Short of Glory (35 page)

‘I’m quite happy as it is.’ Patrick sounded prim to his own ears which further irritated him.

Chatsworth took Rachel’s drink upstairs on a tray and reappeared some time later. ‘She’s still on course.’

‘Is that her name?’

Chatsworth sighed and sat down with the spear again. ‘I must say, I don’t like sponging off you like this, Patrick. It’s boring. It’d be okay if only they’d let me
get on and find that bugger Whelk. It’s what I came for, after all.’

‘It’s better than prison, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, better than prison.’ Chatsworth drew his thumb slowly across the blade. ‘Chap called Jim called to see you.’

‘What did he want?’

‘A chat, I s’pose. Seemed a decent bloke. We had a talk about guns. He’s got an old water-cooled Vickers on his farm, he was telling me. Wonderful weapon. Perfect for riot
control. How d’you know him?’

‘He sold me the bakkie.’

‘He said he was a friend of your girlfriend’s.’

‘He actually said that?’

‘Something like it. Asked if I knew her. I said you wouldn’t even tell me her bloody name. Nor did he.’

‘She was his girlfriend. He’s a policeman.’

Chatsworth stopped fingering the blade. ‘I knew he was keeping something back. Still, there are one or two good ones. I used to have an arrangement with one in London.’

‘He’s in charge of the Whelk case. I think he knows more than he’s letting on.’

‘’Course he does. He wouldn’t come here just to hear your voice or to check that all’s well with “in-due-course”. Could’ve been after young Stanley, of
course. He’s illegal, isn’t he?’ He held up the blade to the light. ‘Chipped on one side. I reckon Deuteronomy’s been digging the garden with it.’

‘His face has healed well, hasn’t it?’

Chatsworth nodded whilst squinting along the blade. ‘They patch up quickly, these black buggers.’ He went outside to talk to the pool contractors.

Rachel appeared wearing clean jeans and a clean T-shirt. Her hair was tied up at the back and her face looked thinner than Patrick remembered. She was cheerful and enthusiastic. He introduced
her to Sarah, who was laying the dining-room table, and found they’d already met.

‘We had a talk early this morning, didn’t we, Sarah?’ she said.

Sarah smiled politely and bowed her head. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Rachel,
Sarah, my name’s Rachel.’

Sarah looked apologetic. ‘Oh, madam Rachel.’

Rachel clutched Sarah’s arm. ‘No, no, not madam Rachel – Rachel.’

Sarah gave a small embarrassed smile and nodded.

Rachel followed Patrick back into the living-room. ‘God, it’s awful, all this sir-ing and ma’am-ing and bowing and scraping. It’s so humiliating. Why d’you allow
it?’

Patrick realised it was some time since he had noticed. ‘It’s what’s expected.’

‘You should change their expectations. You’re contributing to the oppression by letting them call you “massa”. That keeps them in their places and you in
yours.’

‘They wouldn’t like it if I started changing the rules when no one else did.’

‘Oh, that’s everyone’s excuse for oppression – they wouldn’t understand, they like it the way they are and all the rest of it. No mention of choice for them.
Can’t you see how humiliating it is?’

‘D’you really think Sarah is humiliated by being my servant?’

Rachel flopped on to the sofa and put up her feet. She enjoyed argument. ‘That’s balls, Patrick, absolute balls. You’ve gone over to the other side and now you’re trying
to justify it. The Foreign Office has corrupted you, if you weren’t secretly corrupt all along. Come on, admit it.’

Patrick poured her another drink. It was disconcerting that she seemed much more attractive than before. He had imagined that when a man fell in love as he now thought he had, other women became
less attractive. Instead, he now found that all women were more so. He would have preferred to discuss that with Rachel but did not wish to appear flippant. ‘You’re picking on the wrong
things. It’s not whether a black servant should call her white master “massa” that’s important but whether she would be allowed to employ a white servant and be called
“ma’am” if she wanted.’

Rachel shook her head. ‘More balls. You’re making it impossible by keeping her in her place. Don’t you see how the system works? Perhaps you can’t when you’re at
the top. If you’d seen it from the underneath and inside and suffered in it like Chatsworth you might understand in the way he does.’

‘Like Chatsworth?’

‘Yes, he’s seen it from the real inside, from in prison. That’s where you really learn about Lower Africa, he was saying.’ She lit a cigarette. ‘What is his first
name, by the way? He just introduced himself as Chatsworth.’

Patrick sat. ‘I can’t remember.’

‘But he’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, but no one ever uses his other name.’

‘He probably got used to that in prison. I admire people who are prepared to suffer for their beliefs like that, don’t you?’

‘Well – yes. I’m not quite sure what his beliefs are, though.’

She smiled. ‘Shame on you, Patrick. You always were lazy, weren’t you?’

‘Was I?’

‘Yes, and now you’re living the life of Riley you don’t take any interest in the other ninety-eight per cent.’

Lunch was announced. Rachel stubbed out her cigarette, tipping the ash-tray so that some of the ash went on to the carpet. ‘Thank God for that. I’m famished.’

Chatsworth threw himself with relish into the role of host. He was cheerful, energetic and attentive. He poured the wine with a flourish of the wrist that meant he poured it from over the back
of his hand whilst standing to attention and facing the top of the table. He insisted that Rachel should try it first.

‘I never drink Lower African wine. I always refuse on principle.’

‘Quite right, quite right. But this stuff is different. Grapes crushed by the feet of Deuteronomy’s relatives. Without this there would be nothing for those feet to do. Isn’t
that right, Deuteronomy?’

Deuteronomy’s head appeared in the serving hatch. ‘Massa?’

Chatsworth bent his head to Rachel’s. ‘There, you see, listening to every word. He’s watching to see if you like it, poor fellow. Be very hurt if you turn it down. It’s
the same as turning him down.’

Rachel sipped her wine, turned towards the hatch and told Deuteronomy it was good.

Deuteronomy grinned and nodded. ‘Ma’a’am,’ he said, dragging out the word as he did when calling Patrick ‘massa’. He continued to grin and nod until
Chatsworth waved him away.

‘Did you learn to pour in that extraordinary way in the navy?’ asked Rachel. ‘Something to do with the roll of the ship?’

‘No, no. From a barman in Belfast.’

‘The navy?’ asked Patrick.

Chatsworth, unabashed, shook his head. ‘No, not there. Definitely not there.’

‘When were you in the navy?’ continued Patrick, ruthlessly.

‘Learnt it from a chap called Long John, so called because he had a parrot. One day someone threw a bottle – a full bottle – of Guinness at it and knocked it off his shoulder.
Straight off the perch and on to the floor. Stone dead. Long John killed the bloke with a crate of Mackeson. Hell of a mess. He got life for it but he’s probably out now. They get fifty per
cent remission in Northern Ireland.’

‘Were you in prison there as well?’ asked Rachel.

‘No, I was helping alcoholics. Lot of work in Belfast.’

There was scrabbling, grunting and wheezing from behind. Deuteronomy was coming through the serving hatch. He had one leg and one arm through and was holding a plate of roast lamb precariously
before him. His small body was bent so much that his head was twisted beneath his extended arm. His teeth were bared in a determined grin.

Patrick got up and took the plate. ‘Thank you, Deuteronomy. You go back the way you came and we’ll bring the next plate another way.’

Deuteronomy was too constricted to speak. Still grunting, he began slowly to recede through the hatch. From behind him Sarah said something shrill and angry in Zulu. Patrick feared that
Chatsworth would guffaw and was going to tell him not to but there was no need. Chatsworth leant towards Rachel, his hand on her arm, and said quietly, ‘Poor chap’s keen to impress
because you’re here. Probably still thinks you might throw his relatives out of work by not drinking.’

Patrick was summoned by the telephone before he could witness more of Chatsworth’s new image. It was Joanna. Jim had appeared at her bungalow the night before, drunk and maudlin. ‘He
kept talking about how when you’ve gone he and I will get back together again. You’re not going, are you?’

He remembered how he had felt on the day of his arrival that he would not be long in Battenburg. He could recall the very part of the motorway that he and Clifford were at. ‘Not for at
least two years, they told me.’

‘He seems to think you’re going soon.’

‘Maybe he knows something I don’t. But I can’t think what.’

She sounded flat and unhappy. Her voice, normally quick and provocative, was slow and distant. He told her about the minister’s arrival and about Rachel, then that he had discovered from
Miss Teale that he was permitted to bring a guest to the garden party at the residence the following afternoon. ‘If you could come we could go off and have dinner afterwards.’ She
agreed with more liveliness but still without great enthusiasm. ‘You sound hesitant.’

‘I was thinking about what to wear. How smart is it?’

Patrick had never been to a garden party. ‘Quite smart, I think.’

‘Gloves?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Hats?’

‘Possibly not.’

‘You haven’t got the faintest idea, have you?’

‘Not really.’

She laughed. ‘Will your guest be there – the man who’s staying with you? I’m dying to meet him.’

‘He’ll be there if the ambassador invites him.’ He thought it unlikely.

‘You sound bored,’ she said, sounding more cheerful herself.

‘I’m sorry, I was thinking.’

‘Well, stop it if that’s what it does to you. You sound horrible.’

‘It’s the telephone. It emphasises the wrong things. Can I see you tonight?’

‘I’m going out to dinner, I told you.’

‘I could come round afterwards.’

‘It might be late.’

‘Now you sound bored.’

‘No, I’m not, it’s just that’ – she laughed again – ‘it’s just that I keep thinking it shouldn’t be too easy, you know, as if it’s
tempting fate. It’s so stupid because I do keep wanting to see you.’

‘I’ll come round, then.’

‘Good.’

Later when he went to find Sarah he saw Rachel talking to Stanley by the garage. Stanley was slim and elegant in a clean white shirt. He clutched a holdall in both arms, nodding and replying
briefly to Rachel’s questions. She several times pushed hair back from the side of her face and gesticulated excitedly. Stanley’s self-conscious reticence became more sullen and wary as
Patrick approached.

Rachel turned to him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about Stanley? He’s terrific. He’s been to Kuweto, he’s in touch with people, he knows the activists and he wants to
stay and get educated and you’re sending him away.’

Patrick did not want to have to talk about Stanley in his presence. ‘If he doesn’t go back he’ll be arrested.’

Rachel put her hand on his arm. ‘Look, I want to tape him. He’ll be great on tape. He’ll be able to talk about things that only a black can. It fits my project perfectly.
Can’t you hang on?’

‘He’ll miss the bus.’

‘He can get the next one.’

‘That’s next week.’

‘But the police aren’t after him now, are they?’

Patrick recalled what Jim had said. ‘They know about him.’

‘Shit. We’ll have to do it somehow. Perhaps I can come up and see you.’ She looked at Stanley. ‘Is that possible?’

Stanley shrugged. Sarah’s door was half open and Patrick went over to tell her they were ready. She wore her best grey suit, a red hat and glasses. Rachel said something to Stanley and
handed him a note, which he put in the back pocket of his jeans. He glanced at his mother.

Rachel smiled. ‘Just making sure we keep in touch. Are you going down in your car? Can I come?’

Patrick was annoyed with her. ‘You can if you like but there are only three seats in the front.’

She held up her hand and turned away, smiling. ‘All right, don’t worry, I get the message. We’ll still be in touch. Bye, Stanley.’

Sarah prodded Stanley and he got in. He sat silently between them throughout the journey, his holdall on his knees. The depot was in a black area and swarmed with people who clambered on to
buses, were herded off them, clambered on to others and greeted every new bus jovially. There was a great deal of talk, laughter, shouting and confusion. Sarah argued with Stanley in Swahi as to
whether she and Patrick should wait to see him off. He insisted with sudden vehemence that he could put himself on the bus and eventually she agreed. She ran her hand through his hair but he turned
angrily away. Patrick never saw Africans kiss.

As Sarah was getting into the bakkie Patrick shook hands with him again, no less awkwardly than before. ‘Good luck, Stanley.’

Stanley looked down, presenting his eyelids and his smooth brown forehead.

‘How long will the journey take?’ Patrick continued. Stanley mumbled something. ‘Your mother is worried. Telephone the house from your post office when you get there. Reverse
the charges. She will be very pleased to hear from you.’

Stanley’s dark eyes flashed once before he picked up his holdall and turned towards the throng.

On the way back Sarah sat upright with her handbag on her lap, clasping it tightly in her horny brown hands. ‘He is heavy pull, that one,’ she said. ‘My daughter is difficult
because her boyfriend is a bad boy and she want to marry him and I tell her he will be bad husband. These young people do not listen any more. It is not like before. But she is not difficult like
Stanley. She is not secret.’

‘What about the little one?’ asked Patrick.

She shook her head and laughed. ‘Oh, the piccaninny, she is too little for big trouble. Perhaps later. But she is not like Stanley.’ She stopped smiling and nodded a couple of times.
‘All his life he has been hard. He is never happy, that one, not once. Everything I do with him is heavy, heavy pull.’