Chapter One

It is my earnest hope that, given good will on both sides ...

 

The Royal Personage, a hesitant cousin not yet forged into the mould of greatness, cleared his throat, shuffled the pages of his speech, and began timidly: ‘I am conscious–’

Then he stopped dead, as if he had made his point, and expected the audience to applaud it. He had lost track already, and there was still a very long way to go.

How awful if they did start clapping, thought David Bracken, the Chief Secretary and chief architect of this occasion; how awful if someone with a sense of humour, or someone with a grudge, started a slow round of applause, as though the phrase ‘I am conscious’ had set all their minds at rest … He looked at his feet, immaculate in their white buckskin boots; he felt the weight of the absurd cock’s-feather headdress pressing down on his forehead. He looked at his wife, but Nicole, who had that sense of humour in abundance, was already biting her lip. He looked round him, waiting, as they were all waiting, for the ceremony – Independence Day in Pharamaul – to get under way.

The day of independence was hot, oppressive, and airless. The flags hung listlessly to their flagpoles, all the way round the cricket field, which was Port Victoria’s only point of assembly for so huge a crowd. Shimmering heat rose from the cracked earth, stifling all movement, seeming to seal in the enormous silence on the concourse. In the grandstand, there was some shelter; on the dais which housed the ‘official party’, the sun flailed down mercilessly.

It beat upon parasols, helmets, plumes, white duck uniforms, tight collars, raw necks, tortured female knees; it slowly cooked the Consular Corps in their roped-off section; it roasted the Royal Pharamaul Police Band – white-helmeted, white-tunicked, with here and there a leopard skin for the bass drummers – as they rested from their labours after ‘Selections from HMS Pinafore’.

Above them all hung a pale burnished sky with a single small aircraft (a fugitive? a late arrival?) droning across it like a drowsy bumblebee outside a window pane. This was the only movement. The rest of Port Victoria, the rest of Pharamaul, was waiting, waiting for history.

The Royal Personage tried again, each syllable echoing back, like a shout of disagreement, from the tannoy speakers strung all round the ground: ‘I am conscious – that this is a momentous day for you – the people of Pharamaul.’

They, the people of Pharamaul, the Maulas and the U-Maulas, had come from far and near for their momentous day. (‘Momentous!’ thought David Bracken irritably. What could the pompous word possibly mean, to a Maula from up-country? Why couldn’t he just say ‘great’?) They had come from Port Victoria itself, with its reeking slums and waterfront hovels; from Gamate, the ‘native capital’, where a hundred thousand Maulas lived in beehive huts, of clay and wattle, which had been designed a thousand years ago, and put up (some of them) only yesterday.

They had come from the near-jungle round Shebiya, the stronghold of the U-Maulas (literally, ‘not-Maulas’) and from the now sophisticated ‘Fish Village’ on the north-east coast, where the fish-processing plant was working overtime, and they had shop stewards who wore socks and shoes.

They had come from far and near, because they had all been called. Yet they had been called by different voices. Some had read the newspapers and heard the broadcasts; some had received gold-embossed invitations by command of Her Majesty the Queen. Some had been told by their chiefs to be present without fail on this important day; others had only heard rumours of the Great Aboura – the tribal meeting which, it was said, was to be different from all other tribal meetings, within the memory of the oldest old man.

Some had been summoned by that mysterious African telegraph which tells a man his son is dead before a police runner can reach his hut.

Some had come in taxis, some in carts and ox wagons; some astride donkeys, some carried by their grandchildren. Some had walked all the way – and ‘all the way’ might mean three hundred miles of bush country and parched plain, winding track and yellow dust; a trek of three weary weeks, with the journey back still to be faced.

Their clothes often told where they came from, and told, also, much of the social history of Pharamaul. There were the young bloods of Port Victoria, in smartly draped coats and skin-tight trousers, their heads crowned by wide-brimmed panamas. There were elderly Government clerks in their best silk suits, carrying umbrellas. There were country folk from Gamate in blankets and beehive straw hats, yellow and tattered; there were men in ancient army greatcoats, men in long-tailed shirts like nightgowns, men in rags. Up in Fish Village, they wore white boiler suits stamped with the Government mark – and they were wearing them now, three hundred miles from home.

They were all here for their momentous day; half a nation, which had been on the move for hours or days or even weeks, now stood still where most of them had camped the night, and watched and listened. The men were crowded by the tens of thousands in the centre of the field, while the women in their bright headscarves kept to the outer ring, in accordance with the custom. There were acres of schoolchildren, safely corralled behind ropes, waving big and small Union Jacks – the new flag of Pharamaul was not yet in production. They had been chattering and jumping up and down before; now they were as still as bright-eyed mice.

A few of the spectators knew exactly what this was all about, and boasted their knowledge. This was Independence Day, and their country at last belonged to them, Maulas and U-Maulas alike, and was being handed over at this very moment. There on the platform, they said, was the Queen’s cousin, come to make this gift – or, some claimed with a smirk, to surrender and go away. There was the Earl who was going to be Governor-General, and his wife, whose photograph in the Times of Pharamaul had made men roll their eyes and who (it was rumoured) was to be seen stark naked on the cover of some book which only rich white men could buy. Ow!

There was Mr Bracken, Chief Secretary, who did all the work for Government, and was staying on. There was Major Crump, the police. He would be staying on! And there – but who needed to point him out? – was Dinamaula Maula, once Paramount Chief, now to be Prime Minister. He was the real man of the future, whichever way you looked at it.

But it was only the smart ones who knew all this, or even half of it. For the rest, the great majority of the crowd, it was Independence Day – but what the words meant, who could tell? A few older men, from the north, could have said only that there on the platform was a child of Queen Victoria, the great Queen who lived for ever, the mother of them all: a child who had come to give them royal greetings and wish them heavy rains.

The child of Queen Victoria was doing a little better now, though his hands were visibly shaking, and he floundered badly over the words ‘most auspicious occasion’ and had to repeat them. Let him just get through it, thought David Bracken, still gazing at his boots, but willing the speaker onwards all the time. Let this thing go off all right – and everything else which was to come after. It was so important!

Bracken had worked more than a decade for this day, knowingly or unknowingly; he had served Pharamaul as District Officer, as Resident Commissioner, and now as Chief Secretary, for twelve years of heat and boredom and steady toil and setback and occasional, secret joy. He had been an eager, ignorant thirty-one, a ‘late entry’ green as the grass of England, when he first started; now he was a furrowed, seasoned forty-three. It had all been worth it, a hundred times over, but it was such a big slice of a man’s life. Let it not go to waste!

He glanced sideways down the row in which he sat, looking at some of the people who had also worked for this day, or must do so now. Closest to him, closest in all things, was Nicole, who had also borne the burden and the heat of their exile. Twelve years, two children, and a bone-dry climate had done their worst; she was still, at thirty-four, a patently attractive woman who had never failed him, either in love or in cool judgement. It was she, not he, who really deserved the medals and the small dividends of rank.

Next to her were Keith Crump and his wife: Crump, head of the Royal Pharamaul Police, a tough and hardened campaigner who had kept the same grip, and maintained the same fabric of the law, from the old days of revolt and bloodshed to this peaceful day of independence. Thank God he was staying on, for as long as he was wanted. Then there was a trio of tribal chiefs – one each from Gamate, Shebiya, and Fish Village: three calm, impassive, expressionless men in ceremonial robes, who also maintained their law and who, when they spoke in the House of Assembly, did so with all the authority and pride of rulers.

It was a compromise, between ruling and representing, but it had worked well enough.

A cheerful young face could be sighted beyond them; it was the new Government House aide, Paul Jordan, who looked as young, impulsive, light-hearted, and keen as David Bracken himself had done, when he first arrived. He would soon learn … That brought the roster down to the couple with whom they would all have to live for a very long time: the new Governor-General and his improbable wife.

The Earl of Urle’s reputation had preceded him. He was a Labour peer who should really have been a romantic poet, like Lord Byron, or an erratic impresario like the Duke of Bedford: a jumpy, nervous, wildly enthusiastic young man who had gone into politics because his father had once snorted ‘Don’t!’ In the House of Lords he had espoused all the right causes: abolition of the death penalty, protection of seabirds, drilling for offshore oil, national theatre, proportional representation, consenting males.

Now, by one of those haphazard turns which drive historians mad, he was Pharamaul’s first Governor-General; and beside him was his wife, who had already excited such widespread lust: a one-shot erotic poetess who had written a notorious narrative poem, banned in half a dozen countries, which read like a catalogue of her past lovers, complete with their achievement ratings. It had been called ‘O Come! All Ye Faithful’, and its jacket alone, on which was a nude photograph of the authoress quartered like an anatomical Ordnance Survey map, was a collector’s item. She was now the First Lady of Pharamaul, entitled, among other things, to the curtseys of all lesser females.

She had been known as Bobo Tempest, up to the moment when matrimony struck. Now she was Barbara, Countess of Urle – and as much like a countess as ‘Beat me, Daddy, Eight to a bar!’ was like Beethoven’s Fifth. But there she was, and here she was, crossed legs, wall-to-wall bosom, and all. David Bracken looked away, as any good husband should. But there was going to be plenty of trouble with that one.

And was there going to be trouble with this one? … David Bracken was now looking directly at Prime Minister Dinamaula (it was going to be difficult to think of him as PM, when he had been ‘Chief’ for so long). He had put on weight recently, David noted (and sucked in his own stomach at the same time); and his face at this moment had a kind of brooding heaviness very different from its normal cheerful cast. Of course, this was a great day for Dinamaula, a proud day, the day … The fact that he was wearing his magnificent tribal robes, and the lionskin cap which was his badge of rank, seemed a subtle pointer to the idea that, when all the white man’s nonsense was over, this would prove to be his ceremony, perhaps his alone.

The two of them had been enemies in the old days, when Dinamaula was sent into exile; they had been guarded neutrals when he was allowed to return as Chief; now they were friends, strong allies in this new endeavour. But who could say which would be the next word to use, as the map of Independent Pharamaul was unrolled?

At Dinamaula’s side sat his wife, a big unsmiling country girl from Gamate: a shy or stupid girl who scarcely ever uttered a word, who had fallen far behind in all this new chapter of history: who was, David Bracken decided, the most difficult dinner guest ever likely to grace the board at Government House. There could be trouble there, too, unless she produced a family, and above all an heir.

While David’s thoughts were still wandering, Nicole nudged him and whispered excitedly: ‘I can see the children!’

He came to, quickly. ‘Where?’

‘There. Just in line with the bandleader, or whatever he’s called. By the flagstaff.’

He searched among the sea of faces, the maze of green uniforms in the ‘School Enclosure’ which she had indicated. Presently, with real pleasure, he caught sight of them – two small heads side by side, two rapt expressions, two accredited delegates from Miss Prinsep’s Select Academy.

The faces round them were all white, though they were outnumbered by a myriad black ones from the other schools of Port Victoria – the free Council Schools which, even after five years, were still the preserve of ‘native’ children. That was something else which, before very long, was bound to change … David smiled involuntarily. Timothy and Martha. It was easy to pick them out, now. Perhaps because they were a little taller and cleaner than the rest …

‘Aren’t they sweet?’ said Nicole fondly.

David Bracken retreated from this thought, as he always did. ‘They’re two perfectly ordinary children, thank God.’

‘How can you say that!’ She was almost clasping her hands.

‘I hope they’re not getting too hot.’

‘It won’t be much longer now.’

He wished that this was true. But at least the contribution of the Royal Personage had limped to a halt, and now it was the turn of the Earl of Urle.

The new Governor-General made an unusual start, by clasping his hands above his head, in the manner of a winning boxer, as he acknowledged the applause. Then he began his speech, and his speech was terrible.

It became clear, immediately, that his lordship wanted to be loved, and in pursuit of this he overdid the flattery grossly. He seemed to be appealing over the heads of the ‘official’ audience to the common people of Pharamaul; and neither side appreciated this in the least. He talked about ‘new emergent nations which must redress the stupid imbalance of the old’. He congratulated them on throwing off the shackles of an outmoded social system. He assured them that colonialism was dead – ‘dead as slavery itself’. He said: ‘I have come here, in all humility, to learn all I can from you.’ He proclaimed his ideal as ‘a land flowing with milk and honey’, a mystifying phrase in a land where milk was notoriously unsafe, and honey only attracted ants.

A joking reference to Dinamaula’s ‘little trip abroad, happily with a return ticket’ – the five years’ exile in England – set everyone within earshot squirming with embarrassment.

Dinamaula himself sat motionless under the weight of rubbish, letting the foolish words flow over him, ignoring this clown who had already muffed the swearing-in ceremony at Government House, and was now making a botch of his first public speech, the one which was meant to set the whole tone of the future. But he recognized the speech, from long experience, from patient platform participation in a hundred London protest rallies, anywhere between Trafalgar Square and the Albert Hall.

This was the authentic voice of the English left – unctuous, self-deprecating, confessional, writhing in spread-legs surrender: the voice of the Tailwaggers’ Club: the voice which hailed every black man as an angel, because he was black.

It wasn’t true, and the black man knew it best of all, even as he swallowed the soothing syrup and cashed the larded cheque.

Dinamaula would rather have had David Bracken’s crisp authority, any day of the week, dated and doomed though it had to be … He heard, as if from far away, the Governor-General saying something about ‘the Chief Secretary staying on, as long as he can be of any help at all’, and he thought: At last this idiot has said something sensible, and he brought the palms of his hands together in the sharp beginnings of applause, and glanced round him, so that everyone else was forced to join in.

Then he looked down the row, and smiled and nodded to David Bracken. The kinship of honest men was worth demonstrating in public … But now it was his own turn to speak.

As Dinamaula rose, the whole huge gathering came to life. Here was the man they had journeyed from near and far to see, and this was something they wanted to show him, beyond any doubt. The growl of greeting – ‘Ahsula! Rain!’ – swelled into a deep-throated roar as their Chief stood and faced them; men began to stamp on the ground, raising a thick swirl of yellow dust, making the whole concourse tremble. In the centre, the thousands of men beat upon the hot earth, and deafened the sky with their clamour, and raised their arms on high again and again, each arm and each upthrust an oath of homage; on the outer fringe the women went U-lu-lu-lu-lu! on a high-pitched, hysterical note, screaming their wild adoration.

This was the true voice of Pharamaul, so far removed from the plumes and the parasols and the white man’s speeches that the white men, and their womenfolk, could only look at each other in amazement, struck with the thought that they might be on the wrong stage in the wrong play. It was a moment of utter division, made sharper still as Dinamaula raised his arm for silence, and received it instantly, and said, in a controlled, carrying voice: ‘Your Royal Highness – your Excellency – and my people!’

Rather naughty, that, thought David Bracken, and dropped his head as the clamour burst out again. It was really another version of the Governor-General’s direct popular appeal, though an infinitely better one. But it could, strictly speaking, be justified. They were ‘his people’, whether as Chief or as Prime Minister, and everyone on the aboura knew it, and wanted to hear it.

Dinamaula did not speak for long. Other people had done that; he was the one man who did not need to. Addressing the vast meeting alternately in Maula and in English, he bade them all welcome. He told them that this was the greatest day in the history of Pharamaul, and that there would be other, greater days in the future.

Yesterday Pharamaul had been a farela – he translated this as ‘a small creature’, though to David Bracken and most of those present it meant, actually, ‘a little dog’, and was a term of insult. Today Pharamaul had become a lion. Tomorrow, if they all worked faithfully as one people, following their leaders, no one could say what Pharamaul might not become.

He promised them equal justice before the law. He promised freedom to all who worked honestly to make this a single nation. He promised them ‘one colour’ – the colour of Pharamaul. There was now no past, only the future. He wished them fine crops, great herds, and rain.

The last word, ‘Ahsula!’ was the end of the speech, and the signal for a fantastic ovation. Dinamaula stood stock-still, smiling slightly, as the uproar swelled to its thunderous climax; and there it seemed to hang, a fierce and stormy shout ringed round by the hyena-calls of the women; a shout which went on and on, as if caught in the eye of its own hurricane. It was an African greeting, violent, full-throated, and loving; and it was not quenched until Dinamaula raised his arms again, in the same signal of command.

Lucky was the Prime Minister, thought David Bracken ruefully, who had that sort of following.

As Dinamaula sat down, the Earl of Urle leant across the gleaming bared knees of his countess, and said: ‘Good show, old boy!’

The moment had come for the flag-raising ceremony.

First the Union Jack had to be lowered, for the last time; and as the band broke into ‘God Save the Queen’, David Bracken, stiffly saluting, was conscious of a sudden ache in his throat. He had known this was going to happen; he had even mentioned it, jokingly, to Nicole. But damn it all! – it wasn’t such a bad old flag, it had done well by this country, and a hundred others besides. One need not be ashamed of sadness at seeing it go, deserting Pharamaul forever after a hundred and twenty-six years … Then, to interrupt this mood of mourning, there came a hitch.

The band had already finished the anthem while the Union Jack, snagged by a twisted halyard, was still only halfway down. There it stuck fast. A nervous silence fell, as the police sergeant in charge of the ‘flag detail’ wrestled with his problem, and with history.

When this had happened before, thought David Bracken, still at the salute, another Royal Personage with a readier wit than most had murmured to the incoming Prime Minister (it had been Kenyatta of Kenya): ‘You can still change your mind.’ But Pharamaul’s day was different from Kenya’s day; this had been an uneasy ceremony all along, made more uneasy still by the way Dinamaula had stolen the show, and there was no one here to bridge an awkward moment with cheerful irreverence.

They all waited, while the halyard was unravelled and the Union Jack finally lowered. Then the band struck up again, and another flag began to rise.

The band was playing a rather jolly tune, Pharamaul’s new national anthem. Originally composed by the organist of St Boniface Cathedral, and now scored for trombones, trumpets, tubas, clarinets, flutes, piccolos, cymbals, and big bass drums, it had a definite lilt; and as the flag rose and the music blared, Bobo Urle’s comment could be clearly heard: ‘Oh, I like this number! It could be a real swinger!’ Then the flag, fluttering in a chance breeze, spread its wings suddenly.

It was Dinamaula’s own design: Dinamaula’s, aided by David Bracken and by a young man from the Port Victoria Museum who had access to various books on heraldry. It was chequered, in four different colours: black for the people, blue for the sea, yellow for the earth, and red for ‘progress’. It had not been seen before. As it rose taut to the top of the flagpole, David Bracken heard a whisper behind him: ‘Bloody thing looks like a dishcloth!’ followed by a giggle and a penetrating ‘Sh’h!’

There was bound to be somebody like that, thought David Bracken angrily; and, in drink or in sneering disdain, there were going to be plenty of such remarks, before this thing settled down … He considered turning round, to glare at the offender – he had recognized the voice easily enough; but then he thought better of it. Let it go, let it go … He stood firmly braced at the salute until the anthem ended.

Now there was only one more item to come, and one way to end the proceedings: the March Past and Salute. Everyone had wanted to get into the March Past; David Bracken had had applications, and indignant protests when they were turned down, from the Port Victoria football team, the small but militant Orangemen’s Lodge, the Stevedores’ Union, the Life Boat Society, the Port Victoria Sailing Club, the Physical Culture Union (weightlifting and karate), the Beach Rescue Brigade (including scuba divers who wished to march in their flippers), and the mixed choir of St Boniface Cathedral.

Faced with a programme which might have gone on till nightfall, David had taken refuge in the formula ‘military units only’, and when this was challenged, since Pharamaul had no military units, had amended it to ‘paramilitary’. He had been left, at the end, with the Boy Scouts, the British Legion, the Fire Brigade, and the Royal Pharamaul Police; and it was these contingents which now advanced, to the music of ‘Colonel Bogey’ and the cheers of the crowd.

The Boy Scouts straggled; the British Legion was its usual boozy blend of patriotism and picnic informality; the Fire Brigade, their faces grinning under the absurd brass helmets, were inclined to clown. But the police, bringing up the rear, supplied the corrective to all this. They marched like soldiers, eight platoons under white officers; they gave an ‘Eyes Right!’ to the saluting base which was sharp enough to snap a dozen vertebrae; they looked as tough and businesslike as anything in Pharamaul that day.

Their commanding officer, Major Crump, watched them with steely eyes from the dais; but he was proud, as everyone else was proud; and even the sotto vote contribution of the man who had made the silly remark about the new flag, now singing ‘Bollocks! And the same to you!’ to the accompaniment of female giggles, could not spoil it. The music blared and roared, the men marched in compact squares and saluted the flag as if they believed in nothing else. When David Bracken leaned across to speak to Major Crump, he could only find words of praise.

‘Congratulations, Keith. They’re very smart.’

‘They’d better be,’ growled Major Crump. But he was pleased, and so was almost everyone else, whichever side they were on. This was law and order, plain for all to see; something not to be despised, something to be glad of, something which certain other countries had lost track of completely … A lot of things might be going to change in Pharamaul, but the Royal Pharamaul Police would still be holding the ring, the guardian of change itself.

 

Once inside the magnificent grounds of Government House, the four hundred invited guests, the élite of Pharamaul, left their cars and streamed across the baked lawns towards the receiving line. It was a long line, winding backwards from the tall white portico halfway down the drive, then skirting the flowerbeds where the cannas and poinsettias blazed, then making a prudent detour out of the burning sun and into the shelter of the flame trees.

The line moved very slowly, and the reason for this soon became obvious; it was, as David Bracken overheard someone behind him complaining, because ‘that bolshy bastard’s holding up the drill’. It was painfully true that the Earl of Urle was making a meal of the occasion; whereas the royal cousin shook hands swiftly and wordlessly, and the Governor-General’s lady could not have been more offhand if she had been dishing out cloakroom tickets, the Governor-General himself, playing the expansive host, was having the time of his democratic life.

His aide-de-camp, Paul Jordan, stood close at his elbow, briefly cueing him in on each new arrival; and as the Governor-General heard the key words – ‘Town Councillor’, ‘Head of the hospital’, ‘Bank manager’, ‘Export-import’ – he swiftly changed his own role, and almost his own face.

Everyone was accorded a personal greeting, with a couple of technicalities thrown in; and even though this process was limited to about four cheery sentences, four sentences on hospital staffing, and four sentences on the exchange differential with the South African rand, and four sentences on dredging operations for the new harbour, added up to a lot of words and a very slow procession indeed.

It would have been very well done, if His Lordship had been canvassing on the eve of poll. As it was, it was simply a traffic block under an insufferable sun. Before long, the receiving line began to look like a section of snarled interior gut, with a most unhealthy bulge between the first brisk handshake and the second slow-motion one.

Thirsty men, eyeing the distant champagne tent, licked their lips in torment; but it was as far away as ever. Others, shifting uneasily from one foot to another, had to slip away to wash their hands. Already tongues, male and female, were buzzing mutinously.

‘If this is independence, old boy, I don’t think much of it.’

‘These Labour people never know how to behave.’

‘I’ve got a good mind to make a break for the bar.’

‘Can’t do that, old boy. Etiquette.’

‘What sort of etiquette is this, then?’

‘Oh, come on!’

‘Just look at the Governess’ skirt! It’s up round her neck!’

‘Probably trying for the Order of the Garter.’

‘Wouldn’t mind a bit of “O Come All Ye Faithful” myself.’

‘Now George! Eyes in the boat!’

‘I won’t curtsey to that woman. I simply won’t!’

‘Dinamaula’s got fatter, hasn’t he?’

‘Must be raiding the till already.’

‘If I don’t have a cucumber sandwich soon, I’m going to die.’

‘Wish I’d brought my flask from the car.’

‘What’s in it?’

‘By now, hot martini.’

‘Sorry, chaps, I’ve just got to leave you. Nature calls.’

‘Do one for me, will you?’

‘Oh, come on!’

The voices buzzed and blurred, rising and falling like a long sea swell. Across the lawn, the Police Band played the Merry Widow waltz. The Governor-General’s voice and laugh rang out with great heartiness; he was greeting the American Consul, and acting out a role of transatlantic fellowship. The clogged line shuffled forward a pace or two. Slowly, very slowly, the Viceregal Garden Party got under way.

The champagne tent was besieged from the start; the day was hot, people had been kept waiting, they had grown bad-tempered, there was only one thing to do … A jostling crowd butted continuously against the long bar; none of the white liveried Maula servants could take two paces out of the tent with a loaded tray before it was snatched bare of glasses. One could feel no remorse, on a day like this. It was just someone else’s bad luck.

Under the trees, the women in their long party dresses waited patiently for their husbands and the promised drinks. In the meantime, they envied the flowers, which a staff of eight gardeners had brought to summer perfection; they complained about the heat, which made the whole scene shimmer; and they united in their hatred of the Countess of Urle.

Paul Jordan, the aide-de-camp, released at last from close attendance, made his rounds, noted the imperfections, and decided, as usual, that there was nothing much to be done about them. Garden parties were always the same; they were a kind of charade, not meant to be enjoyed, simply to be performed with the traditional gestures, like some stiff-jointed morality play without a single joke.

It was always difficult to get a drink. Blacks and whites didn’t mix, even on such a notable day as this. The consular corps only talked to each other, never to ‘civilians’. The band played the same bloody tunes (soon it would be time for Ruddigore). There were never any girls, just wives.

Resplendent in his white naval uniform with the gold-tasselled aiguillettes, he circled discreetly to the back of the champagne tent, signalled to the Government House butler, and secured two privileged glasses of champagne. Then he made his way back to Bobo Urle. She was undoubtedly the best bet of the afternoon. In fact, she was the only one. And it was in the line of duty.

Apart from the consular corps, there were four other centres of aloofness, and David Bracken, making his rounds, touched each of them in turn.

Withdrawn even from their own people, the three northern chiefs – Murumba of Gamate, Banka of Shebiya, and Justin of Fish Village – stood alone at one corner of the lawn. They had bowed with great dignity to the child of the Queen; they had bowed – though less politely, and with a certain directness of gaze – to the Earl of Urle; they had somehow contrived to greet the Countess as if she were not really there. They had sipped, once and formally, at this ridiculous fizzy drink, fit only for pleading children, which the Europeans seemed to favour.

Now they simply stood their ground, in their splendid embroidered robes and bright-coloured caps, unsmiling, not talking even to each other, a still and solemn part of a scene which was otherwise frivolous.

Murumba and Banka were oldish men, growing past their prime; Justin (a Catholic mission child) of the go-ahead Fish Village was young – as young as Dinamaula had been when first, twelve years ago, he became Chief of all Pharamaul. But the three were alike, in authority and the habit of command. They had been brought to power by the voice of the people; now they ruled by its consent, and by their own showing.

They were proud to be there on this great day, but they were not happy. Happiness did not lie in the soft south of Pharamaul, in the city talk and the city ways; happiness lay only in the true north, where the true men grew, and their crops and cattle with them. The spine of this country was the northern spine … It was an ancient division; it had sometimes been a murderous one; and even now, when the country was newly knit together, it still lurked in the bloodstream, like anger, like lust.

They respected Dinamaula, because he was the proclaimed Paramount Chief, and had proved himself; above all, he was a Gamate man, born and bred, the son and grandson of the Gamate line. But there was still room for doubt. Would he now become a Port Victoria man, and lose the edge of honour? Would he become a talker, a boaster? – worse still, would his new power, proclaimed by the Queen, take him along certain paths of corruption, as had happened to other men in other parts of Africa?

On a day like this, the future could look bright. But this day was the first day. The days which would follow might have different colours altogether. And though there were no such doubts as yet among the people, it was the part of a chief to be the first to doubt, the first to give warning, and the first to act.

David Bracken, a man of whom they had no doubts at all, came across to greet them. It was a formal greeting on both sides, suitable to men of rank who had watched each other at work, and found no fault.

To Murumba of Gamate, the arch-conservative, David gave the conservative salute, wishing him rain – that rain which, in a parched country, embraced all human hopes. To Banka of Shebiya, eternally plagued by wife trouble which stemmed from the jealousy of his twenty sons, he said: ‘I wish you all tranquillity, Chief.’ To Justin, an energetic young man who would have been a highly competent shop steward if he had not been Chief of Fish Village, he used a word which had come into vogue among the younger men – ‘Warriah!’

It meant something between ‘All together now!’ and ‘Let’s get organized,’ and was much used at football matches, particularly by supporters of the losing team.

Then he spoke briefly of their homes in the northland, where they doubtless wished to be at this moment.

‘When will you next visit Gamate, Mr Bracken?’ asked Murumba presently.

‘Soon, I hope,’ answered David, and meant it – the sprawling ‘native capital’ of Gamate had captured him, ever since he made his first tour there. ‘But I do have a lot of extra work here just now. At the moment I’m really very busy.’

‘Everyone is very busy in Port Victoria,’ said Chief Banka, looking round him. He did not sound impressed by the fact.

‘Anyway, I expect His Excellency will be making an official visit to the north soon,’ David added.

No one said anything to that.

David moved on. His way took him past the towering elm tree under which all the ‘black wives’ were sitting, and he gave them a cheerful salute which was answered by a sudden display of dazzling teeth from the whole group. But they were having a wretched time, as always happened at parties. Their husbands – civil servants, town councillors, members of the Legislature – had all the brains and did all the talking, and were not afraid to mix on an occasion like this. Their wives were afraid, and all the world knew it.

They were scared of the European women, who were so smart and always knew how to behave; and they could have nothing to say to a white man, particularly a white man at a glittering aboura like this. So they withdrew, as they always did, into a fenced group, and sat there in patient embarrassment, staring at the enemy scene and waiting for release.

Unfairly, they were ‘cooking-pot wives’, married too soon to husbands not yet optimistic of their own future. The husbands knew this, and resented it, and would have given much to set the clock back and start all over again with (to put it politely) different ideas.

Sometimes, in private, they chided these wives bitterly for disgracing them, for being so stupid and fearful, for never enjoying themselves. But it was worse, a thousand times worse, when the cooking-pot wives made an effort to keep up.

David Bracken, after touching the peak of his cock’s-feather helmet towards the group, did not stop. He was no use at entirely one-sided conversations – and there was a family convention that Nicole was ‘awfully good with the wives’, and did more than her share. That took care of that. He moved on to the next enclave, and this time it was the Press.

Not many of them had flown in for this occasion, which was becoming a routine African assignment. Pharamaul had no special problems save poverty; nothing was likely to go wrong on Independence Day, and therefore there could be no worthwhile story. The only possibility in this area was Bobo Urle, who might decide to kick up her heels. But one did not need to fly a man out to Africa to catch that sort of performance.

London was full of badly-behaved ‘show people’, with their public love affairs and semi-private parts. A bus to Chelsea saved £285 on the air fare to Africa.

David Bracken was relieved at this drought. Pharamaul had had its fill of the Press at the time of the ‘Sign of the Fish’ trouble, and Dinamaula’s exile; even now, years later, the memory was still sharp and the taste awful. Today, as things came full circle, and the ‘hated colonial masters’ were quietly puffing out, there was only a man from the South African Press Association, a stringer for The Times, and a cheerful young Negro from Tanzania who called everyone ‘brother’.

These had all made their number already at the Government Secretariat. But the party under the tree was five, not three; and when David drew near, it was to find that he knew the two extras. One was good news, the other bad. One was Tom Stillwell, editor of the Times of Pharamaul, who had done as much as anyone to prepare the ground for this day. The other was an old enemy, Tulbach Browne of the Daily Thresh.

David had not known he was coming, though he might have guessed it; and he was conscious of a pang of dismay, of the sort which he should have grown out of long ago, when he ceased to be afraid of little growly dogs standing in the way. Tulbach Browne, famous or notorious as the Daily Thresh roving executioner, had made the Pharamaul story his own, at the time of its acute crisis; in fact, there would probably never have been an acute crisis, and possibly no story at all, if he had not flown in and started to operate.

But he was that kind of man; he recognized the entrails from afar off, like a senior vulture, and if the entrails were not yet producing the requisite stench, he speedily injected poison of his own, to start the ferment. He was a story maker in the worst sense, an operator without conscience, a manipulator of secret grimy strings.

In Pharamaul, on that first visit, he had done everything to deride authority, to stir up discord, and to provoke Dinamaula to a pitch of rebellious despair. The result had been murderous chaos. Now he was back again, and it would not take Pharamaul long to learn the reason why.

Twelve years ago, thought David, Tulbach Browne had been taunting British officials with ‘stuffy, blockheaded colonialism’, and screaming at them to get out of the country. Probably he had now changed sides, and would charge them with leaving the sinking ship, with being irresponsible cowards, arrant rats … David said hello to the other newspapermen in turn, and nodded finally to Tulbach Browne. Ludicrously insincere, he found himself saying, of all things: ‘Welcome back.’

Tulbach Browne had not improved. He was smaller, sharper-beaked, more rumpled than ever – things he could not help. He was also quicker to pounce, readier to disbelieve, and more offensive all round, and these were his own improvements.

Now his nose wrinkled, ‘Bracken,’ he said, and it sounded like the beginning of a music-hall joke. ‘I thought I recognized that hat … Let’s see – what are you now?’

‘Chief Secretary,’ answered David Bracken, very curtly. It might not mean much in Fleet Street, but it meant a hell of a lot in Pharamaul, and that was where they were now. As he spoke, he forgot his brief stab of nerves. He had been young when he first met Tulbach Browne, and the man had made rings round him. Now he had better weapons. ‘Are you still on the same paper?’

Tulbach Browne grinned sardonically. ‘I think that’s pretty well known, wouldn’t you say? … Chief Secretary … You’re the one that’s staying on, then.’

‘Yes.’

‘Now why would you want to do that?’

The others were watching them, aware of a tension they had known nothing about.

‘Why not?’ asked David. ‘I’ve been here for years. I’ve come to think of it as my own country. Naturally I’m staying.’

‘For how long?’

‘That depends on how things go.’

‘Oh, we all know how they’ll go,’ said Tulbach Browne unpleasantly. ‘Right down the chute with the rest of the rubbish.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Well, it’s always nice to meet an optimist.’ Tulbach Browne gestured round him with his champagne glass. ‘What’s the point of this picnic, anyway?’

‘Independence Day celebration.’ David stared at him, not concealing his dislike. ‘As you know quite well, since you’re here.’

‘I mean the point, the actual meaning behind all the nonsense. Blacks and whites all chums together. Is that it?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

The Times man had edged away, seeming to recognize an unsuitable climate. The reporter from Tanzania was watching David closely, as if he really wanted to find out something important. The SAPA representative, an Afrikaner who had his own views on blacks and whites being chums together, stood ready to pick up any plums which might fall. Only Tom Stillwell, edgy and dedicated, looked as though he were eager to break a lance – any lance – in defence of all ideals.

Tulbach Browne sighed gustily. ‘Maybe you’ve been here too long … Maybe you don’t read the newspapers. All the new countries have started out with these cosy ideas, and all of them have blown them sky-high. This sort of racial-harmony guff doesn’t mean a thing.’

‘Pharamaul is different.’

‘I’d like to know why.’

Tom Stillwell chipped in, as David Bracken had known he would. ‘Race relations have always been excellent here,’ he said fiercely. ‘They really work!’

‘They weren’t excellent when I was here last. They were bloody awful.’

‘You took good care of that,’ said David unwisely.

Tulbach Browne seemed to dart at him like a wasp. ‘Can I quote that?’

‘I don’t mind what you do with it.’

But Tom Stillwell had a more serious intent, and was going to pursue it. ‘That was years ago,’ he declared. ‘It’s absolutely different now. This is a united country. There’s full representation at almost every level. We’ve had a mixed legislative assembly – black and white, elected members – for nearly five years.’

‘How long will that last, now?’

‘There’s no reason at all why it shouldn’t last. In fact there’s another election coming up in a few months.’

‘There usually is,’ said Tulbach Browne sarcastically. ‘You know what they say – “one man, one vote, once.”’ Suddenly he waved his arm round again, taking in everything – the gleaming white façade of Government House, the long dresses under the trees, the parasols, the massed flower beds, the band tootling away at a Sousa march. He even seemed to include, somehow, David’s uniform, his plumed helmet, his polished swordsheath … ‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘it’s good to see the end of all this rubbish, anyway.’

David turned on his heel without a word, and walked away. Behind him he heard Tulbach Browne’s voice again, on a barking note of command: ‘Boy! Bring more champagne! Chop chop!’ Then there was a step behind him, and it was Tom Stillwell, almost running to catch up.

‘What was all that about?’ Stillwell asked, surprised.

‘We don’t like each other,’ said David shortly.

‘Oh, I guessed that …’ The other man grinned. ‘Chop chop!’ he mimicked. ‘Would you believe it?’

‘I can believe anything of that man,’ answered David. ‘I’ve seen him in action before.’

‘When was that?’

‘Long time ago. I’ll tell you some time.’ Suddenly David relaxed, pushing it all away again. He did not want the day spoiled, by Tulbach Browne or anyone else. In fact, it was not going to be spoiled. ‘But not now … I liked your leader this morning.’

‘Not too radical for you?’

Stillwell grinned again as he said it, since this was an old joke, part of an old argument which no longer mattered. When, years before, the Times of Pharamaul had changed hands, and young Tom Stillwell had arrived to take charge, there had been some immediate changes, and European Pharamaul did not like any of them.

Stillwell, a shock-headed north-country radical with few graces and no inhibitions at all, had come into quick collision with almost everyone, from Government House to the local storekeepers. He was ‘moving too fast’, according to the moderates’ argument; he was ‘selling out to the niggers’, in the more explicit version of the conservatives.

But Tom Stillwell had stuck to his guns, and he had won. He had ‘africanized’ certain sections of the printing side of the paper, in the teeth of violent opposition from the old-guard union concerned. He had loaded the paper with news in which ‘most people’ were interested – and most people, of course, were Maula. He gave the Maulas their own social column, complete with photographs, to the derision of the whites and the enormous pride of class-conscious Maula citizens. He had, in his own words, ‘cut down on news about two-headed calves in Gamate, and given people a look at the horizon instead of the earth’.

Several times he had crossed swords with David Bracken on such things as farm prices, which were heavily loaded in favour of the white farmers, and had won some unwilling Government reforms. Above all, he had tripled his circulation in three years, and made the Times of Pharamaul pay handsomely. Grudgingly, the critics had to admit that the ‘radical rag’ was a necessary part of the new scene, and had come to stay.

Thus, David was able to answer: ‘No, not too radical,’ and to answer the smile as well. He went on: ‘I thought the tone was just right. There’s a hell of a lot of hard work ahead for everyone – that’s the main point.’

‘It was not a point made by His Excellency,’ said Stillwell grimly. ‘He made it sound as if we’ve only to press the independence button, and everyone comes up smelling of violets. “A land flowing with milk and honey” – what a load of tripe!’

‘He was trying too hard to please,’ David agreed. ‘Of course, the Maulas don’t like that sort of thing at all. In fact, they’ve got a wonderful phrase for it. They call it “rau bacha”. It means “tail-wagging”, but rather more rude. More like “bottom-waving”. Very expressive.’

‘Bottom-waving,’ repeated Tom Stillwell. ‘That just about covers both of them, doesn’t it?’

David laughed. ‘Some bottoms have more appeal than others.’

‘If either of them overdoes it, there’s going to be trouble.’ Tom Stillwell went on his way, while David, hot and sticky in his tight-collared uniform, stayed where he was under the shade of a big flame tree. The party was thinning out now, but there was still a long way to go before he could doff his plumed helmet for another half-year … Then he heard his name called, from the opposite side of the tree, and when he turned it was to find the only man he really wanted to talk to, on this special afternoon – the Prime Minister.

Dinamaula was standing alone, the last of the aloof men. Earlier he had been thronged by well-wishers, crowding in to shake his hand, and his tall robed figure topped by the ceremonial lionskin cap was for a long time the hub of the afternoon. But now the formalities were done, and he had become a monument rather than a man. For some reason he seemed to have grown remote from the day, and people understood this, and respected his honourable solitude.

His wife was with the women, and he did not wish it otherwise.

But inside him, beneath the sombre mask of his rank, was a great well of happiness and pride. He felt, with special awareness, that when this day had dawned he had come a long way, even though he had been born a chief … He could remember, years ago, the laborious teaching of his first tutor, intoning syllable by syllable the very first lesson he had to learn by heart – his own style and pedigree: ‘Dinamaula, son of Simaula, grandson of Maula, Hereditary Chieftain of Pharamaul, Prince of Gamate, Son of the Fish, Keeper of the Golden Nail, Urn of the Royal Seed, Ruler and Kingbreaker, Lord of the Known World …’

Dinamaula had last heard it, fully proclaimed, when he was installed as Paramount Chief. It had sounded outlandish then, even ludicrous, yet proudly so. Now it was all summed up in a western version, simple but of enormous consequence to him: Prime Minister of Pharamaul.

It was as Prime Minister that he called out to the man he had once thought of as his enemy, and who was now his friend: ‘Shall we drink to it, David?’

David Bracken, though taken by surprise, did not have to think twice. He joined the other man readily, and took the glass of champagne which Dinamaula, with a single stately signal, had conjured from a passing Maula servant. Then they nodded to each other, and drank, and smiled.

‘That’s my fourth,’ said David. ‘I think it had better be the last.’

‘This is not a day for counting drinks,’ said Dinamaula, and tossed off his glass with a second hearty swig.

‘I have a position to keep up,’ said David, and smiled again. It was really extraordinarily pleasant, champagne or no champagne, to be alive on this day, and talking at ease with a man one trusted. ‘I liked your speech very much. It really was a success.’

‘Against such terrific competition,’ said Dinamaula, with an edge of sarcasm.

David took the thought. ‘He wasn’t very good, was he? In fact he wasn’t any good. I hope’ – he realized that he was talking with unusual freedom, but it seemed an excellent day to do so – ‘I hope that he’s going to fit in here.’

‘He will learn. Anyway, Pharamaul has survived worse things.’

‘Not recently.’ The phrase ‘worse things’ recalled something else, and he added: ‘By the way, I just met an old friend. Tulbach Browne. Remember him?’

‘I saw you talking to him,’ answered Dinamaula. He was looking at the middle distance now, wrinkling his eyes against the glare, sombre again, thinking serious thoughts. ‘He was no friend of mine.’

‘You’d like him even less now.’

David realized that this was happily true; and one could be happy also to have it confirmed that Dinamaula now saw Tulbach Browne for what he was, and knew that the other man had brought him nothing but trouble. The declaration recalled to him how very well Dinamaula had behaved while in exile, and later when he had been allowed to return to Pharamaul; he had shed all such dubious backers, he had struck no attitudes, in London or anywhere else; he had borne no bitterness and joined no cliques, although ardently wooed by ‘progressives’ in search of a talkative martyr. In exile he had kept silent, and worked steadily for his law degree; and when he returned home, with no sort of fanfare, he had ruled as chief without incident or drama of any kind.

Of course he must have been thinking hard about independence all the time, and working towards it with a single-minded purpose. But why not? That was the way the world was going; and compared with certain ratty little countries which had been handed their freedom on a plate, and had then proceeded to kill it stone dead and to gorge upon the corpse, Pharamaul and its Prime Minister deserved a high priority.

Now Dinamaula asked, in the same serious way: ‘Why do you say I would like him even less now?’

‘Well,’ David began, and paused. He did not really want to go into the details, with their embarrassing allusions and all their inherent insult. ‘Are you going to talk to him? Or have you talked to him already?’

‘No,’ said Dinamaula. ‘He did try to start up an interview, as soon as he arrived this afternoon. I said that this wasn’t the time for it, but he could have an appointment tomorrow. He said he was leaving tomorrow. I said what a pity. He said that it probably didn’t matter anyway.’ Dinamaula recited the exchange without special emphasis, as if he had not been involved at all, not even in the final impertinence. Then he added, holding his neutral tone: ‘He was allowing you a rather longer audience, as far as I could see.’

‘He was being very offensive,’ David answered. ‘He seems to have made up his mind about our independence already.’

‘That it will fail?’

‘Exactly … That was a very good guess, Prime Minister.’

‘It was a very easy one, Chief Secretary … As a matter of fact I still read the Daily Thresh, as soon as it gets here. To keep up with trends of fashion in Fleet Street. At least, that’s the official explanation. Actually it’s a marvellous paper. You devour it, and don’t believe a word of it … So I know more or less what Mr Browne is thinking. In the old days, he could not grant Africa its freedom quickly enough. Now he wants to take it all back again.’ Dinamaula smiled, as if he were more than strong enough to endure such nonsense. ‘All the same, he might have given Pharamaul more than three hours’ trial.’

‘He wanted to know why on earth I’m staying on.’

‘For the money, of course.’ Dinamaula shook his heavy shoulders, like a man shedding an unpleasant load. Then he said, echoing David’s earlier thought: ‘Forget it, as the Yanks say. It will take more than Tulbach Browne to spoil this afternoon.’

‘Day One,’ said David. ‘I’m damned glad to be here to see it.’

‘On Day One Thousand,’ said Dinamaula, ‘we will drink to it again.’ His voice and tone and manner had grown suddenly formal, as if he were saying something he had saved up for a long time. ‘It means a great deal to me that you are staying on … Let us make this a real country.’

 

The fierce sun was declining, and the garden party with it. Cars were moving out of the grounds in a clogged stream, and people who had come on foot began their slow trudge down the drive and out on to the broad avenue leading homewards. Royalty had retired with a touch of the sun, and the Governor-General, after escorting him inside, himself withdrew to the colonnaded cool of his private balcony, put his feet up, and dozed off, well content with a flourishing start.

The band played ‘Auld Lang Syne’, hopefully, and then sat in silence, their repertoire exhausted, their uniforms wilting, their tongues like hot sand. There began a final onslaught, by the true, getting-their-money’s-worth stayers, upon the champagne tent.

David Bracken, passing close by, overheard a snatch of conversation. It came from the man who had made an offensive fool of himself at the ceremony, the man who had been drinking warm martinis most of the afternoon and had now spent two hours dowsing them with champagne. His name was Terence Woodcock – ‘Splinter’ Woodcock to his friends; a beefy red-faced ex-planter, a past president and pillar of the Port Victoria Club, and (as far as David was concerned) a boorish nuisance.

Now he was propped up against the central tent pole, talking to one of his cronies – Biggs-Johnson of the Universal Bazaar, the city’s only department store. Splinter Woodcock’s face was sweaty and sagging, his glass slopping over, his pink glazed eyes bulging like boiled sweets. But the voice was as loud as ever, and the theme unflaggingly the same.

‘It’s no bloody good arguing with me, George,’ said Splinter Woodcock – and it was clear that some long meandering discussion was reaching its peak. ‘I tell you, there’s only one way this country will go, and that’s down the you-know-what. Straight to hell on a bloody wheelbarrow. Stands to reason. Look at all the others.’

‘What others?’ Biggs-Johnson, a smart hand in the counting house, was not at his best in general discussion. He was a small yellowish man, sandy all over, from pointed nose to freckled neck; when brought up short, as now, he looked like a puzzled ferret. ‘Other wheelbarrows?’

‘No, you clot! I mean, other countries. Look at bloody Ghana. Look at bloody Nigeria. Look at the bloody Congo, for Christ’s sake! They all went the same way, didn’t they? Talk about rack and ruin! They’re just shit and small stones! It’ll be the same here. You mark my words.’

David Bracken, in spite of a wish to keep clear of all such scenes as this, had paused to listen. What he was overhearing contrasted so unpleasantly with what he had just heard from Dinamaula that he felt compelled to witness it. It was part of his job now, just as a dead dog in the road was part of a street sweeper’s.

‘Oh, I agree about all those other places,’ said Biggs-Johnson. ‘You can scrub the whole lot out, as far as I’m concerned. But Pharamaul’s not like that. It’s civilized. Chaps like you and me.’

‘It won’t be chaps like you and me. That’s just what I’m saying! It’ll be a lot of black-arsed bastards with their shirts hanging out of their trousers, giving the orders! It’ll be Mr Bloody Dinamaula, telling us what to do! It’ll be some kaffir who can’t add up two and two, running your business and robbing you blind as soon as you turn your back.’

‘I’d like to see him try.’

‘You’ll see it.’ Splinter Woodcock swallowed a fresh draught of champagne, and then let his head flop back against the tent pole. In the process it lolled sideways, and he caught sight of David Bracken, standing a few paces off. His look changed, from incipient torpor to a spiteful concentration. ‘And there’s one of the bloody crooks who’s selling us out,’ he growled. Then he raised his voice. ‘Hello, David! … Don’t just stand there scratching yourself … Come and drink to glorious independence!’

It was a contact David would have preferred to avoid, but that was hardly possible. He crossed the few steps between them, and became an unlikely third in this raffish group. Then he said: ‘I’ll drink to that, any time.’

‘I bet you would,’ said Splinter Woodcock unpleasantly. He stuck his chin out like a fat wet prow. ‘Most of it was your idea, wasn’t it?’

‘Most of what?’

Splinter Woodcock waved his hand round. ‘All this poop. Independence. Selling out to the Maulas, I call it.’

‘Steady on, Splinter,’ said Biggs-Johnson nervously. He had to deal with Government at several levels – import licences, rates of customs duty, work permits, even loading zones for his lorries – and he wanted no black mark on a day such as this. ‘You don’t have to put it like that.’

‘I’ll put it any way I please,’ Splinter Woodcock retorted. ‘In fact I’ll put it right up, if I have to! It’s time a few people round here stopped saying “Yes sir, no sir, three bags full,” and said what they think.’

David Bracken looked down at him, feeling the onset of anger, controlling it from long habit. ‘I gather you don’t like the idea of independence.’

‘I think it’s a lot of tripe.’

‘You’re entitled to your opinion.’ But that was as far as David felt he could go. Now he spoke as curtly as he could. ‘But you’re not entitled to be insulting about it. I didn’t think much of your contribution at the ceremony, and I don’t think much of it now. Independence is here, whether you like it or not. We’ve got a new constitution–’

‘Who’s “we”?’ Woodcock interrupted rudely.

‘We in Pharamaul. You should give it a try. We’ve also got a new flag and a new national anthem, and you’d better respect them both.’

‘Respect them!’ said Woodcock loudly. ‘I’ll piss on them if I feel like it!’

Heads were turning in their direction, including female heads; it was a wholly disgusting moment. Never argue with a drunken man, thought David ruefully, and knew that he should not have started this, however strongly he felt. Now he could not possibly answer, without a first-class row which might lead anywhere, even to a public brawl. In silence he turned away, and left the tent. Behind him he heard Splinter Woodcock’s fruity voice, raised in triumph:

‘That settled him! Did you see that? He couldn’t answer! He knew I was right!’

‘Splinter,’ began Biggs-Johnson pleadingly, ‘I don’t think–’

‘Oh, balls! I told you, you’ve got to stand up to these bastards … Let’s have some more champagne. I feel better already.’

 

‘Darling,’ said Nicole, when David Bracken finally found her, sitting alone on a swing-seat, ‘I’ve just had a lovely session with Paul Jordan. I haven’t laughed so much for years.’

‘How nice for you,’ David answered shortly. He was still bad-tempered after his encounter with Splinter Woodcock, and not yet in the mood even for family exchanges. ‘But shouldn’t he have been working?’

‘He had been. That’s what was so funny.’ Nicole looked up at him. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing much.’

‘Well, what?’

‘I just had an argument with Woodcock, that’s all.’

‘That frightful man.’ Nicole wrinkled her nose. She had had her own awkward encounters with Splinter Woodcock, on a different plane, in the past; and though he had long stopped ‘being a nuisance’, the thought of his furtive pawing on the dance floor could still make her skin crawl. ‘I hope you told him off for behaving like that at the ceremony.’

‘I did,’ answered David. ‘Then he began to argue the toss, and since I didn’t want a row in public, I had to leave it. I’d like to have kicked him out of GH.’ Suddenly David grinned. ‘Good God – Splinter Woodcock! Why should we let that oaf get us down, on a day like this? Have you had a drink?’

‘Several,’ answered Nicole. ‘Well, two. Is my nose all right?’

‘Bang in the middle,’ said David, with ritual family wit. ‘And hardly shiny at all … Tell me about Paul.’

Swiftly Nicole examined her face, in a mirror as neatly palmed as a conjuror’s ace of spades. She said: ‘I think it’ll just last the course,’ and then: ‘Poor Paul. He had the most terrible time with the Governess.’

‘That sounds very unlikely.’

‘Wait till you hear. He thought he ought to spend most of the time looking after her, because she’s only been here a couple of days; but she seemed to think that he was – you know, trying to seduce her or something.’ Nicole’s forehead furrowed briefly. ‘Actually, he probably was trying to make a good impression, and enjoy himself at the same time, because these parties are pretty dull for the young. But he wasn’t serious.’

‘H’m,’ said David.

‘Of course he wasn’t!’ said Nicole, slightly scandalized. ‘He’s much too nice … Well, anyway, there he was, trying to be agreeable, but whatever he said, the Governess twisted it round so that it sounded – you know, suggestive. When he offered to fetch her another drink, she said: “Are you trying to get me loaded? What’s on your mind?” And when they were talking about the ceremony, and Paul said something about there being almost too many children in Pharamaul, she twisted it all round again and said: “Why don’t you ask straight out? Of course I’m on the pill!” Isn’t that terrible? But it was like that all the time. Honestly, Paul was absolutely terrified! It’s his first posting as aide, and he only got it because he’s been ill. Now he can’t wait to get back to sea!’

‘I don’t blame him,’ said David. ‘Bobo Urle … I prophesy that we’ll have plenty of trouble with that one.’

‘I think she’s awful,’ said Nicole forthrightly. ‘And you should hear the women going on about her.’ Then she giggled. ‘Oh, I forgot something else. At the end, when she said she was going indoors, Paul offered to escort her, and she said: “Down, boy! It’s not your night to howl.” Poor Paul – he was still shaking when he told me about it.’

‘It’s an occupational hazard.’

‘But not so obviously … We must find him a really nice girl … Do you think Bobo Urle is attractive?’

‘If you like that sort of thing.’

Nicole looked up at him. ‘That’s not very reassuring. You do like that sort of thing.’

‘Only from you, my darling.’

‘Good old champagne. Shall we go home?’

‘I think we might. This is pretty well over.’

‘I’m longing to hear how the children enjoyed themselves. And how they got on at the tea.’

‘Sick as dogs, I shouldn’t wonder.’

 

David Bracken, as Chief Secretary, occupied a ‘government bungalow’ acquired, decorated, and furnished by the Office of Works when in its most frugal mood. It was square, unadorned, red-roofed, white-painted; it stood in a square, unadorned, and normally bone-dry garden; both were perpetually menaced by armies of soldier ants, a lowering climate, and the yellow dust which blew in steadily from the arid foothills to the north.

But it was home. Nicole had refused to be daunted by its original ochre walls, dark mahogany woodwork, and furniture embalmed in that official pattern which had been repeated all the way round the colonial world since the mid-1800s. Though ‘Linden Lea’, so christened by some homesick patriot of long ago, could never be distinguished, nor even handsome, it had been improved wonderfully by painting and polishing, and by prudent furniture-buying whenever David notched up another ‘annual increment’.

They had lived there for eight years; one of the children had been born there, and most of the family crises resolved within its four shabby walls. It was home.

On the wide red-tiled stoep which ran round two-thirds of the house, and gave grateful shade from noon till sundown, Simon the faithful houseboy waited to greet them. It needed no detective work to see that Simon the faithful houseboy was barely sober; an unmistakable odour of crude kaffir beer hung round him, and his fat face was set in the vacant, benevolent smile of a man who could see no vice in the entire world.

But why not? thought David, surveying Simon without sternness; this was something which only happened about three times a year, and there could have been no better day for it than the day of independence … Simon was a U-Maula from Shebiya, up north; he had first brought them their morning tea twelve years ago, when David was a District Officer and Nicole a not noticeably blushing bride. Today, four thousand morning teas later, he was still their longest link with the past, and treasured for many other reasons.

Now he stood at the top of the steps, bare-footed, rocking slightly, and welcomed them home.

‘Jah, barena. You enjoy party?’

‘Very much,’ answered David. ‘Did you get a good place at the aboura?’

‘Oh yes, barena. Right in front. See everything. See barena. See Chief.’

‘The Prime Minister,’ David corrected him.

Simon smiled widely. ‘I mean, my chief, barena. Chief Banka from Shebiya. Very fine.’

‘He is coming to see me tomorrow,’ said David. ‘He will be glad to speak with you.’

Simon shook his head, disbelieving, delighted. ‘Ow! Chief Banka! What time he come, barena?’

‘Eleven o’clock,’ answered David, and gave him a warning glance. ‘Be careful you are in good health.’

The wide-eyed look was slightly overdone, which meant that Simon had taken the point. ‘I go to bed early,’ he said, and suddenly gave a wild giggle, and vanished kitchenwards while his luck still held.

They went through into the sitting room.

The two children, Timothy and Martha, were side by side at the table, looking at their joint stamp collection; the two corn-yellow heads, close together, made a bright focus of colour in the evening shadow. It continually astonished David, and it did so now, to see how the next generation had firmly established itself, before he was aware of it at all. At one moment there had been nothing; and suddenly there they were – Timothy and Martha, aged ten and eight – to prove how the years had raced by and vanished, while he was looking down at his desk or up at the shimmering horizon.

They were a worry and a delight, like most other children. They were loved, and scolded, and very welcome all the time. But there should be some sort of public warning that childhood, achingly slow for children, was for their parents a brief encounter indeed.

Martha looked up quickly as they came into the room. ‘We saw you, Mummy,’ she said excitedly. ‘You looked smashing!’

‘Thank you, darling,’ said Nicole, and took off her hat – her flowered, preposterous hat – with relief. ‘We saw you, when the Prince was speaking.’

‘How about me?’ asked David.

‘You looked smashing, too,’ said Timothy loyally.

‘It’s the uniform,’ said Martha. ‘I told you … We did wave, lots of times, but you didn’t see.’

‘We couldn’t have waved back, anyway,’ said David.

‘Why not?’

‘Because it was official,’ Timothy chipped in. ‘I told you. Shall I help you off with your sword, Daddy?’

‘All right.’

‘Have you ever stabbed anybody?’ asked Martha.

‘It’s ceremonial, silly,’ said Timothy scornfully. ‘I told you.’

‘That’ll do, children,’ said Nicole. ‘This isn’t the day for arguments. Did you have a nice tea party?’

Martha looked at Timothy, who was suddenly engrossed in unhooking the sword scabbard from its ring. Finally she said: ‘It was all right.’

‘Is that all?’

Martha almost whispered: ‘Timmy had a fight.’

There was a hiss of ‘Sneak!’ from somewhere beneath David’s left armpit. But Martha had her counter ready. ‘It’s all right to tell. It was honourable.’

‘What was honourable, darling?’ asked Nicole.

‘The sort of fight. He was defending me.’

David, freed of his own weapon of defence, stretched out in the armchair by the fireplace. From there he looked at Timothy, still standing in the middle of the room, wearing that inward look which meant that he was imagining himself not to be there at all. ‘Let’s have the story,’ he commanded.

‘It was nothing,’ said Timothy. But he saw from his father’s look that ‘nothing’ would not be enough. He swallowed, and began: ‘There was a big tea tent, and long tables. The food was there already. We could hardly get in, it was so crowded. All the schools. But natives mostly. We tried to sit down, and someone – a girl – sort of pushed Martha so she had nowhere to sit.’

‘They were so rude,’ said Martha primly. ‘They never said please and thank you. They just snatched!’

‘How about that fight?’ asked David.

Timothy took up his tale. ‘We were just standing there, behind the people sitting down. So I reached over to try to get some sandwiches. A boy tried to stop me, so I pushed him. Then I got a sandwich, and gave it to Martha, and I tried to get another one for myself. Then another boy stood up and pushed me away. So I pushed him back, hard.’

‘What happened then?’

‘He fell into some jelly.’

Quite a climax, thought David, and managed to hide his smile. He had rather enjoyed the picture, in short snapshot sentences, of a boy and a girl starving in this unfair wilderness. But there were other parental comments to be made.

‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ he said. ‘Especially if they were native children. They were probably – well, hungrier than you.’

‘But it was our party,’ said Timothy rebelliously. ‘Not just for them.’

‘We were jolly hungry,’ said Martha in support.

‘Hungry or not, you’ve got to learn to share.’

‘But they weren’t sharing. They were taking everything.’

The ethics of the situation were not clear-cut; perhaps it would be best to leave them. Nicole, with the same thought, asked: ‘What happened then? Didn’t you get anything to eat at all?’

‘Not much,’ said Timothy. ‘A teacher came and took us to another table by ourselves. The table with all the lemonade jugs on it. Everybody was staring at us … We had some lettuce sandwiches, and then they said the cake was all finished, and the jelly. So we had some more lettuce sandwiches. Then we found Gloria, by the clock tower, like you said, and we came home.’

‘Is this all absolutely true?’

‘Yes, Daddy.’

‘All right,’ said David after a moment. ‘Case dismissed.’ Timothy beamed instantly. This was the most welcome family phrase, as far as discipline was concerned: borrowed, he knew, from the days when his father had been the magistrate and sole lawgiver up at Shebiya. It lifted all burdens, blew away all clouds, because it meant exactly what it said … He rejoined Martha at the table, gave her a not-more-than-brotherly elbow nudge in the ribs, and bent to the stamp collection again. Presently he raised his head: ‘Daddy?’

‘M’m?’

‘Will we have some new stamps for Pharamaul?’

‘Yes.’

‘When, Daddy?’

‘Soon. In about three weeks. They’re on their way from England.’

‘What will they be like? Will they have the Queen’s head on them?’

‘Yes. And pictures as well.’

‘What sort of pictures?’

‘Let’s see … One has a katlagter bird, one has a crayfish, and one has an Afrikander bull.’ David knew the importance of detail to a collector. ‘There’s a fourpenny, a ninepenny, and a one-and-nine.’

‘Gosh! That’s two-and-ten altogether … Can I have a set?’

‘We’ll see.’

‘Smashing! But why do we only have three stamps?’

‘Because we’re only a small country.’

‘But Ghana had nine when they had their new set.’

‘That’s up to them.’

‘Who decided for us?’

‘There was a committee.’

‘Were you on it?’

‘Yes …’ David looked up at the clock. ‘Isn’t it about your supper time?’

‘Supper time,’ said Nicole loyally. ‘And then bed. Go and find Gloria.’

There was less than the usual chorus of protest; it had been a long, hot, and tiring day. Martha, coming up behind her father’s chair to kiss him goodnight, said: ‘Daddy, you’ve got a pond.’

‘A what?’

‘A pond.’ She touched the top of his head. ‘A pond in your hair.’

‘Oh … How big is it?’

Martha considered. ‘About a sixpence.’

‘Tell me when it gets to half a crown.’

Nicole, returning later from the kitchen, found David in an agony of contortion, trying to look at the top of his head in the mirror at the same time as he made a gingerly exploration with his forefinger. He straightened up, slightly shamefaced, when he saw her.

‘I’m going bald, damn it.’

‘It suits you,’ said Nicole, without thinking too carefully.

‘What do you mean, it suits me? I’m not going bald! It’s just one tiny little patch. It’s the top of the parting, actually.’

‘That’s what I meant, darling. It’s perfectly natural. I wonder where on earth Martha got that word “pond”.’

‘Made me feel like some wretched old monk.’ David sat down again, and stretched out wearily. ‘Oh well, I am forty-three … God, what a day this has been!’

‘But a good one.’

‘Oh, yes. The best yet, in a way. You know, I suddenly felt, this afternoon, that we really had taken a step forward, that we’d made a bit of worthwhile history. Except for a few silly bastards like Woodcock, I think there’s enormous good will over this whole thing.’

‘I felt the same way … Did you notice, when Timmy was talking about the stamps, he called them our stamps? He said, why are we only going to have three? It sounded funny when he first said it, and then it sounded just right.’

‘Even after that sad tea party.’

‘Especially after that.’

 

The lights burned late in the Port Victoria Club, falling alike on marble pillars, shabby red carpeting, panelled walls, and the rows and rows of monarchs, governors, pro-consuls, club presidents, and visitors of note, whose photographs, spotted with age, faintly autographed in violet ink, lined every available corridor. Normally the bar closed at eleven o’clock; but on this auspicious day there could be no question of such calamity, and an impromptu extraordinary general meeting, duly convened round the mantelpiece, voted itself the necessary powers to stay open indefinitely. Attended by yawning, drooping club servants who were also voted a grudging bonus of two shillings a head, the bar trade was still thriving at one a.m.

Foremost among the late contributors, Splinter Woodcock held court at the centre of a sweating, boozy group which was now on its fourth bottle of Scotch. Coats had long ago been discarded, and ties loosened to mid-chest; under the slow-turning punkahs which gently scythed the gloom above them, the leading solid citizens of Pharamaul took their ease and their pleasure.

Biggs-Johnson was there, drinking in the shadow of his leader; and Binkie Buchanan, whose ancient Rolls-Royce decorated every gathering of consequence in Port Victoria; and half a dozen others, good fellows all who could never have missed this sort of celebration, even though there was, in fact, damned little to celebrate tonight.

As an honorary member for the day, Tulbach Browne was also one of the group, drinking at his leisure while his tiny lapel microphone did all the work, lapping up in the process some absolute gems.

Splinter Woodcock, a very old campaigner whose rocklike head concealed the fact that he was now monumentally drunk, had told and retold the story of how he had ‘ticked off that chap Bracken’, who in the end ‘hadn’t had a word to say for himself’. They all agreed that this had been a notable victory, worth another round any day, and that David Bracken, for some very funny reasons, seemed to have gone absolutely native. The talk was now on the future, and the gloomy horizon which independence was mapping out for them all.

‘I’ll tell you something else,’ said Splinter Woodcock, who had already told everyone a great deal. ‘There’ll be black members of this club, before the year’s out. I’ll bet you anything you like!’

‘Dinamaula’s a member already,’ said Binkie Buchanan, a bluff character who had made all his money – which was a great deal – out of one ship which plied to and fro between Cape Town and Port Victoria. ‘So it’s hardly a bet.’

‘Don’t count him,’ said Splinter Woodcock. ‘We had to let him in, I suppose. The old Governor put him up. But I mean, hordes of natives. Swamping the place. They did it in Nairobi, I happen to know. They just couldn’t keep them out. Now they have a bunch of black loafers sitting up at the bar like a lot of dummies, with one glass of beer between them, and six straws. They make it last half the day! You can’t run a club like that!’

‘You can’t keep them out, though,’ said Biggs-Johnson. ‘Not now.’

‘How about Rule Eighteen?’ asked a voice from the outer fringe.

‘What’s Rule Eighteen, for God’s sake?’

‘Balloting for new members. Two black balls exclude.’

There was a roar of laughter. Splinter Woodcock wheezed: ‘That’s a bloody good one! Two black balls!’ while the impassive Maula servant at his elbow emptied his ashtray. Tulbach Browne, though he had heard the joke before, smirked his approval dutifully. It often seemed to him that he had heard all this before, wherever the British were packing up and leaving: the same alarm, the same readiness to take failure for granted, the same sick relish with which they awaited defeat. And, always, the same reaching for the same bottle … He decided to probe a little further, and in the silence after the burst of laughter he asked: ‘I suppose you’ll have a native legislature as well?’

‘Got it already,’ said Splinter Woodcock promptly. ‘Half of it, anyway. And a useless bunch of bastards they are, too. I’d like to put ’em up against a wall and shoot the lot.’

‘Steady on, old boy,’ said Binkie Buchanan. He glanced towards Tulbach Browne. ‘Strangers present.’

‘Oh, he’s all right. He’s one of us … Anyway, what’s the use of hiding things? Of course we’ll end up with a black house. A hundred-per-cent Maula zoo. And a bloody awful job they’ll make of it, too!’

‘Well, you’re on the blasted council, old boy. Do something about it.’

Woodcock stuck out a belligerent chin. ‘What do you mean, do something about it? What the hell can I do?’

‘Get re-elected, for a start. You and all the others. Make sure there’s still a fair-sized bunch of whites in the legislature.’

‘You mean, electioneer? Hold meetings? Go round PV scratching up votes?’

‘Why not?’

‘I wouldn’t canvass these bastards if you paid me ten quid a head,’ answered Splinter Woodcock contemptuously. ‘Who do you think I am – a bloody commercial traveller? If they want me in the legislature, let them go ahead and elect me. If they don’t, that’s their bad luck, not mine.’

‘But you’ll get slung out if you don’t put up a show.’

‘Then I’ll get slung out.’ He brought his fat palms together with a sharp slapping sound. ‘Bar! Bring another round. Pronto!’

‘Not for me, thanks,’ said Tulbach Browne, and stood up. ‘I’ve got some work to do. And some sleep to catch up as well.’

‘Are you going to write something about Pharamaul?’ asked Biggs-Johnson.

‘Well, I might … These independence things are pretty well routine by now.’

‘You’re damned right they’re routine,’ said Woodcock. ‘And what happens afterwards is routine, too.’ He gulped enormously at his new drink, and set down the glass with a crash. ‘One, they take over. Two, they chuck away all the money, or steal it. Three, they go broke. Four, there’s a revolution, or an army takeover. Five, the whole thing starts up again with a new lot.’

‘Is that your forecast for Pharamaul?’ asked Tulbach Browne. ‘That’s my forecast, and you can have it buckshee. Give it a couple of years, and this country will be flat broke. We all will, unless we’re smart and get out while the getting’s good. I’ll bet you anything you like’ – he pointed a pudgy, wavering finger at Binkie Buchanan – ‘that they’ll nationalize your ship, and then let it rot alongside the quay.’

‘She’s up for sale, anyway,’ said Buchanan, and winked broadly.

‘Then you’d better hurry up and find a buyer, before they bloody well swipe it. And I’ll bet you another thing, too – yours’ll be the last Rolls-Royce in Pharamaul.’