I'm All Right Jack (4 page)

T
HE ULTIMATE
breakdown of the Coloured Conference will no doubt be attributed by historians to the distrust by coloured peoples of Europeans which increased so much in the middle years of the twentieth century. That this distrust was felt by their governments rather than by the people themselves may find mention in the annals of the time.

The futility of the whole venture will become in time apparent (an American observer summed it up as being, in his opinion, ‘a declaration of faith in arrested
development
’), but at the time all this was masked by such
considerations
as a widespread feeling of goodwill towards the emerging coloured races, a mixed sense of guilt and fair play, and the necessity of securing valuable sources of raw materials even at the cost of actual friendship with the suppliers; an essentially unbusinesslike arrangement.

‘In a world growing daily smaller and smaller,’
announced
the thinkers of the Western nations, ‘we cannot afford misunderstandings and ignorance. Whereas East was once East and West was West, the Asian and African are now our next door neighbours. The aeroplane, etc., etc….’

The fact was that, brought thus airborne face to face, everyone’s worst suspicions were confirmed by closer acquaintance.

The exact point at which the deterioration set in at the conference is uncertain, but the appearance of Stanley Windrush at Plantagenet House, in the entourage of the British Foreign Secretary, may well have struck the first discordant note.

Just before ten o’clock, Stanley stood about despondently outside the great conference room. Despite the urgency of his summons there seemed little likelihood of there being anything much to do, and the lump on his forehead smarted. There was a good deal of glare from the gilding and the white paint, intensified as the dozen or so photographers, clustering round, flashed at the arriving delegates. One photographer with halitosis, representing an illustrated magazine, came close to Stanley and began gloomily talking.

“Too much legwork and not enough legs,” he complained cryptically. “Never go in for this lark. What you done to your head? You know, they sent me to cover this but ten to one they won’t use it. It isn’t
this
stuff sells the paper, and no drinks on expenses eether. I don’t know. Cabaret at the Club Godiva, or girls on the swings when it’s a bit windy, that’s what they want. That’s what put the paper where it is. But Oo by Christ you pay for it.”

“Really?” said Stanley. “That’s extraordinarily
interesting
. It costs you money?”

“Eh? No, standing around all weathers. It gets you in the back. Best get one of Mr Mahommed coming in.
Morning,
sir!
” he called, raising his camera in an indifferent fashion to the leader of the Agyppian delegation.

“Oh, so that’s Mr Mahommed,” said Stanley as the flash lit up a large smiling, muscular man, whose air of sparkling health seemed to burst through his dark grey suit.

Mr Mahommed had genially shaken a number of hands on his way in, and now offered his hand to Stanley.

“Mister…?”

“Windrush,” said Stanley. “I believe you met my father.”

“Ah, yes,” said Mr Mahommed. “It is so pleasant. He was looking very healthy, I remember. You yourself do
not, if I may say so. Now perhaps you would come this evening when I am holding a cocktail party at six.”

And Mr Mahommed, teeth glittering, passed into the conference room.

“Suit yourself,” said the magazine photographer to Stanley. “I thought you might’ve been interested in going with me to Vespucci’s tonight, but Mr Mahommed might have some nude dancers laid on too, for all I know.”

The day passed unsensationally. For the first hour or so there were speeches of a welcoming sort, the tail end of the series of opening addresses, which had occupied the
conference
so far, but after lunch the principal delegates went into closed session and Stanley was left outside, filling in time chatting to one of the secretaries of the Burmese delegation, a young man who, it turned out, had been to a much better-known public school than Stanley’s. By five o’clock the conference, a little nearer to agreeing on what they should talk about, adjourned, and Stanley went home to change. The feeling that he had been there simply to make the number up had by now grown into a firm
conviction
. Some people would have been depressed by this, or felt outraged in their dignity, but in Stanley’s case it greatly relieved his mind, and he set out in good heart for Mr Mahommed’s party.

At the Agyppian Embassy in Kensington, excited persons of all colours were busy making an unusually confused din. Some, whose creeds forbade alcohol, seemed to be getting equally bright-eyed on tomato-juice. A few of the guests were in full evening dress with decorations though most were in what Stanley correctly took to be their normal clothes.

A genial and broad-smiling Mr Mahommed greeted him.

“Ah, Mr Windrush. It is most enjoyable to see you. You are well once more?”

“Oh, I feel very well,” said Stanley. “I hear you enjoyed your stay at Sunnyglades?”

“Ah yes. I am very interested in the Body, you know.”

“Is that what the people they call Mahommed’s Nature Boys are interested in?”

“Ah, you keep in touch, I see, Mr Windrush. Yes indeed, they are a movement I started to keep my country fit, you know. You are perhaps in the Middle East
Department
, then?”

“Oh no. I do Japanese shirts usually but I saw a thing the other night about your movement. Actually I rang the Minister of State about it, but it wasn’t important, apparently.”

“Really? Do take another drink. Of course Mr Brimpton is very overworked now with this Conference, like us all.”

“Oh yes. He looked pretty tired this afternoon, but I heard him say he’d feel much better after he’d seen Mr Emmanuel.”

“The Solomonian delegate? Now that’s very interesting. I hadn’t heard of a meeting. I wonder what about.”

“Oh, I’ve no idea. He just said something about getting it all tied up. Will you be in England long?”

“It depends, Mr Windrush, it depends. Now perhaps you would like to talk to some of the Japanese delegation?”

“No, no, please,” said Stanley. “Not off duty.”

Mr Mahommed clapped him heartily on the shoulder.

“Jolly good!” he cried, laughing resoundingly. “Not off duty. I know what you mean. Well, I have all Asia here for you to choose from. Perhaps you know Billy? He’s from Burma. Billy!”

The Etonian Burmese disengaged himself and came over.

“You heard that?” said Mr Mahommed furiously, when Stanley had moved off. “Seeing Emmanuel, eh? Getting it all tied up beforehand, are they?”

“Some swindle is doubtless being prepared,” said his PA. “Emmanuel wants them to turn the blind eye, of course. They call it the spirit of Nelson. Collusion, of course.”

“Very true. But they are a nation of shopkeepers too. We must see how much they will sell
us.
”

Stanley, blissfully unaware of having revealed anything,
resumed his afternoon’s chat with the Burmese. He was quite enjoying being a representative of his country.

“Well, my dear fellow,” said the Burmese, “how are you enjoying our peculiar Oriental ways?”

“Oh, I don’t think they’re peculiar at all,” said Stanley. “Only for some reason, I can’t remember why, I’d been half expecting some sort of cabaret.”

“Cabaret? What on earth put that in your head? Did you expect those Balinese chaps would give you a bit of a dance? You mustn’t try to undermine our dignity, Mr Windrush.”

A large perfumed Sikh, clasping a tomato-juice, leaned closer to take this in. Two tiny Indonesians beside him prepared quite brazenly to eavesdrop.

“You are imperialist, sir?” asked the Sikh politely. “Ah, but much water has flowed under bridge.” His beard had been curled in over retaining-threads which disappeared upwards under his pale-cream pugri.

“Oh, you’re absolutely right,” agreed Stanley. “We aren’t imperialists any more.”

The Indonesians smirked at each other.

“Ah, there is no doubt you would wish to be,” pointed out the Sikh. “Not your good self, of course, but your government cannot get out of the habit. Isn’t it so?”

“What Mr Singh means,” said the Burmese
superciliously
, “is that your Asian policy is distrusted. You’d better tell him it’s O.K., hadn’t you?”

“Oh, I dare say he’s perfectly right,” said Stanley. “But I can only tell you about Japanese shirts with any authority.”

“Ah, we too have felt the rod of Colonialism on the backs of our people,” cried one of the Indonesians. The other gave him vigorous support with nodding. “Our motto is Unity Through Diversity, and all this is founded on clear philosophical principles. Never is it too late to negotiate!”

“You’re absolutely right, of course,” agreed Stanley in some puzzlement.

“You speak of Japanese shirting,” resumed the Sikh,
elbowing the Indonesians aside to continue. “But no doubt some swindle is being prepared behind our backs. It is Divide And Rule as always. You are aware of situation in Calcutta mills because of this?”

“No, I’m sorry but I’ve no idea,” said Stanley. “Is it bad?”

“Of course it is bad. And everywhere you are leaving vacuums.”

“Vacuums?”

“Naturally. And what is filling them?”

Stanley was losing the thread of this conversation, but luckily a nearby Malay broke in:

“Mr Singh excuse me but you make an error. The correct plural is vacua.”

Mr Singh flared up.

“Vacua? Vacua? What is this you are talking? That is not correct English usage. Vacua? Vacua?” He kept repeating the word in tones of mounting annoyance. “What do you know about it?”

“You are both in error, philosophically speaking,” chimed in one of the small Indonesians. “At Conference on Bandung side we disposed of idea of vacuum. This is old fashion. When the imperialists have gone the peoples of Asia remain. You mean to tell me all peoples of Asia are vacuum?”

“I say, look here——” began Stanley.

“How can you know what they are talking about?” said the Etonian Burmese. “Let these fellows have their say.”

“Kindly don’t call me fellows,” said the Sikh in a dignified tone. “I must remind you …”

“And I must remind you of philosophical principles,” cried the Indonesian. “You appear to me not progressive, talking of vacuum. The Five Principles clearly …”

At this point Stanley, carried away by the Oriental nature of his surroundings, called for a drink. Unfortunately, his cry, sandwiched in a narrow gap in the hubbub and clearly audible, took the form of the word “Bearer!”

The Etonian Burmese, approaching helpfully with a
cocktail shaker, froze where he stood. Stanley, the focus of four dozen scowling pairs of eyes, blushed.

“I’m so sorry,” he explained. “I got carried away with the discussion.”

“No use to explain,” said Mr Singh coldly. “It is perfect clarity, your real opinion of
coloured people. The imperialist slave-trader beneath the skin stands revealed to all.”

“I think,” said the imperialist slave-trader, “I’d better catch my bus.”

As he made for the door the voice of the vocal Indonesian could be heard saying: “It is disgrace. Some swindle is doubtless being prepared.”

“Bit of a business at Mahommed’s tonight, Julian,” said the Minister of State, “I did get there late but he could hardly bring himself to talk to me. God knows why.
I
bring myself to talk to
him
.”

“Is he sore about your chat with Emmanuel, I wonder, sir?”

“How can he be? He doesn’t know about it.”

“No, he hardly could.”

“It’s the same with all these goodwill visits.”

“Yes, sir.”

“H’m. Incidentally, that fellow I had today instead of Wallace Hardy-Freeman. Who is he? He seems a dead loss. Chatted to some Burmese all day.”

“Windrush, sir.”

“Yes, Windrush. Know anything about him?”

“Very little, sir. We seem to telephone each other in the middle of the night.”

“Mahommed seems to know him all right. I wonder if it’s possible … Has he been checked at all yet?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Check up with the Personnel Department. Anyway, I certainly don’t want him tomorrow.”

 In his flat, Julian set his alarm for
3
am. When it rang
he woke and dialled Stanley.

“Yes?” Stanley seemed desperate for sleep.

“Sorry to disturb you, my dear fellow. Brimpton’s just this minute decided he won’t want you tomorrow.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry to have to ring at this time.”

Julian put the telephone down and went to sleep again.

Stanley’s security check was expedited and the report from MI
5
came quickly to the Personnel Department.

“Nursing another viper in our bosom, I see.”

“Is he any good?”

“Well, frankly …”

“All right; we’ll not fight it. How long’s he been here?”

“A fortnight. In that time he’s somehow managed to turn Mahommed against us and infuriated the Board of Trade with some rigmarole of a memorandum about shirts.”

“Why did we have him? Far Eastern department short of Japanese people as usual, I imagine. Well, it wouldn’t do for it to get out that we’ve taken on a clown. Better pin this business here on to him, about his sister being married to a Commie.”

When Stanley opened the letter marked P
ERSONAL
he was surprised to read: …
On
these
recommendations
the
Minister
has
been
led
to
the
conclusion
that
you
must
be
regarded
as
an
unacceptable
security
risk,
and
regrets
that
in
the
circum
stances
he
must
terminate
your
probationary
period.