Muriel Spark - The Complete Short Stories

A few days later, while she was dancing cheek-to-cheek with Ronald, at the tea-dance provided by the hotel on the sea-front, to the strains of

The fundamental things apply

As time goes by

— at the same moment young Jan du Toit was informing the assembled family that Daphne’s fiancé was a married man.

Her Aunt Sonji spoke to Daphne next morning.

Daphne said, ‘He’s the captain of his local cricket team.’

‘He could still be a married man,’ said Sonji.

By lunch-time the information was confirmed, and by sundown the corvette had sailed.

Daphne felt irrationally that it was just the sort of thing one would expect to happen while living with the du Toits. She removed to Durban, treating the English ships with rather more caution than hitherto. She eschewed altogether the American navy which had begun to put in frequent appearances.

Among her colleagues at the school where she taught in Durban was a middle-aged art master who had emigrated from Bristol some years before the war. He saw England as the Barbarian State which had condemned him to be an art master instead of an artist. He spoke often to Daphne on these said lines, but she was not listening. Or rather, what she was listening to were the accidentals of this discourse. ‘Take a fashionable portrait painter,’ he would say. ‘He is prepared to flatter his wealthy patrons — or more often patronesses. He’s willing to turn ‘em out pretty on the canvas. He can then afford to take a Queen Anne house in Kensington, Chelsea, or Hampstead, somewhere like that. He turns the attic into a studio, a great window frontage. A man I know was at college with me, he’s a fashionable portrait painter now, has a studio overlooking the Regent’s Canal, gives parties, goes everywhere, Henley, Ascot, titled people, dress designers, film people. That’s the sort of successful artist England produces today.’

Daphne’s mind played like the sun over the words ‘Queen Anne house’, ‘Kensington’, ‘Chelsea’, ‘Studio’, ‘Regent’s Canal’, ‘Henley’. She had ears for nothing else.

‘Now take another fellow,’ continued the art master, ‘I knew at college. He hadn’t much talent, rather ultra-modern, but he wanted to be an artist and he wouldn’t be anything else. What has he got for it? The last time I saw him he hadn’t the price of a tube of paint. He was sharing a Soho attic with another artist — who’s since become famous as a theatrical designer incidentally — name G.T. Marvell. Heard of him?’

‘No,’ Daphne said.

‘Well, he’s famous now.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘But the artist he was living with in Soho never got anywhere. They used to partition the room with blankets and clothes hung on a piece of rope. That’s the sort of thing you get in Soho. The native in the bush is better off than the artist in England.’

Daphne took home all such speeches of discouragement, and pondered them with delight: ‘Soho’, ‘poet’, ‘attic’, ‘artist’.

In 1946, at last, she got a place on a boat. She went to say goodbye to Chakata. She sat with the ageing man on the stoep.

‘Why did you never go back to England for a visit?’ she said.

‘There has always been too much to do on the farm,’ he said. ‘I could never leave it.’ But his head inclined towards the room at the back of the stoep, where Mrs Chakata lay on her bed, the whisky and the revolver by her side. Daphne understood how Chakata, having made a mistake in marriage, could never have taken Mrs Chakata home to the English Pattersons, nor could he ever have left her in the Colony, even with friends, for he was a man of honour.

‘I suppose,’ said Daphne, ‘the Pattersons will be thrilled to hear about our life out here.’

He looked worried. ‘Remember,’ he said, ‘that Auntie Chakata is an invalid. At home they don’t understand tropical conditions, and —’

‘Oh, I shall explain about Auntie Chakata,’ she said, meaning she would hush it up.

‘I know you will,’ he said admiringly.

She walked over to Makata’s kraal to say goodbye. There was a new Makata; the old chief was dead. The new chief had been educated at the Mission, he wore navy blue shorts and a white shirt. Whereas old Makata used to speak of his tribe as ‘the men’, this one called them ‘my people’. She had used to squat with old Makata on the ground outside his large rondavel. Now a grey army blanket was spread, on which two kitchen chairs were placed for the chief and his visitor. Daphne sat on her kitchen char and remembered how strongly old Makata used to smell; it was the unwashed native smell. Young Makata smelt of carbolic soap. ‘My people will pray for you,’ he said. He did not offer to send a man to escort her to the farm, as old Makata had always done.

She knew Old Tuys had followed her to the kraal, and she was aware that he was awaiting her return. Her arms were swinging freely, but she had a small revolver in the pocket of her shorts.

A mile from the farm Old Tuys walked openly over the veldt towards her. He was carrying a gun. Daphne doubled as casually as possible into the bush. It was sparse at this point, and so she was easily visible. She picked her way through the low brushwood, moving towards the farm. She heard Old Tuys crackling through the dry wood behind her.

‘Stop there,’ she heard him say, ‘or I shoot.’

Her hand was on her revolver, and it was her intention to wheel round and shoot before he could aim his gun. But as she turned she heard a shot from behind him and saw him fall. Daphne heard his assailant retreating in the bush behind him, and then on the veldt track the fading sound of bicycle wheels.

Old Tuys was still conscious. He had been hit in the base of the neck. Daphne looked down at him.

‘I’ll send them to fetch you,’ she said.

The following week the police made half-hearted raids on the native dwellings in the district. No firearms were discovered. In any case, Daphne had called in at the police station, and told her old friend, Johnnie Ferreira, that if any man black or white was brought to trial for shooting Old Tuys, she would give evidence for the assailant.

‘Old Tuys was after you, then?’

‘He was. I had a revolver and I intended to use it. Only the other got him first.’

‘Quite sure you didn’t see who shot him?’

‘No. Why?’

‘Because you say “black or white”. We have been more or less assuming it was a native since we understand the man had a bicycle.’

‘Black or white,’ said Daphne, ‘it makes no difference. He was only doing his duty.’

‘Oh, I know,’ said Johnnie, ‘but we like to know the facts. If we got the man, you see, there are good grounds for having the charge against him dismissed, then we should bring Old Tuys on a charge when he comes out of hospital. It’s about time Chakata was rid of that slug.’

‘Well, you haven’t got the man,’ said Daphne, ‘have you?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘But if you have any ideas, come and let’s know. Think it over.

Daphne parked the car at the foot of Donald Cloete’s kopje and climbed slowly, stopping frequently to look at the wide land below, the little dorp, the winding main road, and faintly, the farm roofs in the distance. She took in the details like a camera, and as if for the first time, for soon she would be gone to England.

She sat on a stone. A lizard slid swiftly between her feet and disappeared among the grasses.

‘Go’way. Go’way.’

The sound darted forth and vanished. Two or three times she had seen the go-away bird. It was quite colourless, insignificant. She rose and plodded on.

‘D or S, Donald?’

‘So-so. Come in.’

‘Johnnie Ferreira wants to bring a charge against Old Tuys,’ she said, ‘for his attempt on me the other day.’