William Boyd - A Good Man in Africa

♦

Adekunle’s house was grand and looked twice the size of any other on the campus, probably built by Ussman Danda Ltd, Morgan thought. It was an imposing, square, two-storeyed building with a column-supported balcony running round the entire length of the first floor. Attached to the house was, on one side, a jumble of servants’ quarters and, on the other, a three-car garage. It was set in a large well-tended garden which was surrounded by a high barbed-wire fence. It looked like the residence of a state governor rather than the home of a professor of economics and Morgan wondered what Adekunle’s university colleagues thought of such conspicuous consumption. Two khaki-clad watchmen opened the iron gates and Morgan pulled into the drive and parked by the front door. Fanshawe had been beside himself with glee when Morgan informed him about the phone call and, not for the first time, wondered if his superior had told him about everything that was riding on the success of Project Kingpin. The plane tickets, apparently, were ready — just waiting for a date — and according to Fanshawe the beds in Claridges were turned down in expectation.

Morgan rang the front-door bell and was shown by a white-uniformed steward into an airy sitting room which like most houses in Kinjanja was open to the garden and the breeze on two sides. The floors were wooden, the furniture light and Swedish-looking. Fine examples of Africana — masks, beaten bronze panels, carved calabashes — hung on the walls. He wondered if this was Celia Adekunle’s doing and suspected it was.

She came into the room. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Sam told me you were coming. I’m afraid he’s going to be a bit late.’ She was wearing a straight, pale, lime-green summery dress with a V-neck and no sleeves. Morgan realized it was the first time he’d seen her in European clothes. In the shade of the room and set offby the colour of her dress her tan looked very dark.

‘Oh I see,’ Morgan said. ‘Is it all right if I wait?’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Please do. Would you like some tea?’ They had some tea and chatted aimlessly.

‘Lovely house,’ Morgan said.’

‘Do you think so?’ she said without much enthusiasm. ‘We were hoping to move. I can’t stand the fence. Sam was going to build a house nearer town but,’ she gave a slight laugh, ‘he can’t afford it — these election expenses are terrible. The only trouble is that if he wins we’ll probably need a bigger fence,’ she didn’t look at all pleased at the prospect, ‘and guards.’

‘Don’t you want him to win?’ he asked.

She looked at him critically. ‘It doesn’t really matter what I want,’ she said in a flat voice. She got to her feet and took a cigarette from a box on a coffee table in front of him. As she bent down to pick one out he saw the pale whiteness of her bra down the front of her V-neck. She raised her eyes and caught him looking.

‘Cigarette?’ she offered, then said, ‘No, I forgot. You’ve given up haven’t you.’ She looked at her watch, Morgan checked his: it was past four. ‘Would you like a drink?’ she asked. ‘It’s a bit late for more tea.’ She called for the steward. ‘What’ll you have?’ she asked him.

‘Ooh…’ he tried to look as if he was thinking about it. ‘I’ll have…tell you what, I’ll just have a Coke.’

‘One Coke and one vodka and tonic,’ she directed the steward. She looked back at Morgan, a smile on her face.

‘Don’t smoke, don’t drink. Are you completely vice-free, Mr Leafy?’

‘Please, Morgan,’ he invited, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘I have my share,’ he said. She was a strange woman, he thought, there’s something curiously aggressive about her. He watched her resume her seat. Her hair was dry-looking, pulled back carelessly in a pony-tail; her eyes had that bruised, half-shut, heavy-lidded look he’d noticed before. Her crossed legs were very brown — even her toes were brown, he saw, where they peeped from her sandals. Her skin had that overtanned look where it loses its gloss and sheen and becomes dull and matt. He wondered if she were brown all over.

‘What are you looking at?’ she said suddenly.

Morgan was a bit taken aback. ‘I…I was admiring your tan,’ he said, flustered.

‘Well, I don’t have much else to do,’ she confessed. ‘I can lie out on the balcony there all day. Follow the sun round. It’s…quite private. The kids are away at boarding-school, there’s nothing here for me to do,’ she indicated the house. ‘Sometimes I go to the club in town in the mornings just to get away from the university, and the university wives. Yap yap gossip all day.’ She stabbed out her cigarette. ‘I’m often down there between nine and eleven week-days,’ she looked at him pointedly. ‘Do you go swimming, Morgan?’ she asked.

Good Lord, he thought, this isn’t very subtle. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I like swimming.’ There was a pause. He thought he should depressurize the atmosphere a little. ‘I shall have more time for it now,’ he said breezily. ‘Since the new man’s arrived. Taken over all my routine work.’

She came over for another cigarette. ‘Is that all your immigration, visa application stuff?’ she asked nonchalantly.

‘That’s right. Shunted it over to Dalmire. Leave me free for other things.’ He didn’t mean that to be an innuendo and he hoped she wouldn’t interpret it that way. His libido was in very poor shape these days and he still had a week and a half to run on his quarantine.

‘But,’ she casually blew smoke into the air. ‘You, ah, no doubt still have overall control of that side of things.’

‘Oh yes,’ Morgan said patronizingly. ‘Young Dalmire only does the routine stuff — doesn’t really know the ropes yet. Anything problematic still has to come through me.’

‘I see,’ she nodded, then looked up suddenly. ‘I think that sounds like Sam.’ She got to her feet. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Morgan, I know Sam won’t want to be disturbed.’ She walked towards the stairs. Morgan stood up. ‘I enjoyed our chat,’ she said. ‘Perhaps I’ll see you at the club some morning this week.’ She skipped quickly up the stairs as Morgan heard Adekunle come through the front door. He turned to meet him.

‘My good friend Mr Leafy,’ Adekunle greeted him jovially, looking trussed-up and sweaty in a three — piece suit. He dumped a slim briefcase on an armchair and strode across the room, a pale brown palm extended. ‘How is everything going?’ he asked. ‘Has Celia been looking after you well?’

♦

‘He what? Fanshawe squeaked in outrage, plucking at the tiny hairs of his moustache. ‘My God, the bloody nerve!’

‘Yes, definitely,’ Morgan said. ‘He wants two weeks at Claridges and a car with a driver.’

Fanshawe looked shocked. ‘Good grief,’ he said. ‘Just who do these chappies think they are?’

‘And,’ Morgan went on. ‘He wants an open ticket, two in fact, and he wants to be met officially at the airport.’

‘Officially?’ Fanshawe shook his head in disbelief. ‘What did you say to all this?’

Morgan paused. ‘I said it was OK…’ Fanshawe looked up in alarm. ‘Of course I said I’d have to clear it first — made no firm promises.’

‘Thank God for that,’ Fanshawe ran his hand over his head, smoothing down the smooth hair. ‘Just as well, as I’m not at all sure we can swallow all that, not sure at all.’

‘It should do the trick though,’ Morgan suggested. ‘Adekunle said that if we could arrange all this he’d forget about the other invitations.’

‘What other invitations?’ Morgan had never told him.

‘To Paris, Washington, Rome.’

‘Oh my God,’ Fanshawe went pale. Morgan wondered just what he’d been telling the High Commissioner, what he’d guaranteed the mandarins in the Foreign Office. He saw suddenly that the man was as desperate to escape as he was: Project Kingpin was his passport out of Nkongsamba too. He watched Fanshawe drumming his fingers nervously on his desk top. ‘He’ll forget about them, you say?’ he asked.