This Side Jordan (13 page)

Johnnie felt a sudden disgust – at Miranda, for not seeing, and at himself, for being able to see, the whole treacherous scheme.

The Club was the last sanctuary of whitemen, yet even here the present climate of change was apparent.

Johnnie walked slowly back to the table beside the dancefloor. He dreaded the dreariness that awaited him. He’d had a fair amount to drink, but he was cold sober. The Club had that effect on him.

It might have been all right in the old days, when everyone knew everyone else and the Club was a gathering place of the clan. The exiles of three generations had met here to drink and to mourn the lost island home for which they longed but to which they did not want to return until they were old. One could almost see them, those mythical men, sitting here on the stoep where hibiscus flowers drooped half-asleep and the niim branches shushed throughout the hot quiet night. One could almost hear their voices, talking of the Masai, Somali, Watusi, Matabele, Bantu, Ashanti, Hausa, Yoruba, as though they had been discussing the Jenkins of Paddington. The long-dead tamers of a continent seemed more real tonight than the living, who drifted spectre-like up the steps and along the corridors.

From the tables came shreds of conversation.

– if they let the blacks in, I’ll resign my membership –

– every bush cocoa-farmer will be able to come in and raise hell –

– they say the government’s got plans for a road through this exact spot, if we don’t allow Africans –

– I’ve no objection to educated Africans, but –

– they’re all the same, they’re all bush –

– you should have seen it before the war –

– everything’s different – everything’s changed –

The band’s music seemed to swell the dirge. On their own ground, the local nightclubs, the African musicians played highlife lustily, but here they merely performed with listless stoicism the required cycle – waltz, slow foxtrot, quickstep.

Primly, the dancers pirouetted, the long pastel skirts of pale girls swishing sedately over the parquet floors. On the stoep, where vined moonflowers burned their last faint incense, the drinkers’ glasses clashed cymbal-like and their laughter boomed loud and hollow as drums. And in the Gentlemen’s Bar, a few old Coasters communed with ghosts.

‘My round,’ James said. ‘What’ll yours be, Johnnie?’

‘Oh – gin and tonic, thanks.’

Only James and Cora and himself were here, and they were all bored stiff, but no one would admit it, no one would give up and go home. Once a month James dutifully spent an evening at the Club in company with selected members of his staff. The Cunninghams had been unable to attend this evening, and Miranda had begged off. But this was the appointed staff night, so the gathering took place despite the depleted ranks. James never altered a longstanding custom under any circumstances.

The Squire was giving the usual patter.

‘The province of Ashanti contains almost all the country’s wealth,’ he intoned. ‘Cocoa, gold, timber. No wonder they don’t want to be governed by a political party dominated by coast men. And of course the C.P.P.’s death on the chiefs and the old traditions, and that’s got the Ashantis raging, too.
The N.L.M.’s getting stronger all the time. The two groups will never agree on a constitution. I think, myself, that there’ll be civil war – or tribal war, one should really call it. You mark my words, Johnnie, March sixth will come and go, and Independence will still be just a word. If we weren’t here to maintain order, they’d be at each others’ throats in five minutes.’

A month ago, Johnnie would have believed him. He would have been impressed. Now he only nodded wearily.

‘Please, James –’ Cora said it like a prayer to a deity one knows to be deaf, ‘please let’s not talk about it.’

James ignored her, as she had known he would. She beckoned to a passing steward-boy, and her drink was renewed, and James did not notice.

The Squire hunched his leprechaun body halfway across the table.

‘The parallel between government and business is exact,’ he said. ‘Africanization will no more work in business than it will in government. Of course, you realize one thing, Johnnie. If Independence is delayed, the Firm won’t worry about Africanization. The whole thing will be conveniently dropped. That’s what I anticipate.’

‘That would be convenient,’ Johnnie said dryly.

‘We simply have to wait it out. I will say this, Johnnie – I think I know the African mentality pretty well. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ashanti secede, and of course if it does, there’ll be no Independence.’

‘Yes. I see.’

James chuckled.

‘The Ashantis are great fighters when they really get started,’ he said. ‘We were at one of the gold mines in Ashanti for a time, you know. I opened a branch there. The shop was just outside the mine gates. The mine settlement was behind
a high wall, and the European mine staff lived inside. The African miners lived outside, in the village, and of course they had to be carefully searched each evening before they were allowed out. They used to try to hide bits of high-grade gold-ore around themselves, in the most unlikely places sometimes.’

James looked up expectantly, and Johnnie dutifully smiled.

‘I remember one time,’ James continued, ‘when an African, working inside, had been caught tossing a dead rat over the wall and the creature was found to have been stuffed full of ore. Well, of course, there was the devil of a row about it. The African swore he thought it was just an ordinary rat. He accused another man, a Northern Territories chap. No one believed him, naturally, and he was sacked. That night in the village there was a proper riot. The two men began fighting, and all the Africans joined in on one side or the other, the N.T.’s against the Ashantis. Cora and I lived above the shop, and we could see the whole thing from our balcony. Remember, Cora? It was a real sight. Machetes, knives, rocks, and everyone shouting like lunatics. The police couldn’t cope. I phoned the Mine Superintendent, and he wired to Kumasi for troops. Well, well, the Ashantis are certainly fighters, I can tell you –’

Johnnie felt a gratifying anger. Who gave a curse how the Ashantis fought in a village brawl twenty years ago?

Cora rose.

‘Johnnie – dance with me?’

As they walked around the edge of the dancefloor, Cora turned to him.

‘James didn’t tell you one thing about that night of the riot. He finally sent me in through the mine gates, to a friend’s house. James wouldn’t leave the shop. In case they tried to burn
it, you know. He – stood out on the balcony, all night, in plain view. He had his .303, but some of the Africans had spears. Towards morning, the mob shifted in the other direction.’

She hesitated.

‘He really was quite brave, you know,’ she said.

When they arrived back at the table, James did not even glance up or appear to notice them at all. After a moment, however, he roused himself and leaned towards Johnnie.

‘Did I mention Cameron Sheppard to you?’

Johnnie shook his head.

‘The name rings a bell, but I can’t think where I’ve heard it.’

‘London,’ James said. ‘Sheppard’s one of the junior partners in the Firm. He’s coming out here in a week or so.’

‘What for?’

‘In connection with the Africanization programme. Quite ridiculous. He’ll be here for several days.’

James’ voice took on a note of petulance.

‘I shall have to put him up, I suppose. I expect he’ll be asking all sorts of stupid questions – probably want to hold sessions far into the night. I tell you quite frankly, Johnnie, I’m not looking forward to it. Seeing him at the office is one thing. One’s – prepared, you know. But to have the wretched fellow in one’s own home –’

Johnnie drew a deep breath. It might just possibly be worth a try.

‘I’ll put him up, if you like,’ he said casually.

James’ eyes lit up hopefully.

‘Oh – would you? Well, I must say that’s very decent of you. If you’re sure Miranda wouldn’t mind. It wouldn’t be too much trouble?’

‘No trouble at all,’ Johnnie said.

N
athaniel had not expected to meet Miranda Kestoe again, but he did. This time, of all unlikely places, it was at a party, a European cocktail party, the first that Nathaniel had ever attended. He was there almost by accident.

Victor had introduced him to Eric Banning, an American who was studying the drum language. Nathaniel had forgotten most of the things the Kyerema his father had taught him as a boy, but some he remembered, and Banning was grateful. It never occurred to the American to doubt that Nathaniel would be at ease at one of his parties. Nathaniel felt flattered but in a vague way resentful as well.

He and Aya stood by themselves. No one spoke to them. Nathaniel could feel his muscles tightening, like the leather thongs on a ‘dono’ drum.

The Drummer would have done better. He would not have been ill at ease. He would have worn a Kente cloth and sauntered among these people, his eyes cold and amused. And they would have flocked to speak with him. But he, Nathaniel, wore a badly fitting suit and spectacles, and he was a schoolteacher. So he was not interesting to them, because they could
see no further than to think he was trying to be like them and not succeeding.

The glasses clinked, and the laughter of tipsy women shrilled up to the whirring fans. Outside the bungalow, the thorny bougainvillaea boughs, purple-black in the night, scratched and tapped at the windows.

Out of the crowd Nathaniel saw Miranda Kestoe walking serenely towards him, smiling, her straight black hair braided across her head, her yellow smock clinging to the swollen lines of her body.

Pregnant European women looked all belly. Their legs were so thin and their breasts so small in contrast. Nathaniel looked with pleasure at Aya. She was big-breasted, and the folds of her green and orange cloth took away her body’s clumsiness.

He smiled. False Nathaniel. He wanted only to scowl, as Victor would have done. There was honesty in that. But he smiled.

‘Well, hello – how are you?’ Miranda cried. ‘I’m so glad to see you again.’

Reluctantly, he introduced her to Aya. Miranda spoke to her in a great flood of cheerful words, mainly about the baby. It transpired that their children were due about the same time. Miranda made much of this fact.

Aya looked confused, answering Miranda’s questions in one or two abrupt words. Nathaniel felt ashamed, and angry at his shame.

‘My wife understands quite a lot of English,’ he said, ‘but she does not speak much.’

‘Oh –’ Miranda’s face fell, ‘of course. I’m so sorry.’

‘It is nothing,’ Nathaniel replied uncomfortably, fingering his spectacles.

He could feel the sweat gathering on his thighs. He thought it must be soaking through the thin grey stuff of his trousers. Horrified, he glanced down at himself. But of course it was not so.

‘I was so interested to learn that you’re teaching a course in African civilizations of the past,’ Miranda was saying gravely. ‘I’d very much like to find out something about that subject. How could I?’

Nathaniel mentioned several books, and fidgeted with embarrassment as she produced a pencil and wrote down the names on the back of a cigarette packet.

‘Your school –’ she went on, ‘it’s a private school, is it?’

‘That is correct.’

‘Can anyone start a school here?’ she asked innocently.

‘Yes –’ his voice was cautious, ‘anyone can start a school.’

‘I mean – I’d always wondered. There seem so many private schools here. Isn’t there any check on standards?’

‘Not unless you want to get your school on the government-aided list. Then you must have it inspected by government. Otherwise – no. Some schools are good. Some only take the villagers’ money.’

He wondered dimly why he had said so much.

‘And yours?’ she asked.

‘I am an employee, Mrs. Kestoe. Naturally I think it is a good school.’

‘Oh yes,’ she breathed, ‘of course. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean –’

‘Do not worry,’ he said, suddenly magnanimous, ‘it is a natural question.’

‘Your students – what do they do after they leave school?’

He looked at her suspiciously.

‘I do not know,’ he said at last.

‘You don’t help them to find posts, I suppose?’

‘No.’

He wished she would go away. He could not see what she wanted. But the fact that she had hit upon this particular problem seemed uncanny and rather frightening to him.

‘I don’t know if this would be in their line at all, but my husband’s been looking for some intelligent boys to train as clerks. They might be groomed for administrative posts later on. I just wondered – do you think any of your boys would be interested?’

‘They would be interested,’ Nathaniel said politely, without enthusiasm.

‘Why don’t you go and see him about it?’

‘I do not think your husband would be very pleased to see me, Mrs. Kestoe.’

Miranda flushed.

‘I’m sorry he was rude. He doesn’t realize how people will take what he says. Please – I wish you’d go to see him.’

‘Perhaps,’ Nathaniel lied. ‘Perhaps I will go.’

Miranda seemed satisfied. She veered away from the subject now, as though she felt it might become unresolved once more if they touched it.

‘Tell me – those wonderful names on the mammy-lorries – I suppose they have some significance? Flee Oh Ye Powers Of Darkness, Lead And We Follow – there must be hundreds. Political significance, I mean, as well as religious?’

‘Oh yes,’ Nathaniel said agreeably, ‘they have significance.’

He wondered what he could possibly tell her if she enquired further.

‘I always liked the one called Baby Moon,’ Miranda said.

Then she was gone. Around Nathaniel, the glasses clinked
and the laughter shrilled. He stood quietly, wondering how soon it would be polite to leave.

‘What troubles you, Nathaniel!’ Aya asked.

‘Nothing. I – I do not like these people.’

She shrugged.

‘You talk to them well.’

‘Do you think I do?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You have something to say.’

He looked at her, unaccountably moved by her determination. He did not want to receive this kindness from her, but he could not stop himself.

‘Do you really think so?’ he said.

Aya nodded and turned away, but not before he saw the tears in her eyes.

Nathaniel knew he was not the sort of man who was fated to meet friends on the street. It was always his luck to run into someone he didn’t want to see. He was not surprised one afternoon, therefore, to see the Kestoes.

They did not see him. He wondered momentarily if they had purposely not seen him. He was about to turn and walk in the other direction. Then he saw what the trouble was. They were sitting in their car and Johnnie was stabbing angrily and futilely at the starter.

Glancing up, Johnnie saw him.

‘Hi!’ Johnnie shouted. Then, in a low voice to Miranda, ‘There’s your pal, Manda. Maybe he’ll give us a push.’

Miranda waved cheerily to him, and Johnnie leaned out the window.

‘Hey, Amegbe, I’m stuck. My battery’s low. Give us a push, will you?’

Nathaniel was paralysed. He did not know what to do or which way to move. His white shirt had been clean that morning. He would get it all smeared with grease, or dust anyway, and Aya would complain.

From the corners of his eyes he could see two crippled beggars squatting beside the gutters, grinning up at him. Several khaki-clad drivers in peaked caps were waiting for their European masters’ wives to finish shopping. A few mammies had pitched their vegetable and fruit stalls on the street. Over the tomatoes and the heaps of green oranges, their eyes stared up at him, beady and avid. A gaunt, sharp-featured Hausa trader in a white Muslim robe stopped spreading out his wares.

They were all looking at him, waiting for the joke. Waiting to see the teacher, the man of business, with his briefcase and glasses, push a car like a bush-boy.

Nathaniel’s sweating hands shifted the briefcase from one side to the other.

To Johnnie Kestoe, he was just another African, to summon like a servant.

And what if, having buckled to this humiliation, he put his shoulder to the car and it would not move?

All those drivers were standing around, and the street was full of men who were obviously labourers. Why did not Johnnie Kestoe ask one of them? Because he would have had to dash them? Or because any African was the same as any other to him?

‘Well, come on!’ Johnnie Kestoe shouted.

Nathaniel half staggered a step or two. He stretched out his hands in a kind of mute appeal, and then, despising the gesture, clamped them to his sides.

‘Really, Mr. Kestoe,’ he said, ‘it is not easy for me – I suffer from rheumatism – always, this season, with the dampness –’

‘Oh God!’ Johnnie exploded, his dark hair dancing angrily over his forehead.

Miranda’s face was strained. She touched her husband’s arm.

‘Please, Johnnie – if he’s got rheumatism –’

But Johnnie was out of the car. He did not even glance towards Nathaniel.

‘Rheumatism, my foot. Bloody Africans are all the same. You’ll have to take the wheel, Miranda.’

He put his hands and right shoulder to the back of the car.

Miranda leaned out of the driver’s window, towards Nathaniel.

‘I’m sorry –’ she said. ‘He doesn’t mean –’

‘O.K. Now!’ Johnnie yelled.

Miranda released the hand-brake and put the car into gear. The street sloped down, and although Johnnie had to push hard, he did not have much trouble in getting the car rolling.

He jumped in, still shouting directions to Miranda, and they drove off. Neither looked back.

The beggars began their steady whine again – ‘Mastah, I beg you –’. The drivers returned to their gossip. The Hausa trader stacked the rest of his wares and began advertising them in a deep monotone. The mammies plucked at dresses of passing European women – ‘Madam, I got fine fine tamantas. Fine too much. You like?’

Nathaniel stood there woodenly. He felt ill. Where was the triumph of showing them he was not a servant, not a slave to be summoned? Gone. Only a sour taste.

Then it occurred to him that Johnnie Kestoe had not pushed the car himself before, because Miranda, being pregnant, had not wanted to take the wheel.

He realized suddenly that if Johnnie had seen a European acquaintance, he would have asked the European to give the car a push.

And the European would have done it. Unquestioningly, as an equal, with no thought of insult.

Why had he not thought of that before?

Rheumatism. Rheumatism. The first thing that came to mind. Of course they knew he lied.

His muscles ached with shame.

Nathaniel sometimes went to the British Council reading room to look at the periodicals. The chairs were upholstered and comfortable, and in the late afternoon there was rarely anyone to bother him.

But he had forgotten that today was the class in African drumming. Miranda was standing beside the pair of Fontomfrom drums in the corridor. With her belly carried round and rigid before her, she and the Fontomfrom looked like a trio of drums. Nathaniel could not help grinning, and she, trustingly, took the grin to be one of greeting.

‘I’m a little early for my class,’ she said, breathlessly conversational. ‘I usually am. I don’t want to risk missing anything. It’s so tremendously interesting.’

‘Have you been taking the drumming class for long?’ he asked politely.

‘Only a month. I’m not much good yet, of course.’

Shyly, she reached out to the Fontomfrom and her hands beat a few clumsy rhythms. Nathaniel, who could not look at her for embarrassment, shifted his briefcase from one hand to the other. In a moment, if she did not stop, he would be forced to sneeze or blow his nose.

She did stop. She turned to him, smiling.

‘It’s fascinating, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Nathaniel agreed obligingly, ‘fascinating.’

Why not? Make her happy. He waved one hand extravagantly.

‘Our people are wonderful drummers,’ he cried.

‘Oh yes,’ she said reverently, ‘I know. It’s very complicated, isn’t it, the drum language and the symbolic meanings? I wonder if I shall ever be able to understand any of the messages? I do want to find out a great deal more about it.’

The English were incomprehensible. Either they despised Africans or they seemed to want to turn themselves into Africans. Nathaniel remembered Victor telling him of a certain European woman who married an African doctor. That woman used to wear ‘cloth’ and carry her baby on her back, thus disappointing her African in-laws who had hoped she would bring back from England a fine pram with a fringed top. Her husband, Victor said, always dressed in expensive English suits and spoke of ‘going home on leave’ to London.

Miranda was even more extreme. She wasn’t satisfied with learning the ‘dono’, the thonged drums African women used. Oh no. Not at all. She had to be the Kyerema himself.

‘You will learn, Mrs. Kestoe!’ Nathaniel cried. ‘It is only the language of a simple people. You will learn easily. Why not?’

She looked at him doubtfully.

‘Do you know anything about drumming?’ she asked.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I know nothing.’

‘The man in the moon is a Drummer,’ his father had said once, hawk eyes glinting with a cruel humour. ‘You must be very careful. If you watch him for a long time you may see him lay his drumsticks on his drums, and then you will die.’
And the child Nathaniel had peeked up at the sky between his fingers and then snapped his eyes shut and run back to the hut in blindness, tripping over tree roots as he ran.

Miranda Kestoe would be enchanted. Folklore. The mythology of the drums. Poor little black boy, afraid to look at the moon. How quaint.

‘I know nothing about it,’ Nathaniel repeated angrily, ‘nothing.’

She dropped the subject with that obvious tact that English people had.

‘By the way,’ she turned from the drums and faced him, forcing him to look at her, ‘you haven’t been to see my husband yet about those boys.’

‘I have been busy,’ Nathaniel said.

‘Is it –’ she hesitated, ‘is it because of what happened the other day? The car, I mean? It must have looked awful to you. I’m terribly sorry. Johnnie’s not like that, really. Only, he doesn’t think I ought to drive now –’