Water Theatre (32 page)

“I'm not so sure about that.”

“I am. He badly needs to get out from under his father's shadow.” Again Grace fixed Martin with her gaze. “But what about girls? Is he showing an interest?”

“You do realize,” Martin answered, “that for every girl in Cambridge there are at least five lonely men?”

“That isn't quite what I asked,” Grace pressed.

“Then what are you asking?”

“Don't be difficult, Martin.”

“I'm not being difficult,” Martin glowered, “nor am I your informer, Grace – especially about Adam. He's my friend.”

Now the woman looked hurt as she glanced up from her gin. “But I rather felt that you and I were also friends,” she said, “however little effort you made to see me. Before Hal and I left England, I mean.”

“It wasn't deliberate,” Martin lied. “I was very busy.”

Grace drew on her cigarette and flicked away the ash.

“I don't remember you smoking in England,” he said.

“Does it bother you?” As Martin shook his head, she turned her face away, adding, “Hal says I lack the aptitude for happiness. Do you think he's right?”

“It doesn't really matter what I think.”

“It matters to me. After all, you're the only man with whom I've seriously attempted infidelity.” She smiled at his startled eyes. (
If Adam is listening to this
, he was thinking,
then there's no hope now
.) “Does that surprise you? It shouldn't. I'm not at all like Marina, you know. She's got Hal's devil-may-care attitude about such things. Perhaps that's the best way. Are you following his example? You seem to be taking after Hal in every other way.”

“I admire him,” Martin said, reaching for safer ground. “I think it's extraordinary what he and Emmanuel are achieving here.” But he was thinking uncomfortably of that afternoon at High Sugden as he added, with a regrettable air of condescension, “They're not just playing at politics, you know.”

“I do know that,” Grace said, and poured more gin into her glass.

“I mean, the schools and hospitals and roads they're building – they're going to make a huge difference to real people's lives. And the openness of government… Look what an example they're setting… People are watching all over the continent, and much further afield. I'm sure Hal's right: given time, this place could alter the whole balance of power in the world.”

“And you think they'll be allowed that time?”

“Why not?”

“Wake up, Martin… Even an idealist like you won't have to stay in this country long to realize that some of the forces at work around here aren't at all enamoured of their way of doing things. And those people are quite capable of pulling the plug when it suits them. Right now Emmanuel thinks he's invulnerable because everybody loves him. And so they should, but…”

“But what?”

“Oh I don't know… Let's see what happens when times get hard, as they surely will.”

“Isn't that a bit Cassandra-like?”

“Cassandra spoke the truth, Martin – it was everybody else who got it wrong…”

A gloomy silence filled the room. Grace took two more puffs at her cigarette and then stubbed it out. “Oh don't take any notice of me,” she said. “I'm just feeling old and depressed.”

“You're not old,” Martin protested.

“Well, it's a relief that you think so.”

“You shouldn't be depressed either. I think it's great what's happening here.”

In the ensuing silence the beat of the ceiling fan loomed loud, until Grace asked in an affectionate tone, “Are you writing poetry these days? No? That's very wrong of you. No one should betray their gift.”

“I was never that good. If I didn't know it before Cambridge, I know it now.”

“So you let all those ferocious minds discourage you?”

“They didn't have to – I saw it for myself.”

With a shake of her head, Grace asked, “So what are you going to do with your life? Take my word for it, Martin, you'd be quite hopeless as a politician.”

“Do you think I don't know that too?” He hesitated before adding, “Anyway, I'm pretty sure I want to work in television.” He saw Grace blink as she sipped at her gin. “Why not?” he demanded. “I think that's where the future of communication lies. It's going to wake the world up to what's going on everywhere – all the poverty and injustice, and all the good new things that are happening too. It'll change everything.” In the heat of the equatorial night Martin could feel the back of his shirt sticking to the chair. “Emmanuel says he can help. He's going to fix things so that I get some experience working with the government's film unit while I'm here. They're making a documentary about development projects in the regions. It means I'll get to see more of the country too. And Hal has friends among the British media people here. He's going to talk to them about me. He thinks there's a good chance one of them might consider taking me on, back home, after I graduate.”

“I see. So you're giving up poetry in favour of propaganda?”

“Well, there's more than one way of telling the truth, and…”

“There's no call to be quite so smug,” she interrupted, “particularly as we're also rather good at concealing the truth, you and I. In fact, we're rather better at it than poor old Hal, don't you think?”

Martin shifted his eyes uneasily away. “I'm not sure what you mean.”

“Oh don't be disingenuous, Martin,” she sighed. “It really won't wash.”

Martin stared at her aghast. “You'd never say anything – would you?”

Grace took a moment to answer. “I can't imagine it would do any of us much good,” she said at last, “so I don't suppose I will.” But she left him worrying over that hint of uncertainty.

In the following days Martin was troubled too by the way Adam had begun to feel restless and distant, edgy at moments, perhaps even bored by his company. At first he'd put it down to Adam's uneasiness around his parents, but he felt it most strongly after they had spent an enjoyable evening drinking with Adam's friends. The group had all welcomed Martin warmly enough during their joyful reunion with Adam the day after his arrival in Port Rokesby, but in later meetings he was left feeling increasingly excluded by Adam's devotion to these people he had known since childhood and had not seen for years. When he decided to raise the subject, he was dismayed by the response.

“I don't expect you to understand” – Adam was staring out into the night as he spoke – “but there are things between me and Ruth and the others that you can't possibly share…”

“They're all fine with me,” Martin protested. “It's only you who seems to have a problem.”

“The thing is,” Adam looked away as he spoke, “it's a bit awkward for me having to include you all the time. Everywhere we go, I mean.”

“You mean you're beginning to wish I hadn't come.”

“It's not that. It's just… there are some things I'd rather do alone.”

“Well, don't let me stop you.”

“That's the point. I don't intend to. Anyway,” Adam resumed in the face of Martin's resentful silence, “you can't really complain, can you? Hal and Emmanuel are setting things up for you rather nicely. In fact, as far as my father is concerned, you're being treated better than I am. But then that's no great surprise.”

“Perhaps if you were a bit less bolshie with him…”

“I don't really think I need your advice.”

“That's fine by me.”

“Good,” said Adam. And then, after a moment, in a more conciliatory tone, “Look, I'm sorry but… well, there's stuff I just have to do… I'm going to Adouada tomorrow. I'll be staying at the Diallos' house for a couple of days. You've got the car – Grace or Samuel will drive you wherever you want to go, and it won't be long before you're off on your trip upcountry. You'll be fine.”

“Don't worry about me,” said Martin. “I can take care of myself.”

He got up, leaving his beer unfinished, and went to his room, and when he came to breakfast the next morning, he found that Adam had already left the house. Grace was clearly upset by his departure, and Hal felt peeved because he had expected his son to attend a reception for the leaders of the recently organized Youth Brigade that evening, an event over which Emmanuel's eldest son Keshie was to preside.

“Oh well, it'll only be the two of us then,” Hal said to Martin. “It's a relief that one of you takes an interest!”

Though the event ended late in the evening, Hal insisted that they should go for a drink in a nightclub bar which offered a cabaret of belly dancers. As they went in, Martin noticed that, apart from a couple of Africans, the clientele was entirely made up of European businessmen. Hal sat in silence over three straight whiskies before leaning towards Martin and saying, “You're an intelligent chap. Here's something for you to think about, okay?”

“Go on,” Martin assented, by now slightly drunk.

“Conceive of this then,” Hal began “and I'm only speaking theoretically, you understand.” He waited for Martin's nod before proceeding. “All right, here's the thing. You've established a new regime firmly founded on the twin pillars of freedom and justice, and you've done it with an overwhelming democratic mandate. Are you with me?”

“Yes, but it doesn't sound exactly theoretical to me.”

“Ah, but hang on a minute. Let's suppose that there are those who don't share your principles. People with no such democratic ideals. People who are quite prepared to take advantage of the freedoms of your regime in order to cause trouble. Political trouble. What are you going to do about them?”

“I suppose,” Martin frowned, “it would depend how serious the trouble was.”

“True. So let's suppose it's serious enough to be worrying. Serious enough whereby, if left undealt with, things might start to get very iffy.”

“Iffy enough to threaten the stability of the regime?”

Hal nodded, and turned to where one of the dancers was jiggling her hips towards them. Reaching for his wallet, he took out a couple of the new currency notes and inserted them in the soft hollow between her hip bone and her belly. To the jingling of her shiny coin belts she swayed away, leaving a taint of sweat and perfume on the air.

“You did say that this was strictly theoretical?” Martin said after a moment.

“Absolutely. I like to think ahead. Call it contingency planning, if you like.”

“Well, I'm not sure what to say. Have these people done anything illegal?”

“Let's say, not yet. Not as far as you know.”

Studying his impassive face, Martin said, “Then I don't see what I can do. I mean, I can't just order them to be locked up, can I? Not if I really believe in freedom and justice.”

Hal smiled at him. “So you're no Saint-Just?

“Who?”

“Saint-Just. He was a rather terrifying young man at the time of the French Revolution. He made a case that Louis XVI should not be given a trial precisely because such an event might presuppose the possibility that he was innocent. More to the point, he also declared that there could be no liberty for the enemies of liberty.”

Again Martin took time for thought. “So you think I came to the wrong conclusion?”

Hal answered him only with a wry tilt of his head, and for a long time that night Martin lay awake wondering whether Hal's comment that he was no Saint-Just was a critical judgement on his limitations or an affectionate expression of relief.

The next morning he learnt that, whatever other cares were on his mind, Emmanuel had made time to speak to his Minister of Information, who had in turn contacted the head of the National Film Unit. Two days later Martin boarded a crowded river steamer headed upcountry into the Eastern Region. He was now assistant to a wry-eyed journalist, Joe Lartey-Quah, who was taking a cameraman and sound technician to film the progress of a new agricultural cooperative and a number of other development projects in Emmanuel's hometown Fontonfarom.

If the film crew was sceptical about the young supercargo's usefulness, they had the grace to show it only in sardonic comments on his ignorance, and such comments were invariably followed by good-natured laughter. They delighted in sending him on errands which turned out to be absurd, and in thwarting his efforts to learn the local language in ways that elicited cackles of hilarity from fat market mammies or blushes from young girls. Yet he took it all in good part, and soon began to tease them in return. He impressed them too by his willingness to learn, and learnt much about the country in the following four weeks – about the cheerful optimism of the people gathered round him, about their delight in celebration, their love of food, their reverence for the ancestors, and about the poverty of many of their mud-hut villages. He learnt the acrid taste of palm wine and the glutinous texture of fufu on his tongue. He learnt what was meant by the ravages of smallpox, dengue fever and bilharzia. And with each day that passed he seemed to learn more about himself, about his hunger
for adventure and his lust for horizons wider than this African rainforest could open to his gaze. Under the amused tutelage of Joe Lartey-Quah, he acquired an alert eye for camera angles too, and quickly sharpened his skills in selecting images which best served an overriding editorial purpose. Above all, he became increasingly proficient at finding ways in which what he took to be the needs of others might be met through the satisfaction of his own priorities.

Thinking back over these times many years later, as he sat through three long nights with his crew and other frightened journalists in the cells of Makombe Castle, he came to see how much more might have been revealed to him then – about the world and himself – if he had listened with a mind less persuaded of its own cultural superiority.