Short of Glory (4 page)

Patrick leant against the wall, shuffling the loose change in his pocket and talking energetically about mutual acquaintances.

‘We might come out and visit you,’ Rachel continued. ‘It would be really interesting to see how the blacks and coloureds live and staying with a diplomat might give us
protection from the police. I suppose you’ll have a big house with servants, will you?’

‘Something like that.’

‘God, how awful, I couldn’t stick that. Anyway, we’ll send these teaching materials to your packers if you give us their address.’ She finished. ‘You can go after
me. I won’t pull the chain.’

He went, wondering if she would stay to make sure he had no secrets, but she did not.

I
t was dark as the plane came in to land and the orange street lights of Battenburg were ranged in straight lines like an illuminated chessboard,
though all the squares were black. Dawn broke while the travellers queued at immigration. The startling clarity of the light showed up the pallor of their faces.

The immigration officer was plump and serious. He looked closely at Patrick’s passport, where ‘student’ had been crossed out and ‘HM Diplomatic Service’ substituted
in Biro. Most other countries issued their diplomats with special passports.

Patrick wore jeans and a crumpled shirt. ‘What is your purpose in visiting our country?’ the immigration officer asked dully.

Becoming a bureaucrat had not increased Patrick’s liking for officials and lack of sleep had left him disinclined to make an effort. ‘To work.’

‘You have a job here?’

The clipped accent was familiar but still it grated. ‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘At the British Embassy.’

‘Do you have evidence of that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you show me?’

Patrick produced a Foreign Office document addressed to the Lower African government. The immigration officer read it slowly more than once before reluctantly stamping the passport.

The arrivals hall was busy, sunlit and clean. All directions were in Lower African and English. Patrick looked in vain for someone from the British Embassy. There were a few people holding up
placards but none with a title that was remotely official. Perhaps the entire embassy had disappeared along with Arthur Whelk and he was about to discover the
Marie Celeste
of the
Diplomatic Corps. It was not at that moment an unpleasing thought. More likely, though, the plane had arrived so early that no one had wanted to meet it. He headed towards an empty bench.

He had no sooner sat on it than he noticed another some distance away on which there was a woman with such startlingly blonde hair that he could not understand how he had not seen her on the
plane. She shook her head and pushed some hair back behind her ear with a quick thoughtless movement that was obviously habitual. Her forearm was bare and she glanced up. For a moment he thought
she smiled at him but then he saw that she was talking to a little girl, also with very blonde hair, who stood beside her. She adjusted the little girl’s dress, talking and smiling.

Patrick’s view was interrupted by a dark-haired man in a blazer. The man hugged the woman and stood talking for a while before lifting the girl on to the nearby luggage trolley, where she
clapped and laughed. The woman slung a bag over one shoulder and a red coat over the other and all three left. She walked freely and confidently at the man’s side. Patrick leant back on the
bench. The sun warmed his face.

He was awoken by a white policeman with polished black boots and holster. The policeman spoke first in Lower African, then in English, explaining that Patrick’s was a bench on which it was
not permitted to sleep. Patrick felt like arguing but obeyed without speaking.

He went next to the gents to wash, where he was greeted by a smiling black attendant who seemed to be hoping for a tip. This reminded him that he had no Lower African currency. He waited until
the airport bank opened at seven, cashed some sterling and telephoned Clifford Steggles, the head of chancery.

Steggles’s voice was heavy with sleep. ‘Are you at HE’s?’

‘Where’s that?’

‘The residence.’

‘Whose residence?’

‘The ambassador’s.’ Irritation dispersed the sleepiness in Steggles’s voice.

‘No, I’m at the airport.’

‘You shouldn’t be. You should be at the residence.’

Whilst still six thousand miles away Patrick had known that he and Clifford Steggles would not get on. The letter had been sufficient. Whatever trouble was to come, there was some satisfaction
in these moments of confirmation.

‘The ambassador’s driver was supposed to take you to the residence for breakfast,’ Clifford continued accusingly. ‘He was sent to pick you up specially.’

‘Well, he doesn’t seem to be here.’

‘He ought to be.’

Patrick said nothing. He was too tired to care.

‘Chap with a placard with “British Embassy” written on it,’ Clifford said eventually.

‘There wasn’t one.’

‘There should’ve been.’

There was another pause.

‘Stocky chap with a cap,’ resumed Clifford. ‘He might have forgotten the placard.’

‘I’ll have a look.’ Whilst Patrick was looking the line went dead. He dialled again. ‘Chap with red hair?’

Clifford sighed. ‘No. He’s black.’

‘No blacks with caps.’

There was a further long pause and then, ‘I suppose I’ll have to pick you up myself. I’m not up yet. Stay by the phone booths.’

Clifford Steggles was in his late thirties, short, balding and pot-bellied. The bald patch on his head was burned brown and he wore a moustache that made him look cross. They shook hands
unenthusiastically.

‘Is that all the stuff you’ve got? No need for a porter, then. The car’s in the place reserved for diplomats. One of the perks.’ They loaded Patrick’s bags into the
back of the big Ford estate. ‘Why have you brought so little — thinking you won’t stay long?’

‘I haven’t got much.’

‘But you’ve got some heavy baggage coming?’

‘Oh yes. It was shipped last week.’

‘Makes no difference. You won’t see it for months. That’s why you should’ve brought more now. Thought they’d have told you that.’

They were soon on the motorway, heading for Battenburg. Despite the sun and the blue sky it was a cold, sharp morning. The motorway was lined by new buildings, many of them petrol stations.
Beyond these were low hills covered with dry grass and scrub.

‘When it rains in the summer all this is green,’ Clifford said. ‘We’ve had no rain for weeks. Watch the altitude, till you get acclimatised. Makes you tired at first. Are
you tired?’

‘Yes.’

‘Busy day ahead. Why was your flight so late?’

‘Engine trouble.’

‘Fly British Air you never get there.’

It was soon apparent that the more Clifford spoke the more he pleased himself, and so the more he liked whoever was with him. He described how the dry air would crack lips and burn nostrils and
how good the wine was and how quickly it went to the heads of the unacclimatised. He wondered aloud a dozen or so times what on earth could have happened to Simon, the driver. The ambassador
himself was admittedly rather forgetful but it hadn’t been up to him to remember. The drivers sometimes got things wrong but there was only one airport and they were there once a week to pick
up the bag, so they should know it. He had telephoned the ambassador’s residence and spoken to one of the maids but could get no sense out of her, not even whether or not the ambassador was
actually there. He did sometimes spend the odd night away, no one knew where. But he should have been expecting Patrick for breakfast because Patrick was to stay at the residence a day or two until
Clifford and his wife moved into their own house. Things only really worked at the residence when the ambassador’s wife was there but she was back in Surrey. She was mad, anyway. They spent
most of the time apart, quite understandably.

‘You’ve been briefed about this Whelk business, I take it?’

‘Yes. I’m told I’m to liaise with the police and at the same time maintain secret contact with the Lost and Found man.’

Clifford looked offended. ‘I’m not supposed to know about the Lost and Found side of it. You shouldn’t have told me. Breach of security but we’ll say no more about it as
you’ve not been here long. Of course, I do know about it because the ambassador can’t help mentioning it but it’s not generally known around the embassy.’ He pulled out to
overtake, then quickly back in again to a chorus of hootings from behind. ‘The whole thing’s a lot of fuss about nothing, if you ask me. Whelk probably got drunk and drove off a cliff.
Sort of thing he would do. All this unofficial investigation nonsense is improper, in my opinion. The Lower African authorities are quite able to sort it out without us blundering around
freelancing. The ambassador hardly thinks of anything else these days. It’s his last post, you see, and I think he’s gone a bit over the top on this one. Very able man, mind you, but
rather too much of an enthusiast sometimes. And London don’t help. I hear now that the junior minister’s been bitten by the same bug. Is that right?’

‘Mr Formerly told me he was.’

‘Well, Formerly wouldn’t know it if you hit him on the head with it but I think he’s right in this case, all the same.’ There was a pause while Clifford successfully
overtook the petrol tanker he had been stuck behind. ‘What gets me though is the house. Arthur’s is the best one after the residence. Better than the counsellor’s. All right, he
is theoretically senior to me in terms of length of service so I can’t object; but he’s a bachelor and I have to live with a wife and two small children in a smaller house. Also, as
head of chancery one does have certain responsibilities, to put it mildly.’

He looked at Patrick as though seeking agreement. Patrick nodded.

‘And now because London can’t decide whether or not Arthur’s coming back they’re going to let you live in it, which is bloody outrageous. A lot of people here are rather
upset about it, to speak plainly. Nothing personal, of course. If Arthur does come back he’s hardly likely to be kept on here after this so they might as well reallocate the house now. And to
have let us live there whilst ours was being done up just rubbed salt into the wound.’ He glanced again at Patrick. ‘Of course, you could always claim it was too big for you and not
move into it. Doesn’t make much difference where you live when you’re single.’

Patrick’s tiredness made him proof against threats of even universal unpopularity. ‘Are we going to the residence now?’

‘No, we’re going to our house – Arthur’s. Yours. I’ll find out what’s happened at the residence later.’ They drove on for a while in silence.

There were familiar makes of car on the right side of the road and familiar advertisements on hoardings except that some were styled differently. The Marmite advertisement was a big black jar
held before a big black face. From a distance Battenburg appeared to be built upon hills with the highest in the centre, crowned by tower-blocks that were brilliantly white in the early sun. Above
the city there was a dirty haze.

‘That’s always there in the mornings. It’s called inversion. All the smog gets trapped.’ Explaining made Clifford feel better. ‘The smog clears off as the air gets
warmer. It’s caused by the warm air being trapped by the cold.’

‘Is it really?’ Patrick tried to sound impressed but his tone was wrong.

Uncertainty and irritability returned to Clifford’s face. ‘Well, that sort of thing. Or the other way round. Makes no difference.’

In the city the pavements bustled with people, black, brown and white. The shops were busy. Clifford drove with aggressive incompetence, swearing most of the time. Everyone else was doing the
same. The distant sky showed in vertical strips of blue between the tall buildings, while that above was still hazy.

They stopped suddenly at a corner crowded with pedestrians. ‘You have to give way to them at junctions though they’re only supposed to cross when the lights say they can. It’s
bloody inconvenient for everyone. Cars can’t go round corners without stopping and pedestrians can’t cross until the lights say so. The police keep cracking down so most people
obey.’ The next sudden braking was at traffic lights which Patrick had not seen because they were high and insignificant. ‘They call them robots,’ said Clifford.

Soon they were in the northern suburbs where opulent houses were set amidst spacious grounds behind high walls. Elaborately-wrought iron gates showed swimming-pools and tennis-courts. There were
large shopping centres but no small shops. New cars, mostly Mercedes or BMWs, cruised with quiet ostentation along broad tree-lined avenues. The only people were a few black servants and gardeners
who walked slowly or sat in small groups on the wide sunburnt grass verges. They gazed without apparent curiosity at the cars that passed, much as they might have gazed at the wall opposite when
there were no cars.

Clifford waved a hand. ‘Jacarandas.’

Patrick looked at the group of blacks. The word was familiar, possibly a tribal name.

‘Bloom in the spring. Bloody nuisance for the pool, though. Fill it with leaves.’

Patrick looked at the trees.

They passed by a long white wall before turning abruptly into the drive. It was lined by trees and shrubs and had a well-watered strip of grass running up the middle. The house was large and
white with a red tiled roof. Broad gleaming white steps led up to the front door.

Clifford drove into the double garage and was soon locking the car. ‘You have to. Must lock everything all the time. Lots of thieves.’

Inside it was cool and dark, the rooms large and high. The furniture was an uneasy mixture of the standard PSA issue and the accumulations of someone who had travelled and collected
promiscuously. The mounted heads of wildebeest, stags, tigers and one polar bear competed for space with South American wall-hangings, Chinese jade, Japanese prints, Flemish reproductions,
encyclopaedias, dictionaries, works of reference and a set of boleros. There were some old chests and sturdy chairs which went ill with the PSA living-room suite. In the dining-room was a solid PSA
table which seated twelve and smelt of polish. Fastened to the underside was a bell for summoning the maid. French windows led from the dining-room to the veranda, beyond which the lawn undulated
down towards the sparkling blue swimming-pool.