A Good Man in Africa (21 page)

“How long has this been going on?” Murray asked. The man was incredible, Morgan thought, not a trace of sympathy, no preliminary chat to put the patient at his ease.

“Couple of days, I suppose,” Morgan confessed. Murray pulled his chair round to the side of his desk.

“Right,” he said briskly, “let’s have a look.”

“You mean?” Morgan cleared his throat. “Off?”

“Aye. Breeks down, the lot.”

Morgan thought there was a good chance he might faint. With trembling fingers he undid his trousers and let them drop to his ankles. Too late he remembered his baggy, perished underpants. He felt his face blaze with miserable embarrassment as he unfastened the safety pin holding up his useless Y-fronts.

“I think I should say these are not my normal …” he began in a rush. “My steward refused to wash.… So I had to.… I
do
have some perfectly good ones.…” This was
appalling
, he screamed to himself. Murray looked on unmoved. Morgan could hardly breathe from the effort he was making to stay calm; the powerful urge to explain overwhelmed him. With intense care he placed the safety pin on the edge of Murray’s desk. It was useless; he let his underpants fall and looked anguishedly at the ceiling. He felt giddy and weak. The average human body, such as the one he possessed, couldn’t tolerate, he felt sure, the extremes of shame and humiliation that his had been subjected to recently. Perhaps this ghastly discharge was a sign that it was finally cracking up, falling apart at the seams.

He reached out and caught the edge of the desk to steady himself. He felt his genitals contracting in the cool air of the consulting room. He was sure his penis had shrunk to about one inch long. Murray probably couldn’t even see it; he’d need a magnifying glass or a microscope.

“What do you think?” he croaked.

“Looks alright,” Murray said noncommittally. He reached into a drawer for something. Morgan squinted down: it was a wooden spatula, like an ice-lolly stick. Murray used it to raise Morgan’s penis. His head reeled.

“Any chancres?” Murray asked.

“
What?
” Morgan squeaked in horror.

“Sores, crabs, lice, rashes?”

“Good God, no!”

“Fine. You can put your pants on now.”

Morgan shakily pulled up and pinned his pants round his waist. He could feel huge sobs of frustration and despair building up in his chest, crushing his lungs against his rib cage, making it increasingly hard to breathe. He zipped up his trousers with numb and unresponsive fingers, like a man in sub-zero temperatures.

“What is it?” he gasped weakly.

Murray was washing his hands at a small sink. “No way of telling at the moment,” he said calmly. “It could be nothing. People often get discharges for no significant reason at all, a natural defence mechanism. On the other hand it could be a non-gonococcal toxemia.”

“
Jesus Christ!
”

“They’re very common out here. But don’t worry. You seem well, but I think we’d still better check. Go down to the sister at the end of the corridor. See if you can get some discharge on a slide. And we’ll do a urinalysis as well.”

“Right,” Morgan gulped, trying to stop his throat from closing—his Adam’s apple seemed three times its normal size.

Murray walked down the corridor with him. “What do you think it is?” Morgan asked again. “Is it serious? Am I …?”

“I doubt it very much,” Murray said reassuringly. “But it wouldn’t be very clever of me to try and guess before we’ve got the tests back. Don’t you agree?” They stopped at a door with “Surgery” written on it. “Come back tomorrow, Mr. Leafy,” Murray said. “But try and make it at the right time.”

Five minutes later a plump kindly sister in a gleaming and rigidly starched uniform happily accepted the smeared glass slide and the squat brimming bottle from a wordless Morgan, whose face still glowed pinkly and who felt that if he dared to open his mouth only an insane gibbering chatter would emerge. He swayed unreflectingly out to his car and sat hunched over the wheel for a full ten minutes trying to exert some minimal control over the cartwheeling and tumbling emotions that were furiously rioting within him.

When he had calmed himself sufficiently he drove slowly down the road to the Commission where he sat quietly at his desk and methodically worked his way through his in-tray, his
mind concentrated on the work in front of him, trying not to think, attempting to erase the morning from his memory.

Fanshawe, however, interrupted him and called him into his office for a report on his meeting with Adekunle, and seemed disappointed in the lack of immediate progress. Morgan told him that, as requested, he had put the proposition to Adekunle and that he had said he would think about it. It seemed safer to describe the disastrous events of last night in as unsensational a way as possible.

“
Think
about a free trip to London and a buckshee stay at Claridge’s?” Fanshawe demanded rhetorically. “What is there to think about, for God’s sake?”

Morgan tried to implant a tone of reasonableness and lied spontaneously: “It seems he’s got to refer this to his central office or the Emir or something. He can’t just up and off without telling anybody.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Fanshawe said, obviously flabbergasted that anyone should have even to consider such a gilt-edged opportunity.

“It’s not just a question of buying their good intentions,” Morgan cautioned, trying to initiate the complex process of bringing Fanshawe round to face reality. “They’re sophisticated politicians.”

“Think so?” Fanshawe said dubiously, sounding surprised at the novelty of this idea. “To be quite frank, they seem more like a bunch of cowboys to me.”

“With respect, Arthur,” Morgan said. “I think you’re underestimating them. Especially Adekunle.”

Fanshawe snorted his disbelief. “Well, keep at it, Morgan. Follow it up in a day or so. We’re doing well, but we don’t want any hitches in Project Kingpin at this stage.”

Morgan stood up, his heart heavy in the knowledge that to all intents and purposes Project Kingpin had passed away in the night. Later he would have to feed Fanshawe some doctored story about American or French counter-pressure, but for the moment it would be best to let him carry on believing it was still under way.

He left Fanshawe’s office and walked moodily back to his own. On the way he bumped into Jones.

“Hello there, Morgan,” said the little Welshman cheerily.
“Don’t worry, man. Worse things happen at sea.”

“What?” Morgan said, irritation giving an edge to his voice.

“Cheer up. You look dreadful.”

“Do I?” he said, suddenly alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s your chin,” Jones quipped. Morgan touched his jaw. Had one of Murray’s chancres suddenly bloomed there like a septic flower?

“My chin?” he said, mystified, feeling its contours.

“Yer, it’s dangling round your ankles. You’ll trip over it any second.” Morgan did not find this funny.

Jones went on unperturbed. “What’s happened? Arthur chew you up for something?”

Morgan wished Jones would go away. “No,” he said shortly. “Things on my mind.”

“You want to relax a bit, my boy. Working too hard. Why don’t you come to the dance tonight with me and Geraldine?”

“What dance?”

“The club dance. The usual monthly one. Come and have a meal first and we’ll all go down later.”

Morgan was surprised at Jones’s thoughtfulness. “No thanks, Denzil. But it’s good of you to ask. I’ve got other things on.” Dinner with Jones and his wife was the last thing he required. Why was Jones being so nice though?

“Well, don’t work too hard,” Jones advised. “Leave some of it for the new man. He’ll be here next week.”

Morgan sat at his desk and stared out at the familiar view of Nkongsamba. The afternoon sun was filtered through a dust haze and the distant hills on the horizon were softened like an aquatint. He had visited the lavatory twice that day with no ill-effects or recurrence of his symptoms and some of his fears were beginning to recede. Perhaps Murray’s supposition was correct: it was probably some horrible coincidence, the climate, his sex-life, a temporary malfunction of his metabolism. Christ only knew, it was easy enough to happen in this place. He decided he’d just have to look after himself a little better. He made up his mind to have a quiet evening at home tonight: a couple of paperbacks, get Moses to cook him one of his specialities. As he was feeling a little improved he allowed himself a wry smile at the thought of his fierce embarrassment in Murray’s
consulting room. The man was unbelievable, he thought; he couldn’t detect a trace of compassion in him. He ran that clinic as if it were a meat-processing factory or an army barracks.

The phone on his desk rang. He picked it up. “Leafy,” he said.

“Morgie,” came a familiar voice. It was Priscilla, naturally. “I’m back,” she informed him.

“Marvellous. When did you arrive?” He felt a surge of momentary elation. This was what he needed after his shocks of the morning.

“Late last night. We had a lovely time.”

“Good. Good.” To his mild surprise and annoyance he couldn’t think of anything he wanted to say to her.

“I’d have phoned you earlier but I’ve been at the club with Mummy. We had lunch.”

“Uh-uh. Good. Good,” Morgan remarked. He was now a little alarmed. This total inability to converse with the girl he loved was absurd.

“Morgie, they’ve got a dance on there tonight.”

“Yes, I know.” He wished she wouldn’t call him that.

“Honestly! What’s got into you today?” she said impatiently. “Let’s go to it, shall we? It’ll be fun.”

“What? Oh yes, if you like. Of course.” He paused. What was happening to him? “I’m sorry, Priscilla, I’ve been working all day. Not thinking straight.”

“Pick me up about eightish?”

“Sure. On the dot. Ah, looking forward to seeing you,” he added with grotesque formality.

“Me too. Miss me?”

“Pardon?”

“Miss me, silly.”

“Oh … terribly.”

“Oh
good.
See you tonight. ’Bye.”

Morgan put down the phone. He felt an immense lassitude descend on him, and he realised that he still didn’t feel like going out tonight. And, what was more perturbing, he didn’t particularly want to spend the evening with Priscilla.

Priscilla was wearing a new dress, or at least one that Morgan hadn’t seen before. It had a white bodice with thin straps tied in a bow at her shoulders, a red plastic belt and a navy-blue skirt. Her tan had deepened as a result of her days on the coast and she looked healthy and efficient, like a successful sales promotion girl or an air hostess. Tonight, also, she was wearing pinky-orange lipstick and pale-blue eyeshadow. Her cheeks and forehead were still red from sunburn and her nose was peeling slightly.

“You look great,” Morgan said, a sherry poised in his hand. “Doesn’t she?” he turned to Mrs. Fanshawe for confirmation.

“She’s always been fond of clothes, ever since she was a tiny baby,” Mrs. Fanshawe declared proudly. “I remember once when she was in her pram …”

“Oh, Mummy,” Priscilla interrupted with a laugh, “please don’t tell that story again. I’m sure Morgie isn’t the slightest bit interested.” Everyone tittered politely. “Morgie” took a sip of his sherry and placed the glass on the table beside his armchair as Mrs. Fanshawe dutifully completed the anecdote. For the first time he sensed Priscilla’s parents eyeing him as a potential suitor for their daughter and this realisation brought with it its usual cargo of conflicting emotions. He glanced at Mrs. Fanshawe,
smoke curling from her cigarette jammed in its black holder, her teeth clamped on its stem, her wide pale face beneath the jet black hair, the immense prow of her chest. He tried to imagine her talking with his mother and Reg at the wedding reception and panic fluttered for a moment in his belly like a trapped bird. Chloe Fanshawe would be his mother-in-law.… He abruptly stopped that train of thoughts from going any further.

“We’d better be off,” he said with a nervous smile.

Priscilla ran up the stairs to fetch her handbag and Morgan stood alone in the centre of the room, like a slave at auction, conscious again of the Fanshawes’ evaluating stares.

“Priscilla enjoyed her day’s fishing,” Fanshawe said. “Sounds like quite a place. Must take me up sometime, Morgan.”

Oh no, Morgan thought. “Gladly,” he said. He felt the bosom of the family mushily enfolding him with slow inexorability. He should be pleased, he realised; he firmly told himself he was. Then Priscilla arrived and the Fanshawes walked them to the door and waved them down the steps.

“Have a good time, you two,” Mrs. Fanshawe cooed at them as they got into his car.

When they arrived at the club Morgan and Priscilla kissed restrainedly for a while in the car-park. Priscilla put her arms round him and squeezed.

“I
have
missed you,” she said. “Mummy and I talked a lot about you when we were staying with the Wagners.”

“You did?” Morgan said uncertainly.

“They’re both very fond of you, you know.”

“The Wagners? But I’ve only met them once.”

“No, dopey!” Priscilla poked him in the side. “Mummy and Daddy.”

“Are they?” he said in considerable surprise, but then covered this with a hasty “of course, I’m very fond of them too,” amazed at his ability to form the words without choking. Everything, he remarked to himself, seemed to be advancing with exceptional smoothness. Perhaps tonight would be fine after all. He kissed Priscilla again to remind himself why he was going through with this factitious exchange of vows. He put his hand on her knee and ran it up her thigh under her dress until his fingers met the cotton of her pants. To his astonishment the expected
reproachful wrist-slap was not forthcoming; in fact her own hand applied gentle pressure to the small of his back. They broke apart, her eyes bright and smiling. The familiar suffocating feeling established itself in Morgan’s chest; it was like having your lungs stuffed with cotton wool. The evening was shaping up in an incredibly good-natured, accommodating way. Tonight could well be the night.

They walked arm-in-arm into the club where the dance was under way. The club had a regular dance once a month. There was nothing special in this, it was simply a way of bringing people in, of injecting a faint sense of occasion into Nkongsamba’s unremarkable social life, and giving a boost to the restaurant and bar sales. Sometimes they hired a band but tonight Morgan saw they were relying solely on records. The lounge area had been cleared, the chairs pushed back to the wall and the central lights switched off. The armchairs had been arranged in intimate groups around small tables upon which candles burned in old Chianti bottles. A young man—manager of Nkongsamba’s Barclay’s Bank and social secretary of the club—sat behind the table that held the record player, flanked by two large speakers, leafing self-importantly through a pile of LPs. Some indeterminate jazz was playing, a clarinet dominant. Morgan found the music soothingly melancholic. A few people sat in the armchairs and three couples danced stiffly on the loose parquet flooring that rattled gently beneath their feet like distant castanets. The bar was busier, surrounded by people who looked only slightly better-dressed than usual: a tie there, a dab of makeup here, a string of pearls; but the atmosphere was little different from the one that usually prevailed in the club. This came as no surprise to Morgan—the monthly dance, for all its aspirations, had never brought out the best in Nkongsamba’s avid socialites—but Priscilla seemed to be disappointed.