The Governor's Lady (3 page)

Nor had sleep for the past five nights been blissful and unbroken. There had been thunderstorms overhead; howlings and roarings through the surrounding night. And, the dawn-chorus, too, had proved to be uncongenially strident, like Fun Fair music. One particular bird appeared to be following Harold about. Either it, or its twin, had landed on his roof each morning. A large bird with hard feet, it trampled noisily on the corrugated iron sheeting. It whistled. It screamed. It imitated car-brakes. It hooted. It made a sound like corks popping. It laughed. It evacuated.

But already the journey and the little prison-like rest-houses were in the past. The Chevrolet mounted a small hill with the Government wireless station on the summit. And there, in the plain below, shimmering in the heat, lay Amimbo.

Harold told the car to stop, and climbed out. He had forgotten about all his tiredness and bad nights by now. He was excited again, remembering that he was the one who had been selected.

The capital itself was not in the least like the hand-book photograph. That had been in plain black-and-white. Whereas Amimbo itself, even from a distance, was pure Kodachrome. Red roofs. Yellow and green banana-trees. Purple, scarlet and orange of the flowering shrubs. Pale lavender-tinted smoke rose vertically into the still African air. Even the sky was Kodachrome, too. A clear robin's-egg blue overhead, it changed to indigo in the distance and ended on the far horizon in a bank of battleship grey storm-clouds.

Even so, the photograph was a help. Harold could identify all the principal landmarks. The railway-station, with its nursery layout of sidings. The Anglican cathedral, looking like a village church in Kent. The gas-holder, recently repainted, and now standing out in its new coat of screaming vermilion. The basilica of the Roman Catholic Mission. The cattle-market. The mosque. The cricket-ground. The barracks. The Victoria Gardens. Government House and the law courts. The hotel. The administrative offices. The hospital. The Asian section. And, half-a-mile or so to the west towards the river, the Residency.

The Residency was pure white. Like icing. With a confectioner's portico overlooking the main lawn. From Telegraph Hill, the sightseer could look straight down into the grounds. The drive was of bright red gravel. It kept disappearing and re-emerging, obscured in places by its own bright avenue of flame-trees.

And, as Harold followed it with his eyes, he felt that he had been along it before, many times. Knew what it was like, even where it dipped and hid itself behind the trees and hillocks. Knew what lay beyond. The terrace. The flower-beds with their concealed sprinklers. The bungalow within the grounds.

Knew the inside of the house, too. The hallway with The Book on the polished mahogany table. The tapestry and gilt furniture in the drawing-room. The pictures. The staircase with the big Royal portrait at the top. The double-doors, green baize covered and studded with brass nails on the non-domestic side, which led through to the Governor's official suite. Knew, too, the doorway in the West Wing; the one leading to the side of the house which the Governor, for some reason, never visited.

And, as he stood there with the sweet, stale heat of the valley breathing up on him, he shivered. He must, he realised, be even more exhausted than he thought he was.

The rest of the ride was easier: there was nothing to it.

The dirt track down the mountainside ended sharply. Suddenly the boulders and the potholes ceased, and they were on tarmac. It was a real road again. The native driver roared along it, marvelling that his petrol had not run out. For him, this was home again and he was happy. Even though there was nothing in front, he sounded his horn in fierce, jubilant blasts. He thought about beer and women and his new bicycle. He remembered his small son for whom he had bought the present of a
toy watch with a brightly decorated dial. He sang. He narrowly avoided a stationary ox-cart. He shouted at the occupant. He remembered to go carefully. Bent forward over the driving-wheel, he concentrated. Turning his head over his shoulder, he addressed his passenger.

‘Amimbo, Saar,' he said. ‘Two minutes more, Saar, Amimbo.'

He hit a chicken.

There was no one there to meet him when Harold Stebbs finally reached the hotel. Not that this was unreasonable. By road, journeys from the coast could not be calculated to the exact hour; or even to the exact day, for that matter.

But at least the hotel was expecting him. The polite Indian clerk at the Reception Desk immediately produced from under the counter a large, important-looking envelope with the words ‘Chief Secretary' inscribed at the bottom left-hand corner.

‘For you, sir. By hand this morning. And your key, sir,' he said. ‘Please to make sure to return it to us when you next choose to leave us again.'

The letter was from Mr. Frith, Assistant Chief Secretary. It was bleakly welcoming. One of the Government bungalows, it explained, would be ready by the end of the month, or shortly afterwards. For a short stay, it went on, the Royal Albert Hotel should really prove quite comfortable. And could Harold Stebbs please be over at the Assistant Secretary's office sharp at 8.30 next morning? If, in the meantime, he wanted anything he had only to pick up the receiver and ask for the Government switchboard.

While Harold was still reading he was aware that the Indian clerk was watching him intently. And with good reason. No matter how closely the clerk had held the envelope up to the naked light-bulb above his desk he had not been able to make out anything but the outline of Mr. Frith's signature.

Catching Harold's eye, he smiled with a glitter of fine white un-European teeth.

‘You come this way, sir? I show you your room. Good comfortable quarters. Very pleased to have you with us. Government accommodation. First class. I will send for the iced water. Very cold indeed, sir.'

Already Harold's two suit-cases were being carried in. They did not
look new any longer. And, after the hysterical lurchings of the Chevrolet the room seemed strangely stationary.

It was not, by rest-house standards, at all a bad room, but scarcely home. There was a sofa of sorts, as well as a bed. A wardrobe with a long, mistily-discoloured mirror. A handbasin. A chest of drawers with one of the wooden handles missing. A wastepaper basket that had been used by someone who had been eating fruit. An upright chair, that remained upright so long as it was resting up against something. And a large framed reproduction of ‘The Last Supper', faded to a mere outline sketch after long years of exile in the bright African sunlight.

Harold wondered what the Government bungalow was going to be like.

In the meantime, there was his unpacking to do. He was precise and methodical. First, because he was hot and he could feel the sweat running in little trickles between his shoulder blades, he stripped down to his underpants. Next, he opened up his cases, setting out everything in little piles upon the sofa—his shirts here, his vests there, his socks neatly arranged beside them.

Then he opened the bottom drawer of the wardrobe to begin putting his things away and found that a colony of minute white ants had moved in before him. Disturbed by the light, they now seethed over each other, trying frantically to re-insert themselves into the cracks in the woodwork.

He was still wondering where people in the tropics kept their clean laundry, when there came a knock on the door.

Still in his underpants, he went over and opened it. But it was not the iced-water that the Indian clerk had promised. Instead, Harold found himself confronted by a small, rather crumpled figure wearing a badly-knotted Club tie. One uncertain, damp-looking hand was already raised to knock again if necessary.

‘Oh, good evening. I'm Frith. Mr. Frith,' the man said. ‘May I come in? I'm not disturbing you, am I?'

Harold Stebbs stood back. He wished now that, instead of simply stripping down to his underpants, he had changed them for a fresh pair. And the room behind him looked frankly ludicrous. It might have been the tail-end of a not too-successful jumble sale.

‘You must excuse all this,' he said lamely. ‘I… I've only just got here.'

‘Oh, don't apologise, please,' Mr. Frith begged him. ‘It's my fault breaking in on you like this. May I sit here?' He moved a heap of socks
and handkerchiefs from the end of the sofa, and then turned nervously to Harold again. ‘They did give you my letter, didn't they? They don't always, you know.'

‘As soon as I got here,' Harold told him. ‘You said 8.30 in the morning. I'll be there.'

Mr. Frith passed a moist, creased-up handkerchief across his forehead.

‘That's the whole point,' he said. ‘It's been changed. It's tonight, H.E. wants you. For dinner. That is, if you're not too tired, of course.'

He gave a little sigh as he said it, and simply sat there, looking vacantly around him. Harold noticed that he had a slight twitch, a tic, on the left side of his face. It kept bringing his under eyelid into a humourless, un-meaningful wink.

Harold Stebbs came over to the sofa.

‘I'm afraid that I can't offer you a drink,' he told him. ‘You see, I haven't got anything.'

Mr. Frith looked up.

‘That's all right,' he said. ‘Just ring. The service is terrible. But they'll come eventually. Better keep a bottle in your room. It's the only way. And soda for me. Don't touch the water. It's typhoid.'

The bell pull had a china handle. As Harold tugged at it, he could hear a long scraping of wires along the corridor outside, but nothing else. Mr. Frith was listening intently, too.

‘Better shout,' he said. ‘Open the door and call “Boy”. You'll get used to it.' He gave Harold a sympathetic smile. ‘You know why you're here, of course,' he went on. ‘It's the book. H.E.'s going up country tomorrow, and wants you to get on with it. It's months behind already. H.E.'s getting in rather a state.'

Mr. Frith dropped his voice a little, and continued almost as though talking to himself.

‘I'm afraid your predecessor made a complete mess of it. Not that it matters. H.E.'s been revising it all again. You'll have to make a fresh start anyhow.' He turned to Harold accusingly. ‘You did ring, didn't you? Perhaps you'd better shout again.'

When, at last, the bottle of Red Label was brought in, Mr. Frith revived like a flower. Slumped over sideways on the sofa at one moment, he was sitting bolt upright at the next. The first two drinks were taken very short, practically neat; and after that a little of the soda was carefully added. It might have been medicinal, the way he poured it,

But already the tic had faded, and disappeared; a new, resurrected Mr. Frith was beginning to assert himself.

‘When you're properly settled in, your driver can get it for you,' he explained. ‘It's half the price that way. And keep it locked up. Everything disappears out here. They're like children. Steal anything.'

He looked up in astonishment.

‘You're not drinking,' he said.

‘I don't drink whisky,' Harold replied.

‘But they've got gin. Cases of it, if you want gin,' Mr. Frith said severely. ‘And you've let the boy go away again. You won't get him back now. It's too late. In any case, I've got to be going.'

Mr. Frith looked at his watch, and shook himself.

‘I'll come back and pick you up,' he said. ‘8.20 sharp, H.E. doesn't like to be kept waiting. Better be in the bar. I'll meet you there.' He finished his drink and began tugging at his tie. ‘Forgot to tell you. Black below. H.E. likes it better that way.'

‘Black below?'

‘And a white jacket. Rule of the house, out here.'

‘Anything else?' Harold asked.

Mr. Frith pondered for a moment.

‘Don't think so,' he said. ‘Play it quietly. Just take the lead from me. H.E.'ll do most of the talking. He's usually a jump or two ahead of the rest of us.'

Mr. Frith suddenly slapped his thigh.

‘Oh, my God,' he said. ‘Went clean out of my mind. Don't say anything about Lady Anne. That's
verboten
. H.E. can bring her up if he wants to. That's his affair. You keep off it.'

‘Is anything wrong?'

Mr. Frith put his forefinger up against his lips.

‘Some other time,' he said. ‘Not now. We'll be late. See you in the bar at 8.20.'

The way to the Residency lay through the Asian quarter.

Abruptly, everything became packed and noisy. Harold was aware of Asian skins, Asian hair, Asian eyes, Asian faces, Asian souls probably. There were shops everywhere, some of them simply hollowed out alcoves in the mud walls. Others were two planks underneath a striped umbrella. One—a haberdashers—was around the roots of a large tree,
with the branches overhead taking the place of coat-hangers and display cases.

Then they reached the local Bond Street. Here they were in the midst of a whole arcade of the more exclusive kind of stores, with sunblinds and metal shutters and sign-writers' lettering—HAPPYNESS GROCERIES; P. CHAPANDRA LADY'S IMPORTS; MAH WONG, FOOD SUPPLIERS: DAS AND SONS, GENTLEMANLY CLOTHING …

But already Mr. Frith was giving good advice again. He laid his hand on Harold's knee.

‘When H.E. asks you if you like the claret,' he said, ‘have a guess at Barton. That'll please him. Leave him to tell you what year.'

Mr. Frith's earlier nervousness momentarily returned to him.

‘You do drink, don't you?' he asked. ‘I didn't notice in the bar just now.'

‘I'm very fond of a good claret,' Harold told him.

It was quite untrue: he knew next to nothing about any kind of claret, but it sounded convincing, and he was pleased with himself for having said it.

Mr. Frith was pleased, too.

‘That's a relief,' he said. ‘H.E.'s very proud of his cellar. Hell of a job getting the stuff out here.'

The car was slowing down by now and there was a military feeling in the air. Two ebony sentries in ivory-white uniform came smartly to attention, and the car turned into the long drive under the jacaranda trees.