Mr Chatsworth said you not come for breakfast, massa.’
‘He was wrong again, Sarah.’
‘He is still in bed.’
I’m not surprised.’
She laughed. ‘But I got food for you.’ He left the boxes and walked in with her. She put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, I forget. The embassy ring and say you must go straight away. The ambassador want to see you. I am so sorry, massa. Some days I forget everything.’
He said he would not stay for breakfast but nevertheless stood stroking Snap’s head whilst she laid the table. She wore a clean blue maid’s dress with white apron and cap, all neatly pressed. ‘Sarah, does Stanley have things in your quarters?’
‘No, massa, only his things in the garage.’
He would see the ambassador as quickly as possible, then come back and tell her about Stanley. After that they would get rid of the cases, if necessary. He would also see if Jim could find out more. ‘Please ask Mr Chatsworth to stay in until I return. I’ll be back later this morning.’
‘Yes, massa.’
The garden glistened in the morning sun. He let Snap out. ‘It’s a beautiful morning.’
‘Yes, massa.’
‘I won’t be long.’
‘Yes, massa. Massa?’ She frowned and looked at him sideways. ‘What has happened to your face?’
He touched his eye. ‘Ah, yes. Well, I met some bad men in Sin City.’
She turned to him. ‘In Sin City? That is a bad place, massa. Did they beat you?’
‘Yes, but not badly. It’ll soon get better.’
She shook her head and put her hand on his arm, tugging it to and fro. ‘Massa, sometimes you do damn silly thing. Now the embassy will beat you for going to bad place.’
He took her hand. ‘I’ll come back before they catch me.’ She laughed and went back to the kitchen, still shaking her head.
Patrick paused at the door of his office. Clifford was sitting on his desk and was reading aloud from a newspaper, swinging his legs. Philip, slumped in his chair, smiled a sympathetic greeting and raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness.
‘“The establishment of official links with Bapuwana is a decisive and courageous step by Britain in the face of predictable United Nations wrath,”’ Clifford read. ‘“The decision was no doubt a result of the recent visit by the British minister, Ray Collier, who achieved an excellent understanding with our government. There is now said to be a closer identity of view between the two governments across the whole range of African questions than at any time during the past twenty years. This includes agreement on the crucial border question which is shortly to be the subject of UN debate. Britain’s momentous step is particularly well timed.”’
Clifford looked up. ‘You really have made a name for yourself. Listen.’ He read the final paragraph of a leader in another paper which said that Mr Stubbs would be based in Battenburg for the time being until quarters were ready for him in Sin City.
Clifford’s fleshy face was relaxed, almost benign. ‘Frankly, this must be the end. It’s almost as if you did it deliberately. It could only be worse if you were caught in flagrante with the wife of the president.’
‘I doubt HMG would mind that so much,’ said Philip. ‘It wouldn’t involve the UN.’
‘No, but this does,’ Clifford added with gratuitous relish. ‘All very public, this. No government could possibly ignore it.’
There had been little other news that holiday and the subject was given
considerable prominence. The photograph of Patrick shaking hands with the Lion was on all the front pages. His face was shown from its less damaged side. There were one or two photographs of Chatsworth kissing the Lion’s hand but he was unnamed and his features blurred. One headline read, ‘Britain Establishes Links with Bapuwana’, another, ‘Queen’s Envoy Meets Lion’.
Clifford sighed. ‘HE told me what you were doing up there. Bound to go wrong. Alway does, this off-the-cuff stuff. Said so all along. Didn’t you realise what was happening?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘You must’ve been half asleep.’
‘I was.’
‘Who hit you?’
‘A fat man.’
‘Just goes to show.’ Clifford walked contentedly from their room, the papers under his arm. ‘HE wants to see you now.’
Patrick noticed Jean glance at his face as he entered the ambassador’s office. Sir Wilfrid was calm. ‘Of course, you’ll have to go. London will be outraged, HMG will have to apologise at the UN and there’ll be problems with the Third World for years to come. Because, of course, no one will believe us.’ He searched in the clock for a pipe-stem to replace the one he said he had bitten through whilst reading the papers that morning.
Patrick once again recalled Whelk’s evasiveness during and after the audience with the Lion. No doubt everyone else was delighted; it was free publicity for the backers of Sin City, the Lion would enjoy having his photograph in the world’s press, British denials would give the Lower African government the pleasure of righteous indignation at Britain’s inability to control her own diplomats, and Arthur had no doubt secured his permanent position. In short, HMG would be embarrassed, the rest of the world amused and no one any the worse. Except himself.
