The Governor's Lady (6 page)

‘I'm helping Sir Gardnor,' he told her. ‘I'm doing some work for his book.'

She raised her eyes to the ceiling.

‘Oh, that,' she said. ‘But you can't just live here like a hermit. You come over to the house sometimes, don't you?'

‘Sometimes,' he told her.

‘Then I'll send a note across. I don't mean for one of the big parties. You'll be invited to all of those anyhow. I mean for drinks. Sometime when we're both feeling bored.'

She was smiling at him again. And, while she was speaking, she was was groping behind her on the divan for the flower that she had left there. When she found it, she crushed it up in her hand. And still with the flower held in it, she put out her other hand to say good-bye.

Not that it made much difference to the flower. In that heat, any bloom had less than an hour's life once it had been pulled off its stem.

The Governor's return to Amimbo was magnificent, simply magnificent ; the great Bwana was back, and in triumph.

Mr. Frith was the first to agree that no one else could have accomplished so much. Too much, in fact. With the Chief Secretary away, it meant that Mr. Frith's staff was working late every night, starting new dossiers, typing drafts, filing reports, preparing estimates, losing things.

In consequence, Mr. Frith was in a bad way. His facial tic, in particular, had grown worse. And his drinking habits had been disturbed. Not returning to his bungalow before half-past nine or even ten, he was forced to concentrate into the few remaining hours a process which in the ordinary way would have begun at 6 o'clock at the latest or, on a good evening, around 5.30.

Also, he was worried. The Governor, like some Moslem potentate, had been giving away money—Government money. There was the promise of a thousand pounds for a T.B. testing station for cattle up at Omtala; an annual sum, unspecified, for a colony for the blind which had not even been down on his itinerary; and there were the minutes of a brief and alarming conversation with Mr. Ngo Ngono, in which Sir Gardnor seemed to have committed himself to plans for some kind of technical training school away out in the bush where they were all pastoralists, anyhow.

Everything which Mr. Ngono had ever suggested had led to trouble. There was the hydro-electric plant—fifty thousand acres of good agricultural land flooded to make the new reservoir, and then the two-year drought during which the dam itself had cracked and disintegrated. There was the village industry scheme under which lathes and drills and band saws had been distributed to astonished tribesmen merely to get broken, rusted-up or lost, or just plain stolen; the only evidence that the machinery had ever existed were a few maimed unfortunates who hobbled round as best they could after having got themselves tangled up
in sharp and moving parts that they hadn't asked for in the first place. There was the anti-pest campaign with teams of unsuspecting natives out all day, devotedly spraying their crops with a noxious chemical— someone had misread the instructions—which killed everything it touched, the crops included; there was the big grain silo—the first of a chain that was to stretch across the whole country—that had blown up through spontaneous combustion and set a whole township ablaze simply because the ventilating valves had all been turned the wrong way. And now, Mr. Ngono, thoroughly Europeanised with his double-breasted blazer and his wristwatch and his gold fountain pen and his portable gramophone and his motor bicycle, had sent a letter saying that he was already on his way to Amimbo in order that he might, with the Governor, continue his respectfully above-mentioned and deeply esteemed conversation.

As for Harold, he had been working hard—flat-out, on Sir Gardnor's book; putting eight or nine hours a day into it. It was the hardest that he had worked since his Finals, and he had been thoroughly enjoying himself.

Not that he was up-to-date, or anything like it. That was because of the typing problem. Mr. Frith had set aside one of his best clerks, practically the star-performer in the whole Department. But typing was as yet scarcely his
métier
. Instructed as he had been in the Amimbo Commercial College and allowed to practise on a machine in the Y.M.C.A. in the evenings, he was still only somewhere in the high-grade amateur bracket. Enthusiastic, yes: proficient, no.

And overawed by his new responsibilities, he grew nervous. Sometimes he left out whole sentences; at other times only odd lines or key phrases. Every so often through over-concentration he just shoved the carriage back, forgetting altogether to use the line-space lever. When that happened, everything went black: words got piled up on top of other words, or filled up the little spaces in between. Then he would rub out furiously, tearing great gashes in the paper.

But still he persevered. An enormously strong young man, he hammered. And, when he pulled things, bits of the typewriter came clean away in his hands. One of the corrugated knobs on the platen had been missing for weeks; and the other, which had only come off yesterday was now resting on top of his inkwell.

Touch-typing was the method in which the Commercial College specialised. Even now to glance down at the keyboard for a single moment to satisfy himself that it was still intact would have seemed tantamount to cheating. In the result, breathing heavily and with his eyes hypnotically fixed on his copy, he diligently hit one wrong key after another, bearing down on it each time like a nawy, and pausing only to wrench the little type-heads apart when two of them happened to come up together and get jammed. The flimsy trestle-table at which he worked, rocked and sagged and shuddered, and the floor around him looked as though it had been showered in pygmy confetti as the centres of the ‘
o
's' and the insides of the loops on the ‘
b
's' and ‘
d
's' and ‘
p
's' were cut clean out of the paper by the hammer-blows.

Not that it really mattered. With so many urgent affairs of State on the Governor's mind, even the book itself seemed temporarily to have been forgotten. And, with the last section of the Trade Tables finally handed over to the typist, Harold found himself suddenly with nothing to do.

There he was, nearly five thousand miles from home; scratching himself at intervals because the heat had already brought up a rash on both his forearms; slightly queasy inside from the blown-up, over-ripe dessert that the houseboy had just served him at dinner; and dispirited.

From his chair on the verandah, with the pot of pale, ineffectual coffee on the table beside him, he could see the lights of the Residency through the distant bank of bombax and uroko trees.

It was less than half-a-mile away, but somehow the distance seemed immeasurable. The lights might have been illuminations on another planet. They made him feel more isolated still. And, with his legs stuck out onto the stool in front and his chin resting on his chest, he found himself thinking about Lady Anne.

He remembered those full, shining eyes set in the pale face with its frame of dark hair. He remembered the amused, almost pitying kind of smile. And he wondered if she had remembered that invitation that she was going to send him to come across to the Residency some time when they were both feeling bored.

He gave a little shudder, and shook himself. Even the bar at the Royal Albert would be better than the empty bungalow. It would give him something to do; even possibly someone to talk to.

It was not until nearly ten o'clock when Harold finally reached the
Royal Albert. That was because the taxi had broken down. An ancient landaulette of immense size, it had proved to have something gravely— even mortally, Harold suspected—wrong with the engine. The driver, surrounded by a small circle of his more knowledgeable friends had remained in the hotel courtyard, standing beside the open bonnet assuring everyone that it was the matter of a moment, a mere twist with a spanner, or a screw-driver or something, to eliminate those deafening back-firings.

The bar itself was empty when Harold entered. He had just ordered himself a lager that the boy had assured him was cold, very well cold, sir, like iced, when he saw someone approaching. He was a young man; a remarkably fashionable young man. Beneath the glistening black face, the pale blue shirt and the marigold-coloured tie caught the eye like a challenge. He was wearing a red buttonhole and his new plaited shoes were strikingly criss-crossed in strands of contrasting leathers.

He walked up to the bar with an easy, contemptuous swagger.

‘Good evening, Charles,' he said, as he perched himself on one of the high stools. ‘My usual.'

The barman smiled back at him.

‘Yassaar,' he said. ‘Your usual. What you want to drink, sah?'

It was a gin-fizz that the young man ordered. He was very knowledgeable about it, and insisted that the boy should make it with Booth's and Rose's. He was still discussing the merits of other gins, other fruit juices, when he suddenly became aware of Harold. He looked again. And, having looked a second time, he gaped. His glass held halfway to his lips, he was transfixed.

Then impulsively pushing his drink away from him, he slid off the high stool and came over.

‘Excuse me, sir,' he said with a little bow as though he were a shopwalker. ‘Do I disturb private thoughts, or may I be so bold as to enquire if that is an Emma tie you are wearing? You follow me, sir? Emma— Emmanuel College of Cambridge University, England?'

Harold shifted round to face him. The young man was bent forward, arching his shoulders as he did so. His politeness was overwhelming.

‘Yes, it's an Emmanuel tie,' Harold told him.

The young man was temporarily overcome. Then he shot out a powerful hand of welcome.

‘Permit me to introduce myself,' he said. ‘The name is Ngo Ngono.
You've heard of me? I was at Cambridge University, too. At Caius. Often I, also, wear my College tie. But tonight it is a flowered one, unfortunately. Permit me to give you my card. It has my name on it.'

While he was speaking, he had produced an expensive-looking morocco wallet, and was carefully drawing out a card from between its two little leaves of tissue paper.

‘As you will well know, sir,' he explained, ‘it is not usual to mention the name of the college. Only the University. And the degree, of course. Is this your first visit? Are you happy? Do you have any wishes? Allow me to offer you a drink, sir. A token for old good times beside the Cam. Tell me your pleasure.'

‘I'm drinking lager,' Harold told him.

But Mr. Ngono would not hear of it.

‘It must be champagne,' he said. ‘Champagne for a celebration. Often when alone I drink champagne. It is quite my usual. I prefer it.'

He clapped his hands as he said so and called to the boy at the far end of the bar.

‘A bottle of champagne in a bucket with ice and two glasses. Champagne glasses of course, all double quick.' Then turning to Harold, he added. ‘This is such great pleasure for myself bumping into you like this. Think of the talks that we shall have. There is so little conversation in Amimbo. Not deep, intellectual conversation I mean. Not about mutual friends.'

Over the champagne, Mr. Ngono became not merely convivial, but inquisitive.

‘And your important employment?' he asked. ‘You are connected with the Government? You will be our new Resident Officer? Is it Omtala you are destined for? You have heard about the regrettable vacancy, of course. They will be most pleased to see you.'

‘I'm a statistician,' Harold replied. ‘They won't be wanting me up there.'

Mr. Ngono waved the point aside.

‘Permit me, sir, to disagree. Emphatically, bloody-well disagree. Statisticians are needed everywhere. This is a very backward country in some respects. Omtala has not even one statistician. Not damn one. You know why I am here?'

Harold shook his head.

‘Then I will tell you. In great confidence, of course. I have come to
found a publishing house. To counteract the backwardness. A publishing house like Macmillan's. There is widespread illiteracy among my people. Among the women especially, it is deplorable. The books will be in the native dialects, with the corresponding pictures in colour facing opposite. And all in foreign translations, at a later stage. It will be a very large publishing house. I myself as founder shall be its managing director.'

‘Should be interesting,' Harold told him.

‘Most interesting, indeed,' Mr. Ngono continued. ‘Of course, I shall require Government backing. I shall demand it—very discreetly, but most firmly. It will not succeed unless books are made compulsory. I shall ask the Governor to declare illiteracy illegal. Ban it right out with heavy fines.'

He paused, breathless for a moment, and then resumed.

‘Have you met our Governor?' he asked. ‘Maybe I could help you with an introduction? Purely out of friendship, I mean. Because of our Cambridge bond. I am very close to the Governor. Often, I advise him. I am starting also a new technical school. The Governor will be our first Patron. I shall ask him. That is yet another reason why I am here.'

The bottle of champagne was almost finished by now, and already Mr. Ngono was a little drunk.

‘Our Governor is much like a good king,' he was saying. ‘He is all-powerful and also extremely nice. Most philosophic and intelligent, and of great patience. If he should leave us, I verily believe the crops would fail. By Jove, I do really. It will be a great regret for me always that I could not have been the first to introduce you to such a man.'

Mr. Ngono was leaning forward by now. His face was up close to Harold's.

‘But there is one other,' he said. ‘It is Her Excellency, the Governor's wife you understand. She is not a personal friend, I am most sad to say. I have shaken hands, yes; but spoken, unfortunately never. She is the most extremely beautiful person I have ever seen. Like a photograph. A goddess. A veritable goddess. Everyone who has cast eyes on her agrees that.'