The White Father (28 page)

Jeff was in shirt-sleeves, with earphones clamped to his head. “Right,” he said. “We’re all ready, I guess. You see that mike out there all by itself? That’s yours, Ed. Go and sing into it. It doesn’t matter what kind of a noise comes out, just keep singing till I tell you to stop. We’re not going to get it right first time. We’re not going to get it right the tenth time, either, probably. But let’s get started.” He clapped his hands.

Miss Fielding put away her knitting, Miss Slattery her
Guardian.
The Swaymen shuffled to their elongated feet. Other men in earphones signalled unintelligibly at each other. Through a glass panel Edward could see a switchboard of dials being operated by still more earphoned men.

“When the red light stops blinking, we start,” said Jeff. “Girls, bar five. You’re bar six, Ed. Silence, please, everyone. Right, let’s go.”

A red light began to blink. When it stopped the Swaymen started a monstrous twanging round their microphone. At the fifth bar the four women came in, reading their music. “Sway, sway, sway, sway, sway, sway, sway, sway,” they sang, all on one note. A bar after them, Edward joined in.

“Sway, sway, everybody sway,” he sang. A violent desire to burst with laughter nearly threw him off balance, but he kept going, throwing himself into it with a careless energy, a nearly hysterical glee. “That’s the way, Let’s all sway,” he yelled, hardly able to hear himself above the electric guitars and fierce drumming. “Sway, everybody sway.” He looked up at the ceiling and shouted the words as though they were a magic rune. One might as well, he thought between verses, make the emptiness ring.

When the last echoes had died away, Jeff said, “Well, we got through it first time, anyway. Great, fellows. Really great. Let’s have a playback.”

There were signals from behind the glass screen, then a magnified voice saying, “Coming right up, Jeff.”

Edward sat on a tall stool by the microphone and closed his eyes. No one in his right mind could ever, conceivably, want to hear him singing this ludicrous song. The whole thing was a marvellous, lunatic dream. As the playback began he opened his eyes and watched for reactions around the studio. The
Swaymen
listened intently, mouths agape or steadily, rhythmically chewing. The four women paid no attention. Mrs Manning took out a detective story and began to read, Miss Fielding got on with her knitting, Mrs Mitchell picked at a ladder in her stocking, and Miss Slattery started the crossword in her
Guardian.
The sound was deafening, and Edward could scarcely concentrate for the reverberation of the drum and guitars. But his much amplified voice boomed maniacally above it.

My God, he thought, this is going to be all right, it’s going to happen. Jesus Christ, I’m going to make it.

“That was O.K.,” said Jeff in some surprise when the noise finally, mercifully, stopped. “Only four wrong notes. Stu, bar forty-six. It goes, turn, turn, tum-ti-ti, turn. Not turn, turn,
tum-ti, tum. You,” he added, turning to Edward, “didn’t hold it long enough at the end. Drive right in there as though you were punching someone’s nose through the back of his skull. Tex, bar sixty.”

“Yeah,” said Tex. “Sorry.”

“And you girls, let’s have a bit more life. Particularly on that key change in the second section. I want an extra oomph there.”

All four women made notes on their music, then resumed their various distractions. Stu said, “What the hell’s this, I mean, sorry, Jeff, but—you know I don’t read too well.”

Tex explained it to him. Jeff consulted with the engineers. Edward saw that Fred Martin was in the glassed-off section of the studio, talking to one of the men in earphones.

“Are we O.K., everyone?” said Jeff. “All straight now, Stu? Don’t forget to give it all you’ve got at the end, Ed.” He looked round the studio. “O.K.? Right, countdown.”

The light began to blink red again. When it stopped the Swaymen blasted off. Edward blasted after them.

“Sway,” he yelled, “sway, everybody sway.”

Everybody swayed.

*

Shrieve sat in a coffee-shop, a large chrome machine hissing at the counter, and read Dennis Moreland’s article with
growing
astonishment. The cover of the weekly announced in large Gothic type:
RELIGIOUS BOOKS SUPPLEMENT
. The leading article was about the continued need for Anglo-American unity at a time when the Berlin crisis looked as though it might be coming to yet another head. Shrieve had the feeling that he’d read it somewhere before.

Moreland’s article was called “The Road From New Delhi”, and it started by listing the colonies which had obtained independence since 1947. There was a fierce attack on both Labour and Conservative administrations for not doing enough for those British people who had suffered from the granting of self-government. “Not content,” Moreland had written, “with initiating the programme of scuttle by allowing several
hundred thousand Indians and Pakistanis to slaughter each other, successive governments have made it their deliberate policy, albeit a policy of neglect and indifference, to ruin as many honest farmers and businessmen of British origin as possible.” The plights of tea-planters, rubber-planters, growers of sisal and sugar, breeders of cattle, insurance agents and administrators were vividly described. Calming somewhat towards the middle of his article, Moreland admitted that in a changing world it was of course necessary to grant
independence
where appropriate. But the Government seemed to have forgotten that we had served as well as ruled, and in the undignified and unworthy scramble to be rid of our
responsibilities
, there had been a shocking failure to see where our true obligations lay. British rule had been in many cases a genuine guardianship of peoples incapable of managing their own affairs in the modern world. We had created order out of chaos, built roads and schools, laid down systems of law, founded industries, improved agriculture and generally
benefited
the peoples we governed in a thousand ways. In our shameful anxiety to clear ourselves of the charge of “
colonialism
” before the neutralist bloc at the United Nations, we had forgotten that these noble services, rendered for so many years with an absolute faithfulness to principle, had cost much in lives as well as money. Not a village in England but had not a memorial plaque to someone who had given his life for the cause. Was everything to be destroyed because of our
intemperate
haste to leave? It was better to take the hard decision to stay, no matter what the nationalist opposition might threaten, than to flee with our tails between our legs, all hell breaking loose behind us. (Moreland didn’t, Shrieve noticed, mention any particular colony where he thought Britain should stay.) In the long run, taking the only view that mattered, it was our duty to make certain that what we had so patiently created would survive.

Turning finally to the current constitutional conference, Moreland stated that here, at least, was a clear opportunity for Britain to take a firm stand. Unlike many other colonies, there
was no large white population to be cast contemptuously on the rocky shore of unemployment in what was called, with genuine affection that turned all too tragically often to contempt, “Home”. That made it easier for the negotiators to insist on the continuance of British standards and British personnel. “For a change, let the minority, the decent, hard-working minority which has brought the country so far forward in such a short space of time, brought it today to the brink of self-government, be given its proper due.” The good work must be continued. For instance, the Ngulu must be
maintained
in their present state of protection—theirs was a classic instance of British “colonialism” being wholly for the benefit of those “colonised”. The African delegates to the conference, in their triumphant progress towards power and (he hoped) responsibility, would probably want to remove all British administrators. Whom did they propose to appoint in their places? The Minister must be firm for once. His generosity to countries now independent was much admired by so-called liberals. It was time he—and they—faced up to the fact that true freedom, true liberty, could exist only within certain agreed limits. If all was not to be lost, as it so often had been in other instances, these limits must be clearly written into the constitution now being drafted. Britain, he concluded, had nothing whatever to be ashamed of in her colonial record. Let it never be said that in leaving her empire she betrayed those unimpeachable principles on which that very empire had been built.

Shrieve turned the page, expecting there to be more. There was not, merely the beginning of the Religious Books
Supplement
. The headline was “New Canterbury Tales”, and the book under review was a biography of a recently deceased archbishop. Shrieve started reading about it in a state of dazed fuddlement, realised what he was doing, and put the paper down. His coffee was cold.

So that was Moreland’s idea of doing something to help the Ngulu. He had used them as a small twig in the bundle of sticks with which he was beating the Government. So much for
journalists, then. There had, it was true, been a short unsigned article in
The
Economist
dealing sympathetically with the Ngulu, and Charles Fraser had dealt with their problem at some length in a long piece about the conference in his paper. But it was hardly the “follow-up” he had imagined Mallory to mean.

He picked up
The
Times.
No one had written in either supporting or criticising the letter, but then, that was hardly to be expected. The news item about the conference was cautiously optimistic. All had gone well on the first day, it said, and it was hoped that the whole thing would be over by the end of the following week. Earlier negotiations had left little to be thrashed out, though it was believed that the Government was insisting on certain military agreements which were not wholly to the liking of Mr Bloaku. It was expected, however, that only minor concessions would be necessary. Mr Bloaku was reported as saying, “I do not see any major difficulties in our way.” Mr Bloaku’s reputation as an aggressive nationalist leader had perhaps misled observers in this country. Certainly he had gained considerable respect since his arrival, and a reputation for geniality and shrewdness.

Shrieve paid for his coffee and left. He wished he hadn’t told Edward he would come to the party at which Pete’s band was playing that evening. He was impatient and restless. He felt like the negotiators described in
The
Times
:
“eager to conclude the conference before the Bank Holiday.”

It was sunny and warm, and in spite of the cold which lingered in his sinuses he found London stuffy. Perhaps he was adjusted to the climate at last. As he strolled down
Knightsbridge
, window-shopping, he was struck by the number of expensive things on sale. The new affluence of which he had read was visible on every passerby. He stopped before a men’s clothing shop. There wasn’t anything in the window which he would have thought of wearing himself. True to the custom of the trade, the shop had already filled half its display space with winter goods, and the chunky woollen sweaters, the heavy checked shirts and sports coats were not only hopelessly
inappropriate for Africa, but also in a style altogether foreign to his taste. The underpants, to take a single example, seemed all to be as brief as possible, and Shrieve had been brought up on reliably thick underwear, as recommended by his schools. He was too old to adapt to these new fashions—skimpy pants, string vests, bold shirts and bolder ties, the new narrow cut of trousers and the unpadded jackets. In the section still reserved for summer wear there were swimming trunks almost as brief as the underpants. There was one pair in white leather that Shrieve could not imagine anyone at all wearing. Loose striped cotton vests with long sleeves were advertised as the latest thing for sailing and the beach. The photographs of the male models throwing beachballs, leaning on tillers and idling on quaint old Cornish quays, were all quite openly sexual in their appeal. The models stood with their feet apart, the trousers stretched tight across the crutch, or lounged in swimming trunks in such a way as to force their maleness on one’s attention. It was all part of the new England, Shrieve
supposed
: the advertising men were in charge, the flamboyant, the eye-catching, the sophisticatedly obscene, all these were in. And perhaps it didn’t matter. Perhaps. It wasn’t like the England of his childhood or the war years. Then it had been simplicity and demureness—or had it? His childhood had always been sheltered. And then, the war had been neither simple nor demure, of course. But there was, even then, a public restraint which was nowhere to be found now. In Edward Gilchrist’s England, as he ruefully thought of it, no holds were barred.

As he moved on, he glanced at the name above the shop. I should have guessed, he thought. Brachs. Brachs’s England. Brachs was probably at the constitutional conference,
personally
arranging the handing over of the colony to the Free Organisation.

*

Fred Martin heard a voice say “Mr Brachs for Mr Martin”, and just had time to stub out his cigarette before Mr Brachs’s face appeared on the television set. His oiled black hair glinted
richly, and his thick spectacles so reflected the light that his eyes were completely invisible. It was like talking to a blind man wearing dark glasses.

“I am pleased, Mr Martin, with the recording made by Sammy Sweet this morning. You have put him. under contract?”

“Well, sir, he wouldn’t sign it. He said, sir, that he would have to go away and have it looked at by someone.”

“You offered him, I hope, something more than the standard option.”

“Oh yes, sir. I explained that he stood to be one of the richest young men in London if we took the contract up, but he still said he must have it read by someone first.”

“Wise child,” said Mr Brachs, a frown creasing his dark brow. “I trust there is no manager or agent in the background, Mr Martin?”