“I’m thirteenth and there are thirty — five in our class,” the child volunteered to Bray.
The smallest climbed onto Mweta, a wet — lipped little creature, breathing heavily, with round, exposed nostrils and round eyes that make a reproach of every black infant’s face.
“I haven’t told you,” Bray said, “I’m a grandfather. I got a cable only this morning. Venetia’s had a daughter.”
“Venetia!” Mweta was shaking his head. “You remember I used to take her for a ride on the back of my bicycle? — And she used to make posters for us,” he said to Joy, whom he had married after Venetia had gone to school in England. “Yes, this little girl was a very young supporter of PIP. Posters announcing the date and place of meetings and so on. And slogans. Clive, she once showed such a poster to the Colonial Secretary — who was it, then, James? That’s right — he was here after the first London talks with Shinza, that time — and he went on a tour of the Gala district, of course”—everyone laughed— “to see where all this independence nonsense started, and to see what sort of fellow this Bray was who didn’t seem to be stopping it — and while he was in the boma that day and he went home to the D.C.’s house for lunch, he asks this little girl, the D.C.’s daughter, what’s that nice picture you’re painting, and Venetia says, it’s not a picture, it’s a poster, look! What’s it for, little girl? Can’t you see? she says. For the PIP rally, of course!”
Bray was nodding and laughing.
“She was proud of her painting. Eh?” said Mweta. “Why not?” And they all laughed again, and drew from Bray his version of the story, with interjections from Mweta, who grew more excited with every flourish.
“Years afterwards,” Bray said, “Venetia took me aside and asked me, very seriously, to tell her the truth: was it partly through her that I got kicked out? She said that ever since she’d grown up she’d begun to think about it and have it on her conscience.”
Mweta’s eyes narrowed emotionally. “Venetia! She must come here with her husband, eh, James. She should have been with us for Independence.”
“What about a photograph?” Small said to Asoni. “Wilfrid’s dying to try out his new camera, sir.”
They all straggled onto the terrace; the heat seemed to foreshorten them, their voices rang against the façade of the house. Bray and Mweta stood together, Bray stooping and embarrassed, Mweta smiling with a hand on his arm. The dog ran across the picture. The secretary took it again. Then there was one with Joy and the children; they put their feet together and folded their arms.
“We’re getting a swing and slide,” Mangaliso said.
“And a jungle gym.” The little one spoke to Bray for the first time.
“The Princess said it.”
Joy laughed. “Yes, the Princess was full of good ideas. She was telling me everything I should do. She said we should wall off a part of the garden and make it specially for the children, with swings and so on. You know, I mean she is used to living in this sort of place. She said you must have somewhere your own — specially for kids.”
“Oh they got on like a house on fire,” Mweta said. “Joy knows all the secrets of Buckingham Palace.”
“Nonsense, she doesn’t even live there.”
“And the wife of the Chinese Ambassador, they were great friends too. She speaks English quite well.”
“She wants me to come to Peking and speak about African women.” Joy challenged him, smiling at Bray.
“Joy was always a great asset,” Bray said.
“That’s what I tell him.”
The children had pulled off their shoes and socks and the close fuzz on the baby’s head was full of grass. A guilty wet patch had no sooner appeared on his trousers before the heat began to dry it again. One of the white-suited domestics hovered in the shadow of the house with the announcement of lunch, but could not find an opportunity to catch anyone’s attention. The secretary and the P.R.O. were fiddling with the Polaroid camera. Then the picture emerged, and everyone crowded to see. By now the party had been joined by a woman with blonde baby-hair drawn up on top of her head in thin curls. Like many women, she bore the date of her vintage year in the manner of her make-up: the pencil-line of the Dietrich eyebrows on the bald fine English skin above each blue eye, the well-powdered nose and fuchsia-pink mouth. She wore navy blue with a small diamond brooch somewhere towards one shoulder. Bray was introduced to Mrs. Harrison with the quick, smooth exchange of people who have learned the same basic social conventions in the same decade and country. Mweta and Bray and Joy were gossiping about the Independence celebrations; the children were jumping up round Wilfrid Asoni and Small, reaching for the camera. “Wait, wait, Mangaliso — do you want your picture taken? Not even with Bimbo?”
Mrs. Harrison’s high clear Englishwoman’s voice sailed in: “Children — I wonder who’s been borrowing my sécateur? Do you know, Mangaliso? I should think Mangaliso might know, wouldn’t you, Telema?”
The children dropped to earth, cut down. They stood there, wriggling, turning their feet on the grass, looking at each other. Under her eyes were made plain the shoes and socks tossed about, the wet patch drying between the little one’s legs.
“Mangaliso!” said Joy.
“I shall give you a pair of sécateur for your birthday,” the woman said to the child, “but you must be sure not to borrow mine. I need my sécateur, you know.”
He smiled at her, frowning, pleading to be out of the limelight; he had taken the pruning — shears, but he didn’t know what “sécateur” meant.
“That’s a good boy,” Mrs. Harrison said. “Mrs. Mweta, I’m afraid if you don’t go into lunch cook’s soufflé will be a pancake. He’s in quite a state.”
“Oh my goodness — what time is it? We were having a photo — Adamson, we must have lunch.” She was laughing and bustling, confused. The children were sent off, with some difficulty; Mrs. Harrison was standing in the sitting — room, her eyes taking some sort of private inventory, when the party filed through. Then they had to wait a few minutes for Joy, who had taken the children to their quarters. She came back giggling and apologizing and fell in with Bray. “They can’t understand why we don’t eat together any more.”
“Well, can’t you, sometimes? When you’re alone.”
“Never alone!” she explained, with a slight lift of the shoulders to indicate Small and Asoni. “Even if there’re no visitors.”