The Realms of Gold (36 page)

‘Ah,' said the geologist. ‘
I
would much rather have been late for the conference.'

‘Not' said David, ‘if you'd seen what I'd have been likely to acquire to eat en route.'

‘Anyway,' he went on, ‘I'm not starving, you know, I'd plenty of emergency rations in the car, I was just saving them up, for an emergency.'

Nevertheless, when Spirelli returned with a plate of cold beans and chicken, he ate it with some satisfaction.

They all watched him, enjoying the harmless drama.

‘Why ever did you
drive
here?' said Frances, finally, as he mopped up one of the last mouthfuls.

‘Oh, I don't know,' said David, ‘something I've always wanted to do, you know.'

He finished off the beans.

‘But right now,' he said, ‘I think I'll have a swim.'

They all fluttered and clicked and protested. Ought he, so tired, on a full stomach? That's the kind of remark my mother would make, he said, rising to his feet. Come on, you can dive in and fish me out, if I sink like a stone. You're already dressed for the job.

And he strode over to his car, and stripped off, returning in his respectable underpants.

‘Here we go,' he said, and dived in, not very gracefully, but with some force.

It was half an hour before they persuaded him to go to bed. The euphoria of fatigue and relief had taken him over, he was enjoying it. They were all enjoying it. There is nothing like an unexpected occurrence for producing a sense of intimacy amongst strangers, and Frances, in bed that night, was to reflect on the uncanny way in which the most disreputable members of the conference had, as it were, recognized one another at the outset, and sat up as though on purpose as a reception party. In England, in a more leisurely social clime, it might have taken them months to acknowledge one another's nature: she recalled one committee she had attended on which she had sat for six months without even speaking, socially, to the most likely looking person on it, and then they had merely discussed the nature of the lunch and the mean quantity of drink which that particular committee provided. (One glass of sherry, followed by veal and ham and egg pie, it had invariably been, though he had said that was one better than one of his other committees, which simply offered Nescafe in mugs and Lyons fruit pies.) Here, there was clearly no time to let things take their natural dilatory course: with less than three weeks at their disposal, and an atmosphere so unreal surrounding them, they were precipitated, as it were, into a kind of friendship, as on a ship or a holiday tour. David Ollerenshaw's appearance, looking so like a lost traveller from another age, had consolidated their burgeoning sense of clique: they accepted him, embraced him, he was theirs. Frances found herself thinking that this was how alliances in committees were formed—vaguely, by chance, over a bite to eat or a stray personal confidence. She hoped they would not disagree too much, about any possible issues the conference might raise, if it was intended to raise any. Spirelli she liked, but could see that he would be a formidable adversary: however, surely an archaeologist and an anthropologist could agree? The fat geologist seemed to have the most amiable views on private life and manners, but who could tell what depths of obstinacy and imperialism might not lurk in his solid chest? David Ollerenshaw she was sure she could trust. He was too nice to be disagreeable. He was an eccentric, he was manic, he must be all right. And as for Patsy Cornford, she was only an observer, her views didn't count, and it appeared highly unlikely that she had strong views on anything but herself.

Eventually, they decided it was time to split up, to make their way to bed. Spirelli took charge of Ollerenshaw, promising to find him his room, to help him unload. They shook hands all round, bathing suited, towel draped. ‘I heard you lecture once,' said David Ollerenshaw, to Frances Wingate, ‘I must tell you about it some time.' ‘I look forward to that,' said Frances.

And so they parted for the night, but Frances did not get rid of Patsy Cornford so easily. Patsy followed her into her room, naturally enough, to return the bathing suit, which she stripped off without any appearance of inhibition, and started to wander about naked, wrapped in a towel. Frances, herself uninhibited, immediately summed her up as an exhibitionist, justly but rather unkindly. Patsy had a white, full, heart-shaped face and lovely sloping shoulders and a long neck, and black very carefully cut hair falling in a sloping fringe round her face, and she had the kind of breasts that Frances had always envied to the point of anxiety—full, round, firm, separate, and as it were upward looking. Gazing at them now, Frances wondered how they had ever fitted into her school bathing suit. It was an odd thing about women, how small they seemed when clothed, how large when unclothed. Patsy had long legs and dark curly hair under her arms as well as lower down; Frances had noticed this before, and wondered whether not shaving was a new fashion that she hadn't got round to reading about in the colour supplements. But she had, she noticed, shaved her legs. Clearly a highly deliberate young woman, Patsy Cornford. She was also highly intelligent, as she proceeded to tell Frances, while wandering round the room inspecting the fittings and Frances's possessions. She had got a First in History at Cambridge, and had been persuaded to join the Civil Service, where she was sure she was wasting her talents.

Frances listened to this story, while she took off her bathing suit and put on her nightdress, and brushed her teeth vigorously, deploring yet again the pink spit that resulted, and resolving yet again to go to a dentist whenever she had half a moment. Since that rotten wisdom tooth her visits to the dentist had been nil. It had convinced her she was cracking up and going bad, and she didn't want to know about it. The bathroom fittings were excellent, luxurious, gleaming, attractive. Unfortunately hot water ran from both taps. She would have to speak to someone about that in the morning. It didn't matter from the teeth cleaning point of view, as when south, she always (having learned the hard way) cleaned her teeth in bottle water, of which there was a large supply in the bathroom cupboard. It wasn't exactly Malvern water—in fact it had rather an unpleasant slightly chalky effervescent taste. But it was doubtless healthy enough.

She missed a
little
of Patsy's story while rinsing out her mouth and washing the bowl out with both taps on, flowing hot and copious, but when she went back into the bedroom she was still at it.

‘So you see,' she was saying, ‘it can only have been
envy
, can't it? I mean, why else did he get it, and not me? I'd have been much the most obvious choice, wouldn't I?'

‘Yes, of course,' said Frances, admiring the extremely pretty material of the curtains and covers—again in the Adran colours, white, orange and green, but much more tastefully distributed, in a beautiful geometric pattern that looked as though it must have some respectable ancient lineage. She remembered Joe telling her that the Adran views on whether or not it was permissible to use natural forms in art were highly confused and emotional (owing to a mixed Muslim and African influence in the last thousand years): and that today, some argued that it was more ancient to use geometric designs, some that it was a recent Muslim innovation and must be abolished or at least discouraged. There were elements of tribal discord involved, as well. However it might be, here the geometrists had triumphed, and very beautifully. Joe himself was a naturalist, and sculpted largely from his wife, but, as he also claimed, he was no bigot.

She wondered whether Patsy would think her dull for having put on her nightdress.

‘I'd say it was probably sexual jealousy, wouldn't you?' said Patsy. ‘I mean, I can't see why else he got promotion and not me, can you?'

Frances could see all too clearly. She could also see all too clearly why Patsy had been sent out to Adra. Somebody in the office at home simply couldn't stand having her around any longer. In a kind of flash of light, like an extract from a film, she saw Patsy's furious, harassed superior, grinding his teeth, resolving to get rid of her, finding himself unable to do so, and discovering the loophole of Adra with a wave of intense relief. She saw them busily getting on in her absence with the work that never got done when she was there. She saw them dreading her return.

‘What on earth are these?' said Patsy, rather forwardly, picking up Karel's teeth, and staring at them.

Frances considered it an extremely indelicate question. What if they had been her own, as they might well have been?

‘They're false teeth,' said Frances, rather coldly.

‘Good heavens,' said Patsy, inspecting them closely. Frances wondered if she were going to say ‘Whose?' She did.

Frances paused, brushing her hair. Should she reply ‘None of your business' or should she say ‘They're my lover's?' Both replies entered her head simultaneously. She chose the latter.

‘They're my lover's,' she said, firmly.

‘Good heavens,' said Patsy, clearly awe-struck. ‘Good heavens.' She looked very intent. After all, she was only twenty-five, although so clever.

‘And do you carry them around with you?'

‘As you see.'

‘Why?'

‘Why not?' Then, rather irritably, she added, ‘I do wish you'd put them down.'

Patsy put them down, guiltily. What a tiresome person she must be to have in an office, always looking through one's personal possessions and asking tiresome questions.

‘Do you carry them around as a
memento
?' she asked, after a moment, unable to let the subject drop.

‘Not quite,' said Frances. ‘They are the guardians of my virtue.' And with that, she got into bed. Patsy was baffled, but not silenced. She started to relate another long office conspiracy, this time about a man she was sleeping with in another department, whose wife must have told Patsy's superior some quite false and unpleasant gossip about her. While she told this story, she was inspecting the dresses in Frances's wardrobe, and not failing to conceal her lack of enthusiasm. Frances crept further down into the flat tight-sheeted smooth foreign bed until her head was resting on the scroll of pillow. Patsy finished with the dresses and started on Frances's children, photos of whom she had stuck round her mirror. At the end of her story, she turned round on Frances, who jerked her eyes politely open, and said, ‘I think I'd have done better to stay on and become a professor, don't you? I can't think
why
I ever went into the Civil Service.'

‘It's not too late to change,' said Frances. Such a combination of high intelligence (for the girl certainly was as clever as she claimed, her explanations of why people treated her badly were elaborate, and subtle in the extreme), paranoia and stupidity had finally knocked her out, she had no more to say. She let her eyes impolitely shut again.

‘I'd better go to bed, I suppose,' said Patsy. She gazed at the spare bed in Frances's room. They had all been given twin-bedded rooms with baths. The hotel, like the one in Tockley, was too large in scale to provide single rooms, it seemed. ‘You wouldn't like me to sleep in here, would you?'

‘No thanks,' said Frances. She shut her eyes, and promptly fell asleep.

She dreamed that night that she was on an aeroplane. Suddenly there was a great deal of banging and thumping, and they were all told to get off it in a hurry. She tried to get off, but there were a lot of people eating meals in the aisles, and she had to climb over their tables, apologizing as she upset their heaped plates and wine glasses, then she had to climb over heaps and heaps of luggage, which turned into sandbags, which turned into dead bodies, and at the very threshold of the plane, with safety and the runway in front of her, she found herself about to put her foot on a dead man's face. She hesitated, the plane behind her went up in flames, and she woke.

 

The first day of the conference went well. Listening to the chairman's introductory speech, Frances promised herself that she would stay awake all day, pay attention, and not let her mind wander. The chairman spoke of internationalism and nationalism. He spoke of co-operation between nations. The rich and the poor. The need for sensible economic planning. He said that his country should never become the prey of the jackals. (Some stirred uneasily but with self-satisfaction, recognizing themselves in the jackal role.) ‘We have been a poor nation,' he said, ‘a poor and unimportant nation. Now we find we are in possession of a future and a past beyond our imagination. We must discover our own rich cultural heritage, stone by stone, and we must build a rich future.' And more of the same. The interesting thing was that what he was saying was true. Frances recognized some phrases evidently written by Joe Ayida: some of them were even lifted straight out of his paper,
The Cultural Heritage of Adra
. It was almost impossible for anyone from Europe to realize how extraordinarily new, how unexploited the resources were here. Britain was so old, so crowded, so confused, so sated, so dug-up and reburied, so cross-threaded, all its interests were so interdependent, so obscure. Here, everything was new. Even the history was new.

The chairman had moved on to archaeology. ‘Our treasures may not be precisely of the magnitude of the Aswan dam,' he was saying, ‘but they will suffice to rewrite a chapter in the history books of the world.' She liked that kind of thing. She knew what he was referring to: Joe had hinted that there was an interesting new site in the hills a few hundred miles north, ready for excavation. Someone was to speak about it, later that week. The chairman moved on. ‘We must learn our lessons from the mistakes of others,' he was saying. ‘The Aswan dam had consequences which are now well known, and which could have been foreseen. Before we embark on large-scale alterations, which may affect climatic conditions in widespread areas, areas even beyond our own territory, we must consult expert opinion in many fields . . . ' And so on. There was one sentence that stood out. He said, firmly, ‘We must beware of measuring this country's wealth solely in terms of mineral resources. There are other less obvious resources which, if we do not destroy them now, will last forever. We must remember the false calculations of Aswan.' What was he doing, she wondered? Appealing for international funds for the excavations, as seemed quite likely? They couldn't have struck oil in the middle of the site could they? There was no reason why not, of course. Stranger things had happened. She remembered the sad case of Perkins, who had discovered some very interesting indications in the middle of a modern cemetery in New Guinea, and who had politely decided not to dig further. And conflicts between sewers, gas pipes and ancient relics were commonplace. The sewers always won, which was usually right. They must have found something pretty exciting, to start talking about the Aswan dam. Adran folie de grandeur, maybe. And maybe not. She had more reason than most to believe that the desert was full of the most interesting objects. That, doubtless, was why she was there.