William Boyd - A Good Man in Africa

He had no idea where he was. The residential areas of the campus were a maze of these quiet dark roads. He looked quickly at Mrs Fanshawe. She had hardly spoken, hadn’t screamed or made any kind of a fuss, just sat clinging to her seat. He was impressed. They came to a crossroads and he stopped the car.

‘Any clue which way?’ he asked, turning to face her.

‘Oh Lord, you’ve got blood on your face,’ she said. Morgan touched his forehead above his right eye. His fingertips came away dark and wet.

‘I was hit by a stone,’ he said. ‘Probably looks worse than it is. Just a scratch,’ he added bravely.

‘I think if you turn left here it should take us to the main gate.’

Morgan did as she advised. He noticed the roads were strangely empty. They had seen no other cars and many of the staff houses showed no lights. Everyone battening down the hatches with a campus revolution on their hands, he thought. He heard a heavy rumble of thunder. The promised rain was approaching.

‘Thunder,’ he commented, just wanting to say something. ‘That should damp their spirits a bit.’

They drove round a sharp bend. As they did so the headlights picked out the lone figure of a man standing at the corner of a road junction. Morgan drove past and then slammed his foot on the brakes.

‘Why have you stopped?’ Mrs Fanshawe asked, surprised.

‘That was Murray.’

‘Who?’

‘Murray. Dr Murray. That man standing by the road there.’

‘So what?’

‘I…I’ve got something to tell him. Won’t be a sec.’ Morgan got out of the car and jogged back up the road.

‘Dr Murray,’ he called. ‘Alex. It’s me, Morgan Leafy.’ Murray was standing at the roadside in his usual outfit of grey flannels, white short-sleeved shirt and tie. He looked closely at Morgan in the dark.

‘What the hell happened to you?’ he asked in tones of real astonishment. Morgan realized suddenly what kind of outlandish figure he must cut in his shrunken formal clothes, his scrawled moustache, elastoplast eyebrow and bloodied forehead. He told Murray about the riot outside Adekunle’s house.

‘Mrs Fanshawe and I made our escape,’ he concluded. ‘Drew the mob away, I think.’

‘Quite the hero,’ Murray said drily. ‘I wouldn’t carry on much further up this road though if I were you,’ he went on. ‘There’s a pitched battle going on between the riot police and the students occupying the administrative offices. You’ll run right into the middle of it. Listen.’ Morgan heard above the shrill of the crickets in the grass and hedges a distant shouting and a kind of firework-popping effect.

‘I’m told the riot police are blazing away at anything that moves and there’s tear gas everywhere.’

‘Oh Christ,’ Morgan said. ‘What do we do now?’

‘There’s only one other road out of the campus but it’s miles back in the other direction. I doubt you’ll be able to find it.’

‘What are you doing out anyway?’ Morgan inquired. ‘If you don’t mind me asking.’

‘I don’t mind,’ Murray said. ‘I’m waiting for my ambulance to come and pick me up. Apparently my clinic’s full of injured students. Broken heads and broken bones. And some gunshot wounds.’

‘Oh.’

‘If you want to stay at my house you’re very welcome. It’s just up the road there.’

‘Thanks,’ Morgan said. ‘But we’ve got to try and reunite Mrs Fanshawe with her family and get them down, to the High Commission. I think we’ll try and skirt round the riot, sneak out of the main gate.’

‘Well, be carefal,’ Murray warned. ‘Those riot squad boys are not the most amenable characters.’

‘We will,’ Morgan said. There was a pause. ‘Look,’ he said a little awkwardly, ‘the reason I stopped was that I wanted to tell you that I’ve decided to resign my job tomorrow. I’ll be leaving soon — so you don’t need to worry about me when you make your report. Just as well,’ he shrugged. ‘You were right. It’s better to face up to it.’ He tried to grin in the darkness but it didn’t really come off. ‘I feel it’s the right thing, you know. This place and me…well, never really got on. I think in a way I’ll actually be quite glad to be shot of it all. So,’ he spread his arms, ‘give Adekunle the works. There’s nothing he can do…you know, that’s going to foul things up for me. I’ve, ah, beaten him to it. Ha ha.’ The hollow laugh died away.

‘I shall,’ Murray said. ‘Don’t worry.’

There was a silence. It seemed to form like a wall between them. There was so much that he suddenly wanted to say to Murray: vaguely articulated ideas, half thought-out notions, old apologies, explanations.

‘One more thing,’ Morgan said. ‘I almost forgot. I found out tonight that Adekunle’s got some chum in the Senate who plans to ‘lose’ your committee’s minutes. I’d take a few copies if I were you.’

‘I will,’ Murray said. ‘Many thanks. They’ll never buy that land from him, don’t worry.’

‘Great,’ Morgan said, patting his pockets like a man searching for matches. ‘Good,’ he noted. ‘Sure we can’t give you a lift somewhere?’

‘No thanks. The ambulance will be here any minute.’

‘Right.’ He looked round. ‘Well,’ he breathed out loudly. How could he say what he felt to Murray? ‘I just wanted to see you…tell you about things.’ He let his eyes rest on Murray’s face but it was too dark for him to distinguish his features clearly. He held out his hand and Murray shook it briefly. He held the dry cool hand for a second. ‘Well, I’ll, ah, see you, Alex. Maybe next week? Perhaps I could look by…before I go. I just wanted to put you in the picture now.’

‘Fine,’ Murray said. ‘Thanks, Morgan. It was good of you.’

Morgan gave a half wave, muttered something indistinct and walked away. Thunder mumbled in the sky overhead. In the car he looked back and saw Murray standing there, saw the faint gleam of his white shirt.

‘What shall we do?’ Mrs Fanshawe asked, looking at the line of riot police that effectively cut them off from the main gate and safety. Morgan could think of no reply at the moment so he kept his mouth shut. They were hiding behind a dense bush some fifty yards away from the administration block which looked as if it had been the target for an air strike. Three cars blazed furiously in front of it casting a flickering orange glow over the white walls of the arts theatre, the bookshop and the senate offices. Every visible window had been smashed, makeshift barricades of office furniture blocked walkways and entrances and thousands of sheets of paper blew across the piazza and around the foot of the clock tower. Ahead of them stretched the dual carriageway that led to the main gate and across which now stood a three-deep line of fully equipped riot police who were slowly advancing towards the occupied administrative offices. From the darkness came screams, shouts and cat calls from marauding students who occasionally crept close enough to the regrouping riot police to pelt them with stones and any other missiles that came to hand. The air tingled with dispersing tear gas, making their eyes water and their skin itchy. From time to time an edgy policeman loosed off a warning round into the air.

Morgan thought the atmosphere reminded him of the fateful lull before a battle. Like melodramatic stage effects the thunder grumbled distantly and lightning flickered along the western horizon. It looked as though the centre of the storm was passing Nkongsamba by, but a few fat drops of rain had fallen to add to their discomfort.

After leaving Murray they had driven on up the road going slower and slower as the noise of the tumult ahead increased. They thought about retracing their steps and looking for the back gate, but their ignorance of the route and the prospect ofbumping into frustrated rioters made them decide eventually to abandon the battered car and try to skirt round the trouble, leaving the roads and cutting through several gardens to reach their present position behind the bush. Morgan looked at Mrs Fanshawe. Her pink dress was torn at the hem and looked grubby, the pearls round her neck individually trapped the flames of the burning cars. She showed no signs of flagging yet.