William Boyd - A Good Man in Africa

Joseph returned shortly with the necessary information. ‘She is weeping, sah, because she says she has no money.’

‘Money?’ Morgan said in astonishment. ‘What does she want money for?’

‘To pay for the priest,’ Joseph said.

‘Well for Christ’s sake I’ll lend her a few bob,’ Morgan offered impatiently, reaching into his pockets. ‘How much does she need?’

Joseph did some mental calculations. ‘She need forty pound. No, but then she must purchase one goat and some beer.’ He shrugged, ‘I think fifty pound, maybe sixty. But there is funeral as well. For Shango killing you must have special funeral. She is crying because she only has fifteen pounds about.’

Morgan’s heart sank at this latest setback. Fifteen pounds was a reasonable monthly wage by Kinjanjan standards. He turned away and roamed the compound wildly, trying to coax his tired brain to come up with more alternatives. A faint greyness of coming dawn now charged the atmosphere. Time was running out for him. Fanshawe would be expecting some results after a night’s work, where in fact things hadn’t advanced one bit, he might as well have ignored Fanshawe’s summons for all the good he’d done. It wasn’t just what Fanshawe would say, though; there was the more serious problem of the effect of the African sun on Innocence’s body…He felt like tearing his hair out. What he needed was an organization not staffed with frigging Shango worshippers, some normal, ordinary people who did an efficient, orthodox job, who’d pick her up and stow her in a morgue somewhere until a funeral could be arranged. He’d done enough pussyfooting around pagan sensibilities, he decided, the time had surely come for some forthright energetic roughshod-riding.

As he thought about the options and courses open to him the answer came with a slow inevitability, like a tune in his head whose title he’d soon guess, given enough time. An efficient organization, unaffected by the Shango cult: there was only one in and around Nkongsamba which fitted that description and was suitable for the delicate task in hand. Only one. Murray. Murray and his University Health Service. Murray, with his loyal, well-drilled staff and his gleaming white ambulance. They could drive here, pick up Innocence and whisk her away before anyone had a chance to get hot under the collar.

The inevitability of the choice didn’t dispel all his doubts, however, nor the vaguely shaming irony of calling on the man he planned to bribe to help get him out of a sticky situation. As he strode through the dew-slicked grass back towards the Fanshawes’ house he tried to convince himself that he was doing the right thing, silence that warning bell which was persistently ringing somewhere at the back of his head. If you couldn’t ring a doctor about a death, he argued, what could you ring one about? And besides Murray wasn’t just a doctor, he was his doctor. What was more he was a white man, and white men in black Africa helped other white men in need. Damn it, Murray was practically a friend he told himself, weren’t they playing golf next Thursday? He felt a sudden warm glow of friendship towards the doctor, which he assiduously stoked up. Murray was a firm, unbending sort of man but the remarkable thing about him was that you knew where you stood. You took him as he was and that was how he took you. Yes, for all his unyielding ways he was a decent honest man. All inconvenient thoughts of the impending bribe were banished from his head as, buoyant with fellow feeling and sympathy and happily confident that this dreadful state of affairs would soon be a thing of the past, he leapt up the front door steps and quietly let himself in to the Fanshawes’ sitting room. He leafed through the telephone directory until he found the university exchange’s number. He dialled.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Will you put me through to Dr Murray’s house, please?’ He heard the clicks of the connection being made. The phone rang. And rang. He was about to ask the exchange to check if they had the right number when he heard the receiver being lifted.

‘Yes!’ The gruff venom in the voice disturbed Morgan.

‘Erm, Dr Murray?’ he inquired tentatively.

‘Yes.’

‘Oh good. Morgan…Morgan Leafy here. From the Commission. I’ve got a problem here and I…’

‘Medical?’ Murray’s terse Scottish voice had lost none of its hostility despite the fact that Morgan had identified himself. He was a little surprised at this and made a further effort to quell powerful second thoughts that suddenly rose in his mind. It was too late for them now, he had to go on.

‘Why yes. You don’t think I’d ring you if I…’

‘Have you phoned the university clinic?’ There was a note of resigned fatigue in Murray’s voice as he interrupted for the second time. It made Morgan feel a fool, cretinous.

‘Well no. But this is an emergency.’

‘The clinic is fully equipped to deal with an emergency,’ Murray said patiently. ‘My staff then make the decision whether to call me or not — it allows me to get a full night’s sleep from time to time. Ask the switchboard for the number. Goodbye.’

‘Just a moment,’ Morgan said, beginning to get angry himself at such peremptory treatment: the man was a doctor for God’s sake. ‘If you’d let me explain…I’ve got a dead woman on my hands and I…I need your help.’ Morgan could swear he heard Murray’s muffled oaths in the background.

‘Did you say dead?’

‘Yes.’

‘I take it it’s not Mrs or Miss Fanshawe.’

‘Godno,’ Morgan said, surprised. ‘It’s a Commission servant actually. Why do you ask?’

‘Because Mrs Fanshawe and her daughter are the only women at the Commission entitled to call on the University Health Service. We are forbidden to treat non-members of staff. We are expressly forbidden to operate outside the university boundaries apart from the British members of the Deputy High Commission. The duty sister at my clinic could have told you that, Mr Leafy. Now perhaps you’ll let me get some sleep.’ Murray’s Scottish accent imparted real harshness into his last words.

Morgan felt his frayed nerves begin to send off sparks. ‘For God’s sake,’ he exclaimed. ‘I don’t give a hoot about your rules and regulations, I’m asking you to help us out of a jam. This woman’s been struck by lightning, she’s quite dead but nobody’ll touch her because of some bloody mumbo-jumbo about some Shango-god or something.’ Morgan paused, this new upset was too dreadful to contemplate. He saw his last option disappearing as a result of Murray’s ridiculous intransigence. He felt desperation building up inside him. ‘It’s an appalling problem. I need you to take the body away. No one else will.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ he heard Murray expostulate, ‘(a) it’s five o’clock in the morning, (b) as I’ve told you I can do nothing for anyone who’s not a member of the university and (c) I do not run my health service on the basis of private favours. You’re asking me to violate the statutes of the University of Nkongsamba and betray official undertakings made to the City of Nkongsamba Health Authority on the grounds of so-called personal friendship. No, Mr Leafy. It is your problem, there is no way you can make it mine. Contact the proper authorities, that’s what they are there for. Now kindly leave me alone!’

Morgan sat shivering in his chair during this hectoring tirade. The enormous strains of the last twenty-four hours finally proved too much for him and without for a second thinking of the consequences he burst out, ‘And what about the fucking Hippocratic Oath eh? You’re a fucking doctor, aren’t you, you sanctimonious Scottish bastard…’

Murray slammed the phone down. Morgan tailed off, still muttering racist imprecations. The unmoving, the stubborn, the beam-headed…He threw back his head and bared his teeth in a silent scream of pent-up anger, frustration and hostility at the universe.