'Motor accident,' the man hissed, with some pride. 'They say lightning never strikes twice…' He shook his head. 'You saw my wife?'
'In the office?'
'Got her too.' He leaned forward at a steep angle like a comedian. 'Oh yes. But all right now. Just the itching. Funny thing about plaster. You know, when they take it out at the end, they will still find that little bit at the centre wet. You heading south? Work there? Short-contract man?'
Bobby nodded.
'You're the lucky ones. Sending half back to the London bank every month, eh? Salting it away. But bad in the Collectorate now. Going to be a lot of trouble there, I reckon.'
'I don't know what you mean by trouble,' Bobby said.
The ruined man became guarded. 'No trouble up here.' He nodded to the photograph of the president. 'The witchdoctor's all right. Oh no. No trouble here. Tourism's going to be big business, and the African knows he can't manage it by himself. Say what you like, the African's no fool.'
Bobby put the magazine down and began to move away. He didn't hurry; there was no need. The ruined man started after him, but couldn't pursue.
The African was still outside the office. The spaniel sat, old and blank, on the office steps. The woodpile outside the cottage door had been pulled down. Near it Bobby now saw lavender in bloom, an old bush. As he bent down to break off some spikes he saw, among the scattered logs, a lizard's tail, separate, dead. Then he saw Linda and Carter. Linda waved. It was a large gesture; her blue trousers and cream shirt, seen at a distance, against the gravelled path and the unsettled light of the open hillside, were vivid; and again, as at the start of the day, it was as though they had an audience and were all three in a film or play. Bobby turned: it was only the gaze of the African, cleaning his top lip with his tongue.
Linda said, 'What have you got, Bobby?'
'Lavender.' He passed a spike below her nose. 'I love lavender. Is that effeminate of me?'
She laughed. For the first time he saw her poor teeth. 'I wouldn't say effeminate. I would say old-fashioned.'
She was the brightest of the three when they went into the high timbered dining-hall.
They sat at the edge of the desolate room, next to the high fireplace. There was no fire, but logs had been laid. The boy was nervous and abstracted and kept on adjusting the cutlery on the table. His white shirt was less than fresh; his dusty black bowtie was askew.
Carter said, 'You colonialists did pretty well.'
'What a lovely word,' Linda said. 'One so seldom hears it in conversation. You make it sound very big and technical.'
'Sitting here, I feel they must have been very big people. Giants in fact. I suppose that's why they haven't lighted the fire for us. We're too small.'
Or too ugly, Bobby thought, breaking his roll.
The frightened boy brought in the soup plate by plate, pressing his thumbs on the rims. He walked with a stoop, raising his knees high; his big feet, loosely hinged at the ankles, flapped up and down.
'He almost looks like one of ours,' Carter said.
'Carter says there's a four o'clock curfew in the Southern Collectorate, Bobby. The army's rampaging somewhat, apparently.'
'That's what African armies are for,' Carter said. 'They are intended only for civilian use.'
'So it looks as though we'll have to spend the night at the colonel's,' Linda said. 'Or stay here.'
'The "boy" might light the fire for you,' Carter said to Bobby. Something was wrong with Carter's molars, and he ate like a dog, holding his head over his plate and catching the food in his mouth with every chew, at the same time giving a slight hiss, as though every mouthful was too hot.
He finished a mouthful and made conversation. He said, 'I can't get used to this word b_oy__.'
'Doris Marshall tried to call hers a butler,' Linda said.
'Isn't that typical!' Bobby said.
'In the end she settled for steward. It always seems to me such an absurd word,' Linda said.
Bobby said, 'It offended Luke. He said to me afterwards, "I am not a steward, sir. I am a houseboy."
'Who is Doris Marshall?' Carter asked.
'She's a South African,' Linda said.
Carter looked puzzled.
'Luke is Bobby's houseboy,' Linda said.
'I imagine,' Bobby said, looking at Linda, 'she thought she was bending over black-wards.'
Linda cried, 'Bobby!'
'We are on to my favourite subject,' Carter said. 'Servants.'
Bobby said, 'It always fascinates our visitors.'
Carter ate.
'I can't,' he said later, looking round the dining-hall, once more playing the visitor, 'I can't get over the Britishness of this place.'
'When I was in West Africa,' Linda said, 'everyone was always saying what rotten colonialists we were and how good the French were. And when you crossed the border it looked true. You saw all those black men just like ours sitting on the roadside and eating French bread and drinking red wine and wearing those funny little French berets.'
'So at least,' Bobby said, 'we might be spared over here.' Carter looked at Bobby and said with direct aggression, 'You do pretty well.'
It began to rain. The dining-hall grew dark; the roof drummed. 'That stretch of mud,' Linda said. 'It's the one thing that makes me hysterical, skidding on mud.'
'I wonder if it's true about the curfew,' Bobby said. 'You don't have to take my word for it,' Carter said. 'I don't have to take your word for anything.'
Linda appeared not to notice. 'Poor little king,' she said, going girlish and affected. 'Poor little African king.'
After this there was nothing like conversation. They finished the bottle of Australian Riesling; and then, to the visible relief of the boy, lunch was over. Bobby seized the bill when the boy brought it. Carter became morose.
'Office,' the boy said. 'You pay office.'
The African was still there, sheltering under the narrow eaves.
Rain blurred the edge of the hill, dripped down the tiled roof of the cottages onto the flowers, washed the gravel path. It was almost chilly. Carter was alone in the dining-hall when Bobby went back. They didn't talk; Carter turned and looked out at the rain. Linda, when she came in, was as bright as before.
It was time to leave. Bobby began to fuss.
'I'll stay here for a little,' Carter said.
'Will we be seeing you later perhaps?' Bobby asked.
'Let's leave it open,' Carter said.
Bobby ran through the rain to the car and drove it up to the hall entrance. Linda got in. She looked at Carter; she seemed concerned now. There was some sort of movement in the shadows behind Carter, and the ruined man appeared, leaning forward, as if with exaggerated interest. As Bobby was driving off the woman with the arm-sling came out on the office steps. She gestured towards the African with her uninjured hand and shouted through the rain.
Bobby stopped and rolled down the window. 'Can you take him down to the road?'
'Oh Lord,' Linda said, leaning over the seat to clear her things away.
The African opened the door himself. He filled the car with his smell. Through the rain, the windows misting, they drove off, Linda rigid, Bobby wiping the windscreen with the back of his hand. When Bobby looked at the rear-view mirror he caught the African's smiling eyes.
'You work here?' Bobby asked, in the brisk, friendly, simple voice he used with country Africans.
'In a way.'
'What you do? What your work?'
'Anyanist.'
'Oh, you mean _trade__ unionist. You _organize__ the workers, you _bargain__ with the employers. You get your members more money, better conditions. That right?'
'Yes, yes. Anyanist. What you do?'
'I work here.'
'I don't see you.'
'I work in the south. The Southern Collectorate.'
'Yes, yes. South.' The African laughed.
'I'm a civil servant. A bureaucrat. I have my in-tray and my out-tray. I also have my tea-tray.'
'Civil servant. That is good.'
'I like it.'
They were driving slowly down the rocky slope, the rain washing against the windscreen, almost too fast for the wipers. An African came round the corner at the bottom of the slope, walking up to the Hunting Lodge. He saw the car and stood at the side of the road to wait for it to pass. His hat was pulled down low over his head and the lapels of his jacket were turned up.