Short of Glory (30 page)

‘There’s a dead one in the hall,’ said Patrick.

‘Is that what he’s doing with them? I put them in a heap but they kept disappearing. Thought they must be resurrecting themselves or being eaten by the live ones that were brave
enough to creep out. They eat each other, you know. We can eat them, too.’

‘Can we?’

‘I was talking to Sarah about it. Might try one whilst I’m here.’ He frowned at Patrick. ‘Did you know you’ve got wet and filth all up your arse?’

‘Yes.’

‘Take a tumble?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Bit early in the day to be that bad. All those allowances, I suppose. If you’re not careful you’ll end up like Deuteronomy.’ He indicated the beer-cans on the wall.
‘Found them inside. Hope it’s all right. Hot work, rattin’. Had to get a few down Deuteronomy before he’d even come into the garden with Snap. Bad relations, I’m told.
Okay this afternoon, though. Snap takes no notice of him as long as there are rats around.’

Deuteronomy crawled round from the other side of the compost heap. He got unsteadily to his feet by starting to crawl up the heap and then straightening himself. There were leaves in his hair
and bits and pieces of garden rubbish stuck to his green overalls. He grinned blissfully and took Patrick’s hand in both of his. ‘Mmmm-massa,’ he said, caressing it.

‘Hallo, Deuteronomy.’

‘Mmmm-massa.’ He bowed over Patrick’s hand as if to kiss it.

Patrick tried to withdraw but Deuteronomy would not let go. They all three walked towards the house, Deuteronomy still clasping Patrick and gazing admiringly into his face.

‘He seems to have taken a shine to you,’ said Chatsworth.

‘He’s drunk.’

‘That’s when it shows.’

Patrick freed himself at the kitchen door, leaving Deuteronomy still grinning and bowing.

There was another dead rat behind the sofa in the living-room and two more by the rape-gate. For the rest of their time together in the house Chatsworth competed with Snap in what he called
‘kills’. Snap was always ahead but Chatsworth’s score was respectable, achieved with fork, stick, boot, and once a well-aimed wine bottle. He frequently complained that he would
do much better if he had his pistol.

‘Couldn’t help noticing you had company last night,’ he remarked over tea.

Patrick’s first thought was of the fight with Jim. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I helped Sarah make the bed. Blonde hair on the pillow.’

‘Observant of you.’

‘How about an explanation?’

‘In due course, maybe.’

Chatsworth laughed. ‘I like that. “In due course.” Very Foreign Office. I shall take it as a challenge to find out.’

There was a letter for Patrick on the hall table. He had one every week from his mother in Chislehurst but otherwise letters from England were rare. This was from Rachel. His guilt at not having
written to her as promised was replaced by alarm as he read the letter. She wrote on television notepaper in breathless telegraphese to the effect that she’d got a grant to do some research
for a documentary and if she added her own money to it she could come out and stay with him – ‘Safer ’cos diplomatic protection’ – and get some material on Lower
Africa for the film. The theme was the connection between capitalism and racism. She would not say more in case LASS intercepted his letters but would send a telegram to let him know when she was
arriving. It would only be for a few days, anyway. Maurice sent regards.

He wondered if it would be possible to move in with Joanna.

‘Upper middle-class leftie with a conscience as big as her boobs?’ said Chatsworth from behind him.

‘What?’

Chatsworth repeated what he had said. ‘Your correspondent. I’m guessing. Couldn’t help noticing the letter over your shoulder. Am I right?’

‘D’you always read other people’s letters?’

‘Only when they hold them up so that I can’t miss them. Don’t you?’

‘No.’

Chatsworth frowned. ‘Don’t you really?’

Patrick hesitated. ‘Well, if I really couldn’t help it—’

‘There you are, then.’ Chatsworth began walking up the stairs. ‘I’m right about her, am I?’

‘More or less. Were you wondering if she’s seducible?’

‘Everyone’s seducible. Thought you’d have learnt that at university. Mind you, students are priggish, aren’t they? My experience, anyway. All the guff about sincerity.
What’s her man like?’

‘Quiet, pleasant. He’s going to be a barrister.’

‘Is he wet?’

‘Maybe by your standards.’

‘They met at university and now they’re living together?’

‘Yes.’

‘Must be, then.’ Chatsworth disappeared at the top of the stairs.

‘D’you think she’d fall for you?’ called Patrick.

‘Time and place,’ shouted Chatsworth. ‘Like the rest of us.’

Whilst in his bath Patrick considered what to do with Chatsworth that evening. He did not dare think of the longer term. There was no question of taking him to Joanna’s; but to leave him
entirely to his own devices would be asking for trouble. When he came downstairs Chatsworth was raiding the fridge. He told him that the ambassador had said he could go out and look round –
sniff around – provided he didn’t do anything.

‘How?’

‘You can take the bakkie.’ This had not been an easy decision. ‘Go and explore Battenburg for the evening. I’m going out to dinner but I can get a taxi.’

‘With “in-due-course”?’

‘Yes.’

‘Has the bakkie got plenty of petrol? Much as I’m looking forward to having a go in it . . .’

‘It’s over half full. You won’t be going far, anyway.’

‘But I’ll need some money just in case.’

Patrick gave him some.

‘Make a note of this,’ said Chatsworth, pocketing it. ‘Don’t want to end up owing you.’

It was already dark when Chatsworth left. Patrick was upstairs about to ring for a taxi when he was called by Sarah.

‘Massa, you come down please.’ She stood in the kitchen. ‘Deuteronomy has bad cut.’

Patrick assumed that he had returned to his other employer, with whom he lived, to sleep off the effects of ratting. ‘Where is he?’

‘Here, massa.’ She pointed outside.

Deuteronomy stood in the white courtyard beneath the outside light, his head on one side and his hand pressed against his cheek and ear. There were dark streaks of blood on his overalls, while
blood trickled between his fingers and down the back of his hand. There was a cut from beneath his cheek up towards his ear. The flesh was open like meat on a slab. Deuteronomy’s dark eyes
gazed sorrowfully but when he saw Patrick he smiled with the right side of his mouth, bowed his head and mumbled.

Patrick did not know how to cope with any injury. ‘Let me see.’ He took Deuteronomy carefully by the wrist and moved his hand. The cut ran right to the top of the ear and the exposed
flesh was slightly whitened where it had been pressed against the cheek-bone. It reddened quickly when the pressure was off. Patrick pressed Deuteronomy’s hand back on to it.

‘Come inside and sit down.’ He led him to the kitchen. Deuteronomy was limply obedient and stumbled on the step. He smelt strongly of beer. Patrick sat him down and told Sarah to
bring a bowl of cold water and a flannel. When she returned he removed Deuteronomy’s hand and pressed the flannel hard against the cut, every so often taking it away, soaking it again and
putting it back. He wasn’t sure that this was the right thing to do but remembered having it done to him as a child. ‘Is there any first-aid kit, any bandages?’

‘I don’t know, massa. I think madam that was here before has taken them with her.’ Sarah went from cupboard to cupboard with a slow haste, her sandals flopping on the tiled
floor. She found a few strips of Elastoplast which were too small.

‘What happened?’ Patrick asked.

Deuteronomy attempted another half smile. Sarah addressed him sharply in Zulu and he made monosyllabic replies, ending with a short sentence.

Sarah turned back to Patrick. ‘A man in the beer hall cut him with a big knife. He drink with bad boys at a place for black people and they take his money and cut him. He come here because
it is closer than his home. He say he is sorry.’ She clasped her hands and stared disapprovingly at Deuteronomy, then at the blood on the kitchen floor.

‘We’ll have to take him to a hospital. You hold the flannel.’

Sarah held the flannel against Deuteronomy’s face. She said something sharp to him which he did not answer.

Patrick rang Joanna and asked if it would be quicker to get a taxi to the nearest hospital, wherever it was, or to ring for an ambulance. She said it would be quicker if she came in her car.

She arrived with cotton-wool, bandages and antiseptic. ‘Get something to put on the car seat in case the blood starts again. And get Sarah to make some sweet tea whilst I’m bandaging
him. You look as if you could do with some, too.’

He found the red plastic bag that Stanley had used in the rain. He had forgotten about Stanley. Sarah was happily busy now making tea and so he did not ask her what had happened.

Joanna tended to Deuteronomy with the crisp efficiency of someone who knew what she was doing but did not know the patient. She bent over him from behind the chair, her hands moving confidently
as she applied the bandage. Patrick was pleased to see her so capable. He wanted to say something personal, as if to reassure himself of their intimacy. ‘How long were you a nurse?’

‘Not long.’ She did not look up. ‘You’re pale. Why don’t you sit down?’

‘I’m not used to blood. Pathetic, isn’t it?’

‘Men all over.’

He drove and she sat in the back with Deuteronomy. The white bandage round his face covered one ear completely and combined with his lugubrious expression to make him look like a clown who had
done something wrong and was being taken off to be punished. Joanna gave directions and soon they were approaching a large hospital.

‘Turn in here?’

She shook her head. ‘Whites only.’

‘But what about accidents?’

‘Only white accidents.’

Another ten minutes’ drive brought them to a clinic which was the only one in the area for blacks. It was a squat, square building with a walled backyard and an area of earth at the side
that served as a car-park. It was lit by a single high floodlight from one corner of the car-park and had a sign in big letters saying that evening surgery was open. There was a queue of blacks,
mostly women, stretching round the walls of the backyard and out into the car-park. A few stood but most sat on the ground.

‘He’ll be here all night,’ said Patrick. ‘When do they close?’

‘I don’t know. These people have probably been here all day and if they’re not seen tonight they’ll come back tomorrow. But we’ll be all right. Bring your
wallet.’

She led the way past the queue and into reception. The waiting people gazed placidly at them, apparently neither hostile nor curious. One woman crouching near the door stared unseeingly. Her
black skin was tinged puce-grey.

At the counter sat a middle-aged, balding Indian. He wore several large gold rings and was writing slowly. Joanna went ahead whilst Patrick followed holding Deuteronomy by the arm. Deuteronomy
was like a frightened prisoner, reluctant and silent.

‘This is Mr Stubbs’s gardener who needs urgent treatment,’ said Joanna. ‘He’s lost a lot of blood. Could he be seen immediately?’

The Indian looked at her. ‘The doctors are busy.’

‘Have you something on which we can write the details?’

The Indian pushed across a form and sat gazing past them at the queue, slowly turning each of the rings on his fingers. Joanna wrote Patrick’s name and address and Deuteronomy’s
name. She took a banknote from Patrick’s wallet, folded it in the form and pushed both across the desk to the Indian.

He unfolded it as if lost in thought, removed the note and put it in the breast pocket of his shirt. He then got up and walked unhurriedly down the passage. A short while later he returned and
said, ‘This way.’

The doctor was an elderly white with crinkly grey hair and side-whiskers. He had with him an attractive young coloured girl in a white coat. He bade Patrick and Joanna good evening and sat
Deuteronomy on a chair whilst he undressed the wound.

‘This needs stitching. It’ll take a little while. D’you want to wait?’

‘Yes,’ said Patrick.

The doctor motioned to them to sit on a bench at the side. Deuteronomy eyed Patrick piteously as they moved out of his range of vision and Patrick feared for a moment that he might find his hand
clasped again. The doctor moved Deuteronomy’s head to and fro with one hand whilst he dabbed at the wound with cotton wool. ‘Someone stick a knife in him?’

‘Yes, and robbed him.’

‘Lucky it missed his eye.’

He cleaned the wound, gave a local anaesthetic and put in fourteen stitches. Deuteronomy made a number of soft, high-pitched whimpers indicating that the anaesthetic might not have had time to
take effect properly, but the job when done was neat and clean. Joanna watched calmly whilst Patrick stared with fascinated horror at the way the flesh was tugged and pulled.

‘He’s your gardener?’ the doctor asked.

‘Only part-time. He lives with his main employer.’ Deuteronomy stood meekly by the door tentatively touching his new bandage.

‘That’s who should be paying for him.’

‘I’ll pay.’

‘No, I’ll send a bill. It’s simpler. Tell him to come back on Tuesday to have the stitches out. No need to bring him, just send him. Make sure his regular employer knows
he’s to bring his medical card with him. I must have that.’

The Indian barely glanced as they passed him on the way out. The people in the queue, stretching round the courtyard and out into the car-park, simply gazed.

The other employers lived behind high wrought-iron gates in a very large house. They were out and so Patrick left Deuteronomy with a note. Deuteronomy, still touching his bandage and smiling
with evident pain, mumbled his thanks several times. He seemed to want to say something else but nothing came. Eventually they shook hands and Patrick again found himself held for a long time.

Joanna drove. He felt relieved and affectionate but her purposeful driving inhibited him from demonstrating his affection. He became talkative instead. ‘What would’ve happened if the
clinic had been closed?’