William Boyd - A Good Man in Africa

‘No thanks,’ Muller said. ‘Only one a night. Doctor’s orders.’

‘Not Dr Murray, I trust,’ Morgan said scornfully.

‘Alex Murray?’ Muller asked. ‘I wish it was, but you have to be in the university to get him.’

‘At least he’s consistent,’ Morgan sneered.

‘Oh he’s very consistent,’ Muller said, misinterpreting. ‘A very consistent man.’

Muller left shortly after that, and Morgan chatted for a while to some people from the university he knew and wondered how he was going to get near enough to Adekunle to put his new proposition to him. He spent a fair bit of time actively building up his confidence which had slipped alarmingly low since arriving at the Hotel de Executive. He felt like some medieval underling trying to present a suit to a feudal lord or overweight bishop, or one of those minor characters in Shakespeare’s Roman plays who intrude upon the principals with petty wrangles about legacies Or property disputes. Adekunle’s stature and prestige now impressed itself on him much more forcefully as a result of the massive adulation and respect the assembled dignitaries were offering up. He felt simultaneously the unreality, stupidity and ill-conceived nature of Fanshawe’s ‘mission’ for hjm. He and Fanshawe were like a couple of retarded kids playing a game together as the real world rumblfed by unaffected.

‘Cheer up;’ Celia Adekunle said coming up to him. ‘Why so gloomy? It’s meant to be a party, you know.’

‘Sorry,’ he said glumly. ‘Lot on my mind.’

‘Really?’ she said. ‘Anything I can do?’

Morgan laughed more harshly than he intended. ‘I doubt it,’ he said. Then, ‘Sorry. Thanks for asking, but it’s not that important. I must say that’s a splendid…um, outfit you’re wearing.’ The cloth was heavy and the colours glowing, and she wore a lot of gold around her neck and wrists.

‘Thank you,’ she said without much enthusiasm. ‘I don’t wear this stuff all the time, you know, I’d hate you to think I’d gone totally native.’ The surprising stress she put on this last word embarrassed them both. Morgan looked away.

‘Big crowd,’ he said. ‘Is there any chance of talking to your husband, do you think? Or is that a vain hope?’

‘You’re very keen to see Sam, aren’t you,’ she said thoughtfully, lighting a cigarette. ‘I told him you were coming. He’s expecting you.’

‘Oh,’ Morgan said gratefully. ‘That’s very good of you.’

‘That’s OK,’ Celia Adekunle said, scrutinizing him through a cloud of smoke. ‘Just wait until the official meeting and greeting is over.’

‘Right,’ Morgan said. ‘Let me get you a drink in the meantime.’ He replenished her glass and stood chatting to her for a while. He asked her where she and Adekunle had met.

‘Sheffield of all places,’ she said. ‘Sam did his BA there. I was secretary to his professor. Sam had some trouble at one time with his bursary and so I saw a lot of him in the office one term, getting forms signed and letters written.’ She paused. ‘He was so different from the other students. Much older of course, very ambitious and somehow experienced, even though he was at a bit of a loss in Sheffield at first. It wasn’t much fun being a black student in those days. We went out together a few times…got our share of strange looks.’

‘When did you get married?’ Morgan prompted, feeling mildly interested.

‘Sam went off to Harvard to do his PhD. He came back suddenly after a year and asked me to marry him, and I did.’ She shrugged. ‘We had two years in the States. My first boy was born there. Then we came here.’

Morgan smiled awkwardly. The story had been delivered in a curiously dead-pan tone. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. ‘So you’re a secretary by trade,’ he said lamely.

‘No, I started off as a nurse. But I couldn’t stick it. My mother had been a midwife and I was rather forced into the profession. But it’s not something you can just do. You have to be a certain kind of person. It just got me down. $ick people all the time, people dying.’ She gave a brittle clear laugh. ‘I should have been a midwife. Get people going, instead of meeting them at the end-of the race.’

‘So you became a secretary.’ Morgan felt his line of questioning was uninspired to say the least, but she seemed happy to talk about herself.

‘I was waiting round, undecided. It seemed a good stop-gap, but then I found I quite liked it, especially working in a university. Intelligent people all around you, all that. My boss was nice too.’

‘Sam’s professor,’ Morgan suspected that there was another story there too.

‘Yes. He was a kind man. He…Then,’ she made a mock-dramatic gesture, ‘Sam Adekunle walked into my life, needing a signature on a bursary form.’

Morgan saw it all: the bored, frustrated secretary; Adekunle — black, potent. A chief’s son, no doubt hints dropped of great wealth and limitless tribal lands. The sense of failure prompting a spirit of rebellion: go out with a black man, show how free you are, how you spurn the conventions of your life…

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said. ‘But I can assure you it wasn’t how you imagine.’ Morgan protested vehemently. ‘It’s alright,’ she said, ‘I know what they say about the white wives of Kinjanjans out here, and it’s probably fairly accurate. But with Sam it wasn’t like that. He was quite a different person in those days.’

Morgan found himselfblushing. ‘Look,’he insisted, ‘I wasn’t thinking anything, for heaven’s sake.’

‘I believe you,’ she smiled. ‘Relax. Only it’s just that I haven’t spoken about me and Sam for ages. And I do know what the expats say, I’ve been on the receiving end of enough nasty gossip.’

‘Please. Don’t classify me as a typical expat. Anything but.’

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘But I became pretty good at recognizing that ‘look’ in people’s eyes.’ She jokingly speared two fingers at Morgan’s eyes. ‘I thought I saw it flashing there.’ She glanced over her shoulder, ‘Oh good,’ she said. ‘I think Sam’s available now.’

♦

Adekunie steered Morgan into a corner of the courtyard. He muttered something to one of his aides. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said to Morgan. ‘We won’t be disturbed.’

Morgan looked about him. ‘Isn’t there somewhere less…exposed?’

Adekunle’s laugh boomed out. ‘My dear fellow, it would attract far more attention if I were seen leaving my own birthday party with you.’ Morgan realized he was right.

‘I found your speech very interesting,’ he said.

‘Did you?’ Adekunie asked sceptically. ‘And how does the Deputy High Commission rate the KNP’s chances?’

‘Good.’ Morgan drew the word out as if it were the product of long deliberation. ‘If the Army let you.’ Adekunie looked at him sharply. Morgan was gratified by the accuracy of his shot in the dark.

‘What do you mean by that?’ Adekunie said with more interest.

‘I don’t think we need to go into detail, do we?’

‘As you wish,’ Adekunie said. ‘We’ll take a rain-check on it, as the saying goes. Anyway, Mr Leafy, I believe you wanted to talk to me.’

Morgan took a deep breath. ‘I’m here — unofficially — to convey the, how shall I put it? less unofficial nature of Britain’s, um, interest in the fortunes of the KNP.’

Adekunie thought about this. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘But you shouldn’t be talking to me. I am only, as our French friends say, a fonctionnaire .’

‘Ah yes. But an important one. Certainly in the field of foreign affairs.’

‘Just a supposition, Mr Leafy. I don’t everi know yet if I will be a member of the National Assembly.’