THE ELECTIONS were well under way, Leila having made at least two dozen speeches in different parts of the country, when an invitation came to Sandilands from the Sultan, to play a game of golf.
‘Please do not go, Andrew,’ she said, shyly.
She was a little hoarse, a little haggard, and more than a little depressed. She was still missing Christina sorely and every day was becoming more aware of the futility of her arduous and passionate electioneering.
‘Why shouldn’t I go?’ he asked. ‘We won’t talk politics, I assure you.’
‘They will say that while I am making speeches against him or against what he represents, you are playing golf with him.’
‘What about it? Let them say what they like. Golf’s just a game.’
‘Have you ever considered why he, the Sultan, one of the richest men in the world, should want to play golf with you, a teacher?’
He frowned. What was she insinuating? ‘He likes golf, that’s all. He’s fanatical about it. He’d give a million dollars to play well.’
‘I do not expect you to help me, for you are not interested, but I do expect you not to make things more difficult for me.’
‘For God’s sake, Leila, be reasonable. I’m not making things more difficult for you. I’m simply playing a game of golf.’
‘You know what I mean, Andrew. You are not being honest with me. And, please, do not blaspheme. You do not believe in God. Do not use His name.’
He felt angry with her and yet at the same time sorry for her. Her father had lost heart. So surely had she, though she would never admit it. He had heard her weeping in the middle of the night. So, because he loved her, he pitied her. But he still had these mad vicious moods when he wished to hurt her, to make her suffer even more. Usually he resisted them and tore them from him as he would have poisonous leeches, but sometimes he gave way to them. This happened when she seemed most vulnerable, and it was then that he loved her most.
‘I gave my word,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to keep it.’
She recovered her pride as a woman but kept her humility as a wife. ‘Yes, Andrew, I understand.’
He sneered. ‘I’m sorry if I’m a disappointment as a husband.’
‘No, no. You have been very patient.’
‘Too patient perhaps. I’ve watched you grow thinner. I’ve seen you being humiliated. When you suffer, I suffer. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Then why do you make me suffer?’
He ignored that. ‘I won’t say I’ve not been tempted to ask you to give it up. You once said you’d do it if I asked you.’
‘Yes, I did say it.’
‘But did you mean it?’
‘Yes, I meant it. You are my husband.’
He almost cried: ‘Then give it up!’ But said instead: ‘Just don’t ask me to give up what pleases me.’
‘No, Andrew, I won’t, ever again.’ She approached him, her eyes sad and anxious. ‘We haven’t fallen out, have we?’
He should have said that at that moment he loved her more than ever, more indeed than he could bear, but he did not say it. He took a perverse and evil satisfaction in not saying it. He wanted to break her heart and his own at the same time.
If little Christina had lived it would have been different. They would have been a happy family together. What was good and positive in him would have shown, what was malevolent and perverse would have been subdued.
This perversity of his was childish. Like a vindictive child indeed he looked in a drawer for one of the Sultan’s badges. He found one and held it up. ‘Do you think I should wear this?’
Her reaction too was like a child’s. She stared at him in horror.
‘Most people are wearing them,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘But it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to vote for him.’
He wasn’t being honest. He did believe that those servile badge-wearers would vote for their master.
Suddenly he felt sick with shame. He threw the badge back into the drawer. The fit of viciousness was past.
He took her in his arms, with his face turned away so that she could not see his tears of contrition and self-disgust. She was trembling, and it was he who had made her tremble. He loved her more than anything else in the world and yet he had never been as cruel to anyone as he had been to her. Love gave him that power.
Love also gave him the power to make her confident and happy. It was for him to choose.