The Governor's Lady (44 page)

One prong represented the Council of Native Chiefs. Membership of the Council totalled eleven. All of them were, in the ordinary way, mutually hostile, even occasionally warring. But on this issue they stood united. Blood-feuds were temporarily forgotten, and any raiding-parties that happened at the moment to be operating in their neighbours' territory were hastily recalled.

For good reason, too. Being a Chief was already a pretty precarious occupation. Suppression of local slavery, and the handing over of taxes to the Government had long since nearly ruined the profession. Even the big ones were feeling the pinch; and at least half of the Council, including some of the oldest and proudest, were undeniably poor.

The whole eleven of them saw the red light simultaneously. Any system based upon owning property and a literacy test would eventually
mean handing the country over to the hard-working, the educated and the intelligent: this was something they were not prepared to tolerate. And, as one man, they addressed a powerfully worded petition to their Governor.

The other prong had Mr. Frith for its mouthpiece. While the Chiefs were worrying about their wives, their witch-doctors and the store of ancestral wisdom which they jointly represented, Mr. Frith was preoccupied solely by thoughts of the Service. All in all, despite the lethargy of successive Colonial Secretaries, it was not a bad life. Nor a worthless one. Mr. Frith, and a lot of other frustrated, dedicated people just like him, somehow or other managed to get things done. There were roads, bridges, hospitals to show for it: Amimbo was undeniably a better place since the Service had moved in.

Mr. Frith shuddered to think of the collapse of discipline and public order once the Executive Council was full of black men with black tribal loyalties. Looking into the bleak and impending future, he could, only too plainly, see a Mimbo warrior in full ceremonial feathers and a row of copper bangles halfway up his shins, perched upon the Presidential throne over at the Residency, and the Milner Club so noisy and over-crowded that it would be impossible for a tired administrator to relax there after the day's labours.

What really maddened him, however, was that, except for Mr. Talefwa, nobody really seemed to want African rule at all. And here was Mr. Drawbridge, entirely unasked, preparing his own eviction order. Mr. Frith had already had one go at him, warning him of the pitfalls of premature self-government. Not that it seemed to have made much impression. Mr. Drawbridge was notoriously impassive. While Mr. Frith had been reminding him of recent local killings and the Leopard Men, Mr. Drawbridge had gone on smoking his rather objectionable-smelling mixture. Then, right at the end, he had merely remarked that he was sure that there was a great deal of common sense in what Mr. Frith had to say but it was a bit late in the day to start trying to put things into reverse.

And as proof that he hadn't been paying proper attention to what Mr. Frith had been saying, Mr. Drawbridge had even switched the conversation to ask how the new teachers' training courses were coming along.

Towards midnight, when the houseboys had finished their last bottle of
native beer and rolled the final crap game of the evening, Harold thrust his feet back into his slippers and strolled out into the garden.

It was Government property, this bit of Africa. While he had been away, the boys had been busy on it, brushing, watering, scratching, tidying up. Between then, they had broken off one of the front legs of the rustic cast iron seat; tilted sharply forwards at one end, the thing now looked as if it were curtseying. But the stones round the circular flowerbed were all newly whitewashed, and the wooden post that supported the mail box had been freshly painted.

‘She might at least have made the effort,' Harold was thinking. ‘She can't have been that ill. Not all the time. She could have written. She could have said
something.'

Here in the garden the air was close and bathroomy: it clung to him. The big trees, the shrubs, even some of the taller flowers, all had their own festoons of vapour wrapped round them. This was a sure sign. It would not be long now before the next rainy season was on them. And when the rains broke, everything in Amimbo—clothes, food, cigarettes, office stationery—would become limp and squeezable again.

‘God, don't I know what it'll be like,' he reminded himself. ‘Like living in a bloody laundry. And why the hell should I stop on anyway? I don't belong here. Not any longer. There's nothing to keep me. If she'd wanted to, she'd have got word through somehow.'

Behind him, the lights in the Residency had all long since gone out; and there in the blue mist-filled saucer below him lay Amimbo. The street lamps were showing down the length of Victoria Avenue and, amid the corrugated iron roofs and palm trees, odd domestic bulbs were still burning. Over the centre of the city, the illuminated clock in the cathedral tower shone like a small captive moon.

‘Damn waste of time writing all those letters,' he reflected. ‘She's older than I am. It would never have worked out. Probably have got sick of me anyway.'

Then, simultaneously, the lights went out, came on again faintly, flickered and were restored. This showed that it must be twelve o'clock. The nightly switch-over always took place around the hour. Sometimes, the late shift supervisor forgot and pulled the switch down too hastily before he had cut off the daytime supply. Then there would be a bright flash over at the sub-station beside the marshalling yards, and engineers
of the Amimbo Generating Corporation would have to go round next day repairing things.

‘Everything's crazy out here,' he reminded himself. ‘The electricity. The people. The things that happen to you. I've had enough of it. I'm clearing out. They can have my resignation. I'm through with Amimbo.'

The garden was silent now, except for the cicadas. These were everywhere ; the branches overhead were plastered with them. They were of all ages, the lustiest of the youngsters were happily chirrupping away, astride the burnt-out husks of their ancestors.

‘I wonder if she's all right,' he began thinking. ‘There must be some way of finding out. Oh God, I do love her so. I can't just lose her like this.'

The position of Mr. Das was certainly unenviable. Through no fault of his own, he had become Amimbo's resident outcast. Nor was there any foreseeable prospect of his ever being able to get away again.

With Mr. Talefwa in hiding, and Mr. Ngono so much embarrassed by his hospital profile that he was avoiding the capital altogether, Mr. Das had been left entirely without sponsors.

So long as Mr. Talefwa was around, there had still been hope. Arguments between them about the fee had proceeded practically without interruption ever since the verdict: often they had gone on late into the night, with the noise of the quarrel drifting out across the sleeping city. Mr. Das did not mind that kind of thing in the least: he was used to bargaining. But the sudden closure of
War Drum
came as nothing less than complete disaster. At one blow it deprived him even of the chance of something on account.

He had, with difficulty, found himself temporary accommodation in a native rooming house over by the marshalling yards. But already there were signs of racial unpleasantness: the large and terrifying landlady would keep on demanding her money. In consequence, Mr. Das, unlaundered and half starved, made a point of slipping out of the house very early in the morning, and spent most of the day simply hanging round the law courts, ready to take any brief that might turn up, and wondering all the time where his return ticket would be coming from.

Things had eventually reached such a pitch that the Bar Association of Amimbo decided to do something about it: it was not good for their professional standing, they felt, to have one of their number going about with holes in his socks and loitering outside the cheaper eating places in the hope of being invited inside to share a meal. Not that any invitation seemed likely; the very fact that he had failed to get an acquittal for Old Moses had endeared Mr. Das to practically nobody.

In the end, the members of the bar agreed between them to put up
the money for the railway fare; and the Clerk of the Court was asked to slip round to the station to buy the ticket. The Attorney-General stipulated that it should be put in an envelope, with no covering letter, and placed in the otherwise empty pigeon-hole to which Mr. Das went so pathetically ever morning to see if there were any messages for him. It was not Mr. Das's thanks they wanted: merely his absence.

The stratagem, however, failed. This was because the Clerk of the Court, in idle conversation with a friend, happened to mention the little trip that he had taken to the railway station. By next morning, the news was all round Amimbo, and people began putting two and two together.

The Coronation Flyer had made two departures since Mr. Das had collected his envelope. Each time, however, there had been such a
posse
of eager creditors waiting for Mr. Das at the barrier that he had been afraid to go onto the platform.

Harold did not hand in his resignation. After a night's rest, he felt better about things; quieter in his own mind, and almost reconciled.

‘She can't just have disappeared,' he kept telling himself. ‘I'll catch up with her one day. Before it's too late, I'll catch up with her. I know I will.'

And, in the meantime, he had been transferred to Treasury. On the whole, he was rather pleased with himself. It wasn't simply the extra grade that counted: it was being on that side of the administration. This was where the brains of the Service were concentrated. He was on the way up all right.

He had his own square of carpet. Tea in the afternoon was served in thinner china. There was a thermos jug for the iced water. And any day now—even this week perhaps, his clerk told him—they would be installing the new internal telephone. The one that was there now had never worked properly even when it was new.

They were certainly pleased to see him over in his new Department. There was only three weeks to go, and the estimates were still all coming out too high. Also, tempers were somewhat frayed. Public Works had gone over the head of the Finance Secretary to say that, if the present lot of cuts were forced on them, there would be no road this year, or next for that matter, leading up to the newly-finished bridge over the Omtala river; and Health and Education were fighting it out at first hand, in
the office, up at the Milner Club, even at home over the week-ends.

Most nights, Harold was at his desk again after dinner. He looked tired, and his houseboys grew worried about him. They left slices of cold chicken covered up in butter-muslin, and pink blancmanges with an upturned plate on top of the basin, over on the side table in the dining-room in case he fancied anything after they had gone to bed. They agreed that he needed a woman. That much was obvious. But which one? They went over the
bwana
ladies in some detail—age, build, state of the teeth and so forth—and rejected the lot of them.

They suggested each other's sisters. They discussed their merits. They giggled.

They left it at that; and continued to put out the cold chicken and the pink blancmange.

Reports by now had begun to come in that Mr. Talefwa had been seen again in the streets of the capital; and it was only the continued absence of Mr. Ngono that kept people guessing.

Speculation quickened when the police removed the chains from the front door of the
War Drum
offices, and the decorators moved in. There was plenty for them to do. While the place had been left deserted, hooligans had smashed all the windows on the street side; and refuse, empty cans and the bodies of departed cats had been tossed in at random through the broken panes.

It was the re-lettering of the signboard that aroused the most comment. The words
War Drum
were laboriously scraped off and new wording,
Black and White Sunrise
, was painted in thick capitals over the top of it.

It was not until nearly a fortnight later that the first edition of the paper finally appeared. And, when it reached the news stalls, gossip was intensified.

For a start, there had been a significant change in editorial policy. The front page, in addition to announcing a ten-per-cent all round reduction in advertising rates, came out whole-heartedly on the side of the Government. ‘No Progress without Co-operation' was the new slogan; and readers were pledged, not asked, to give their support to Mr. Drawbridge.

The whole keynote of the article was the future. ‘Now that petty and undignified racial strife has once and for all been abolished by the
recently announced and extremely democratic measures of our most enlightened Governor,' it ran, ‘who can he turn to in his hour of exceptionally desperate need?'

The answer was given in the very next paragraph.

‘Never shall it be let said,' it continued, ‘that the Mimbo people were cowardly, slothful or slow to take advantage. If our genial Governor requires the selected flower of our manhood for official positions they must be his to command them. It is men of keen insight, top attainments and no disqualifications whatsoever that the new Legislative Council will be requiring.'

Towards the end of the article, the author issued a particularly carefully worded note of warning.

‘While an educational course at an approved University of the utmost top international rank is essential so that Amimbo's many grave and disastrous problems may be coolly judged in world perspective,' it cautioned, ‘it is not necessary for our representatives to bear the dubious honour of some high-sounding, foreign degree. What our Governor now searches for is someone between the ages of twenty-eight and tliirty, of noble family, highly popular with all sections, exceedingly progressive in outlook and ideas, of good appearance and social manners, and wide practical commercial experience in the difficult import-export business on which our national life depends. Who shall name him? Long live Amimbo.'