William Boyd - A Good Man in Africa

Morgan, however, felt exhausted, the tensions of the drive knotting and cramping every muscle in his body. He felt morose and uncaring too, troubled by his strange meeting with Murray…

‘Morgan,’ Mrs Fanshawe hissed. ‘If those men keep walking in this direction they’re going to stumble right over us.’

‘Oh God. Christ yes, you’re right. What do you want to do, Chloe? Shall we go back to the car? Perhaps we could hide in one of the houses?’

‘Let’s just get out of this lunatic asylum,’ she said. ‘If we cut back into the gardens again,’ she pointed to the gardens of the houses that lined the dual carriageway, ‘surely we can work our way round to the main gate.’

‘Yes,’ he said, complimenting her on her presence of mind. ‘Good idea.’ He felt a sudden compulsion to lie down and go to sleep. He watched the advancing riot police fire half a dozen canisters of tear gas at the besieged administrative offices. Two of them exploded prettily on the piazza sending thick orange-tinted ‘clouds of gas spreading among the trampled flower-beds and ornamental fish-ponds.

‘Morgan!’ Mrs Fanshawe rebuked him. ‘Let’s go, for heaven’s sake!’ He looked up and saw the line of police about thirty yards in front of him, some with round shields, gas masks and long truncheons, some with rifles carried at port arms. An icy douche of raw terror sluicing through his veins, he seized Mrs Fanshawe’s hand and, keeping in a low crouch, they scurried from the shelter of their bush and dashed across a patch of open ground making for the high hedge of the nearest garden.

An immediate shout went up from the police, and from the corner of his eye he caught the muzzle flash of rifles as they were fired. He didn’t hear the sound of the shots, just a curious slapping noise in the air around his head which he half-registered as the effect of bullets passing close by. He gave a heaving sob, straightened up and dragged Mrs Fanshawe on behind him. He heard the pounding of heavy boots as some of the riot squad decided to give chase.

‘Hurry!’ he yelped in panic. ‘They’re coming after us!’

The hedge loomed up in the dark. He didn’t check his pace, merely bent his head down, raised a forearm and charged through. A branch caught him a winding thwack in the chest, but he burst clear and stumbled into the tranquil space of a large garden. Ahead of them lay a dark and securely shuttered house. He heard the noise of more guns firing, a flat undramatic retort and heard bullets thunk into the boles of trees, shred leaves and twigs from the branches. They’re mad, he thought wildly, they’ll shoot at anything, they don’t care.

‘Come on,’ Mrs Fanshawe gasped, already halfway across the garden tottering along awkwardly in her elegant shoes. Morgan started after her, spurred on by the cries of the riot police clubbing their way through the hedge.

They ran through into the next-door garden, past a chicken coop that erupted with startled caws and duckings, on through another hedge, tripping and falling over roots and undulations in the ground. Morgan seized Mrs Fanshawe’s hand again and dragged her on, his heart punching its way through his ribcage, the blood roaring in his ears, stitches buckling both sides, his legs crude instruments of torture.

‘Stop,’ wheezed Mrs Fanshawe. He stopped. They fell to the ground behind a tree, coughing and gasping from the effort. No one seemed to be following them any more. There was a dull explosion and a barrage balloon of flame sailed into the night sky above the administration offices. Another car gone up, Morgan thought; the petrol tank. Or perhaps the riot squad have called in the artillery, he suggested to himself. He wouldn’t have been surprised.

♦

By the time they reached the campus perimeter fence it had started to rain. Not a downpour, just a steady drizzle. Morgan held the barbed wire strands as wide apart as he could but Mrs Fanshawe still tore her dress badly squeezing her bulk through. They crawled up a slope onto the main road. It was like another world. Opposite them was a small village, lantern lights gleaming peacefully in doorways, blue neon over a roadside drinks bar. They sank down on the verge. Mrs Fanshawe removed her shoes. Both heels had snapped off. In the distance behind them came the shouts and poppings as the riot police pressed home their attack.

‘Thank Christ we got out of that,’ Morgan said. A quarter of a mile down the road he saw the lights of the university’s main gate. Several lorries and what looked like an armoured car were parked outside.

‘They were shooting at us, weren’t they?’ Mrs Fanshawe confirmed in an awed voice, massaging her feet.

‘I’m afraid so,’ Morgan admitted, sensing delayed shock about to pounce on him like a wild beast. He got to his feet. He had to keep moving.

‘Let’s get you to the Commission,’ he said, helping Mrs Fanshawe up. They limped across the warm tarmacadam to the roadside kiosk. Behind it stood a youth in a baseball cap, his face bizarrely tinted from the fizzing blue fluorescent strip above his head. On the front of the kiosk was written SISSY’S GO-WELL DRINKOTHEQUE. The boy in the cap looked up in astonishment as Morgan and Mrs Fanshawe appeared out of the darkness.

‘Ow!’ he exclaimed, rubbing his face. ‘Wetin go wrong here? Jesos Chrise!’ He shook his head. Morgan looked at Mrs Fanshawe. The rip in her hem had split up to her thigh, her pink dress was tattered and filthy, and her negotiation of the barbed wire fence had somehow torn a triangular flap from her bodice exposing several square inches of her reinforced nylon long-line bra. Even her normally immovable hair hung in damp tangles over her forehead. She carried a heelless shoe in each hand. Morgan knew all too well what he looked like in his soiled circus-clown outfit. Self-consciously he tried to rub away the pencilled moustache on his upper lip. From the mud huts beyond the roadside bar a few curious faces peered. A small boy ran round the corner of a house and said ‘Oyibo’ but the sound died on his lips as he looked at these strange white people.

‘Good evening,’ Morgan said to the youth. ‘You get car for this village?’

‘You want car?’

‘Yes. I go pay you ten pound if you take us to UK Commission.’

‘Ten poun’?’

‘Yes.’

‘Make you give me money now.’

‘No,’ Morgan said firmly. ‘First you drive us, before I pay.’

The youth left his kiosk and went back to one of the mud huts where a shouted argument ensued. After a few minutes an older man appeared in ragged shorts and a singlet.

‘Good evening, sah,’ he said. ‘My name is Pious. I have a car. I can take you.’ He led them down a muddy stinking lane to where an old black Vauxhall Velox was parked. Morgan got into the back with Mrs Fanshawe. The interior smelt vaguely of animals, as if it had been used for transporting sheep or goats, but he didn’t care any longer.

After several attempts the bronchitic engine finally started and they set out on the journey to the Commission. Again Morgan noted the untypical quietness of the roads.

‘Why are there no cars tonight?’ he asked their driver.

‘Ammy comin’,’ Pious said simply.

‘Army? What do you mean? For the riot at the university?’

Pious shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Plenty Ammy lorries passing tonight. Plenty.’ Morgan sat back. He remembered Robinson’s hints and Friday’s warning about a coup. He gave up. It was conceivable that the population knew something that the politicians didn’t. Anything could happen here, he now realized.

The Commission was dark and unbesieged. The Fanshawes’ house was locked up and empty. There was a note from Fanshawe saying they had seen Morgan and Mrs Fanshawe evade the mob, safely escaped themselves from Adekunle’s house, had left the campus by the back gate and after waiting for an hour had gone on down to the capital. The Joneses, it appeared, were going to put up Mrs Fanshawe in her family’s temporary absence.