A Good Man in Africa (12 page)

It was all Murray’s fault, he said to himself quietly and calmly. Everything was Murray’s fault.

Morgan well remembered the first occasion he had met Dr. Murray. At the time he hardly knew him. Murray never came to the Commission cocktail parties, even though his name was often mentioned as most of the British in the university had fallen sick—or their children had at one time or another—and had therefore called on Murray’s services. Morgan had heard nothing but good: the three university clinics functioned more efficiently than ever, rabid dogs had been cleared from the campus thanks to the registration and inoculation schemes he had introduced, everyone was satisfied. Murray was held to be—despite a certain formality of manner—a fine doctor whose diagnoses were invariably correct and whose cures were effective. Morgan had taken scant notice of this sort of cocktail party chitchat. He was not interested in the doctor or his clinics; he had enjoyed robust good health since his arrival in Kinjanja, apart from the odd upset tummy or septic mosquito bite and had never needed to utilise the University Health Service, to which the white members of the Commission staff were officially attached.

One morning, shortly after Morgan’s relationship with Hazel had begun, he was discussing the thorny problems of efficient contraception in Africa with Lee Wan at the bar of the university
club. Lee Wan was sitting on a bar stool, a considerable portion of his brown leathery pot-belly visible through the straining gaps in his olive green shirt.

“Listen, my boy,” he said, swirling the ice cubes in his pink gin with a brown finger. “You want to get that popsy on to these contraceptive pills, p.d.q. Forget your rubber johnnies, your FL’s—unless you can get a pal to bring you some out from the UK.” Lee Wan was a naturalised British citizen, and spiced his speech with a curious mixture of archaic slang and what he considered were bona fide English expressions. He had studiously lost all trace of a Malay accent. “Don’t use the local rubbish, for Christ’s sake,” he went on, dropping his voice for the sake of the two ladies sitting near the bar. “It’s like poking through a glove.” He wheezed with laughter at his simile and slapped Morgan on the arm. “A bloody sheepskin glove,” he choked. He wiped his eyes. “My God,” he gasped with hilarity, “my dear God … Simeon,” he called to the barman. “Let’s have another two gins here.”

Morgan had smiled at Lee Wan’s joke but not too widely. Sometimes he thought the tubby Malay as vile and disgusting a creature as he had ever met and felt guilty for enjoying his company. He was mildly repulsed by the turn the conversation had taken and he looked out onto the bright pool terrace from the cool shade of the ground floor bar. Outside, water splashed over a modern cuboid fountain and two tiny children shrieked and played on the concrete surround. Nearby their mother took advantage of the burst of sunshine to augment her tan.

It was mid-September. Most of Nkongsamba’s expatriates had been away in Europe on leave and were gradually returning to take up their work again after the summer’s break, which coincided with Kinjanja’s rainy season. Morgan had taken his last leave back in March, and with Fanshawe and Jones back in Britain, he had been alone in the Commission for the last two months. He had found time heavy on his hands, what with the slack volume of work, the daily steaming downpour and the clubs quiet and torpid. He had been fairly happy to renew his friendship with Lee Wan and had soon been roped in to bar-crawls round Nkongsamba, perilous boozing sessions in Lee Wan’s campus bungalow and gut-expanding curry lunches on Sundays. It had been, on reflection, an unpleasant period of
debauch that left him buried for short periods under heaps of recriminations. Still, he thought, it had seen him through the rainy season, the worst part of the Kinjanjan year, and he had met Hazel.

Morgan looked at his watch. The Fanshawes were arriving after lunch at Nkongsamba’s small airport, flying up from the capital, and he was due to meet them there with the official Commission car. An advance letter from Fanshawe had informed him that their daughter was coming out with them to stay for a while. Morgan wondered vaguely what the daughter of Arthur and Chloe Fanshawe would look like. Jones had returned a week ago from his holiday in Swansea or Aberystwyth or somewhere Welsh; the rains had finished too. Life, he thought, would perhaps crank itself to its feet and try to be a little more tolerable.

Morgan accepted a new gin from Simeon and topped it up with tonic. He decided to make this his last: it wouldn’t do to turn up at the airport and breathe alcohol all over the Fanshawes. He leant back against the bar and idly enjoyed the sparkle of sun on the pool water, finding the splashing of the fountain pleasantly soothing. It wasn’t such a bad life, he thought, sipping the chill drink—the weather was fine, he had status in the community, a reasonable salary, big house, servants and, he smiled with self-satisfaction, he had a black girlfriend with fabulous breasts. This brought him back to the recent topic under discussion.

“It’s all very well for you,” he remarked to Lee Wan, “but I can hardly ask for a gross of Durex Fetherlite to be brought in with the diplomatic bag.” Lee Wan spluttered into his gin and pounded his knee with mirth. Morgan smiled; he wasn’t such a bad old chap was old Lee, he thought, revising his earlier uncharitable opinion. Real colonial character, good value, good man to have around.

“Anyway,” Morgan said, “where do you get these contraceptive pills from?”

“Send her to a doctor,” Lee Wan advised.

“Mmm …” he countered, “but how much is that going to set me back? Can’t you get them at a chemist?”

Lee Wan found this funny too. “God, you lazy crumpet-merchant,” he said admiringly to Morgan. “You’re shafting yourself stupid and you don’t want to spend a penny. Christ
Almighty, man.” He thought for a moment and then suggested, “You could try Murray perhaps. He might let you have some. All the white wives out here are on oral contraceptives and Librium. Ha-ha,” he gave a little laugh. “That’s Africa for you, eh? trouble-free sex and tranquilizers. What do they call it? Post-pill paradise or something. Load of nonsense. Never seen a more neurotic, glum bunch in my life.”

“Do you think that Murray might give me some?” Morgan mused. “I mean, do you know him well? Is he that sort of chap?”

“Oh yes,” Lee Wan said expansively. “My old friend Alex Murray? Tell him you’re a chum of mine.”

“Might just do that,” Morgan said. “I’ll drop into his clinic on the way to the airport. Here,” he said, clinking his glass against Lee Wan’s, “drink up. I’ve just got time for another before lunch. Simeon? Two gins here, chop-chop.”

Morgan drove through the university campus, following Lee Wan’s directions to Murray’s clinic. The Federal University of Nkongsamba was the largest in the country and was set in an expansive, well-appointed campus on which everything was contained including houses for the senior staff and a village for the junior staff and servants. All told there were upward of twenty thousand people within its boundaries. Morgan drove easily along pretty tree-lined roads towards the administrative centre of the university. On either side of him were the fecund gardens and sprawling bungalows inhabited by the senior staff. The pale asbestos roofs seemed to be flattened under the weight of the midday sun, driving the walls inch by inch into the hard ground. Morgan had eaten at the club restaurant: a rather stringy roast chicken and half a bottle of wine which, on top of the gins, had combined to give him a slight nagging headache.

He passed the new and splendid university bookshop. A workman was painting out a graffito which read OTE KNP. Ah yes, Morgan smiled to himself, the elections—they should be good for a laugh. Beyond the bookshop lay the university administrative offices, the central assembly hall, the arts theatre, the senate building and a wide piazza dominated by a high clocktower. Between this complex and the main gate a mile off was a broad straight swathe of tree-lined dual carriageway. It was an impressive piece of landscaping and was known to the
expatriate university staff as the Champs Elysées. Morgan turned off it and drove down a narrow road to Murray’s clinic. It was composed of two senior staff bungalows linked into one. Behind it stood a square two-storey sick-bay containing two wards with a dozen beds in total. Serious cases had to be despatched to the capital where there was a large American-financed teaching hospital.

The car-park was busy with cars. Squatting in the shade of the verandah were three African mothers with sick children. Morgan walked uneasily past these tiny wracked faces and went into the main waiting room. On the wall was a prominent notice detailing hours for students (7-10), junior staff (10-12), and senior staff (12-2). Morgan checked his watch—five to two—he had just made it but he couldn’t afford to hang around; the Fanshawes were due to arrive at a quarter to three. The rows of black plastic chairs were occupied by various senior staff and Morgan smiled at a couple of faces he recognised. The building was clean and functional and the familiar brain-pickling smell of hospital disinfectant pervaded the atmosphere. In the far wall was a hatchway with the sign “reception” written above it. Behind a glass window sat a dapper little clerk. Morgan approached the
guichet.
It was like a bank or a railway station.

“Good afternoon, sah,” the clerk greeted him.

Morgan leant on the narrow counter. “I’d like to see Dr. Murray, please,” he said. “As soon as possible.” He glanced at his watch to indicate pressing time.

“Dr. Obayemi and Dr. Rathmanatathan are on surgery today. Please take a seat, your name will be called.”

Morgan wasn’t used to this non-preferential treatment, but he’d met this bureaucratic self-importance many times before and he knew how to handle it. “Is Dr. Murray actually here?” he asked inoffensively.

“Yes, sah,” said the clerk. “But he is not taking surgery.”

Morgan smiled icily. “Will you tell him that Mr. Leafy from the Commission is here. Mr. Leafy. The Commission. Yes. Go on. You tell him.” Morgan thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. These little men, he said to himself, you just have to know how to treat them.

The clerk came back in two minutes. “Dr. Murray will be here soon,” he said peevishly. “Please take a seat.”

Morgan allowed triumph briefly to light up his face, then sat down. Various doors and a passageway led off the waiting room, the floor was terrazzo tiling, there were no paintings or posters on the walls, just a clock, and no magazines to read. The afternoon heat outside made the room warm and muggy.

Five minutes later Murray appeared down the passageway. Morgan rose to his feet expectantly but Murray didn’t beckon him forward. Instead he came on into the room. Morgan vaguely recognised him; he appeared to be around fifty, was tall and slim wearing grey tropical-weight flannels, a white shirt and blue tie. He had short wavy grey-brown hair and a weatherbeaten, freckled look to his face. He held out his hand. Morgan shook it. It was cool and felt dry and clean. Morgan was conscious of his own sweaty palm and the fact that his fingernails needed cutting.

Murray introduced himself. “I’m Alex Murray,” he said. His gaze was direct and evaluating. “I don’t think we’ve met before.”

“Morgan Leafy,” Morgan said. “I’m First Secretary at the Commission.”

“What can I do for you, Mr. Leafy?” Murray had a noticeable Scottish accent, plain and unlocatable. Morgan took half a step closer to him.

“Actually I’d like to see you about something,” he said, a little discomfited at having to explain in mid-waiting room. He sensed people’s attentions turning towards him.

“Oh,” Murray said. “A health matter. I thought this was Commission business—the way you had my clerk introduce you.”

“No,” Morgan admitted. “It’s a personal matter.” Murray eyed the clock which had ticked on past two. Morgan interpreted his glance and added, “I
was
here before two.”

“What are your objections to my colleagues?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I take it you have some objections to seeing the two doctors who are on surgery today. I’m not,” he concluded pointedly.

This was going a bit far, Morgan thought; he was becoming tired with this grilling. Who did Murray think he was talking to? Some lead-swinging undergraduate? It was time to throw a little weight about.

“I’ve been at the Commission a couple of years now,” he said with a confident smile. “As we haven’t had the pleasure of
meeting and as this is my first visit to the clinic I thought I might mix business … with business. If you see what I mean?” He paused to allow his genial authoritative tones to sink in. “I’ve absolutely no objection to Dr. Obayemi or Dr. Rathna … math … what’s-his-name …”

“Dr. Rathmanatathan. What’s-
her
-name.”

“Yes, quite. But they aren’t British—I assume—and you are. And as I haven’t seen you up at any of our Commission do’s or get-togethers I thought it might be, you know, nice.” That should do the trick, he thought, though he resented having to invent a reason in public. Murray made no apologies.

“Come this way,” was all he said and led Morgan down the passage to his consulting room. It was large, uncluttered and bare of decoration, containing a desk, two chairs, a high examining couch and a folding screen. The bottom half of the windows were painted white. Through the top half Morgan could see a bough of a tree and a corner of the sick bay. An air-conditioner was set into the wall; the cool was delicious. They both sat down.

“Marvellous machines,” said Morgan amicably, “saved Africa for the European, mnah-ha,” he gave a brief chuckle. After the guarded, slightly frosty nature of their exchange outside, and remembering what he was in fact here for, he was concerned to establish a more amenable atmosphere.

Murray, however, seemed not prepared to indulge in any preliminaries. He went straight to the point. “What exactly is the problem?” he asked.

Morgan was surprised at this. “Well,” he said, somewhat flustered. “It was Lee Wan who suggested I come and see you. About my little difficulty.” He smiled in the way that lets the listener know he’s about to hear an intimacy of sorts—a trifle silly, but only too understandable between men of the world.