V. Naipaul - The nightwatchman's occurrence book - and other comic inventions

By three o’clock nearly everyone who was going to vote had voted. It was a fantastically high poll, more than eighty-three per cent. The fact was noted with approval in official reports.

*

Foam’s last duty was to keep an eye on the ballot-box at the polling station in the school. At five o’clock he went with a taxi-driver and waited. Through the open door he could see the poll clerk, the staggerer of the morning’s vote, sitting at Teacher Francis’s own table, flanked by Harbans’s agent and a Negro girl, one of Preacher’s few agents. The ballot-box looked old and brown and unimportant. Foam could see the clerk taking out the ballot-papers and counting them.

Harbans’s agent came to the door and waved to Foam.

Foam shouted, ‘You is a ass. Go back and see what they doing.’

The agent was a slim young man, almost a boy, with a waist that looked dangerously narrow. He said, ‘Everything under control, man,’ but he went back to the table.

The watch lasted until dark.

The policeman who had been hanging about outside the school went up the concrete steps. The clerk said something to him. The policeman came down the steps, went across the road and called, ‘Bellman!’ He spoke with a strong Barbadian accent.

A middle-aged Negro in washed-out khaki trousers and a thick flannel vest came out into his veranda.

‘Bellman, you got a lamp? They want it borrow over here.’

Bellman brought out an oil lamp. Unprotected, the flame swayed and rose high, smoking thickly.

Bellman said, ‘I sending in my account to the Warden.’

The policeman laughed and took the lamp to the school. The checking was still going on. Apparently there had been some mistake in the checking because the ballot-box had been emptied again and the ballot-papers lay in a jagged white pile on the table.

The taxi-driver said, ‘If that agent don’t look out, they work some big big sort of trick here, you know.’

The policeman looked at Foam and the taxi-driver and swung his long baton, a casual warning.

Another of Harbans’s taxis came up. The driver leaned out and asked, ‘You got the score here yet?’

Harbans’s agent, hearing the noise, came out with a sheet of paper. ‘Preliminary,’ he said, smiling, handing it over.

‘Haul your tail back quick,’ Foam said. ‘See what they doing.’

The agent smiled and ran back up the steps.

Foam’s taxi-driver said, ‘What you want for elections is strong agents. Strong strong agents.’

They looked at the paper.

Foam read: ‘Harbans 325, Thomas 57, Baksh 2.’

The other taxi-driver whistled. ‘We giving them licks on all fronts. But some people don’t listen at all, man. Baksh get two votes after the man ask them not to vote for him.’ Then he delivered his own news: ‘At Cordoba, Harbans 375, Thomas 19, Baksh 0. At Cordoba again, the second polling station, is Harbans 345, Thomas 21, Baksh o.’

Foam’s taxi-driver said, ‘Yaah!’ and took a drink of rum from the bottle on the dashboard shelf.

The other taxi-driver drove away.

The box was being sealed and signed.

Foam couldn’t help feeling sorry for Preacher’s agent. She was one of those who had sung the hymns at Mr Cuffy’s wake. She sat unflinchingly at the table, being brave and unconcerned; while Harbans’s agent, to the disgust of Foam and the taxi-driver, was jumping about here and there, doing goodness knows what.

Bellman pushed his head through his window curtain and said, ‘Look, all-you finish with my lamp? That costing the Warden six cents, you know. I sure all-you done burn six cents’ pitch-oil already.’

They were finished. The box was sealed, signed and brought out to the steps. The policeman took the lamp back to Bellman; then he rejoined the girl, Harbans’s agent and the ballot-box. The clerk was padlocking the school door.

Foam shouted, ‘What the hell all-you waiting for?’

Harbans’s agent smiled.

They waited for about twenty minutes.

The clerk went home. The girl, Preacher’s agent, went home. Harbans’s agent said, ‘This is a lot of arseness. Foreman, you could look after the ballot-box now yourself. I hungry like hell.’

Foam said, ‘Good. Go. But I marking you for this. You hungry? You ain’t eat? The food van ain’t bring you nothing?’

‘What food van? I ain’t even see the food van. Everybody did tell me about this famous food van, but I ain’t see nothing.’ And he went home.

Foam said to his taxi-driver, ‘Let that teach you a lesson. Never pay people in advance.’

The policeman kept on coughing in the darkness.

‘Put on your lights,’ Foam said.

When the lights went on, the policeman stopped coughing.

The taxi-driver went for a little walk. Then Foam went for a little walk. The policeman was still waiting.

When it was nearly half past seven and it seemed that no one had even honourable designs on the ballot-box, Foam lost his patience.

He went to the policeman. ‘What you waiting for?’

The policeman said, ‘I ain’t know. They did just tell me to wait.’

‘You want a lift to the Warden Office?’

‘You going there?’

They took the policeman and the ballot-box to the Warden’s Office.

In the asphalt yard next to the Warden’s Office, Foam heard the loudspeaker — his father’s voice; and he heard the enthusiastic shouts of the crowd. Apparently some results had already been rechecked and given out as official.

They delivered the policeman and the ballot-box; then they drove through the crowd to a free place in the yard.

Baksh was announcing: ‘Kindly corporate with the police. Keep death off the roads. Beware of the Highway Code. This is the voice of Baksh telling you to beware of the Highway Code and keep death off the roads. Come in a lil bit more, ladies and gentlemen. Come in a lil bit. Another result just come in. But come in a lil bit more fust. This is the voice of Baksh begging you and beseeching you to corporate with the Highway Code and keep death off the roads. Another result. From Cordoba, station number one. Another result. From Cordoba One. Final result. Baksh nought. Baksh nought.’

The crowd appreciated the joke.

‘Harbans 364, Harbans 364.’

Clamour.

‘Come in a lil bit, ladies and gentlemen. Be aware of the Highway Code. Beware of the Highway Code. Thomas 45.’

Shouts of ‘Yaah!’ Spontaneous drumming on car bonnets.

Baksh took advantage of the pause to have another drink. The gurgling noises were magnified by the loudspeaker. Someone was heard saying, ‘Give me a chance at the loudspeaker. Beware of the Highway Code, ladies and gentlemen. Beware …’ Baksh’s voice broke in, conversationally, ‘Is for the government I working tonight, you know. Not for any- and everybody. But for the government.’ Then officially: ‘Thomas 45. Thomas 45.’

What Baksh said was true. He was working for the government, as an official announcer; he had paid well to get the job.

The loudspeaker was silent for some time.

Then there was a shout, and sustained frenzied cheering. Harbans had appeared. In his moment of triumph he managed to look sad and absent-minded. The crowd didn’t mind. They rushed to him and lifted him on their shoulders and they took him to the loud-speaker van and made him stand on one of the wings and then they grabbed the microphone from Baksh and thrust it into Harbans’s hands and shouted, ‘Speech!’

Baksh tried to get the microphone back.

‘This is government business, man. All-you want me to get in trouble or what?’

Harbans didn’t object. ‘Is true, eh, Baksh?’ and he passed the microphone back.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, corporate with the police. Beware of the Highway Code. Be aware of the Highway Code, ladies and gentlemen.’