Short of Glory (12 page)

Patrick wanted to ring Joanna but was afraid of appearing too keen, though he sensed that his enthusiasm must be obvious. It was in any case difficult to ring from the embassy
because Philip Longhurst never left the office. He was there when Patrick arrived, ate sandwiches for lunch and was there when Patrick left. Barricaded behind files, he never ceased from writing,
though something about the angle of Philip’s head, an ostentatious concentration, made Patrick suspect that his every word and movement were observed. Occasional wry comments that Philip made
about people who rang confirmed this impression. He did not want to be heard talking to Joanna by anyone who knew Jim.

He finally rang her on the Saturday morning after the move. He had a confused conversation with her maid which began with the maid’s thinking that he was Jim Rissik and ended with her
repeating, ‘Madam will come back on Saturday.’

About ten minutes later the telephone rang. He picked it up eagerly but it was a woman asking for Sarah. Sarah spoke for some minutes in Swahi. Her plump face unusually solemn, she then thanked
Patrick rather formally and went back to her quarters.

After that he played with Snap, looked at the prices of second hand cars in the local papers and sorted through Arthur Whelk’s books before finally settling down with Clive Barry’s
Crumb Borne.
Sarah reappeared but did not cheer up. When she served lunch at the head of the polished table he asked her whether all was well.

She nodded solemnly. Thank you, massa, everything is well.’

He did not know whether she took such enquiries as an unpardonable intrusion or whether she regarded them as one of his rights as master. When she brought him his coffee in the sitting-room he
asked her again, referring to the telephone call. She stood holding the empty tray before her, her head bowed.

‘You must tell me if there’s anything wrong, Sarah,’ he said.

Her eyes were dull. ‘Massa, my son is a bad boy.’

‘I didn’t know you had a son.’

‘His name is Stanley.’

‘What has he done?’

‘He has gone from home again.’ She paused, assuming Patrick knew she had a home and where it was. He had to ask. ‘In Swahiland. He live with my sisters and my
daughters.’

‘Where do you think he’s gone?’

‘Maybe he come here. It is not permitted. He has no permit for here. If the police catch him he will go to prison. He come once before when Mr Whelk was here.’

‘What did Mr Whelk do?’

‘He send him home.’

Patrick imagined himself and Stanley being arrested by Jim Rissik as Joanna arrived for lunch. ‘How old is Stanley?’

‘He is fifteen.’

She was waiting to be told what to do. He tried to think of something useful. ‘Well, let me know if he arrives and we’ll find a way to get him home again,’ he said with an
attempt at cheerful confidence.

Her eyes brightened. ‘Yes, massa, thank you, massa. I tell you right away.’ She went out swinging the tray.

The weekend stretched ahead, empty and threatening. There was nothing he had to do and little enough that he could. Without a car he could not explore the city, apart from the area where he
lived. Even there he could not, apparently, take Snap for a walk. Snap had neither collar nor lead and so far as Sarah knew had never been for a walk. She was puzzled by the suggestion and did not
at first understand what Patrick meant. Snap lived in the house and garden, which he guarded. He knew nothing else; nothing else was necessary. Patrick postponed the walk but resolved to buy collar
and lead.

The only thing he wanted to do was ring Joanna again but the farther into the weekend he left it the more likely, he thought, that Jim would be there. However, knowing that he would definitely
ring some time gave purpose and tension to the weekend, if not content. During the evening he would write to his mother and the following morning to Rachel and Maurice. He was not used to spending
time alone and remembered with something approaching alarm that Sunday was Sarah’s day off.

Dinner was a meal which she had not yet learnt to scale down to the needs of one person. Snap had been trained not to expect food from the table but soon discovered that he could with advantage
steal into the dining-room when Patrick was alone. Replete and heavy, as well as a little guilty at the amount he had given Snap, Patrick tried that night to help with the washing-up. He did it
really because he wanted to talk rather than because he expected her to let him help, but nevertheless was surprised by the vehemence of her opposition. She was at first uncomprehending, then
offended, almost angry, then embarrassed.

‘Please, massa, no, please, no,’ she said, holding up her hands as if to prevent him from hurling himself into the sink. ‘I can do it. I can do all for you. There is little and
it is done. Please.’

Patrick desisted and asked instead about Arthur Whelk’s catering arrangements. Looking after Arthur was apparently very much like looking after a family. There were many guests who ate and
drank much and played cards. Sometimes they would stay all night. Before Arthur, she had always looked after families. He asked how many children of her own she had.

‘I have three children, a son and two daughters. Also, three who die when they are young.’ She nodded and smiled. The elder girl was twenty and worked in the post office in
Swahiland, a good job. There was a young man who wanted to marry her but Sarah did not like him. ‘Many young people are not good now. They want bad things and not work.’ Stanley, the
missing son, had just left school and she did not know what to do with him. He was always a worry. The younger daughter was very young.

‘How young?’

She gave an embarrassed smile then suddenly giggled and hid her face in her apron. ‘Massa, I cannot say.’

Patrick laughed. ‘Three years?’

She shook her head.

‘Two?’

She lowered her apron, trying to compose her face. ‘Massa, I am so ashamed by that. I am too old for piccaninny.’

‘How old are you?’

‘I don’t know, massa, I don’t know. My mother tell me but it is so long ago and I forget.’

‘Not too old, anyway.’

‘I was very surprised,’ she said, dabbing at her eyes.

She laid the table for breakfast, refusing without offence this time his half-hearted offer of assistance and talked cheerfully about herself.

She had been born and bred in Swahiland and had spent all of her working life in service. She had worked for one family for twenty years – ‘until the madam kill herself with a gun in
the summer house’ – and now went to the weddings of the children she had helped bring up. The same madam, the one who had shot herself, had bought her a plot of land in Swahiland and
had paid for the house to be built. That was where her children lived, brought up by aunts and neighbours.

‘Don’t you mind not seeing them?’

‘Twice a year I go home.’

‘Do you mind seeing them so little?’

‘It is normal for us. The women must work and so the children are with the old aunts and the neighbours.’

‘But what do the men do?’

She shrugged and smiled. ‘If they must work they go away to the mines or the city. If they are not away they talk and eat and drink and talk, always they talk. They do not work in the
fields like the women. That is not for men.’

‘Do they help bring up the children?’

She laughed. ‘Oh no, no.’

In the second family she worked for the madam suddenly returned to England, leaving the husband with a girl of three and a baby boy of six months. She remained with them for four years until the
man remarried and reared the baby herself.

‘That was heavy pull, massa,’ she said, shaking her head slowly and grinning. ‘That piccaninny was heavy pull. But now he is fine boy.’

For the first time in his life Patrick could afford to take wine with his meals. He soon found that he took it before and after his meals, too. Following his conversation with Sarah on the
Saturday night he had another glass, then another, and then felt bold enough to ring Joanna again. He knew whilst dialling that Saturday night was probably the worst time: she would either be out
with Jim or in with Jim, but he dialled nonetheless.

It was she who answered. When he said who he was she said ‘Yes’ sharply as if he should have known it was obvious. He asked if she would like lunch some time and she again simply
said, ‘Yes.’ He began to suggest dates but she cut him short with, ‘It’s difficult at the moment.’ When he asked if he should ring back she said, ‘It’s
just a bit difficult at the moment.’ He asked if he should ring the following day and she said, ‘Yes.’

He put down the phone and poured another glass, feeling drunk and miserable and farther than ever from recalling the reason why it seemed so important to ring her there and then.

On the Sunday morning Sarah went to church with two other women of about her own age. They all wore black skirts, stockings and shoes, red long-sleeved blouses with wide white collars, like a
sailor’s, and round white hats. They each carried a bible.

The day stretched ahead but he was not now depressed by it. Sometime he would ring Joanna and whether that brought good news or bad was, as regards coping with the time on his hands, immaterial.
It was as if he had to go and fight at a moment of his own choosing; for the time being he was content to keep the event in the future. There had been no frost and the day was warm and bright, the
blue sky vivid and exhilarating. He sat reading on the veranda and occasionally patrolled the garden wall with Snap. Once or twice he netted leaves that had fallen into the pool. Already, after
only a few days of his tenure, it was not quite the colour it should have been. He decided to put off vacuum-cleaning or adding more chemicals until he could see which colour it was becoming.

Sarah returned from church before lunch which she ate in her quarters whilst he laboured over a tin of soup. After lunch she slept, as did he, but after that she came to him on the veranda. She
still wore her church uniform and carried her bible. He thought for a moment that he was to be subjected to a conversion attempt or ticked off for not having been to church.

‘Are you going to church again, Sarah?’

‘Yes, massa, and again this evening.’

She looked solemn. He waited for the criticism.

‘Massa, I have a man called Harold.’

He nodded, waiting for more. She waited for him. ‘Your husband?’

‘He is’ – she moved her shoulders awkwardly without taking her eyes from him – ‘the father of my children.’

‘Ah, yes. And his name is Harold.’

‘Yes, massa.’ She became more confident and went on to explain that although Harold worked in a Battenburg mental hospital he was not allowed to spend the night with her because he
had no permit to stay in the northern suburbs. She had no permit to stay in his area. With repeated promises of discretion, she asked if he could surreptitiously spend the occasional night with
her. He was a quiet man, not drunk, and would leave his car round the back of the garage and out of sight from the road. Mr Whelk had allowed him to do that.

Patrick agreed. She clasped her bible in both hands and thanked him effusively.

He invited her to sit. After a brief hesitation she sat carefully on the edge of one of the wickerwork chairs. ‘Do you think it is bad that you can’t spend the night together
whenever you like?’ he asked.

She frowned. ‘Bad, massa?’

‘Wrong, not right. Do you dislike it?’

She opened her eyes wide. ‘No, no, not bad. To be every night with a man, that is bad. When you are young maybe is all right but when you are older’ – she closed her eyes and
shook her head, smiling – ‘when you are older once every two, three weeks maybe is enough. Anyway, he is a lazy man. Every time I have to do his washing and he never go to church,
never.’

‘Do you ask him to go?’

‘Yes, but he sleep, always he sleep. He say he is too tired and will go next week. He is lazy man.’

She laughed and he noticed for the first time that one of her teeth was missing. He could not understand how he had not noticed it before and thereafter never saw her laugh without wondering how
he could have missed it. She went to church that afternoon and went again, as she had said, that evening.

It was also evening when he rang Joanna, his now customary glass of wine by the telephone. She sounded friendly and relaxed and began by apologising. Jim was there when he rang before. They were
having a sort of row and it was a bit awkward. Patrick apologised without meaning it and, encouraged by her manner, suggested dinner rather than lunch. She agreed.

‘Did Jim know it was me?’ he asked.

‘Yes. Well, he asked who it was and I told him.’

‘Did he mind?’

‘I don’t know. He didn’t say much. Perhaps he did. I was just glad of the silence.’ She laughed and he imagined her turning her head and pushing back her hair.

He put the phone down, his feet up and poured himself another glass. With effortless accuracy he tossed the empty bottle into the wastepaper basket and described Joanna to Snap.

T
he telegram was addressed to the British Ambassador and marked Personal. It read: FUNDS LOW STOP NO COMMS LONDON STOP SEND MONEY HOTEL STOP
PROGRESS SOON STOP MACKENZIE END. It had been sent from a well-known hotel on the coast. Sir Wilfrid pushed it into Patrick’s hand as staff gathered for the ambassador’s weekly
meeting.

‘Come to my room afterwards,’ he murmured.

During the meeting Sir Wilfrid sat at the head of a long table with everyone else ranged along it in order of consequence. There was an empty place next to him where the counsellor, who was on
mid-tour leave, normally sat. On the other side and slightly lower was Clifford, next to him Philip. Opposite Philip sat the defence attaché and next to him the commercial officer. At the
far end of the table there was a silent jockeying for position between the security officer, the senior registry clerk, Miss Teale, the press officer and the commercial officer’s assistant.
The British Council representative who was always invited through either courtesy or habit sat on a chair at one side as if to preserve his political virginity. Patrick sat next to Philip.