William Boyd - A Good Man in Africa

‘Dildo?’ Morgan repeated in furious incomprehension, anger still coursing through his body. ‘What have bloody dildos got to do with this?’ He saw the man’s suitcase on the ground and for a crazed unreal moment thought he’d felled a travelling salesman for a sexual-aids firm who was trying to whip up some West African business.

‘No,’ the man said in a whimper. ‘Bilbow. My name. My name’s Greg Bilbow.’ He had a weedy Yorkshire accent.

‘I don’t give a damn what your name is. What are you doing prowling around here in the dead of night? That’s what I want to know.’

The man seemed on the point of breaking down but Morgan was unrelenting. He had more important things to worry about than the sentiments of some nomadic York-shireman.

‘I’ve had a nightmare trip,’ his victim continued dolefully. ‘A nightmare. I’ve just paid out forty-five pounds on a taxi fare. Forty-five pounds! I think I’ve been to Timbuctoo and back.’ He sniffed. ‘I got off the train at Nkongsamba at seven-thirty this evening. I found a taxi and asked to be taken to the British Deputy High Commission.’ He peered at his watch. ‘We’ve been driving around for over eight hours,’ there was a barely suppressed sob in his voice.

‘Well, you’ve arrived,’ Morgan said harshly, thinking that they really shouldn’t let such innocents out in the world. ‘You’ve been conned. The station’s about twenty minutes away.’

‘Thank God,’ the man said, seemingly happy only to have made it. ‘Oh thank God!’

‘But you’ll have to come back tomorrow,’ Morgan said unsparingly, agonizingly conscious of the time he was wasting. ‘Everything’s closed up until the morning. There’s a hotel half a mile down the road. They’ll put you up.’

‘But I’ve got no money,’ the man whined. ‘I spent it all on the taxi.’

‘That’s your problem, old son,’ Morgan laughed cruelly, drained of human kindness. ‘Now push off.’

The man was flapping a piece of paper about. ‘But I’ve got a letter here from someone called Morgan Leafy who says I can stay at the Commission.’ His shoulders slumped in desperation. ‘Please,’ he added feebly.

Cogs began to click and spin in Morgan’s brain. ‘What did you say your name was?’

‘Bilbow. Greg Bilbow.’

‘What is it you do exactly?’

‘Me? I’m a poet.’

♦

It was surprisingly easy for Morgan and Friday to drag Innocence the remaining few yards and then, with the strength of desperate men, heave her into the boot. Morgan closed the lid and locked it. He felt like the driver of a runaway car hurtling down a mountain road: nominally in control, but only just. Ruthlessly suppressing the urge to fall to the ground, scream and beat the earth with his fists, he quietly explained the true nature of the ghostly apparition to Friday in demotic pidgin French. Friday stood there taking it in, nodding his head and muttering to himself, ‘ Jamais…jamais de ma vie…non, non…jamais .’ Normally Morgan would have commiserated with him: his solitary vigil in the dark over Innocence’s body, the stink, the flies, Shango, a disappearing accomplice who threatened him with violent death all must have tested his mettle considerably.

They pushed the car back down the track to the road and then drove down to the Commission entrance where Bilbow stood waiting as he had been instructed to. Morgan had offered to put him up for the night. He climbed into the front seat.

‘I’m tremendously grateful,’ he began. ‘Amazing coincidence that you should be out and about at this time.’

‘Yes, isn’t it,’ Morgan said, thinking quickly. ‘I’m just driving my houseboy back from taking his wife to hospital,’ he jerked his thumb at Friday in the back. ‘I was going past the Commission when I thought I saw somebody wandering around in the garden.’

‘You gave me a right turn,’ Bilbow said cheerfully. He seemed to have settled down. ‘The way you charged out of those trees, your arms all waving, the look on your face — I almost died…’ the Yorkshire accent drew the vowels out interminably. Morgan felt an extreme tiredness descend on him, then they drove over a pot-hole and Innocence’s body thumped in the boot. Friday gave a squeak of alarm.

‘He’s very upset,’ Morgan explained in response to Bilbow’s surprised face. ‘Just married.’ Bilbow nodded understanding and turned to an uncomprehending Friday.

‘Sorry to hear about your wife,’ he said. ‘Hope she gets better soon.’

Morgan drove on. There was no point in taking the body to Ademola morgue tonight, he thought. It would just have to wait until tomorrow.

‘Hey,’Bilbowsaidjovially.’I’vejoost realized. It’s Christmas Day. Merry Christmas everyone!’

Bilbow wore an old green towelling shirt with short sleeves and his white cotton jeans which still displayed the dirt scuffs from his encounter with Morgan the night before. At first glance he looked ridiculously young with his tall lean body, blue eyes behind the round spectacle frames and the overall blandness of his near albino colouring — longjsh straight platinum hair, invisible eyebrows and lashes, pink starlet lips. But a closer inspection revealed the graininess of his skin, the thin lines stretching down from the corners ofhis nostrils, and others forming brackets round his mouth. His voice, which his panic and distress had made whiny last night, had settled into its normal deeper timbre, and for all its comic book Yorkshire tones it had a genuinely friendly and quietly relaxed quality.

‘Merry Christmas,’ he said as Morgan shambled through the screen door onto the verandah. He was sitting at the verandah table with the remains of his breakfast in front of him. He gestured at the sunlit garden. ‘Quite bizarre,’ he said. ‘Here I am in a short-sleeved shirt eating — what’s it called? — paw-paw in a temperature of eighty degrees while everyone at home’s wrapped up warm watching the telly.’

‘Yeah well,’ Morgan said surlily through his hangover, thinking of last night’s events, ‘that’s what it’s like in Africa: out of the ordinary.’

‘I’ve got a present for you,’ Bilbow said. ‘Well not so much a present, more of a thank you for last night. Saved me life.’ He held out a slim book. Morgan took it. The Small Carafe and Other Poems by Greg Bilbow.

‘Thanks,’ Morgan said gruffly. Til, ah, have a look at it later.’ He sat down in front of his bowl of cornflakes. He rubbed his eyes. Merry bloody Christmas. He felt hellish, like the survivor of some week-long battle. Surely things would calm down now? He looked across the table at Bilbow — the fine, centrally-parted blond hair, the pinched bespectacled face. He didn’t seem to suspect anything about last night, seemed quite happy to accept Morgan’s version of events. That, at least, was something.

Morgan pushed his uneaten cornflakes to one side and thought about his Christmas Day ahead. First he had to get rid of the decomposing body in his car boot, then dress up as Santa Claus and hand out presents to kids: the contrast seemed ghoulishly obscene.

‘Here,’ Bilbow interrupted his thoughts, ‘talking about presents, there’s a cracking big ‘un arrived for you. It’s in t’sitting room. Bloody heavy it was too.’

Lying on the sitting-room carpet was indeed a huge brightly wrapped present about five feet long. Falling to his knees beside it Morgan savagely tore away the wrapping paper.

‘Christ,’ Bilbow said admiringly.

Morgan looked on aghast. It was a massive mustard and black golf bag, the sort carried by champion American golfers, or rather by their tottering caddies. Fumbling at the buckles and catches Morgan unzipped the hood. A complete set of gleaming golf clubs was revealed, newly minted, like lethal weapons.