David Bracken closed the door behind him.
‘Feeling better?’ asked Nicole Steuart.
‘Fine,’ answered Bracken – and he meant it. He looked at the girl: she was as pretty as he remembered, even when sitting behind a desk so strewn with papers, files, letters, cables, and typing paraphernalia that she seemed like part of a chaotic filing system herself. ‘He – the Governor said you’d show me round.’
Nicole Steuart nodded. ‘We’ll do that … Where were you before this?’
‘London.’ He perched on the arm of a chair, and looked down at her. It was an agreeable view. ‘Is it always as hot as this?’
‘This isn’t so bad. It’s nearly spring, after all … Where before London?’
‘Nowhere. I was new.’ He began to be nettled, by this cool-looking girl who could survive a temperature of ninety-plus, to put him through the hoop. ‘What about you?’
Nicole smiled. ‘I’m new, too. I came out here on a holiday, two years ago.’
‘Oh?’
‘I liked it.’ She stared at him. ‘Loved it, in fact. I asked for a job here. There was a lot of discussion, people turned a few somersaults, and then they gave me a job.’
‘What did you like about it?’
‘It’s worthwhile. There are plenty of places like Pharamaul, I suppose, only I hadn’t heard of them. People need our help. We give it to them. No strings attached. It’s something we’ve been doing for hundreds of years.’ She was very pretty, very serious. ‘It’s worthwhile,’ she repeated. ‘That’s what one thinks, all the time.’
‘But do we do enough for them?’
‘All we can.’
‘Things could move a good deal faster, surely?’
‘I used to think that. Now I’m not so sure. Africa’s a slow continent. Speed could ruin everything. When you’ve been here a bit longer, you’ll understand that.’
‘You’ve only been here two years.’
She smiled again, less warmly. ‘It’s longer than two hours.’
There was something between them already – not an antagonism, but a readiness to do battle. She’s very pretty, he thought, but she has these opinions … At the same moment, Nicole was thinking, a little incoherently: nice-looking, prejudiced, ready-made ideas, a bit priggish, but he’s here for a long time … She stood up.
‘Let’s walk round,’ she said. ‘You’d better meet the rest of the staff.’
They walked round. It was a somewhat confused process, not aided by the oppressive heat, and the fact that the Secretariat was an untidy jumble of rooms, thrown together as the need for expansion had dictated during the last fifty years. David Bracken met a lot of girls in the cypher room. He met the Governor’s Social Secretary – a forbidding woman who looked at him as if he were trying to graduate from the Garden Party List to the Dinner Party Pool. He met some more girls in a room labelled: ‘Typists. Leave This Door Open.’ He met a man called Stevens, a secretary at the same level as himself. He met a booming character whose cheerful sweating face owed much to the heat, more to pink gin – Captain Simpson, the Naval aide-de-camp. He met the Political Secretary, Purves-Brownrigg, and thought, after a few moments: oh God, one of those.
‘So glad you got here safely,’ said Purves-Brownrigg, as if Bracken had hacked his way through a dozen enemy columns to reach Port Victoria. ‘Nicole, darling, you look ravishing. So cool, too.’
Purves-Brownrigg himself looked pre-eminently cool: his dove-grey lightweight suit was immaculate, his fair hair a miracle of neatness.
‘I’m Aidan Purves-Brownrigg,’ he said, holding out a slim hand. ‘The only Foreign Office type among you rough Scheduled people … Did you have a nice journey?’
‘Very,’ said Bracken shortly. Already he was uncomfortable, ill at ease in this off-colour setting. He remembered too vividly other people like this one – Foreign Office attachés, BBC executives, literary characters, all swimming round London like elegant angel-fish in a heated bowl – only the angel-fish had teeth. Because if you were not another angel-fish, the circuit suddenly closed; the literary page was found to be made up, the file you wanted had gone astray, the broadcasting programme was already scheduled for six months ahead … I don’t really mind them, he thought confusedly: it’s not their fault, and they can be damned amusing company; but when they pull the trade union stuff, and starve you out if you won’t join the club, then I’m ready to start sweating and flogging like Colonel Blimp himself …
He said, ‘It was a comfortable journey. I was on the same plane as Macmillan.’
‘How lovely for you,’ said Purves-Brownrigg. ‘Such a stalwart old character.’
Bracken looked at him, not sure whether this was going to be tolerable. Why were people like this sent to represent Britain in rugged outposts like Pharamaul, when they were so much better off as back-room boys in Paris or Rio or Washington? Who did the posting? Who handled the recruitment? What diplomatic nest of – he pulled himself up, aware that this must be showing in his face. Then he nodded. ‘He seems to know everything there is to know about Pharamaul.’
‘My dear, he’s an encyclopaedia. A hundred volumes.’
‘Why didn’t you like him?’ demanded Nicole, when this door was shut in turn.
‘Not my type,’ said David.
‘I think men are really awful.’
‘We don’t have to like them … What does it matter to you, anyway?’
‘Because it’s so ridiculous to be prejudiced. Because Aidan’s a sweet person who does a tremendous amount of good here.’
‘Good Lord!’ said David. ‘Who does he do it to?’
‘He’s very good company – not dull, and talking shop all the time, like everyone else.’
‘People can be good company, and still be normal.’
‘That’s not the point.’
He turned to her suddenly. ‘Look, there’s a lot more to it than that. I’ve seen this thing in operation on a very different plane, where unless you’re a practising homosexual you can starve before they’ll print a line you write, give you the smallest job, let you say two lines in a play – things like that. I just happen to feel strongly about it, that’s all, and I’m not likely to change my mind, just because you tell me there are a few good ones. I know that. Let’s leave it.’
‘All right.’ She was surprised, somewhat taken aback by an unexpected crispness in his manner, and surprised also at the way she reacted to it. Here was a young man who at least knew his own mind. That was a nice change, anyway … ‘All I meant was, Aidan has talent, and he works hard. It’s a pity to write him off, for other reasons.’
‘I won’t do that … Whom haven’t I seen?’
‘That’s the lot, I think. The rest are up at Gamate. You’ll meet some of the wives this evening.’
‘What’s the form on this dinner party?’
‘It’s to welcome you as a new member of the family. The Governor always gives one.’
‘Will you be there?’
‘No. There’s a daughter.’
David grinned. ‘What’s the form there?’
‘I’ll look forward to hearing your views.’