The New Collected Short Stories (25 page)

Henry looked up as his secretary entered the room.

‘Shirley, when am I going to be able to show the Minister the site for the new swimming pool?’ he asked. ‘There’s no sign of it on his itinerary.’

‘I’ve managed to fit in a fifteen-minute visit tomorrow morning, when the Minister will be on his way back to the airport.’

‘Fifteen minutes to discuss something which will affect the lives of ten thousand children,’ said Henry, looking back down at the Minister’s schedule. He turned the page.

‘It’s not even on his official schedule,’ grumbled Henry, looking back up at his secretary.

‘I know,’ said Shirley, ‘but the High Commissioner felt that as the Minister had such a short stopover, he should concentrate on the most important priorities.’

‘Like tea with the High Commissioner’s wife,’ snorted Henry. ‘Just be sure that he sits down to breakfast on time, and that the paragraph I dictated to you on Friday
about the future of the swimming pool is included in his speech.’ Henry rose from his desk. ‘I’ve been through the letters and marked them up. I’m just going to pop into
town and see what state the swimming pool project is in.’

‘By the way,’ said Shirley, ‘Roger Parnell, the BBC’s correspondent, has just called wanting to know if the Minister will be making any official statement while
he’s visiting Aranga.’

‘Phone back and tell him yes, then fax him the Minister’s breakfast speech, highlighting the paragraph on the swimming pool.’

Henry left the office and jumped into his little Austin Mini. The sun was beating down on its roof. Even with both windows open, he was covered in sweat after driving only a few hundred yards
from his office. Some of the locals waved at him when they recognised the Mini and the diplomat from England who seemed genuinely to care about their well-being.

He parked the car on the far side of the cathedral, which would have been described as a parish church in England, and walked the three hundred yards to the site designated for the swimming
pool. He cursed, as he always did whenever he saw the patch of barren wasteland. The children of Aranga had so few sporting facilities: a brick-hard football pitch, which was transformed into a
cricket square on May 1st every year; a town hall which doubled as a basketball court when the local council wasn’t in session; and a tennis court and golf course at the Britannia Club, which
the locals were not invited to join, and where the children were never allowed past the front gate – unless it was to sweep the drive. In the Victoria Barracks, less than half a mile away,
the army had a gymnasium and half a dozen squash courts, but only officers and their guests were allowed to use them.

Henry decided there and then to make it his mission to see that the swimming pool was completed before the Foreign Office posted him to another country. He would use his speech to the Rotary
Club to galvanise the members into action. He must convince them to select the swimming pool project as their Charity of the Year, and would press Bill Paterson into becoming Chairman of the
Appeal. After all, as manager of the bank and secretary of the Rotary Club, he was the obvious candidate.

But first there was the Minister’s visit. Henry began to consider the points he would raise with him, remembering that he had only fifteen minutes in which to convince the damn man to
press the Foreign Office for more funding.

He turned to leave, and spotted a small boy standing on the edge of the site, trying to read the words chiselled on the foundation stone: ‘
St George’s Swimming Pool. This
foundation stone was laid by HRH Princess Margaret, September 12th, 1987.
’

‘Is this a swimming pool?’ the little boy asked innocently.

Henry repeated those words to himself as he walked back to his car, and made up his mind to include them in his speech to the Rotary Club. He checked his watch, and decided he still had time to
drop into the Britannia Club, in the hope that Bill Paterson might be having lunch there. When he walked into the clubhouse, he spotted Bill, seated on his usual stool at the bar, reading an
out-of-date copy of the
Financial Times
.

Bill looked up as Henry approached the bar, ‘I thought you had a visiting Minister to take care of today?’

‘His plane doesn’t land until 3.30,’ Henry said. ‘I dropped by because I wanted to have a word with you.’

‘Need some advice on how you should spend the surplus you made on the exchange rate last Friday?’

‘No. I’ll have to have a little more than that if I’m ever going to get this swimming pool project off the ground – or rather, into it.’

Henry left the club twenty minutes later, having extracted a promise from Bill that he would chair the Appeal Committee, open an account at the bank and ask head office in London if they would
make the first donation.

On his way to the airport in the High Commissioner’s Rolls-Royce, Henry told Sir David the latest news about the swimming pool project. The High Commissioner smiled and said, ‘Well
done, Henry. Now we must hope that you’re as successful with the Minister as you obviously have been with Bill Paterson.’

The two men were standing on the runway of St George’s airport, six feet of red carpet in place, when the Boeing 727 touched down. As it was rare for more than one plane a day to land at
St George’s, and there was only one runway, ‘International Airport’ was, in Henry’s opinion, a little bit of a misnomer.

The Minister turned out to be a rather jolly fellow, insisting that everyone should call him Will. He assured Sir David that he had been looking forward with keen anticipation to his visit to St
Edward’s.

‘St George’s, Minister,’ the High Commissioner whispered in his ear.

‘Yes, of course, St George’s,’ replied Will, without even blushing.

Once they had arrived at the High Commission, Henry left the Minister to have tea with Sir David and his wife, and returned to his office. After even such a short journey, he was convinced that
Witless Will was unlikely to carry much clout back in Whitehall; but that wouldn’t stop him pressing ahead with his case. At least the Minister had read the briefing notes, because he told
them how much he was looking forward to seeing the new swimming pool.

‘Not yet started,’ Henry had reminded him.

‘Funny,’ said the Minister. ‘I thought I read somewhere that Princess Margaret had already opened it.’

‘No, she only laid the foundation stone, Minister. But perhaps all that will change once the project receives your blessing.’

‘I’ll do what I can,’ promised Will. ‘But you know we’ve been told to make even more cutbacks in overseas funding.’ A sure sign that an election was
approaching, thought Henry.

At the cocktail party that evening, Henry was able to say no more than ‘Good evening, Minister,’ as the High Commissioner was determined that Will would be introduced to every one of
the assembled guests in under sixty minutes. When the two of them departed to have dinner with General Olangi, Henry went back to his office to check over the speech the Minister would be
delivering at breakfast the following morning. He was pleased to see that the paragraph he had written on the swimming pool project remained in the final draft, so at least it would be on the
record. He checked the seating plan, making sure that he had been placed next to the editor of the
St George’s Echo
. That way he could be certain that the paper’s next edition
would lead on the British government’s support for the swimming pool appeal.

Henry rose early the following morning, and was among the first to arrive at the High Commissioner’s Residence. He took the opportunity to brief as many of the assembled local businessmen
as possible on the importance of the swimming pool project in the eyes of the British government, pointing out that Barclays Bank had agreed to open the fund with a substantial donation.

The Minister arrived for breakfast a few minutes late. ‘A call from London,’ he explained, so they didn’t sit down to eat until 8.15. Henry took his place next to the editor of
the local paper and waited impatiently for the Minister to make his speech.

Will rose at 8.47. He spent the first five minutes talking about bananas, and finally went on to say: ‘Let me assure you that Her Majesty’s Government have not forgotten the swimming
pool project that was inaugurated by Princess Margaret, and we hope to be able to make an announcement on its progress in the near future. I was delighted to learn from Sir David,’ he looked
across at Bill Paterson, who was seated opposite him, ‘that the Rotary Club have taken on the project as their Charity of the Year, and several prominent local businessmen have already
generously agreed to support the cause.’ This was followed by a round of applause, instigated by Henry.

Once the Minister had resumed his seat, Henry handed the editor of the local paper an envelope which contained a thousand-word article, along with several pictures of the site. Henry felt
confident that it would form the centre-page spread in next week’s
St George’s Echo
.

Henry checked his watch as the Minister sat down: 8.56. It was going to be close. When Will disappeared up to his room, Henry began pacing up and down the hallway, checking his watch as each
minute passed.

The Minister stepped into the waiting Rolls at 9.24 and, turning to Henry, said, ‘I fear I’m going to have to forgo the pleasure of seeing the swimming pool site. However,’ he
promised, ‘I’ll be sure to read your report on the plane, and will brief the Foreign Secretary the moment I get back to London.’

As the car sped past a barren plot of land on the way to the airport, Henry pointed out the site to the Minister. Will glanced out of the window and said, ‘Admirable, worthwhile,
important,’ but never once did he commit himself to spending one penny of government money.

‘I’ll do my damnedest to convince the mandarins at the Treasury,’ were his final words as he boarded the plane.

Henry didn’t need to be told that Will’s ‘damnedest’ was unlikely to convince even the most junior civil servant at the Treasury.

A week later, Henry received a fax from the Foreign Office giving details of the changes the Prime Minister had made in his latest reshuffle. Will Whiting had been sacked, to be replaced by
someone Henry had never heard of.

Henry was going over his speech to the Rotary Club when the phone rang. It was Bill Paterson.

‘Henry, there are rumours of another coup brewing, so I was thinking of waiting until Friday before changing the High Commission’s pounds into kora.’

‘Happy to take your advice, Bill – the money market is beyond me. By the way, I’m looking forward to this evening, when we finally get a chance to launch the Appeal.’

Henry’s speech was well received by the Rotarians, but when he discovered the size of the donations some of the members had in mind, he feared it could still be years before the project
was completed. He couldn’t help remembering that there were only another eighteen months before his next posting was due.

It was in the car on the way home that he recalled Bill’s words at the Britannia Club. An idea began to form in his mind.

Henry had never taken the slightest interest in the quarterly payments that the British government made to the tiny island of Aranga. The Foreign Office allocated £5 million a year from
its contingency fund, made up of four payments of £1.25 million, which was automatically converted into the local currency of kora at the current exchange rate. Once Henry had been informed
of the rate by Bill Paterson, the Chief Administrator at the High Commission dealt with all the Commission’s payments over the next three months. That was about to change.

Henry lay awake that night, all too aware that he lacked the training and expertise to carry out such a daring project, and that he must pick up the knowledge he required without anyone else
becoming aware of what he was up to.

By the time he rose the following morning, a plan was beginning to form in his mind. He started by spending the weekend at the local library, studying old copies of the
Financial Times
,
noting in particular what caused fluctuating exchange rates and whether they followed any pattern.

Over the next three months, at the golf club, cocktail parties in the Britannia Club, and whenever he was with Bill, he gathered more and more information, until finally he was confident that he
was ready to make his first move.

When Bill rang on the Monday morning to say that there would be a small surplus of 22,107 kora on the current account because of the rumours of another coup, Henry gave orders to place the money
in the Swimming Pool Account.

‘But I usually switch it into the Contingency Fund,’ said Bill.

‘There’s been a new directive from the Foreign Office – K14792,’ said Henry. ‘It says that surpluses can now be used on local projects, if they’ve been
approved by the Minister.’

‘But that Minister was sacked,’ the bank manager reminded the First Secretary.

‘That may well be the case, but I’ve been instructed by my masters that the order still applies.’ Directive K14792 did in fact exist, Henry had discovered, although he doubted
that when the Foreign Office issued it they had had swimming pools in mind.