Morgan’s shoulders slumped. He felt exhausted. He felt angry because there was no response he could make: he agreed with everything Murray had said.
‘Look,’ Murray continued in a less passionate tone. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I won’t make any report until January the third which is the day my committee meets again. Adekunle’s had it now. I’m not naive enough to believe I can ever prove he owns the land, but nothing he can do can stop my negative report. That gives you time to sort things out yourself — and I promise I won’t mention your name in connection with this.’
‘But Adekunle will, don’t you see?’
‘That’s why I’m giving you the time. Pre-empt him. Go to Fanshawe yourself: tell him everything before Adekunle can.’
Morgan groaned. ‘No, it won’t work. I could never tell Fanshawe these things. You don’t know him, don’t know his expectations. He’d go raving mad.’
‘It’s your only option,’ Murray said. ‘You never can tell about people, what they’ll think, what they’ll do. You may be surprised.’ He waved at his son. ‘See Fanshawe,’ he advised, ‘lay things on the line. But remember: January the third and I make my report to the Buildings, Works and Sites Committee.’ He paused and touched Morgan fleetingly on the shoulder. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘But I’ve got to do it.’
Morgan watched him go to join his son.
8
Morgan lay on Hazel’s bed staring up at the ceiling, his hands behind his head. Hazel had gone out to buy him more beer as he had drunk his way through the six bottles in the fridge during the course of the afternoon. He had come to the flat straight after his catastrophic round of golf with Murray, gone into hiding like a fugitive, lying low. Before he’d left the club he’d phoned Bilbow, told him to make himself at home and said that he didn’t know when he’d be back.
‘That Adekunle chap came round this morning just after you’d left,’ Bilbow had said. ‘Seemed very keen to see you. Oh yes, and if that Fanshawe character rings up once more I think I’ll blow me top. He’s phoned half a dozen times today already. What’ve you done to him?’
Morgan’s heart sagged. What were Fanshawe and Adekunle after? ‘Never mind,’ he’d told Bilbow. ‘Just keep telling them you don’t know where I am.’
‘As you wish, squire,’ Bilbow cheerily acknowledged.
Morgan had passed the day in a perplexing succession of moods: deep Stygian gloom, devil-may-care indifference, throat-tightening self-pity and his usual apocalyptic universe-hating rages. The sole alteration in the pattern was that Murray did not appear as major target of his vengeful fury. It was no longer the same between him and Murray now, he realized; the old clear-cut division had been replaced by something more complex and puzzling. The front-line had disappeared. This was a turn in events that he found distinctly off-putting, for it seemed to take no account of the fact that Murray had bluntly told him that he was not going to change his mind about the negative site report — the pivot upon which the future hinged as far as he was concerned. He just couldn’t understand why he was letting the man off so lightly.
♦
The next morning he lay contentedly in bed watching Hazel get dressed. The sun shone through the slats in the shutters. The traffic sounds came up fuzzily from the street below.
‘Where are you going, by the way?’ he asked her.
‘To vote of course,’ she said.
‘Christ yes!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s right, it’s election day today. God. Do you know I’d completely forgotten. Who are you going to vote for?’
Hazel picked up her handbag and adjusted her wig. He wished he hadn’t asked: he knew what she was going to say. She looked round. ‘KNP,’ she said simply. ‘For a united Kinjanja.’
Morgan’s benign morning mood disappeared. He thought suddenly of his fate and the grim alternatives in front of him — either he told Fanshawe or Adekunle would. He sat up in bed, a serious look on his face.
‘I think there is something you should know, Hazel,’ he said. Hazel stopped at the door. ‘I’m afraid things may be changing soon.’
‘In what way?’
‘I think I might be leaving. Going back to the UK.’ He scrutinized Hazel’s face for her reaction. She appeared to be considering the news, her bottom lip thrust out, her almond eyes narrowed.
‘For why?’
‘Well…I’m in a bit of trouble you see, and they’ll send me back home as a punishment,’ he said. Hazel shrugged. ‘How…How do you feel about that?’ he asked, beckoning her over to the bed. She sat down beside him. He put his arm round her shoulders. ‘Will you be sorry?’ he asked.
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you to go.’ But he couldn’t see any tears in her eyes.
♦
Morgan stayed in Hazel’s flat for the duration of polling day — the twenty-seventh. On the morning of the twenty-eighth he drove back to his house and found Greg Bilbow packing his bags.
‘You off already?’ Morgan asked.
‘Yes,’ Bilbow said. ‘I’m getting a plane back down to the capital in a couple of hours. Where the hell have you been anyway?’ Bilbow inquired with amusement. ‘I’ve never known anyone so in demand. Phone going like the clappers. Your pals Adekunle and Fanshawe as per, and also some female called Celia.’
‘Oh Gawd,’ Morgan groaned, exaggeratedly rolling his eyeballs. He’d forgotten about Celia’s frantic message on Christmas Day.
‘You in some kind of trouble?’ Bilbow asked sympathetically.
‘To put it mildly.’
‘Sorry. Anything I can do?’
‘No, no. You’ve been great anyway, acting as my answering service.’
Bilbow smiled. ‘No problem. Except for that Fanshawe. I think he thought I was you, you know, putting on a Yorkshire accent. He kept saying ‘Come on, Leafy, I know it’s you.’
‘Stop playing these childish games, Leafy.’
‘Bilbow had Fan-shawe’s pompous accusations off to a tee.
Morgan laughed uneasily. ‘Bloody typical,’ he said. He looked at Bilbow’s thin face. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Tell you what. I’ll give you a lift to the airport. Don’t want you getting in any more taxis.’
To his amazement Morgan managed to purchase two bottles ofbeer from the sulky girl at the Nkongsamba airport bar. They were unchilled, but you couldn’t have everything. Morgan and Bilbow sat down at a table to wait for the plane which was reputed to be fifty minutes late. They drank their beers and chatted. To his surprise Morgan found he warmed to Bilbow, and discovered him to be a loquacious, wry character and wished he had been able to spend more time in his company. He bought two more beers and told him this.
‘Yes, I’m sorry I’ve been behaving so mysteriously since you came,’ Morgan said. ‘I could have shown you around a bit. Anyway I thought you were due to stay on a while longer. Wasn’t your Anglo-Kinjanjan do meant to last a couple more days?’
‘It was,’ Bilbow said. ‘But the whole thing’s been stopped because of the student unrest at the university. There were big demonstrations yesterday. The riot police were called in. Had all the signs of turning out very nasty indeed. I thought it was something to do with the elections but I was told it’s because of some threat to shut down the university next term.’
Morgan punched his palm. ‘God, the elections,’ he said. ‘I keep forgetting about them.’ Vote-counting would be going on today; they should know the result by late afternoon. He wondered if a KNP victory could possibly help him now.