Short of Glory (11 page)

Jim looked at everyone except Patrick. ‘She said she heard noises – shouting, things breaking, was I looking for food? Just smashing the crockery, I told her. Did I want her to wash
up the dirty plates? Wait till the morning, I said, see which ones I break.’ He laughed. ‘She’s a good one, Alice.’

Clifford asked Jim where he had learnt Zulu. Jim had learnt it on his father’s farm. He spoke some dialects as well. Conversation began again.

Patrick went to the study next door. It was filled with model aeroplanes, target-shooting trophies, antique firearms, photographs of police training courses and a framed police award. On a table
by the desk was a small screen with buttons and connections that, had he been certain of identifying one, he would have said was a small computer. There were no books. He was interrupted by
Joanna.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ she said.

He smiled. ‘No damage done.’

‘I could see it coming. He was very angry.’

‘Is he often angry?’

‘A lot of the time.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s unhappy.’

‘Why?’

She pursed her lips, shrugged and raised her eyebrows. ‘He’s not at ease with himself. I don’t know why. He never is.’

He felt elated and confident. ‘Why are you with him?’

She turned away. That’s a little premature.’

‘May we meet?’

There was an amused light in her grey eyes. She nodded. He asked for her telephone number, found he had no pen, then that he had no paper. He used one of Jim’s pens and a sheet of
Jim’s notepaper. He sought for something to say during the necessarily bureaucratic action of folding the paper and putting it in his wallet. ‘I thought for a moment he might shoot
me.’

‘He’s capable of it.’

‘It struck me it would be an absurd way to die.’

‘I suppose any way is to the one who’s dying.’

‘I suppose it is, yes.’ It was not the ideal note on which to finish. They were interrupted by Clifford who had been sent by Sandy to ask where the vacuum cleaner was.

Sir Wilfrid was still up when Patrick returned to the residence. He wore a dressing-gown and nothing else, having just had a bath. His white hair sprouted riotously. His long
thin legs were almost as white.

‘Have a nightcap.’ He poured two large whiskies. ‘Less said about the party the better. Who is this Joplin character, anyway?’

‘An American negro musician. He’s become fashionable again. He’s been dead for some time.’

‘Dead, is he? I didn’t catch that bit. Many more parties like that will kill off the fashion, too. Lucky he didn’t live to see it, poor chap.’ They sat in armchairs. Sir
Wilfrid crossed his legs revealingly. ‘Saw you talking to that Rissik chap. He has the reputation of being a police whizz-kid. Looks after all the dips – he told you that, I expect?
Probably spies on us all, too, though what for I don’t know. He’s also the chap you’ll be dealing with over the Whelk business. How d’you get on with him?’

Patrick described what had happened at Jim’s bungalow. Sir Wilfrid was unsurprised. He commented that Jim sounded an excitable sort of chap and that Lower Africans were a red-blooded lot
with plenty of spunk who, whether right or wrong, were always passionate. The British, on the other hand – in public life at least and particularly since the Great War – had become
timorous, dilatory, spinelessly selfish and inward-looking. The Lower Africans never paid any attention to anyone who wasn’t as red-blooded as they.

‘Not that I mean you should’ve thrown something at him. I was making a more general point. But you don’t think he suspects anything about the L and F man, do you?’

‘No, I don’t.’ Patrick was less confident than he sounded. Jim’s manner early in the evening had suggested complicity of some sort but could have meant anything or
nothing. It could have meant he was aware of Patrick’s interest in Joanna.

When eventually they stood to go to bed Sir Wilfrid pushed some of his damp hair away from his eyes. ‘Didn’t realise you were at the House.’

Patrick stopped. ‘The house, sir?’

‘You know, the House. Christ Church. The college. Just noticed the tie.’

For the third time that evening Patrick involuntarily touched it. ‘Ah, yes, no, sir, this is a borrowed one. I couldn’t find mine – I mean, any of them.’

‘I see. Where were you, then?’

‘Reading.’

‘One of the new ones, I s’pose? ’Fraid I’ve not kept up with them. There’ve been one or two new colleges since my day, I believe. Good night to you. Sleep
well.’

T
he move into Arthur Whelk’s house was easy for Patrick but moving out seemed hard for Sandy. It was twice postponed and when the day came
she was fraught almost to the point of incoherence. Clifford lost his temper and shouted at her that they were moving only a couple of miles down the road, not to Peking. She ignored Patrick until
they were about to leave with the last carload.

She turned to him in the hall while Clifford tried to fit two lamp-stands into the car. She looked drawn and irritable but smiled for the first time that morning. ‘Have a good time here. I
expect you will.’

‘I hope you enjoy being at home again.’

‘There’s no need for hypocrisy. It doesn’t suit you.’ She stopped smiling and stared at him.

Clifford reappeared and asked bad-temperedly if there was anything else. She walked out past him without answering. Patrick felt awkward and so asked more questions about the payment of Sarah
and Deuteronomy. Explaining things improved Clifford’s temper, as usual. He spoke repetitively and at length until Sandy called him from the car. As they drove off she glanced at Patrick,
then purposefully away as if catching his attention in order to demonstrate ignoring it.

Patrick was as self-conscious about having Sarah as a servant as she clearly was about having him as a master. It took very little time for her to sort out his possessions and put them in the
appropriate cupboards and drawers; rather longer for him to learn where they were. Dirty clothes were washed – by hand, since the embassy did not provide a washing-machine and it had not
occurred to him to buy one – dried and ironed within a day. Sarah was so anxious to be doing things that she followed him around the house, wanting to clean up wherever he went. One day he
stripped in order to have a shower and returned to the bedroom to find that his clothes, clean that day, had already been removed for another washing. After that they agreed that he would put all
dirty clothes in the laundry basket and that Sarah would not wash any not in the basket.

At first he tried to cause as little work as possible but he soon found that this increased her anxiety. She became puzzled, then bored and after a while started on unnecessary reorganisations
of the kitchen. Used to looking after families, she felt that she was not doing her job properly unless there were always more things to be done. Patrick next tried to create as much work as
possible. He took his meals in solitary state at the head of the highly polished dining-room table, his tea and coffee on the veranda or in the sitting-room. He left everything where he had put it
down and cleared up nothing. He even took to smoking the occasional cigar, without much pleasure, so that she would have ashtrays to clean. He encouraged Snap to roll on the sitting-room
carpet.

The tactic worked in that Sarah was busier and so more cheerful than before but it was nothing like enough. It crossed his mind to import some children for one or two days a week. The young
Steggleses were not a good idea, with Sandy in her present mood, but perhaps Joanna could be persuaded to lend her daughter and thus make herself more available.

However, the announcement of a visit by Miss Teale, the administration officer, caused Sarah days of real worry. Miss Teale was to check the inventory. Embassy possessions, Arthur Whelk’s
and Patrick’s, had all to be identified. Miss Teale would also comment on the state of the house. Sarah feared her and, despite Patrick’s reassurances, spent hours checking and
rechecking.

In the event Miss Teale had no comments to make on the state of the house and reserved for Patrick her dissatisfaction with the inventory. She spoke with sharp displeasure. Her sagging cheeks
wobbled.

‘It’s quite the wrong house for your grade, as I’ve told you before. The inventory is a hopeless mess with all these comings and goings. Just look at it. How am I supposed to
keep track of the items when the people themselves disappear?’ She pointed at the large double bed in Patrick’s bedroom. ‘That will have to go to start with. As a single person
you’re not entitled to a double bed. Unless you find a wife to put in it – one of your own, I mean.’ She looked tartly at him.

Perhaps Sandy had been giving people the impression that they were having an affair. He ignored the remark. ‘Supposing I were married but unaccompanied?’

‘Only if your wife were coming to join you. And I can’t imagine your being in that position.’

It was some time before he realised that Miss Teale was not naturally or even personally unpleasant. She was as she was partly because she had been left behind by those who had enjoyed her, and
wanted to no longer, and partly because she had to administer the domestic detail of other people’s lives. For this she was unthanked, resented and sometimes abused. Patrick gave vent only to
his curiosity. ‘How was it that Arthur Whelk, a bachelor, had a double bed?’

‘Mr Whelk was not a bachelor. He had a wife who was coming to join him.’

Patrick knew there was no wife recorded under Whelk in the ubiquitous Green Book which adorned every office. It listed all British diplomats, their wives, offspring and professional records,
like a stud-book. Also, Mr Formerly had said there was no family. ‘Was she always coming to join him? I mean, did anyone ever meet her?’

Miss Teale looked down at her clipboard. ‘What Mr Whelk did with himself is none of my business. He assured me he was married and that his wife was to join him from Tunbridge Wells as soon
as her ailing mother died. That was enough for me. Mr Whelk was – is, because I’m sure he still is, you know – a gentleman. I wish you’d met him.’

As they left the bedroom she handed him a PSA booklet entitled
Guide to the Care of Official Furniture.
Illustrated by cartoons, it gave instructions on how to install, fit and maintain
such items as curtains, pelmets, loose covers, divans, rugs and underlays. There was an appendix on how to remove stains.

‘And you know all about locking the rape-gate,’ she added, pointing at it.

He had not heard it called that before. It was a solid iron grill, painted cream, like those that protect secure areas in banks. It spanned the landing at the top of the stairs and reached from
floor to ceiling. The part by the stairs was a gate and could be locked by a heavy iron key.

‘You do understand,’ continued Miss Teale, ‘that the PSA pay to have these installed as a protection against theft of government property, not as protection for you. If you
don’t lock it at night you’re not insured – as well as being more at risk yourself, but that’s by the by – so if you take my advice you will. The only other thing is
your car and your heavy baggage.’ She leafed through her notes. ‘Yes, here we are, they’re either still at Tilbury or they’re on their way to Oslo. There’s been a
mistake. It doesn’t much matter either way because it’ll be some time before we hear anything more. The ship they were meant to be on is halfway here now. Sign here for the inventory,
please.’

After this visit he locked the rape-gate at night. He did not want to because it seemed cowardly, especially as Sarah was outside it. She had several times mentioned the legendary brutality and
ruthlessness of ‘black men thiefs’ and was visibly relieved that Patrick at least was safe. As when any emotion came upon her, her English deteriorated.

‘I am pleased you lock the gate, massa,’ she said. ‘It feel better now.’

‘Only for me, surely, Sarah. You’re outside the gate.’

She shook her head. ‘But I worry. Now I stop worrying. Anyway, there is Snap. Also, Mr Whelk keep a big gun in the cupboard.’

‘Where? Which cupboard?’

‘A cupboard in the bedroom which he always lock.’

‘Show me.’ There were thirty-seven fitted cupboards, wardrobes and drawers in the master bedroom. The locked one was unlocked and empty. There were no guns in any of the others but
beneath the bed there was a truncheon of a sort commonly sold in hardware shops. ‘Did Mr Whelk ever use this?’

‘Sometimes he take it to the embassy.’

‘What for?’

‘For the difficult people, he say.’

‘For Miss Teale?’

Sarah shook her white apron as though she were fanning a fire, dabbed at her eyes with a corner of it, then walked away, shaking her head and muttering, ‘Oh, massa, massa.’

It was not difficult to get used to being waited upon. Although his conscience was not seriously troubled, Patrick tried daily to remind himself that he should not be seduced into accepting this
as the natural order of things. It was simply that being brought tea in bed in the morning was so natural and pleasant a way to start, or delay starting, the day. Everything else followed from
that.

After the locking of the rape-gate, though, tea could no longer be delivered to his bedside since the one key to the gate had naturally to be kept out of reach of it. Sarah woke him by rattling
the gate and would leave the tray on the topmost stair. Summoned like a zoo animal by the noise of the bucket banging against its cage, he would creep from his room, unlock the gate and take the
tea back to bed. Snap became more friendly and would often venture up the forbidden stairs to beg a biscuit. Sometimes, as a sign of growing affection, he brought with him a dead mouse or vole.

Whilst sipping his tea Patrick would listen on the radio to the Lower African version of the news. Though he had never before lived where there was censorship it was not this that most struck
him. More noticeable was the provinciality. This showed itself in a detailed concern for local events and people and in a selective interest in world events. Although they were taken seriously they
were reported as though they were happening so far away that they could not possibly affect Lower Africa. This gave the impression that everything important happened somewhere else, a distancing
effect heightened by the 1950s BBC tone of the announcements. At the end of the news there was a commentary on some aspect of it. This was never attributed but appeared to be the Lower African
Government’s view on how the chosen item should be regarded. Often it was the weather forecast, though, that was most interesting. Here Patrick learned that to be drenched referred not to
rain but to sun and that ‘good rain’ falling, itself a newsworthy item, was a matter for prayer, hope and gratitude.