William Boyd - A Good Man in Africa

Morgan felt himself tingle with uneasy excitement. Admittedly, he was very nearly drunk, but he didn’t feel as nervous as he’d expected. This was the marvellous thing about action, he thought; at least he was doing something about his problems instead of sitting at home and fretting about them. He planned simply to bundle Innocence’s body into the boot and drive her down to the morgue at Ademola clinic. He didn’t really care who he upset: as far as he was concerned he was merely following Fanshawe’s explicit instruction. ‘Get rid of it,’ he had said. ‘Use an armed guard if you have to.’ Well, Morgan thought, there was no need to be quite so dramatic as that.

‘ Allons-y ,’ he hissed at Friday, and they scurried closer, hunched like two commandos behind enemy lines. They slid into the moon-shadow cast by the gable end of the block nearest the Commission, pressing their backs against the wall. Innocence’s body lay a few yards away from them across the gap between the block’s verandah and the raised concrete floor of the wash-place. The moonlight coming through the leaves of the towering cotton tree dappled the ground with shade. Not far off the smudge fire gave out lingering wreaths of smoke from the pile of greenery that had been placed on top of the charcoal. But the smell of the smoke wasn’t sufficient.

‘ Oh la la ,’ Friday whispered, ‘ Ça pue .’

Morgan smelt the rotting sweetness flow through his nose and down into his lungs like water. He felt his stomach heave and saliva pump into his mouth. He leant his head against the rough wall behind him. Suddenly he wished he wasn’t there. What had possessed him to do such a thing? How could he…

‘ Ça va , masta?’ Friday asked in concern.

‘ Oui , I mean yes.’ He swallowed. Now or never. ‘Come on,’ he said. They crept out to the body. The laterite square was deserted and everything was quiet, bathed in the grey-blue of moonglow. Quickly Morgan flicked back the cloth from the now familiar body. The smell seemed to billow out like an explosion. Friday gave a little whimper when he saw Innocence. Dappled moonlight lay across her face; a patch of light on her mouth made her teeth gleam. Morgan dry-retched and gagged.

‘ Vite ,’ he whispered huskily. ‘ Prends la main et… ’ he couldn’t remember the French for pull,’…pull’im!’Without thinking he gripped Innocence’s bloated forearm with both hands and he saw a recoiling Friday hesitatingly do the same. The skin was like no skin he had ever touched before — like thick rubber. He thought it bitterly ironic and singularly peculiar of him that this very afternoon he had been unable to bring himself to hold a turkey’s legs. He tugged and Innocence shifted. Despite the illusion of balloon-lightness she was alarmingly heavy. And stiff. He saw that the arm which he was pulling remained unnaturally bent. He gave a little sob.

‘‘Pull, Friday,’ he whispered, ‘ Pull! ’

They pulled and with a scrape of dust and gravel dragged her back into the secure shadow cast by the gable end of the block. Morgan found he was panting loudly. Friday looked as if he were facing a firing squad. Morgan didn’t dare let go of Innocence’s wrist in case he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to grip it again. Over the rasping sound of his breathing he heard the horrible buzzing of disturbed flies. With a shudder he locked away his imagination for the night. He looked back at the spot where Innocence had been. The cloth lay like a dark puddle of water, surrounded by the small piles of votive juju-tokens. He wondered what the Commission servants would think when they woke up in the morning. Was this what it had been like when they found the stone had been rolled away? he asked himself in a bizarre impulse of heuristic theology. But his speculations were interrupted by a thin chant of fear coming from Friday’s lips.

‘Shut up!’ Morgan hissed. ‘Come on!’

With difficulty they dragged Innocence up the path a few yards into the allotment grove. Morgan was amazed at the rigidity of her joints and wondered how long they could withstand the strain. He didn’t like to think what might happen if they gave. They paused for a few seconds to get their breath back, their chests heaving, without talking. Was this what it was like with Burke and Hare? he wondered: silence, guilt and horror? Why, he asked himself, was his mind insisting on working in this exegetical and pedantic way? Friday looked straight ahead of him, his hands on his knees, his eyes half-focused on the Commission garden.

Suddenly his mouth dropped open and his eyes widened in terror.

‘Masta,’ he stuttered, a shaking arm pointing towards the Commission, ‘ Mais non …!’

Morgan snapped his head round, his heart jumping somewhere at the back of his throat. Beyond the nim trees the wide expanse of the Commission garden lay illuminated in the calm moonlight. And there Morgan clearly saw a tall white shape moving slowly to and fro. He heard a faint noise carry across the garden, ‘…oooh…owe…’

‘Mmnngrllggrrk,’ was the only sound that issued from his petrified vocal chords.

Friday had leapt to his feet, stark terror written across his incredulous features. ‘ Shango! ’ he gasped. ‘Shango ‘e done come,’ he bleated helplessly, stepping back from the body as if controlled by an alien force. ‘ Je m’en vais .’

Ghastly calamities spontaneously reared up in Morgan’s mind. He jumped up and fiercely grabbed hold of Friday’s shirt-front, hauling the little man up on his tiptoes. ‘You bloody stay here,’ he whispered brutally, ‘or I’ll kill you.’ Friday’s eyes rolled at the savagery of this threat. Morgan pushed him back down onto his knees by Innocence’s body.

Friday covered his face with his hands. ‘Masta,’ he whimpered. ‘I go beg you don’t leaf me wit dis dead woman…’ He pointed suddenly again. ‘Ah-ah! Shango is comin’.’

Morgan’s scrambled brain registered the presence of the pale spectre roaming about the garden once more. Without thinking he dashed towards the line of nim trees. Pressing himself to a thick trunk he peered out across the moonlit lawn.

It seemed to be a person; tall and dressed in white, holding something in one hand. He strained his ears to try and make out the noises it was uttering.

‘Hello-oo,’ he heard. ‘Anyone at ho-ome?’

In a sudden blind boiling rage, incoherent with terror, relief and fuming anger he charged off in a wild arm-flailing sprint across the lawn towards the figure. The man — as Morgan swiftly approached he recognized the person as such — looked round when he heard the sound of Morgan’s thundering footsteps, paused for an instant, and then, patently transfigured by shocked alarm himself, began to run away — a difficult operation this, for he was encumbered by a suitcase. Morgan’s hell-for-leather momentum soon brought him within range of the lumbering lanky Shango-impersonator and like a plucky full-back bringing down a try-scoring three-quarter, he launched himself at the man’s knees.

The man in white came crashing to the ground with a shrill cry of pain and surprise. Morgan bit his lip to prevent his own pain — two badly bruised knees from the concrete-hard lawn — expressing itself in a whoop of anguish. He leapt to his feet still spitting with anger. The man remained groggily on all fours, searching the ground for something.

‘Who…the fuck…are you?’ Morgan demanded breathlessly in a stage scream-whisper. ‘What the hell…do you think you’re doing…prowling around at this time of night disturbing…making a bloody nuisance of yourself?’

The man found and put on a pair of round gold-rimmed spectacles and rose unsteadily to his feet. He was very tall and thin. In the moonlight Morgan could make out longish fair hair, a middle parting, prominent nose and shadow-hollowed cheeks. Morgan flashed a glance back over his shoulder at the servants’ quarters. No lights were showing; he only prayed Friday was still with Innocence. He looked back. The man was muttering something about a dildo.