A Republic within the Commonwealth, yielding to none in loyalty, yet ...
President Dinamaula sat in the shade of a vast spreading elm tree, sipping a tall glass of lager beer, and looking out across the lawns towards the great façade of Government House. He was well content. He liked everything he saw, from the noble white columns of the portico to the new flag of Pharamaul moving gently at the masthead, and the Presidential standard over the front door. He liked the banked flowers, and the ice-cold beer, and the feel of the frosted glass in his hand. He liked the white-robed servant, watching him from a window in case of further command. He liked his cushioned bamboo chair, fit for any ruler.
He liked everything, and especially the fact that all this domain was his; for this was the very house in which, years ago, the official order sending him into exile had been read out to him, by a flustered, embarrassed Governor. President Dinamaula could be well content on this day, and on any day thereafter.
It was mid-morning, the time when he always took his ease in solitude, before callers were admitted. The callers themselves made up another item which he liked – the fact that Government House was the core, and himself the centre, of a constant to-and-fro, not only of men on state business, but of important visitors and suppliants as well.
It was always flattering to see their respectful faces; to listen to the careful compliments; to watch them as they manoeuvred themselves and their words closer to the matter in hand – the favour of a Government position for a relative, the favour of the President’s help in a complicated dispute over tribal boundaries, the favour of a contract, the simple favour of support from a powerful man.
Many arrived with money ready in their hands, and were rebuffed. The diplomats were more subtle, as well as more flattering; they wanted nothing except the friendship of Pharamaul, though perhaps – in some far-distant future – certain small generosities by way of reciprocal support might be looked for. It was a matter of His Excellency’s attitude, nothing more … Since Pharamaul had become a republic, a number of competing countries had shown warm and urgent interest in its future.
Who would have thought that the Russians wanted to study the soil structure of northern Pharamaul? Who would have thought that the Portuguese were interested in an exchange of cultural missions? Who would have thought the British Council so eager to make definitive records of its folk songs? Who would have thought that the Chinese had ever heard of the place?
Dinamaula, aware of problems interlaced like tendrils in a rainforest, stirred himself, set down his empty glass, and signalled languidly to the watchful servant. Almost before his hand had dropped in his lap again, the man was walking towards him, wearing a smile, bearing a tray. This was, indeed, one of the happiest hours of the day.
The change to a republic had been served up to him on another tray; after a few months of the Urles, their departure had become a matter of public necessity, and their replacement by a second emissary of the Queen unthinkable. The Governor-General and his awful wife had done the trick, all by themselves … Dinamaula would always remember the last few weeks of their weird tenure, when a remorseful Earl of Urle, feeling the chill wind of disapproval blowing about his ears, from quarters as far apart as Fish Village and Whitehall, had suddenly become a model of decorum and duty; while Bobo Urle, raging in public and in private about everybody’s ‘stuffiness’, had embarked on a wild series of parties, pub crawls, exotic free-verse recitals, insults, tantrums, crying jags and cruel hangovers.
It had been brought to a head by a wonderfully scandalous scene, when she had floated out of a nightclub as the morning cocks began to crow, had insisted on driving the Government House car home, to the terror of her chauffeur, and had bashed straight into a market gardener’s cart, carpeting the entire street with an assortment of pumpkins, melons, avocado pears, and squashed passion fruit.
She had leant out of the Rolls-Royce, surveyed the horrid mess of split rinds and entrails of pulpy fruit, murmured ‘Icky!’ and promptly driven off again, pursued by shouts and by a police Land Rover which had happened to be cruising by. The police car had tailed her, every tyre squealing like a wounded hyena, to the very portico of Government House. At this point she had staggered out of the Rolls, tipsy as a lark at dawn, and, her sense of universal brotherhood slipping a notch, could be heard bawling up at the façade: ‘Eustace! This bloody nigger’s trying to arrest me! Do something!’
After that, tempers had grown really short, coded telegrams flew to and fro like hooded bats, and Bobo Urle was put firmly into purdah until the time of departure. At the final leave-taking, the Police Band had played, as a matter of tradition, the sombre air of ‘Will Ye No Come Back Again?’ It was clear that the answer was an emphatic echo of ‘No!’; but, to drive the point home as the aircraft taxied away, the band had then swung into a jaunty, ‘high life’ version of something different.
It was an old favourite of many continents, ‘I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal You!’ and was very well received by all concerned.
The rest had fallen neatly into place; it had been like pressing a button marked ‘Republic’, and waiting for the medal to drop. But even so, not everyone had liked the change – and the malcontents were by no means all drawn from the main bar of the Port Victoria Club. Of course, there had been plenty of loyal howls from that quarter; but it had been the two northern chiefs, from Shebiya and Fish Village, who had led the opposition, carrying their people with them and causing something like a split, on straight party lines, within the new House of Assembly.
‘What do we want with this new republic?’ old Chief Banka had thundered, in the course of a debate which had been tempestuous and emotional by turns, as if men suddenly saw their true enemies for the first time, and knew that such enemies might be lifelong. ‘Why are we turning our backs upon the Queen? Why are we cutting these bonds, which have been our pride for a hundred years? Who is to take the place of the Queen, and receive our homage, and be sure of our love?’ He looked with cold disdain towards Prime Minister Dinamaula, sitting with lowered brows a few yards from him. ‘We know well who it is, we know which man has been foremost in thrusting this change upon us … It is the man whom we are glad to call Prime Minister, whom we were glad to call Chief in the past. But’ – he suddenly crashed his wrinkled palm on the desk in front of him, and in the silence which followed asked, in tones of measured spite: ‘But are we now to call him king?’
Dinamaula, remembering that moment, and the ugly scene which followed it, with fists shaken across the floor of the House, and a drunken young member from Fish Village making a pantomime of a man kneeling in homage – Dinamaula stirred himself again, this time in quick discomfort. He would never forgive Chief Banka of Shebiya his speech, and the cunning insult which lay in that last question … At the time he had answered with a matching insolence: ‘If and when the day comes, you will call me Mr President. I will then choose whether to answer, and what to call you.’
His supporters had roared their acclaim at the thrust. But the wound to himself was still there, salty and throbbing, even as he laughed at the old chief, and outfaced him. He had never wanted to be called ‘king’, and it was unworthy to charge him thus. It was not to be borne. Could not a man become President, without these shrill and mangy dogs barking at his heels?
The bill had been voted through, in an atmosphere thick with suspicion and ill-temper, though the later ‘Dinamaula for President’ referendum had been a rousing success – one colossal week-long party, during which the beer flowed like a river, and work became almost a treasonable word. On the morrow, a few more people had sold up and left – the kind, thought Dinamaula, who could best be spared; and the northern districts of Pharamaul had settled down to a sullen, watchful silence.
It was the first quarrel of the new nation, and it seemed likely to last, and perhaps to revive the ancient tribal division between north and south. The brief honeymoon was over – and with that thought, a black cloud on a sunny day, the President’s mind swerved away from politics, and centred with grim, furtive distaste upon his own bed.
Lieutenant Paul Jordan, Royal Navy, His Excellency’s principal aide-de-camp, stood in his dressing gown by an open window on the first floor of Government House, looking down at the garden and at his master under the elm tree. The dressing gown, a splendid silk affair embroidered with hearts and flowers, had been a Valentine’s Day present from Sybil Bartholomew, the Social Secretary, who had personally helped him to try it on for the first time.
He still squirmed when he remembered the scene, and the way she had gambolled round him like an arch shire-horse, with many a whinny of joy, many a cry of ‘Just like Casanova! …’ But now that she was gone, he could wear it with genuine satisfaction. It was much more expensive than anything he could have afforded himself.
Paul Jordan could only see the lower half of the President – the skirts of his robe, and the elaborate tasselled sandals below them; the rest was hidden by thick-leaved branches. But it was enough; it told him where Dinamaula was, which was something he liked to know even when, as now, he was off duty. It was when the chap started prowling about the larder, or skipping up to the maids’ bedrooms, that one felt a bit of a Charlie … But it was all part of his job, the job he did not want and had hoped by now to escape.
When the Urles had left, he had expected to leave with them. But, for a reason he now understood, Dinamaula had put in an urgent plea that Paul Jordan be retained as a presidential aide; and he had been able to pull it off, at any rate for a limited period. Dinamaula, Paul now knew, had insisted on keeping him because he was not at all sure of himself in his new surroundings, in the magnificence and state of his new position.
He was afraid of making silly mistakes; thus he needed continuity, and a good deal of discreet guidance; and he wanted it, not from someone like David Bracken, who was quite enough of a father figure already, but from a younger man, whose junior position was beyond question. So the request had been made, and the strings pulled; and Paul stayed where he was, an essential prop not too superior to be told to see that the ice buckets were topped up and the ashtrays emptied.
It wasn’t a bad job, though it seemed further than ever from the sea. Paul was able to get quite a lot of free time: like this morning, which was a half-day off, in preparation for another dreary thrash that night – a dinner in honour of the Japanese trade mission, which was trying to flood Pharamaul with their funny little cars. The snag was that, even after the disappearance of the senior and junior banes of his life – Bobo Urle and Sybil Bartholomew – this was still a slightly miserable household to work in.
The trouble was still the eternal trouble – good old sex. But this time it was sex that didn’t take. President Dinamaula, after seven years of marriage, was still unable to father a child, and he was getting bored with trying.
Tradition in Pharamaul still favoured the idea that this could only be the wife’s fault, and her abiding shame, and in former times it had been sufficient excuse for sending the disgraced and barren bride back to her father’s hut, the dismissal to be followed by a lawsuit, which might last a generation, over the return of the goats and cattle making up the dowry. But obviously this would not suit the second half of the twentieth century; and it was out of the question for the President of a modern ‘emerging nation’, eager to show the world how up to date it was.
Dinamaula therefore had three choices: to divorce his wife, who was called Mayika, daughter of a Gamate tribal elder; to give up his hopes of an heir; or to keep on trying.
The first two ideas were not to be entertained; the divorce of a wife who was connected, in one way or another, with half the ruling clique of Gamate would have been politically hazardous; and an heir, born to the royal line of Maula the Great, was essential for much the same reason. Thus, with decreasing enthusiasm, he kept on trying.
But he kept on trying in his own way, and it was this that Paul Jordan found forlorn and slightly irritating. Dinamaula slept with Mayika whenever he could summon the energy; he practised assiduously on the female staff of Government House, and their relatives and friends, all of whom remained obstinately childless; and he took counsel with what could only be called the confidence men – a troupe of witch doctors, quacks, wise men, soothsayers, casters of spells, herbalists, makers of strange medicine, and manipulators of flesh, all of whom claimed to have the one infallible answer.
It was sad, and silly. He and Mayika should of course have gone straight to a gynaecologist, taken the necessary tests, assigned the blame, and worked out the answer – if answer there was. But instead the President had returned to the dark past, to the ancient myths of Africa which had always infected this topic.
Government House – or part of it – now resembled a sort of crazy bazaar. There was a continual coming and going of hucksters and quacks whose absurd wares and astonishing treatment seemed to combine a magicians’ catalogue with a sixteenth-century medical convention. Dinamaula was dosed with love potions, aphrodisiacs, powdered rhinoceros horn, bits of toad ground up with menstrual fluid, Spanish fly, and oysters laced with red pepper.
Incantations were recited over the marriage bed, spells laid upon the pillow, and bones cast to determine copulation’s lucky hour. He was exposed to mascots, jujus, fertility charms, thermal baths with rank ingredients, and ritual dances of an explicit kind. His private parts were encouraged by the application of tattoo needles, and lightly whipped with that Biblical toy, a bull’s pizzle. He was counselled to crow like a cock at the moment of ejaculation.
Paul Jordan learned all this from the Government House butler, an expert in this area, who maintained that it was only a matter of time, while taking a steady rake-off from every such caller admitted. Dinamaula said nothing about it; and poor Mayika, who rarely said anything anyway, never spoke a word nor cracked a smile. The big moon-faced girl, now running to fat, had settled back in mournful shadow – a true cooking-pot wife whose compulsive interest was in fact eating.
She must have felt deeply ashamed, but she was not yet bitter. She remained placid, expressionless, and greedy. It was becoming her habit now to miss official functions, taking her enormous meals alone in her room. Dinamaula went to most parties by himself. Government House had become a brooding, slightly scandalous bachelor’s lair.
There was a tendency now to call it ‘the Palace’ – Dinamaula himself sometimes did so; and there was no doubt that the Palace was becoming an expensive place to run.
It was to be expected, Paul thought, that at the beginning the newly-elected President should give things a bit of a bash; he had something to celebrate, and he liked celebrating. No harm in that … But the late-night parties for his cronies were now almost a daily feature, and the catering, which no one bothered to control, had grown extravagant and wasteful.
Great tubs of meat, spoiled vegetables, and half-loaves of bread could be seen every day at the back door, waiting for the refuse men. An army of ‘Friends of the Kitchen’, as Paul Jordan called them, hung round the back quarters, and was fed daily by an open-handed chef. Champagne was the staple diet at the President’s supper parties, and brook trout which had to be flown in from the Northern Transvaal, and crayfish tails, and perhaps a small mound of pâté, and caviare spread on digestive biscuits …
It was funny, in a depressing sort of way. One did not need to be a snob to appreciate that the standard of living of those close to the throne had taken a dramatic upswing. Alexanian, who was the principal supplier of ‘luxuries’ to Government House, must be making a minor fortune.
In one respect, this high living had a clear, unsubtle connection with the past. At one of these parties, Paul had heard Dinamaula giving, with huge enjoyment, an imitation of Sir Elliott Vere-Toombs, the former Governor, reading out his exile order, while occupying the very chair in which the President now sat. It was a popular turn, and went down very well. The party that night became riotous, and the collection of empty bottles next morning was something like a record.
One could understand that, too; if the past still rankled, the present could be made to square the account. But how all this was going to be paid for was another matter.
The noise of a motor car coming up the drive drew him closer to the window. It turned into the forecourt with a defiant swish of gravel, and could be recognized as one of the fleet of six black Cadillacs which had been put at the disposal of senior ministers. That was another £24,000 on the score sheet … Paul Jordan watched as the occupants got out, assisted by a chauffeur in maroon uniform and a braided cap, and started to walk across the lawn towards the President.
It was the Heavenly Twins – Joseph Kalatosi, who was now Deputy Chief Secretary, and Captain Mboku, newly promoted, of the Pharamaul Police.
It was they who now made the daily calls on the President, instead of David Bracken and Major Crump. Of course, this was Maularization, as promised … Paul watched as the three came together in one group, and two servants with laden trays began to walk swiftly in its direction; and then he stood back a pace, and settled down to wait.
In a little while it would be time for the Vulture Parade, the morning rush. He was not involved in the receiving-line today, thank God, but it was always worth while keeping an eye on such callers. All sorts of odd people were getting chummy, these days.
Even six months after ‘Republic Day’, no one was working very hard. The holiday mood persisted, just as it had done after Independence; the national party went on, and anything or nothing was an excuse for keeping it going. Since they were now their own masters, it was felt and said, why should they have to behave like servants, as in the old days? Indeed, why should they work at all? Only a fool ordered himself to work.
So there were freedom rallies, and celebration marches, and solidarity demonstrations, and firework displays, and good-natured strikes when the mood was so inclined. Football teams and swimming clubs multiplied; the newest craze was for street picnics, when traffic was barred from four o’clock onwards, and a colossal brew of beer made, enough to last through an evening and half the night. The resulting sore heads always needed a second day for recovery.
Dockers stopped work when the sun was hot, leaving the quays idle and goods hanging in the cargo slings. The factory up at Fish Village had to be closed for a month, because a key maintenance man drank himself to sleep on the job, and failed to notice an overload which ruined most of the assembly line. Shops put up their shutters, while the assistants sunned themselves on the pavement outside.
Official exhortations, in and out of the Legislature, fell on ears not exactly deaf, but bemused by a lazy contentment. There always seemed to be enough to eat – and why not? Was not the food all theirs now? Then there was this new thing called Assistance – small, but enough to keep a man happy, especially if he had been blessed with children. And why not, again? It was their money, and their country, and above all their freedom to do what they liked with it.
In this matter of freedom, the Times of Pharamaul was beginning to take a sour line:
‘It is time to wake up!’ [Tom Stillwell commanded his readers, after Budget Day in the Legislature had disclosed some unmistakable danger signals.] ‘Yesterday’s national accounting was something which should make all of us alarmed, and some of us ashamed. The President’s own words, “We must all work a little harder,” were something short of the truth, and something less than an inspiring battle-cry.
‘We must all work a lot harder, and that is a stark fact which no amount of soft soap or soothing syrup should be allowed to hide.
‘Strikes, unofficial holidays, absenteeism, slacking on the job – these all add up to one thing, which yesterday’s budget figures make clear: we are simply not earning our keep. Pharamaul is still celebrating its “freedom”, instead of getting down to the task of making itself truly strong and truly independent.
‘There is only one road to that goal. It is the road of hard work.
‘There is another danger, which those in authority often seem to disregard. It is the danger that, as a country, we are trying to run before we have learned to walk. Ambitious schemes and costly projects are all very well, but the time for them is not yet. Let our plans be modest and properly thought out; let us get things in the right order. And once again, let us work, to translate plans into reality.
‘With hard work must come thrift, both individual and national. At this stage, there are many things this country cannot afford. We look to our leaders to set us a good example.
‘There is one particular aspect of this, to which this newspaper draws early attention.
‘There have been reports that Pharamaul is to become a member of the United Nations, with a full-blown delegation going to New York in the not-too-distant future. To some, it will seem early days for us to embark on such a big undertaking, early days to think that we can really contribute to this world forum.
‘But if we do become a member, let us proceed with care. Let us remember our stature as a nation. Above all, let our delegation be a modest one, and its expenditure in keeping with a small country which, if it were a family, would travel by bicycle rather than by the smallest motor car.
‘There is nothing to be gained, and much to lose, by “showing off”. We are not millionaires, and without stringent economy and – once again – work! we have no hope of ever becoming so.’
But then, who cared about the Times of Pharamaul, even when it was thundering?
‘It’s all very well for that bolshy bastard to talk,’ said a loud voice at the end of the bar. ‘A lot of it’s his fault. Of course he’s whining about conditions now. He should have thought of that, before he started shoving independence down our throats.’
‘I don’t need Tom Stillwell to tell me my troubles,’ complained a second voice. ‘What did he think was going to happen to this country? Who ever heard of a Maula doing a stroke of work, without a good sharp kick up the backside?’
‘All the same, Dinamaula isn’t going to like that article.’
‘I won’t lose much sleep over that.’
‘Boy! I mean, steward!’
‘Come on, Weekes! It’s your last chance, you know.’ It was another farewell party at the Port Victoria Club. This time it was for a retired army Major called Weekes, who was returning to England after fifteen years in Pharamaul, ‘absolutely defeated,’ he said, ‘by all these changes.’ Towards the end of a long evening, he had reached a stage of snuffling incoherence, in which the phrases ‘Given my life to this country,’ and ‘My wife can’t stand it any more,’ were becoming blurred and intermingled, like a faulty sound track.
No one really liked Weekes, who was a bore without enough money to make him palatable; and his wife had well earned the concise nickname of Boadicea. But tonight, Weekes was the hero of the hour. He was one more white man driven out of his own country by the enemy, one more of the garrison who could ill be spared, but who must be allowed his honourable retreat, marching out of the beleaguered fort with a comparatively fixed bayonet.
‘Though why you want to go back to England, beats me,’ said Splinter Woodcock, the eternal centre of all such gatherings, frowning at his glass as if it might sneak away before he had drained it. ‘The welfare state! Jack’s as good as his master! Income tax! They’ll rob you blind, just to give free false teeth to a lot of layabouts.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ answered Weekes vaguely. ‘Old England, you know. Never changes.’
‘I’ve got news for you.’
Biggs-Johnson, the loyal supporter, laughed dutifully. ‘I certainly wouldn’t go back there. Not at any price. All the same, sometimes I’ve a good mind to sell up, myself. The outlook for taxes–’
‘You sell up,’ Splinter Woodcock interrupted him. ‘You sell up while you can. Try South Africa. Try Rhodesia, or Portuguese East. They’ve got the right idea there. Alexanian would buy you out, any time.’
‘At a price.’
‘Well, he’s a Jew, isn’t he?’ Woodcock spread his hands, palms upwards. ‘Give me mein pound of flesh, eh?’
‘Oh, Alex is all right. And you know, he still believes in this place.’
‘I should damn well think he does, the rate he’s going. He’ll end up by owning half the island. And much good that’ll do him.’
‘How do you mean?’ an outer voice inquired.
‘Because they’ll kick him out of the country, as soon as he gets too big.’
‘But he’ll still have the money, won’t he?’
‘He’ll have the money in blocked Pharamaul sterling. That’ll be about as much use as a sick headache. In the end, they’ll pay him off in seashells. If they pay him off at all.’
‘Alex is smarter than that.’
‘He’ll need to be.’ Woodcock spread his hands again. ‘Oi, oi! I’ve been robbed! … He’ll be lucky if he gets out with his season ticket to the synagogue. But what can you expect, if you put a bunch of stupid coolies in charge of the whole works, and give them a free hand?’
There was a sudden, embarrassed murmur of ‘Sh!’, and some backward glances towards the fireplace, where a late-staying party of Maula members were quietly taking their ease.
Splinter Woodcock came to instant, bristling attention.
‘Don’t you shush me! he snarled belligerently. ‘This is my club! Christ, I was a member here when most of these gentlemen were sticking their backsides out and doing it in the street!’
‘You mean, last week?’
A wave of barking laughter spread along the bar, making all well again. Then, like a boozy Greek chorus, the voices rose once more, led by a wavering Major Weekes: ‘That’s why I’m pulling up stakes! This whole place has gone native! My wife can’t stand it any more!’
‘Have another drink, old boy. It’s your last chance, you know.’
‘After giving up my whole life!’
‘Of course, old Splinter did get had up for widdling against a lamp-post outside the club. Don’t you remember?’
‘It was quashed.’
Woodcock, overhearing, bellowed out: ‘It wasn’t quashed! Just a bit bent, that’s all. But don’t tell the wife.’
‘If she doesn’t know now, she never will.’
‘Of course, he’s dead right about the way this country’s going.’
‘Well, I’m staying on.’
‘Good for you.’
‘Did you hear about the slogan for Brotherhood Week in the Congo?’
‘What was that?’
‘“Take a missionary home for dinner”.’
‘Can you imagine us going to the United Nations?’
‘Does it matter a damn who goes to that bloody place?’
The decision to sponsor Pharamaul for membership of the United Nations, to pay her annual dues for some years to come, and to underwrite, substantially, the cost of her delegation to New York, caused fewer headaches in Whitehall than the flurry over Rhodesia; but it was none the less very trying, very trying indeed. It was not a question of money, though that aspect was far from satisfactory; it was a doubt as to whether this fledgling country, so fresh out of the egg, should belong to UN at all.
Pharamaul, on independence, had come under the wing of the Commonwealth Office. But, by one of those exercises in musical chairs which, in Whitehall, went by the label ‘Economy’, all the staff of the Scheduled Territories Office made redundant by the ‘new nations’ leaving the nest were transferred, man by man, to the parent organization. Thus the same people, though in slightly different hats, were now looking after Pharamaul as had advised and controlled her in the past.
It was Hubert Godbold’s successor, Sir Goronwy Griffith, who had to deal with the latest turn of events; and his distaste for it had stirred up a very rough patch of water indeed.
Griffith, a small, elegant, rather jumpy Welshman, son of a schoolmaster, grandson of a postman, had worked very hard to get where he was; and he was disposed to take good care that everyone else climbing the ladder, whether they were juniors in his cypher room or the heads of small nations, should work very hard too.
There was little he could do about Pharamaul and UN, once the proposal was squarely on the table; the reins of tutorship were now so loose that they hardly existed at all. All he could manage was to advise delay; to urge President Dinamaula to allow what he called, in an unfortunate phrase, ‘a decent interval’ to go by before pushing for membership.
To this end, he used his talents for persuasion, which were legendary, and his capacity for obstruction and delay, which was notorious. The lengthy dispatches multiplied; the complicated, minutely detailed estimates of cost were solemnly batted to and fro, each time with tiny amendments clinging to them like leeches.
David Bracken, in a series of private letters, was ordered to use his best endeavours to see that the idea was scotched for at least five years, while Pharamaul got on its feet. Finally, Dinamaula was invited to London for ‘talks’ – that beloved euphemism, which might cover anything from amiable waffle to the most peremptory directive.
Inclining towards the latter, Sir Goronwy Griffith found he had come up against a man at least as tough as himself, and in a much stronger position altogether. President Dinamaula listened to him with good-humoured politeness – it was so nice to be in London again, and his suite at Claridge’s was all that a man, even a head of state, could wish. Then, leading from lazy strength, he made two points crystal clear.
If Britain did not want to sponsor Pharamaul, someone else would. If Britain did not want to pay for the exercise, someone else would do that too.
Across the width of a handsome mahogany desk, suitable for a Knight Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George, Sir Goronwy Griffith looked at the man who had suddenly become an adversary. He had met Dinamaula many times before: at the time of his exile, at the bargaining which preceded his return to Pharamaul, at the close negotiations for independence, and at later meetings of the Commonwealth Secretariat, always a good time for ‘talks’. But he had not yet met him on this sort of ground, nor in this sort of mood.
‘My dear Mr President,’ he said finally, his tone lapsing into that lilting Welsh asperity which his staff knew as ‘the Druid’s revenge’, ‘I hardly think we need look beyond the present elements of this discussion.’
‘I was not doing so, Sir Goronwy,’ Dinamaula answered. He took the last two words very slowly; he found ‘Sir Goronwy’ almost as difficult to say as ‘Sir Dinamaula’, though the latter was not likely to become a problem. ‘I was simply mentioning some alternatives. If you do not wish to sponsor us–’
‘We are perfectly prepared to sponsor you,’ Griffith interrupted him, with sharp determination. ‘But it must be at what we regard as the proper time.’
‘If you do not wish to sponsor us,’ Dinamaula went on equably, borrowing a technique, endured many times in the past, which was purest Whitehall, and best summed up as Accept, Ignore, Continue, ‘then clearly we must look elsewhere. In the course of looking elsewhere’ – he repeated the key words with elaborate care, as if they were part of a spelling lesson – ‘we have received a number of alternative offers of help.’
‘May I ask, from whom?’ Griffith asked.
‘Certainly.’ It was not too long after lunch, and Dinamaula, fresh from Claridge’s splendid restaurant, was at peace with all the world. But he was not fooling, and he had all his cast-iron facts, and he produced them now with a poker-player’s relish for a packed hand: ‘Russia, Zambia, the United Arab Republic, and France have all given me assurances that they would be glad to sponsor Pharamaul. In addition, China and West Germany have signified their willingness to’ – he waved his hands gently – ‘to underwrite the cost of our membership, as soon as it goes through.’
Sir Goronwy Griffith had to admit that it was extremely well done; the phrase ‘Have given me assurances’ was particularly effective, a superior exercise in personal effrontery. The list of countries was authentic, and perfectly damnable. Also involved in this operation was that familiar piece of twentieth-century blackmail, which America especially had to contend with, in a score of gruesome confrontations: ‘Give us the money, or we’ll go communist.’ But this time, the net was wider, and skilfully spread.
For all sorts of reasons, the inclusion of France was a master stroke, by both sides.
After an overlong pause, Griffith said: ‘I must congratulate you on having so many good friends.’
In the circumstances, it was something less than a penetrating shaft, and Dinamaula did not feel he need do more than incline his head.
‘But,’ said Griffith, after waiting, ‘do you really wish to commit yourself in this way?’
‘Commit myself?’
‘Place yourself under an obligation to another country which has helped you financially.’ He picked out the least complicated one. ‘West Germany, for example.’
‘I would be under no more obligation to West Germany,’ said Dinamaula, ‘than I would be to you.’
Sir Goronwy Griffith winced – a concealed Whitehall wince which, on a thousand such occasions in the last twenty-five years, had masked the pain of man’s ingratitude. This was take-it-or-leave-it in its most wounding form; even if they paid the piper, apparently, they were not to call the tune – nor even know its name. He made some scribbles on the blotter in front of him; presently, persistently, they turned out to be arrows, pointing in different directions. Not much help there … Annoyed, suspecting mismanagement somewhere, he said:. ‘I would certainly hope that, if we sponsor Pharamaul, and make these generous financial provisions, we can expect loyal cooperation, to say the least.’
‘Surely the United Nations serves world rather than sectional interests.’
In his more exasperated moments, Sir Goronwy Griffith sometimes wished that he was an ardent Welsh Nationalist, blindly dedicated to one tiny segment of human aspiration, free to turn awkward, free if need be to tell the rest of all mankind to go to hell. This was one such occasion. He was not doing well with President Dinamaula; in fact he was not doing anything with President Dinamaula; already he knew that he would have to backtrack on all the recent past, all the committee work, all the wise counsel, and let the other man have what he wanted.
If not, he would be breaching one of the cardinal rules of the club, hopefully enclosed in a global girdle which stretched from India to Nigeria: the rule that Britain’s graduate children – industrious, gifted, plus-eleven-plus – must always merit special consideration, and receive at least half a dozen free scholarships to help them towards the bright horizon of the future.
In sum, they had now received hundreds of millions of pounds, loyal backing, and patient forbearance in the face of insolence. The myth still persisted that they were thereby fashioned into staunch supporters of the Commonwealth; and it was not his job, alas, to point out the rents and tears, the myriad moth-holes in such mythology. England now, like some ancient insured person, expected very little from her dutiful, prompt, and inflated premiums … Griffith stopped doodling, and stopped casting round for valid arguments, or any arguments. Instead, he said: ‘I need a little time to think about this. Shall we say, tomorrow morning?’
‘By all means.’
The tone was so bland that Sir Goronwy Griffith was stung to match it with a little acid. ‘Normally I would ask if we could do anything to make you more comfortable. Theatre tickets, and so forth. But of course, you know London well, don’t you?’
Dinamaula, who had been prepared to coast down a most favourable slope, decided after all that this was a bit too much.
‘I know London quite well,’ he answered, allowing the words rather than the tone to make their own sarcastic point. ‘I was sent into exile here. I was here for five years. I had an allowance of ten pounds a week, and I lived in a bed-sitting room in Acton.’ He smiled with cold irony. ‘Acton is one of your western suburbs. Now I am staying at Claridge’s. Suite number four hundred and five. It costs thirty-two pounds a day – though of course I am not paying that. You are paying it. The only question which now arises is, how much more do you wish to pay?’
‘Now, just a minute–’ began Griffith.
Dinamaula had once slept with a Welsh girl, to their mutual enlightenment. ‘Prynhawn da,’ he said cheerfully. ‘See you tomorrow.’
On the morrow, he got all that he wanted, as any fool might have foreseen. But it was ungracefully done, leaving another smeared fingermark on this small window-pane of history, a fingermark which could have been avoided with a little clean common sense. As it was, no one was really happy. Dinamaula returned home with his grudged prize; and Griffith remained, in possession of a singularly barren field.
For many days afterwards, ‘the Druid’s revenge’ was a fearsome reality among his staff.
Though Sir Goronwy Griffith kept a voluminous private diary, in anticipation of his planned memoirs, he made only one brief entry on this occasion. Against the notation of Dinamaula’s final appointment, he wrote, in thin red ink: ‘Still bitter.’
There was so much he could say that David Bracken found himself almost speechless. The chaotic mass of accounts which someone had slid into his in-tray, early that morning, was not simply appalling; it was accounting gone mad, and spending gone mad also. When Joseph Kalatosi came in to see him at half-past ten, it was difficult not to glare at him, to start lacing into him from the very first word.
Though it was not really Kalatosi’s fault, yet he seemed to David to represent the people whose fault it was, and he had probably done his share in promoting the kind of extravagance which these wretched schedules had laid bare. By all accounts, he always did himself well, up at Government House … David looked up from his desk, and said curtly: ‘Good morning, Joseph.’
‘Good morning, David.’
The small exchange reflected their changed status, now well established. It did not mean, David thought grimly, that Kalatosi had learned any more sense. He slapped his hand down on the file, and said: ‘This is ridiculous.’
Joseph Kalatosi opened his eyes very wide. Then he made a show of peering across the desk. ‘What papers are those?’ he asked.
‘The accounts,’ said David briefly. He decided to dive in straight away. ‘The bills are starting to come in, and they show that we’re wildly over the estimates. As you must know already. We’ve overspent by at least £250,000 in the last half year. A quarter of a million pounds.’ He stopped abruptly, and took refuge in colloquialism. ‘Don’t you think that’s a bloody awful way to run a country?’
Joseph Kalatosi also took refuge, in a bromidic phrase which he had used many times before. ‘We are at an experimental stage,’ he said mildly.
‘Rubbish,’ snapped David. ‘We’re just getting in a hell of a mess. Don’t you understand? Doesn’t anyone understand? We’ve gone over our budget by at least twenty per cent, in six months. Where’s the money to come from?’
Kalatosi did not seem at all put out, either by the tone or the facts. He had sat down in an armchair, crossed his legs comfortably, and lighted a cigarette. Then through a cloud of smoke, gently expelled, he answered: ‘From various sources, I imagine.’
‘There aren’t any various sources,’ said David, almost savagely. ‘Money doesn’t just grow on trees. It either has to be earned, or it has to be borrowed, and then paid back. What on earth’s the good of having estimates, if we don’t stick to them?’
‘Perhaps they were not good estimates.’
This time, David Bracken did glare at him. ‘I prepared them.’
Kalatosi gave him the wide-eyed look again. ‘Oh, I did not mean that. They were excellent estimates, in their own way.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I mean, they were just estimates, weren’t they? What is it the Yanks call them? Guess timates. There is so much to be guessed, at this stage, so much that we cannot foresee.’
‘I foresaw everything that common sense told me was necessary, and unavoidable. What I didn’t foresee’ – David flipped over some of the papers in front of him – ‘was six Cadillacs at £4,000 each. What I didn’t foresee was a thirty-per-cent increase in civil-service salaries. Or houses for ministers – £72,000. Or an admiral’s barge, £16,000. Or twenty-four electric typewriters for £4,800. And what I particularly didn’t foresee was that it would cost £5,000 a month to run Government House.’
‘You must appreciate,’ said Kalatosi, ‘that there has been a great deal of official entertaining.’
‘You’re damn right there has! A hundred and fifty cases of champagne, at £30 a case, for a start.’ David stared across at Kalatosi. ‘How is the champagne – officially?’
Kalatosi was silent for several seconds. But he was staring directly back, David noted, and it was unusual for him to do this in any circumstances. It was therefore less than astonishing when Kalatosi answered, in cold withdrawal: ‘You have no right to use that tone.’
There was a first time for everything, thought David, and this was the first time that Joseph Kalatosi had ever steered a collision course, and held it, without swerving, to the moment of impact. Perhaps it was the first time that he had needed to; David could not remember a row like this ever having happened before. For an obscure reason, he felt rather glad about it, and pleased with Joseph Kalatosi for standing his ground. But he was not pleased enough to change his nature overnight. He snapped back: ‘I’ll use any tone I like. These figures are disgraceful, and you know it.’
‘It was not necessary for you to become personal.’
Perhaps that was true, thought David; Kalatosi might have grown fond of champagne, but he had not drunk eighteen hundred bottles of it. On a milder note, he said: ‘All right – let’s forget it. But don’t you see, Joseph, this sort of thing is hopeless. Pharamaul will never get on its feet, if it doesn’t live within its budget.’
‘Neither can it grow, if it is in a straitjacket. That is as bad as the old days.’
The mild appeal had not touched Kalatosi at all; he had taken his ground on the champagne issue, which had nettled him, and his tone made it clear that a quarrel still lay between them. David said: ‘All right. Have it your own way. But it’s silly to talk of straitjackets. How can you possibly run a country, without strict accounting?’
‘Perhaps we are going to find out. At least, we will be making our own mistakes.’
‘You’ve certainly got off to a good start.’
The retort had been irresistible, and David was not sorry to see how Kalatosi fired up as soon as he took it in. If toughness did not work, and mildness made no impression, then at least toughness was more enjoyable … Kalatosi, breathing hard, said: ‘You are sneering! I will tell everybody, everybody!’
‘I am not sneering at all. I’m explaining the facts of life. This sort of spending is absolutely out of the question.’
‘That is not for you to say. You do not authorize. Only the President, as Minister of Finance, can authorize. After a debate, and a vote. And that is only for the elected members.’
‘But I’m here to advise you! God damn it, I know about these things!’ David turned back to the files. ‘Look, let’s go through a few of the figures, and I’ll try to show you what I mean. The original estimates–’
But Joseph Kalatosi had suddenly stopped listening. His eyes dropped without concealment as he consulted a gold wristwatch. Then he said: ‘I’m sorry. I must go. I have an appointment with the President.’
‘This is more important.’
‘The President would not like to hear you say that.’
‘But we must settle this! You’re off to New York in a couple of days.’
‘That is why I should keep my appointment with the President. We are discussing the details of the delegation, and what we do when we get there.’
David sighed, and sat back in his chair. They were not making any progress, and they were not likely to do so, in the present atmosphere. There would have to be another time, and probably another kind of approach. He said, on a note of dismissal: ‘Well, whatever you do when you get there, for heaven’s sake stick to your budget. You know exactly how much you have to spend, and the Commonwealth Office simply won’t stand for any more.’
‘We are most grateful for their contribution.’
‘It isn’t a contribution! It is a direct annual grant, to cover the whole of your UN expenditure. But you’ll have to watch how it goes, all the time. Living in New York can be very expensive.’
‘So I understand.’
‘You shouldn’t be going with them, really. It’s not your job at all.’
‘We are so short of qualified men.’
‘We’re short of qualified men, right here in the Secretariat.’ For the first time Joseph Kalatosi smiled, a gentle and infuriating smile.
‘With the Chief Secretary left behind as a watchdog, how could we lose a moment’s sleep?’
‘The children love the new stamps,’ said Nicole.
‘I’m glad somebody does,’ said David. It was the end of a long day, and his bad mood had not yet left him. ‘I still prefer the Queen’s head.’
‘But he photographs quite well.’
‘So does Twiggy.’
Nicole looked up from her sock-mending. ‘Good heavens, David – what do you know about Twiggy?’
‘I know she has a friend called Engelbert Humperdinck.’
‘Darling, no! That’s another one. Her friend is called Justin de Villeneuve.’
‘That’s what we should have called Timmy.’
He was smiling slightly, which was something new for that evening, but the smile did not do much for the tight lines round his eyes, and the grey smudges of fatigue. Nicole looked at him for a long moment before asking: ‘Tired?’
‘Just a bit. There’s an awful lot of work at the office, and friend Joe isn’t doing much of it. He’s too tied up with this UN jaunt.’
‘How did he get on to the delegation?’
‘He has a friend … Actually, it’s not a bad idea that he is going. He’s been getting on my nerves lately. We had a bit of a row this morning.’
‘What a shame. What was it about?’
‘Money. Spending. But that’s not the main part of it.’ David sat back in his armchair, frowning, tapping his pipe stem against his teeth. ‘Joe Kal is getting a bit too eager. The takeover has really started.’
‘But isn’t that the whole idea, that he should take over?’
‘Not in three easy lessons.’
Nicole laid aside the finished mending. ‘Justin de Villeneuve needs some new socks.’
‘Who?’
‘Timmy.’
‘Oh …’ He shook his head. ‘Sorry, darling. I’m not really with it this evening.’
‘You need a holiday, David. Can’t we go across to Cape Town, or along the Natal coast somewhere, and forget all this for a bit?’
He shook his head. ‘Not possible. Particularly with things in the state they are. It’s more and more obvious that we’re getting ourselves into the most awful mess. That’s how the row started this morning.’
‘The money?’
‘Yes. They’re being so extravagant, it’s hard to believe some of it. Things are simply getting out of hand. Of course, it’s Dinamaula’s fault, not Joe’s. He’s been buying the most absurd things, and I’m sure he’s planning a lot of other damned nonsense as well. And Government House is just becoming a racket … I’ll have to read the riot act before long.’
‘Can you do that?’
‘Not really. But I’ll have a damned good try. He can’t go on like this.’
‘Alex says they’re putting in a private cinema.’
‘I know … Maybe I should read the riot act to Alex as well.’
Nicole looked up, very surprised. ‘Darling, why?’
‘I get the impression that he’s making things a bit too easy for them. The extravagance, I mean. Do you remember when he was here, he said something about not wanting to get too involved, or taking on too many Government commissions, because in the end it would all be based on funny money? Frankly, I think he’s changed his mind about that. I think he’s collecting all the money he can, as fast as possible, before it does turn funny.’
‘But darling, how awful to have a row with Alex! And after all, it is his living.’
‘He can make a perfectly good living, without selling admiral’s barges, or importing brook trout from Magaliesburg. He did make a perfectly good living, before all this nonsense started.’
‘I suppose so … What a shame … Everything’s so unsettled …’ She put her hand up to her cheek. ‘Which reminds me. I’m terribly afraid that Simon wants to go home.’
‘He can have a holiday if he wants.’
‘No. It’s more than that. You know how he talks, round and round in circles. But I think he wants to leave for good. Go back to Shebiya.’
‘Why on earth?’
‘He said something about a U-Maula being a stranger here.’
‘But he’s been with us thirteen years!’
‘It’s no good if he’s miserable.’
David got to his feet. ‘Oh, God damn it! What’s gone wrong with this place?’ He was striding about the room in a surge of restless irritation. ‘Everybody’s starting to quarrel. Nobody trusts anybody. The north thinks the south is getting away with murder. The south thinks the north doesn’t deserve anything better. And down here’ – he stopped suddenly, and swung round to face her – ‘it’s shaping up into something even worse. We’re starting to split up, before we’ve even got started. It’s beginning to be us against them.’
‘Who’s “us”, exactly?’
‘Me and Keith Crump. Chaps like Stillwell. And on the other side, Dinamaula and Joe Kal and Mboku. It sounds like a colour thing, but it isn’t! It goes far deeper than that. It’s two entirely different ways of running Pharamaul. One of them is honest, the other is crooked. Or stupid, anyway.’
‘But what about the people in the middle? Chief Banka. And the people up at Shebiya and Fish Village. They don’t all agree with Dinamaula.’
‘Far from it. In fact they’re on our side, basically. But they’re getting fed up. Just like Simon. They want to turn their back on the whole thing – pull clear, go home again, grow mealies, and forget the glorious republic. And by God I can’t blame them!’
Nicole rose suddenly, and put her arms round him. ‘Oh, darling … It can’t be as bad as that. Not after all the work you’ve done.’
‘Maybe not … I’m sorry … It’s been a bad day. But sometimes I can just see the whole thing sliding downhill.’ He kissed her. ‘Oh, well. As long as we’re not sliding downhill.’
‘We’re sliding into bed,’ she said.
‘Total defeat?’
‘You speak for yourself … Darling, really it may not be as bad as you think.’
‘Perhaps not.’
‘Whatever you said to Kalatosi may do some good.’
‘I hope so.’
‘And you’ll be talking to Dinamaula … Perhaps they’ll all learn some sense at the United Nations.’
‘H’m.’