The White Father (20 page)

Shrieve wondered how his paper would be received. He was to address a sub-section of a large conference held in several empty Oxford Colleges by something called the Congress for Underdeveloped Nations and Territories. It didn’t sound quite English—conference would have been the English word, Shrieve felt. It was probably one of those international organisations. The prospectus announced distinguished men from all over the world, mostly anthropologists, but also some economists, sociologists and “political experts”. The theme of the conference was “The Underdeveloped Countries and the West”—a theme wide enough to embrace absolutely
everything
. Shrieve had noticed with relief that his study-group
consisted almost entirely of anthropologists. He hoped it would prove to be one of those encyclopaedic symposia in which people compared notes on their researches.

Shrieve had spent two years at Jesus before the war and not returned afterwards. (His academic status, he supposed, was doubtful.) He had met James Weatherby his first night in Hall, and they’d stayed friends ever since. Though for the moment, Shrieve thought grimly, their friendship seemed slightly cool. When he had rung James to ask why he hadn’t been at Mallory’s meeting, James had replied airily that he was terribly sorry, pressure of work and all that, and he was sure he wasn’t missed. And of course Shrieve did understand, didn’t he, that as a civil servant it was a little ticklish for him to be involved in that sort of thing. He did hope Shrieve hadn’t minded. Had the interview with Filmer gone well?

“I’m really not sure, James,” Shrieve had said.

“Oh, why not? I saw Filmer this morning and he said he’d much enjoyed talking to you and that you’d seemed satisfied.”

“He did, did he? I don’t know whether to be satisfied or not, James, to be honest. I’d like to talk to you about it. Are you free for half an hour this evening?”

Weatherby had prevaricated. Shrieve suddenly suspected that the reason he hadn’t come to the meeting was that he’d used it as an excuse to go and see the mystery woman who had rung when Shrieve had first arrived in the flat. (She hadn’t rung again.) He was prevaricating now, perhaps, because he was going to see her tonight, too. Everyone, Shrieve thought as he came into Oxford, seemed to be living a double life. Perhaps people were right, and he’d become naive from living too long in Africa. But James and Jumbo were certainly disabusing him about modern English morals. If there was really a woman in James’s life, that was, and he wasn’t quietly backing out of the Ngulu problem.

Lunch was in a College new to Shrieve, Nuffield, a
monstrously
ugly huddle of mock-Cotswold almshouses with a tower with a spire and no room in the car park. The porter directed him across a quadrangle to a long, low room where
people were talking and reading papers. In term-time it was, presumably, the Common Room. He looked anxiously round, seeing no one he knew.

A girl came up to him, smiling brightly. “Can I help you?” she said.

“Please,” said Shrieve. “I’m looking for Professor Adams. My name is Shrieve.”

“We’ve been expecting you, Mr Shrieve,” said the girl. “Professor Rich was asking after you only five minutes ago.”

“Rich? I thought it was Professor Adams I was——”

“Professor Adams is chairman of the group you’re going to address,” said the girl, still smiling brightly. “Professor Rich was anxious to speak to you, that was all.”

She led him to a desk in a corner of the room, rummaged in a drawer and produced a badge for his lapel which stated:
SHRIEVE
.

“Would you mind wearing this?” she said. “There are so many people here, and no one knows who anyone else is.”

Shrieve pinned the badge on self-consciously. One or two people were looking at him. The Congress had been going on for a week, and he was a new face. The looks he was getting were hungry, as though the people were ravenous for his information, whatever it might be.

The girl, still smiling, asked him to follow her, and led him down a corridor and up some stairs. She knocked at a door, opened it and said, “Mr Shrieve, Professor”, then ushered him into the room.

Professor Adams was a tall man with a slight stoop who had written several eminent books on West African tribes. Shrieve had felt honoured and surprised to be invited by him to speak.

“How do you do, Mr Shrieve,” said Adams. “It really is most kind of you to have come.”

“I can’t think how you ever heard of me,” said Shrieve.

“Oh, it’s not so hard,” said Adams, giving what must have been a long-studied lecturer’s twinkle. “I asked the Colonial Office who was about, and they gave me your name. I’ve always been particularly interested in the Ngulu.”

“I’m very glad to hear it,” said Shrieve. “They’re in rather a spot of trouble at the moment, I’m afraid.” He explained about the letter to
The
Times
and the situation which had provoked it, while Adams poured sherry.

“Oh dear,” he said, when Shrieve had finished, “I do so hate putting my name to things. And there’s a huge statement of principle which I don’t understand at all going round the Congress at this very moment, too. Let me see it, will you?”

Shrieve handed him the letter. Adams read it through, grunted, and said, “Well, if you think it’ll do any good.” He signed it illegibly. “It can’t do any harm, I suppose. It seems pretty tame.”

“Thank you very much,” said Shrieve, retrieving the letter.

“Not at all. I only wish I knew more about your people. I’ve always meant to get down that way, but somehow I always get stuck on the west coast. Your people are rather special, of course, which is why I’m so particularly pleased you could come. Will your paper take long?”

“I’m afraid not. You asked for something on the Ngulu attitude to death, and they do take death very calmly. I’d be delighted to talk about other things, too, if you’d like it.”

“Splendid,” said Adams, “really splendid. You see, we’ve been concentrating on very primitive tribes in our study-group, and we’ve had some most interesting papers. What we like to do is to have the paper, then questions—which you can use for answers up to ten or fifteen minutes long, if you wish. The paper is just a starting point for discussion.”

“I hope I’ll be able to be useful,” said Shrieve. “I’m not a professional anthropologist, you know. I’ve read a lot, of course, but I’m not at all up in the latest stuff, I’m afraid.”

Adams looked at him with mild surprise. “I expect you have a lot to do, Mr Shrieve. We academics tend to imagine that everyone who lives in the bush shares our specialised interests.”

He described previous papers at the study-group and the type of discussion Shrieve could expect. As they were about to go down to lunch, he hesitated for a moment, then took Shrieve’s arm and said, “I don’t know how you feel about the
politics of the new Africa, Mr Shrieve. But I’d better warn you that the Congress is sponsored by a Foundation that crusades”—he seemed to like the word—“positively crusades against Communism. There are one or two people here who are more interested in keeping the Russians out of Africa than in
understanding
what’s going on inside it. So be warned.” He put a finger to his lips. “Quite a number of them are ex-Communists themselves, between you and me.”

Shrieve, who knew nothing of the politics of international conferences on learned matters, shrugged and stayed silent. Come Communism, come capitalism, the Ngulu weren’t going to change.

They went to lunch in the College Hall. Shrieve was placed between Adams and the Professor Rich who wanted to speak to him. He was an American from Stanford who knew, Shrieve quickly discovered, an enormous amount about the Luagabu. Opposite was Miss Younger, the well-known authority on Brunei. Shrieve felt awed to be surrounded by so many people whose names he knew and whose books he had, or should have, read. To his astonishment he found they were all interested in him, and he was soon explaining, as was becoming automatic for him on making a new acquaintance, why he was in England. The plight of the Ngulu was actively debated. The other professor whose signature Shrieve hoped for was sitting only a few places down and signed the letter at the table, saying, “We could get the whole Congress to sign, if you like.” The meal wasn’t very good, but it passed quickly and agreeably.

Afterwards, in the Common Room, Shrieve was closely questioned by Rich and a German called Schwerdt. Then Adams took him off to give his paper. The lecture-room held forty or more people, and Shrieve saw Edward sitting at the back with a girl. He smiled at him, remembering he was going to be there but too flustered to recall why. Adams made a brief announcement, there was a polite ripple of applause, and then Shrieve found himself reading what had seemed, when he wrote it, rather a good and scholarly little paper, but which now
sounded amateurish and inadequate. His delivery got worse as the paper went on, but he was listened to with attention, and as soon as he’d finished he was bombarded with questions on every aspect of Ngulu life. He answered these with more confidence, becoming, after half an hour, positively fluent.

Then a man of about fifty, with a mournful, hangdog look, began asking a long question which was really more of a statement. Adams leaned over and whispered, “Politics coming up.”

The man spoke for two or three minutes, making listless gestures with one hand, smoothing a lock of dark hair with the other. He gave a general picture of the political situation in Shrieve’s colony which Shrieve considered quite accurate, but lacking in charity towards both the British and the politicians who would succeed them. Finally came the question: did Mr Shrieve agree with what he had said?

“I’m only a District Officer,” Shrieve said, “looking after a backward tribe in the bush. What goes on in the capital doesn’t concern the Ngulu much—except where it affects their security, of course. What you say about the colony sounds factually correct to me, but I wouldn’t agree with your conclusions or judgements. The British haven’t neglected political education, as you seem to suggest. I think it’s fair to say that we haven’t made a big enough effort to spread education generally, but where we have built and staffed schools the standard is quite high. I don’t really understand what you mean by political education, to be honest. In the high schools they’re taught the rudiments of the British constitution and so on. What did you have in mind, exactly?”

“I think,” said a voice, “that Mr Tufnell is worried about the spread of Communism among the Ngulu.”

There were groans and laughter.

“I am concerned,” said Tufnell in his mournful voice, “with what’s going to happen after independence, Mr Shrieve. From the public statements of Bloaku, who’ll be prime minister as I understand it, the main political party will be committed to the doctrines of Mao Tse Tung.”

“I’m not up in the politics of the capital,” said Shrieve. “As I’m sure you can see, the public statements of Bloaku are completely irrelevant to the Ngulu for the most part. If there’s going to be a battle for the minds of the new nations, it won’t extend to them. Our doctrinal concepts are meaningless to them. You could say, I suppose, that their present life is one of protected and artificial primitive communism—they’re
voluntarily
collectivised, as it were, and they always have been. But any advanced ideas are infinitely far beyond them.”

“Yes, yes,” said Tufnell. “But to get back to what I said. Bloaku has talked of accepting aid from Czechoslovakia. Russian technicians and Chinese so-called advisers will be in the country the day after independence.”

“Perhaps. But so will British ones. We aren’t just walking out, you know, leaving everything behind in chaos. Besides, I don’t think you quite understand how the politics of independence work. Bloaku and a hundred others have been screaming hate and horror against the British for several years now, but what they say in public has awfully little to do with how they’ll actually behave once they’re in power. They’ll use the cold war for their own purposes, of course: anyone who’s prepared to give them anything at all will be rapturously welcomed. But you shouldn’t confuse that welcome with subservience.”

“It seems to me,” said Tufnell, in a tone of resigned triumph, “that you’re a little soft on these people, Mr Shrieve. You talk as though they don’t mean anything they say. But how can you be sure? I’d be inclined to think that if they say they’re going to be semi-Communist they mean it. Do you honestly welcome the emergence of a semi-Communist—and inevitably a fully Communist—régime?”

The rest of the study-group showed its impatience by engaging in general conversation.

“I can only say,” said Shrieve, “that I take a different view about how much attention should be paid to the theoretical left-wingery of the future leaders of the country.”

“I think,” said Adams, “that this is not, perhaps, the time
or place for a discussion of post-anti-neo-Stalinism or whatever it is among the leadership of the underdeveloped countries, Mr Tufnell.”

There was a sigh of relief.

“Mr Shrieve,” Adams went on, “has come here to talk to us about the Ngulu. Perhaps he will be willing to discuss the politicial situation of the colony as a whole after the meeting.”

Tufnell looked angry. He pushed his lock of hair back and muttered gloomily to himself as he sat down.

“Now,” said Adams, “are there any more questions about the Ngulu? If not, I have one myself. I wonder if Mr Shrieve would tell us something about the—the
unenforced
collectivisation
he mentioned.”

Shrieve described the Ngulu system of communal life, their method of tilling the soil, their attitude towards cattle. His explanation provoked several comparisons with other tribes, and a vigorous discussion followed. He felt somewhat out of it, not being nearly so well informed as his audience, so he sat back and listened. There were, he discovered, interesting similarities between the Ngulu and some Patagonians.

Edward, listening at the back beside Jackie, found it all fascinating. He wished that Belinda Hayes could have been there to have her enthusiasm for anthropology rekindled.