William Boyd - A Good Man in Africa

Alarmingly, Morgan noticed that Femi Robinson was edging closer to them.

‘Commissioner Fanshawe seemed most interested in my campaign too,’ Adekunle observed further.

‘Did he?’ Morgan said with as much unconcern as he could muster, thinking that Fanshawe was a stupid meddling old berk: he had probably got Adekunle’s back up. ‘He’s just returned from leave,’ Morgan said in explanation. ‘He’s probably catching up.’

‘You haven’t briefed him then?’ Adekunle asked.

Morgan felt his bow tie tighten round his throat. This just wasn’t going as he’d expected. Adekunle was being most aggressive. ‘I think we should change the subject,’ he said looking appealingly at Celia Adekunle and smiling broadly.

‘I think the film’s about to start,’ she said. Morgan looked round in astonishment to see Fanshawe clapping his hands and herding people towards the rows of seats. The stupid shit! Morgan swore inwardly, Fanshawe was meant to wait for his sign, couldn’t he see that he and Adekunle were still talking?

Adekunle meanwhile had deposited his untouched orange juice on the nearby bar. ‘At last,’ he said, rubbing his hands together. ‘This is the icing on the cake, as the saying goes. Nice to meet you, Mr Leafy.’ He moved off towards the seats accompanied by his wife. Morgan was about to follow him when he felt a tug on his sleeve, he looked round to see Femi Robinson, the Marxist, his patchily bearded face by Morgan’s shoulder.

‘Mr Leafy?’ he said, ‘May I have a word with you?’

‘What?’ He wondered how Robinson knew his name. He looked back and saw Adekunle about to sit down. ‘No,’ he said with more force than he meant and snatched his jacket cuff from Robinson’s still clutching fingers. He ran after Adekunle. ‘Professor,’ he called desperately.

‘Ah, Mr Leafy, yet again. Always turning up like a bad penny, yes?’

Morgan kept his voice low. ‘It would, I think, be a good idea if we had a talk.’

‘Oh yes?’ Adekunle said sceptically. He turned to his wife. ‘This will do fine, Celia.’ He looked back at Morgan. ‘A talk, Mr Leafy? What could we have to discuss?’ He sat down beside his wife. His seat was on the end of a row next to the centre aisle. Morgan grew aware that most people had secured their places by now.

He leant forward, bringing himself into Celia Adekunle’s unflinching stare. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we could talk about…interest and balance, er, that sort of thing.’

Adekunle smiled, his muttonchop whiskers raised by his bulging cheeks. ‘No, Mr Leafy,’ he said finally. ‘I don’t really think they’re attractive topics. And by the way, I think you’re obstructing the projector.’

Morgan looked round. Jones, who was supervising the film, waved him aside impatiently. He heard Fanshawe call his name and saw him pointing to an empty seat in the front row between Mrs Fanshawe and Chief Mabegun. Priscilla was three places away beside the Jones children. There was a sudden whirr and a blinding light struck him on one side of his face, silhouetting his round head and thin hair sharply against the screen. There were a few high-spirited whistles and calls of ‘Get your head down.’ He crouched low and scurried back up the aisle towards the projector. He was emphatically not going to sit for an hour and ten minutes beside Mrs Fanshawe. He felt angry and frustrated at the unsatisfactory way his conversation with Adekunle had gone, and his mood was not helped by Jones who hissed as he went past: ‘What are you bloody playing at, Morgan?’

Shut up you stupid Welsh git, Morgan swore under his breath, otherwise ignoring him, standing for a moment behind the final row of chairs watching the credits roll over a huge royal crest. What a disaster, he thought, contemplating his talk with Adekunle. And what a cynical bastard he was too, leading him on like that. He felt ashamed of his ineptitude, his clumsy inability even to set up another meeting. Had he been too subtle? he wondered, or was it the other way round? He shook his head in despair. So much for covert diplomacy, he thought scathingly. The entire audience must have seen him trotting after Adekunle like some importunate salesman determined to make his pitch. He gritted his teeth with shame and embarrassment.

Slowly he became aware of the presence of figures in the dark around him. On both sides of him the Commission servants had quietly gathered and were gazing entranced at the film in open-mouthed wonder, their faces ghoulishly illuminated by the reflected light. Morgan turned to the screen. The Royal Family were engaged in setting up and enjoying a picnic in a stereotypical Scottish setting. They wore kilts, tweed jackets or thick woolly jerseys. In the background was a small loch and further off were purply-green hills and pine woods. It was a cloudy day with small patches of intense blue among the clouds, hurried on by a gusty wind that billowed kilts and blew strands of hair across Royal faces. The young princes ran about in childish abandon but the elders were agonizingly conscious of the camera crew’s presence and the conversation was sotto voce and bland. Occasionally a remark of mild humour was passed—‘Three sausages! You greedy thing!’—and the audience would scream with uproarious laughter.

Morgan looked about him. Above, the stars shone, all round the crickets chirruped, the air was hot and damp and the formal clothes on the arrayed guests were heavy and uncomfortable. The beam of light emanating from the projector was alive with fluttering moths and insects casting their tiny shadows onto the Scottish countryside. From time to time a bat would dive-bomb the flickering insects, a darker more solid mass flashing across the picnicking group. The incongruity of the scene was so bizarre, so surreal — the fascinated servants stealing a glimpse of this family in their distant northern landscape — that Morgan felt it must be trying to tell him something significant, but he could see nothing in it apart from incongruity. Moreover, he found such juxtapositions unsettling: he could almost feel the chilly Scottish weather, the clear scouring breeze, and the sudden ideal vision of Britain made him depressed, reminded him painfully of his current location.

As the scene changed to Windsor Castle he turned away, knowing that Feltham was just down the road. He walked with leaden feet back to the Commission building, weighed down with dissatisfaction and failure. He stopped at a bar and helped himself to a large whisky before continuing on his way. He went up to the first floor. On the landing was a small bathroom equipped with a bath, basin and WC, for, as well as the main offices being there, there was a suite of rooms for important guests. Morgan relieved himself and sat morosely on the edge of the bath. There was an old wall shower attachment which was dripping. He turned the tap tighter and it stopped. He fingered the plastic shower curtain distractedly, his mind far away. It was decorated with a motif of angel fishes, bubbles and seaweed fronds. A similar curtain covered the bathroom window. He pulled it aside and looked over the back lawn. The cinema screen burned with lambent colours like a jewel in the huge navy-blue night. The crowd of spellbound servants had been swelled by the soft arrival of their families from the nearby quarters. He saw the red and black pattern of a parade and faintly heard the tinny accompaniment of martial music. He drained his glass and set it down. For some reason the scene made him feel like weeping.

He splashed his face with water and adjusted his bow tie. He paused for a moment on the landing, wondering how he would describe the night’s events to Fanshawe, before going slowly downstairs.

He had just reached the bottom when a woman’s voice said, ‘Oh…Hello.’