William Boyd - A Good Man in Africa

He hauled his shorts back up and dropped down beside her again. He kissed her face and neck. Stupid of him, he thought, to get the sequence wrong. ‘I’m sorry, my love,’ he said, sliding his hand beneath her swimsuit which was now bunched around her waist. She drew up her knees protectively.

‘No, don’t, Morgan, please.’

‘But why, my darling? I am in love with you, I told you.’ He tried to keep the whine out of his voice. Priscilla sat up and fitted the front of her swimsuit to her breasts. Morgan looked on in empty disbelief. She smiled sadly at him and rested her forehead on his. She kissed his nose.

‘I know you are, Morgie,’ she said with a note of assurance he found irritating. ‘But I can’t. Not today. Couldn’t you tell, you silly? It’s my time of the month.’

♦

They were back in Nkongsamba by early evening, several hours earlier than planned. Priscilla asked him to pull into the side of the road before they reached the Commission. She took his right hand in her two.

‘It was a lovely day,’ she said. ‘You were so sweet. I’m only sorry.…’

‘No, I’m sorry,’ he said. He meant it too. ‘Stupid of me, incredibly.’ They left it at that and sat in silence for a while. Morgan felt faintly sick, as though he’d eaten a huge cream tea or five bars of chocolate.

‘Mor?’ she said tentatively.

More what? he asked himself, until he realized with a renewed attack of nausea that his name had been reduced even further.

‘Yes?’

‘Did you…did you mean what you said?’

‘About what?’

‘About me…about how you feel.’

He leant over and kissed her. ‘Of course,’ he said quickly. She hung on to him tightly for a second.

‘Oh I shall miss you,’ she said fervently.

‘Miss me?’ he demanded. ‘Where the…where are you going?’

‘Didn’t I say? I meant to tell you. Mummy and I are going to stay with the Wagners for a few days.’ She squeezed his arm. ‘But I’ll hurry back.’ She kissed his cheek and opened the door. ‘Don’t bother to come in.’ She got out and shut the door blowing him a kiss through the open window. ‘See you in a few days.’

Morgan reached behind him for a soggy newspaper-wrapped bundle. ‘Here,’ he said, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. ‘Don’t forget your fish.’

♦

He turned the car round and drove directly back to town to the hotel where Hazel was currently living. He impatiently tooted his horn for five minutes until the proprietor emerged to see what all the fuss was about.

‘Hazel?’ Morgan asked. ‘I’m waiting for Hazel.’ The proprietor spread his empty hands. ‘Sorry, sah,’ he said compassionately. ‘She no dey. Nevah come home last night.’ That was when Morgan decided he had to find a flat for her.

Celia Adekunle’s invitation arrived as promised and Morgan and Fanshawe discussed the impending party in some detail. Morgan had earlier pressed for some additional bait other than Britain’s goodwill in an attempt to lure Adekunle away from a position that looked to be securely on the fence.

‘It’s just not enough,’ Morgan was saying on the Friday morning before the party, ‘to let him know that we’re rooting for his victory. We need something else to make a more binding alliance.’

‘True,’ Fanshawe admitted, ‘but we don’t want the man to feel that he gets our support as a matter of course.’

‘No,’ Morgan agreed cautiously.

‘If anything we want him to feel grateful to us for this early recognition. Indebted.’

‘Yes. Well, I’m not so sure.’ Not for the first time Morgan wondered if he and Fanshawe were thinking along the same lines.

‘I was on the phone to the capital this morning,’ Fanshawe told him. ‘They’re pleased with the way things are going, very pleased. It looks more and more like the KNP are favourites for the election and they want us to press ahead. They want to get Adekunle to London.’

‘London!’

‘Yes, some time before the elections. But only once we’re sure of his attitude.’

‘I’m not sure if we…’ Morgan began dubiously.

‘Nonsense,’ Fanshawe waved away his reservations. ‘Tell you what though. Offer it to him as a kind of reward: you know, first class tickets, couple of nights at Claridges. That should bring him into line,’ Fanshawe said confidently. Morgan wondered if they were talking about the same Adekunle. Fanshawe’s approach seemed to belong to another age, as if plane tickets and hotel reservations were an updated version of beads and blankets.

Morgan sat there, his face heavy with scepticism. ‘Cheer up,’ Fanshawe said. ‘We’re practically granting the KNP official recognition before a vote’s been cast. He can’t turn up his nose at that. Why man, he should be eating out of your hand.’

So it had been agreed. As a gesture of goodwill — once. Adekunle’s pro-British stance had been confirmed — he was to fly to London courtesy of the British taxpayer. Morgan was unhappy about this move. It seemed to take too much for granted, and that night as he drove into town he was in a considerable state of nervousness. Fanshawe was expecting great things of him but for all he knew Adekunle might chuck him out as a gatecrasher.

The Hotel de Executive was a four-storey all-concrete L-shaped block set some way back from the road in a high-walled compound. The kerb outside was thronged with parked cars and he had to drive several hundred yards up the road before he could find a gap for himself. He was surprised to find the hotel compound almost deserted. A few young men sat aimlessly around tin tables but he heard a thump of music and the din of conversation which seemed to be coming from around the back of the hotel. In the foyer he presented his invitation to a girl sitting at a table and was directed down a dark corridor. Emerging from this he found himself in a large courtyard formed by two sides of the L and squared off by a kind of raised, covered gallery. He stood at the angle of the L: on his left was a band and in front of them a concrete dance floor. All round this, tables and chairs had been set and opposite the band on the raised gallery was a long bamboo-fronted bar. Lights shone down from the side of the hotel, and coloured bulbs were strung around the courtyard.

The place was packed with guests. Morgan could see a few white faces but most of the guests were black and wearing vibrant Kinjanjan costume. He edged his way self-consciously towards the bar. Above the band stretched a huge banner with ‘HAPPY B’DAY SAM!’ written on it, and below that another saying ‘ACTION TODAY! VOTE KNP! VOTE SAM ADEKUNLE!’ As far as Morgan could see there was no sign of the man in question, nor of his wife. The heat was intense, what with the lights and the press of people, and the noise was almost intolerable. The band was blaring out brassy highlife music at conversation-stopping level yet the conversation went on, excited and shrill. He ordered a beer but his money was waved away. Free drink for this’mob, he thought, impressed; Adekunle was certainly being generous. He sipped at his beer and surveyed the crowd. He saw a few familiar faces: the mayor of Nkongsamba for one, Ola Dunyodi — Kinjanja’s most famous playwright — for another, and various of Adekunle’s university colleagues. The whole scene was reminiscent of an American electoral campaign, Morgan thought, right down to the hookers. For, hovering round the bar, were a number of gaudily dressed girls in the latest Western fashions, with huge lacquered wigs and expensive jewellery. Probably imported from the capital Morgan thought, they looked too fast for Nkongsamba.

There was a touch at his elbow. It was Georg Muller, the saw-mill owner and West German charge d’affaires. He was in his early fifties with a creased, tired-looking face. Sometimes he looked ill too, but tonight it was only fatigue. He had yellowy stained teeth and a straggly wiry goatee that reminded Morgan of leek roots. He was wearing an unironed white shirt and mustard coloured trousers that almost matched his smile.