William Boyd - A Good Man in Africa

‘Yer,’ Jones added patriotically. ‘Who won the war boyo, eh? Answer me that if you damn well please.’

‘Daddy, Daddy, what’ll we do?’ Priscilla whined. Dalmire hugged her to him reassuringly.

‘FANSHAWE IS A FASCIST IMPERIALIST CRIMINAL,’ Robinson trumpeted, setting up a blood-curdling yell of accord from the mob.

‘You have to get out!’ Adekunle shouted suddenly. ‘ Get out! Get out of my house. I’m ordering you.’ His eyes were wide with panicky alarm.

‘Hold on,’ Morgan countered angrily. ‘We can’tjust wander off. They’ll stone us to death.’ As if to illustrate this point forcefully more stones clattered against the door.

‘I don’t care!’ Adekunle proclaimed. ‘Muller is right. They only want you. Go to your own houses. Fight your battles on your own ground.’

As the saying goes, Morgan thought sarcastically. He thought he’d never seen a more pathetic craven bunch. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I’ve got an idea.’ All heads turned to face him. ‘They want Arthur, right? So let’s give them Arthur.’

‘ Leafy! ’ Fanshawe squawked, swaying back on his heels. ‘Are you out of your mind? What are you saying, man?’

‘Not you, Arthur,’ he said, a surge of confidence flooding through his body, ‘Me. I’ll go in your place as a decoy. I’ll lead the crowd away and then the rest of you can make your escape.’ There was a sudden silence in the hall as they considered this idea. Morgan wondered what had made him suggest this course of action. Drink, yes. Guilt too. But above all a desire to get out, do something.

‘But how will they know it’s me and not you?’ Fanshawe asked, hope flickering in his eyes.

‘I’ll take the car,’ Morgan said. ‘You lot can take mine, it’s parked back up the road. Head straight for the capital and the High Commission. Dickie and Priscilla can even catch their plane.’ He thrust his car keys into Fanshawe’s hand. ‘And,’ he said in a flash of inspiration, ‘let me change into your suit.

Tell the guards to fling open the gates and I’ll drive out hell-for-leather.’

‘It might work,’ Muller said.

‘Do it!’ Adekunle commanded.

As quickly as they could Morgan and Fanshawe swapped clothes, the females present modestly turning away. Fanshawe’s jacket and trousers fitted Morgan like a second skin; bracing his shoulders back, forcing his chest out, the sleeves stopping in mid-forearm, a two-inch gap of leg visible between his turn-ups and socks.

‘It’s a bit small, isn’t it?’ Mrs Fanshawe said, raising her voice to be heard above the relentless swell and crash of her husband’s name being shouted outside.

‘I’m only after the effect,’ Morgan panted, hastily knotting the bow-tie. ‘They’ll just see someone in black and white dash into the car.’ Adekunle meanwhile gave orders to a servant to inform the guards at the gate of the plan and the man slipped unwillingly out of the front door and sprinted up the drive to pass on the instructions.

‘OK?’ Morgan asked, wanting to be off before second thoughts could catch up with him.

‘We need a moustache,’ Dalmire suggested and Priscilla rummaged in her handbag for an eyebrow pencil. She drew a thin moustache on Morgan’s upper lip.

‘How do I look?’ he asked, and everyone laughed nervously. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s go. As soon as the crowd break away, get into my car and head off. They may besiege the Commission tomorrow for all we know.’ He stood poised by the door. He felt surprisingly calm. He was glad to be getting out of the house. He was fed up pissing about in this country.

‘Wait,’ Mrs Fanshawe suddenly announced. ‘I’m coming with you. It’ll be far more convincing if we both go. Arthur’s hardly likely to make a dash for it without me.’

‘No, Mummy,’ Priscilla cried.

‘Chloe. I can’t allow it,’ Fanshawe piped up.

‘Nonsense,’ Mrs Fanshawe exclaimed. ‘When you leave here go to the Commission and we’ll try and meet you there. Don’t wait long. If we’re held up go on down to the capital. There are plenty of people I can stay with until things calm down. I’ll be in no danger.’ She would hear of no arguments in opposition. ‘Don’t you agree, Morgan?’ she asked.

‘A brilliant idea,’ Adekunle contributed.

‘Well it’ll certainly be more realistic,’ Morgan admitted. ‘But are you sure…?’

‘Of course I’m sure.’ She said goodbye to her family: Fanshawe like some woebegone derelict in an outsize Salvation Army suit; Dalmire and Priscilla proud and young (Priscilla sniffling a bit but probably glad she wouldn’t miss her ski holiday, Morgan thought). Adekunle and Muller stood behind them — Adekunle fierce and outraged, Muller looking quite unconcerned. Beyond them Morgan saw Celia hunched miserably on the stairs.

Jones slapped him on the back. ‘Good man, Morgan,’ he said. ‘You give ‘em ‘ell.’

With a nod to each other Morgan and Mrs Fanshawe paused briefly at the door then flung it open and dashed down the steps to the car. There was a great shout from the multitudes behind the fence as the objects of their venom appeared and a fresh salvo of stones was launched. Morgan leapt into the driver’s seat and slammed the door, Mrs Fanshawe doing the same beside him almost simultaneously. Peter, thankfully, had left the key in the ignition and Morgan started the engine. Stones pinged off the bodywork of the car. The crowd surged forward against the fence screaming and shouting.

‘Get down,’ Morgan yelled. ‘Here we go!’ He put the car in gear and accelerated up the drive, hunched over the wheel, his hand jammed down on the horn. Taken aback at this sudden blaring charge the crowd at the gate recoiled in terror, unwilling to be mown down. The guards dragged wide the gates and in seconds the large black car thundered through, people flinging themselves madly out of the way. Morgan swung the car fiercely onto the road, all the windows simultaneously shattering as a barrage of sticks, bottles and stones was hurled at this new target. He glimpsed Femi Robinson extricating himself from a bush, brandishing his megaphone in frustrated rage. Elbowing a hole in the fragmented windscreen, Morgan gunned the motor and sped down the road away from Adekunle’s house. On both sides the massed demonstrators pelted the car as it flashed by. A small stone came in through the right window and glanced off Morgan’s head. Reflexively, he swerved the car and it ploughed off the road lurching into the shadowy ditch. Morgan snatched a look back out of the window and saw the mob streaming after him in hot bellowing pursuit, the leaders a mere twenty or thirty yards away. Frantically he changed down, rammed the accelerator to the floor and the car leapt out of the ditch, its rear wheels spinning furiously, sending up great gouts of dust and gravel. Without thinking of where he was going Morgan took the first turning that presented itself, drove until another road branched off, turned down it, took a left, a right, another right. Very soon all sounds of pursuit died away. He motored steadily along the narrow tree-lined campus roads, the panic seeping from his body, bungalows lying sedately on either side, the wind whistling through the shattered windows, cool on his face.

‘I think we made it,’ he said huskily to Mrs Fanshawe.

‘Yes,’ she said in a quiet voice, sitting upright again. ‘Do you…do you think the others will have got away?’

‘I should think so, we caused enough of a distraction. And anyway I think it was clear that their argument was with us…that is, with Arthur.’

‘Poor Arthur,’ Mrs Fanshawe said, putting her hand up to her mouth. ‘He’ll be so terribly upset about all this.’

Morgan made no reply to that. He peered ahead of him.