He said, 'I give you. I promise you. I give you.'
He took up a shilling from the change he had put out on the bedside table.
'You give me five.'
'I give you, I give you.'
Even when he had the money, Carolus looked at it suspiciously, and then he looked from his palm to Bobby's face. And as soon as Carolus began to walk to the door Bobby understood that Carolus was only 'fresh from the bush'; and Bobby knew that he had misread the boy's face, had seen things in it that were not there.
He said, 'Boy.'
Carolus stopped. He started to turn to face Bobby. 'You take off light, boy.'
Carolus obeyed. And when he left the room he shut the door quietly behind him.
Bobby turned on the bedside lamp. He poured a cup of tea. It was weak and full of leaves; it had been brewed in water that was barely hot. It was awful.
7
HE WAS IN A CAR with a woman whose identity he couldn't be sure of. They were quarrelling. Everything she said was accurate; everything was wounding; and though to everything there was a reply, he couldn't explain himself. He had to shout above her shouts; he was screaming; and as they sped along the empty road, dangerously, the wheel jumping in his hands, she wounded him and wounded him, more and more deeply; and there was rage and ache in his head, which seemed about to explode. He was no longer in the car. He was standing beside a table in a room full of people and chatter; and his exploding head made him collapse and stretch out right there, before them, on the floor.
When he awoke there was only the· memory of the head. The woman and her arguments had vanished; but the wound remained. It was dark, but there was a quality about the darkness which suggested that it would soon be light. He reasoned: it was his early night, the events of the evening, and anyway he had packed for a quick getaway. Just the trousers and the native shirt, and he would be off. But petroclass="underline" he didn't have enough, his tank wasn't filled: again and again he panicked as in his dream. And then it was daylight: a faint chattering from the quarters, a glimpse of trees at the back, which he hadn't seen the previous evening, and the radio downstairs, the African announcer stumbling over the violent words of the news bulletin from the capital.
It was the light, the openness, the lake, that surprised him when he went down to the dining-room. The sky was high and blue; beyond the ornamental palms on the boulevard the lake stretched to the horizon. The previous evening the wire-netting on the dining-room windows had appeared to enclose the room; now it offered no barrier to the light and was scarcely visible. So sodden and heavy and gloomily tropical the previous evening; but now the air was fresh. The hotel, the boulevard, the park, the lake: something of the resort atmosphere survived. And this morning there was activity on the boulevard. Above the hotel's concrete wall an army lorry could be seen moving slowly from left to right.
The colonel, dressed as before, was at his table. He had almost finished breakfast; he was drinking tea and reading his book. Bobby, in his yellow native shirt, forgot about the lake and the light; and, left hand at his side, right hand swinging, made – his swift, grim passage to the only other table that had been laid. Seated, his face set, he looked at the colonel; but the colonel was reading. Crumbs on the tablecloth, disorder in the butter-flecked marmalade: Linda had been down already. Grimly, Bobby buttered a piece of cold toast.
'News not so good this morning,' the colonel said. His voice was relaxed and casual. 'Still, I suppose the sooner this thing's over the better for all of us.'
Bobby, biting on his hard toast, gave a brief, blank smile. The colonel didn't see; he was turning the page of his book.
Timothy, his smell sharp in the light morning air, offered the breakfast card. The card was as dingy as the red-checked waiter's rag Timothy flicked about the table. His gestures were freer this morning. He was almost skittish, almost familiar, and he appeared anxious to talk. With every friendly flick of his rag he released a little more of his smell.
Another lorry went grinding past the hotel.
'Army's on the move this morning,' the colonel said. 'Not a time to be on the road, when our army's on the move. I always give them a wide berth myself.'
'I imagine the road's still wet,' Bobby said.
'Oh, one or two of those lorries are going to come to grief down some precipice or the other.'
The colonel smiled directly at Bobby. The colonel looked older this morning; but there was no strain irt his face; the flesh around his eyes and mouth looked softer and rested.
Bobby was uncertain about the joke.
The colonel noticed. 'They're going to leave the road in an awful state.'
'But I imagine. it'll dry out pretty quickly,' Bobby said. 'With this sun.'
'Oh, with this sun it'll dry out in no time at all. No time at all. By lunchtime, I'd say.'
It was like an invitation to linger; it was unexpected. But Linda had been down; she and the colonel had no doubt talked.
A car came into the yard. A door slammed. The colonel put a marker, a polished strip of bamboo shaped like a paper-knife, clearly an old possession, in his book; and waited. He appeared to know who the visitor was.
It was Peter, coming in from the bar with his light athletic steps. He was in khaki this morning: the khaki trousers of the previous evening, an ironed khaki shirt with epaulettes and button-down pockets. His sleeves were rolled up; there was a big wristwatch with a shining stainless-steel strap on his left wrist. His arms were bony, the muscles slack; the crinkled loose skin around his elbows showed that he was older than he looked. He carried two or three handwritten lists; he must have been out shopping.
When he saw Bobby, Peter paused, bowed and smiled and said in his English accent, 'Good morning, sir.'
There was no irony in the smile. It was like the smile of an old acquaintance. It didn't go with the bow; it was part of Peter's disjointedness. Like his clothes, like the bow, like the accent, Peter's smile was only one part of his training, and it was separate from the other parts. Like Carolus and Timothy, Peter belonged to the hotel and the boys' quarters of the hotel. It was disturbing; as always in former settler haunts, Bobby felt he was trespassing.
Peter stood easily by the colonel's table while the colonel went through the lists. When Peter went away, after bowing again to Bobby and smiling, the colonel stood up, holding his book against his chest. He steadied himself and threw back his shoulders. Then he hesitated, as though listening to the whine of the army lorry on the boulevard.
He smiled at Bobby and said, 'At times like this I always feel that the nearer you are to an army camp the safer it is. They're more under control. I don't know whether you were here for the mutiny. Even the witchdoctor ran away. Nobody knew where he was for a week. But it was perfectly all right here.'
Again Bobby was uncertain.
'Of course it'll all blow over in a day or two,' the colonel said. 'Everybody'll be calmer. Day or two.'
Bobby wasn't sure, but he thought the colonel was asking for company. He said, 'We're a day late as it is.'
'We'll give you an early lunch. You'll get to the Collectorate well before the curfew.'
'So that's official, the curfew?'
'Four o'clock. We'll get you off in good time.'
Later Bobby came downstairs to find Linda in the verandah. She was looking at the bright lake through her dark glasses. She had changed her shirt but was wearing yesterday's blue trousers; there were faint dusty stains where the mud had been brushed off.
She said, 'Has the colonel told you?'
She moved away without waiting for his reply. They were still quarrelling.