William Boyd - A Good Man in Africa

In the corner of his room was a wicker basket into which he threw all his clothes that needed washing. He lifted the lid. Three soiled white underpants nestled in the bottom like some flayed rodent brood savaged by a ferret.

‘Friday!’ Morgan bellowed down the verandah.

Friday came panting up impelled by the violence in Morgan’s shout.

‘Underpants!’ Morgan accused his cowering diminutive servant. ‘No bloody underpants. Why you nevah wash ‘im?’

Friday hung his head. ‘ Je ne peux pas le faire ,’ he said meekly. ‘I don’t like wash dis one.’

Morgan picked a pair out and held it dangling from his hand. Friday reared back, a grin of alarm on his face.

‘It’s not bloody funny!’ Morgan growled furiously. ‘Just because you’re so bloody fastidious I’ve got to go to work in dirty knickers. Big joke eh? You’ve been washing them for two years, why stop now?’

Friday gestured at them. ‘ C’est de gueulasse . I don’t like dis ting for inside. Nevah fit wash ‘im like dis.’

Morgan was puzzled. What was he talking about? Skid-marks? Sweat stains? He took the offending pair and spread the waistband wide with the fingers of both hands. What was the silly bugger objecting to now, he wondered as he peered in?

♦

Morgan sat in the car park at the university clinic telling himself to keep calm. His heart seemed on the point of retreating to its warm niche in his chest. He breathed out slowly: it had been a dreadful shock — that vile stuff — he had let the pants fall from his trembling fingers, reeling back, his eyes bulging with horror. He now wore one of his pairs with an expanded waistband secured with a safety pin. He held his hands out in front of him: they were still shaking slightly but they would do. He got out of the car and walked nervously towards the clinic. He noticed with surprise a long queue of students winding out of the waiting room. Inside there wasn’t a seat to spare. He went up to the reception window. The same little clerk sat behind it. Morgan leant against the wall.

‘Dr Murray here?’ he asked tiredly, like a man who hadn’t slept all night. He remembered his sworn promise to himself that he would never visit Murray again. That sort of brash statement was all very well when you were healthy, he told himself but it was a different matter when horrible oozings were coming out of your body.

‘Yes, sah,’ the clerk said. ‘Excuse me, sah, but are you senior staff?’

‘What?…Yes I suppose I am. Just tell Dr Murray that it’s Mr Leafy here. And that I need to see him urgently.’

‘I’m sorry, sah. Senior staff clinic is at twelve o’clock. If you can return then…’

‘Good God,’ Morgan said in angry despair. ‘What’s going on in this place? I’m not a car or something, I just can’t be sick to some timetable you’ve dreamt up. Look, look,’ he shooed his hands at the clerk, ‘go and tell Dr Murray it’s an emergency. I’m Mr Leafy, from the Commission. Got that? Now go on.’

The clerk protested, ‘Doctor will tell you to come back.’

‘Never you mind,’ Morgan hissed. ‘Let me worry about that. Just tell him.’ The clerk grudgingly left his position. Morgan paced distractedly up and down, his hands in his pockets, trying to ignore the rude stares and hostile mutters of the students who objected to him blatantly jumping the queue in this way. Presently the clerk came back and in whispers told him to go round to the dispensary and wait. Morgan went outside and round the corner of the building to a small bottle-lined annex where a genial chemist directed him to a row of wooden chairs against the wall of the verandah. Two African women sat there already, one nursing a child, and he reluctantly sat down beside her, modestly averting his eyes. What in God’s name was Murray playing at? he wondered, feeling hot and uncomfortable. Who did he think he was to park him out here like some welfare case? A little boy wearing only a shirt came round from behind the other woman and stood in front of him gazing at the large white man in frank curiosity. He had a streaming cold and grey phlegm covered his upper lip like a shiny moustache. Below the hem of his shirt a bulging domed navel protruded a good two inches. Morgan looked away, uncomfortable. The nursing baby slurped noisily at its mother’s breast. The little boy’s thin dark penis pointed at Morgan’s shiny shoes. Realities hounded you unmercifully in Africa, Morgan thought; just when he needed a bit of unreflecting peace, here they were, crowding round him.

Twenty sweaty minutes later Murray came out. He looked capable and cool in his normal outfit, supplemented this time by a stethoscope round his neck. Morgan stood up and went along the verandah to meet him halfway.

‘Ah Dr Murray,’ he said. ‘I’m so glad…’

‘My senior staff clinic’s not for another hour, Mr Leafy.’ Murray was firm and unsmiling.

‘I know that,’ Morgan said impatiently, ‘but this was important.’ He paused and decided it would be wise to make his tone more amenable. ‘I thought it was an emergency.’

‘I’ll give you five minutes,’ Murray said. ‘There are sixty students out there who’ve been waiting longer than you.’ Morgan followed him into his consulting room. The man was impossible, Morgan thought, almost deranged. It was as though he was doing you some astonishing favour in deigning to treat his patients. Still, he decided to keep his feelings to himself; this whole business was far too serious and delicate to allow his personal dislike of Murray to get in the way. He remembered the frosty exchanges of his last visit with vague regret and resolved not to let the mood deteriorate like that today.

‘What’s the trouble?’ Murray asked, taking up his seat behind his desk. Morgan paused, trying to find appropriate words to convey the intimate nature of his problem.

‘Well, this morning…’ he began. ‘That is to say I’ve been noticing some pain — actually more like discomfort really, a sort of tingling, really.’ He swallowed, his tongue suddenly dry as pumice. Murray looked on steadily, giving nothing away. Morgan wondered what he was thinking.

‘What in fact is wrong?’ Murray asked bluntly.

‘Discharge,’ Morgan blurted out the word as if it were some dreadful obscenity. ‘This morning I noticed, well, what you might call, ah, discharge, on my underpants, that is.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Pardon? Oh no, as I was saying there’s been some discomfort on, when I go…when I urinate.’ Morgan felt exhausted, as if he’d been running for miles. He wiped moisture from his upper lip. ‘Not always,’ he said feebly. ‘Just sometimes.’

‘How long has this been going on?’ Murray asked. The man was incredible, Morgan thought, not a trace of sympathy, no preliminary chat to put the patient at his ease.

‘Couple of days I suppose,’ Morgan confessed. Murray pulled his chair round to the side of his desk.

‘Right,’ he said briskly, ‘Let’s have a look.’

‘You mean?’ Morgan cleared his throat. ‘Off?’

‘Aye. Breeks down, the lot.’

Morgan thought there was a good chance he might faint. With trembling fingers he undid his trousers and let them drop to his ankles. Too late he remembered his baggy, perished underpants. He felt his face blaze with miserable embarrassment as he unfastened the safety pin holding up his useless Y-fronts.

‘I think I should say these are not my normal…’ he began in a rush. ‘My steward refused to wash…So I had to…I do have some perfectly good ones…’ This was appalling, he screamed to himself. Murray looked on unmoved. Morgan could hardly breathe from the effort he was making to stay calm; the powerful urge to explain overwhelmed him. With intense care he placed the safety pin on the edge of Murray’s desk. It was useless, he let his underpants fall and looked anguishedly at the ceiling. He felt giddy and weak. The average human body, such as the one he possessed, couldn’t tolerate, he felt sure, the extremes of shame and humiliation that his had been subjected to recently. Perhaps this ghastly discharge was a sign that it was finally cracking up, falling apart at the seams.