The galleon decor is not inappropriate to the conversation, for the men frequently speak of this or that absent colleague being ‘taken on board’ some enterprise. And there are others referred to as small fry; the fingerlings in the sea of business. Women are expected to talk to other women, she knows that, and does not attempt presumptuously to engage the host, on whose right hand she has been placed (the position to be interpreted as recognizing a woman’s husband having been taken on board). He assiduously signals a waiter to fill her wineglass and passes with surface attention friendly remarks suitable to feminine interests (Just like my wife, she’s always removing those chunks of ice they put in the water. Where do you have your holiday house — Plettenberg? — do try some of this, looks exciting doesn’t it oh I agree the Cape is too windy but I’m out in my ski-boat, that’s my passion, Yvonne’s a girl for winter holidays, game parks, you know, all that).
There’s one exception to the contented dinner table purdah in which women chat to one another under the vociferous competitive exchanges of the men. An Afrikaner, dressed, coiffured and made up in the television-star style of an indeterminate age that will never go beyond forty while at the same time adopting every change of fashion, flashing her mascara-spiked eyes from this speaker to that, clinking gold and ivory bracelets and neon-coloured jumbo watch as she laughs in the right places, calls out a tag punch-line now and then that reinforces attention to the male speaker rather than draws it to herself. Some group’s public relations director, a prototype of how, in the choice of a female for the job, the display of possible sexual availability may be exploited to combine with suitably acquired male aggression. Poor thing; she comes clip-clopping into the ladies’ room on high-heeled hooves and behind the door there is the noisy stream of her urine falling, she’s even taught herself to piss boldly as a man. Or perhaps that’s wronging her — she comes out and smiles, My God I was bursting, hey, sorry.
At the table the host stands courteously to see his right-hand partner seated again, they know how to treat a lady. There are cigars and small fruits encased in glassy hardened sugar, as Coca-Cola and buns are distributed at treats in the townships whose workers are being discussed. A recent strike in the cardboard container trade is being compared with that in the tanning industry. Opposite Vera a man keeps pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose and breathing heavily in readiness for an opening to speak. At last: —We told them — called them all together with their shop steward, I don’t talk to those fellows on their own, eh, you only get told afterwards he didn’t have a mandate — we said, look, you can bring your wives (hands chopped edge-on to the table, then lifted) you can bring your children (hands again) you can bring the whole bang shoot, we’ll give you blankets, we’ll supply food, so you won’t have to risk anything coming to work. Most of them said fair enough, you know? I feel sorry for them, we genuinely wanted to help, they can’t afford to lose two days’ pay and they can’t risk being beaten up if they come to work — so it’s a solution. But there was one guy who said no, he has to stay away. Not for political reasons, no, no. So he said. But because he can’t leave his house for two days, in the township. He hasn’t got locks on the doors … So I said … (waiting for the laugh) so I said, all right. Don’t come to work Monday and Tuesday. All right. But then don’t come back on Wednesday.—
Through muffled background music inescapable as a ringing in the ears a cry comes from farther down the table: —Hands in the till! Everywhere you look. I could tell you many more instances … this Government’s become as corrupt as the blacks’ states. If they’re going to lose power, they’re going to make sure they give over a ruined economy. Positively last sale. Everything up for grabs. D’you know what’s happening in the pension funds—
There’s another who sits back with the care of one who has drunk too much, but a rush of words upsets the balance: —I think I’m a damn fool to be negotiating labour deals with the black unions. I ought to be learning how to get my hand in the till and get out. First thing they’re going to do when they get into power, you can own only one property. So bang goes my trout farm, no more invitations for you boys to come down and fish …—
How she sees them laugh it off, their confidence in themselves makes a joke of their fears, they will always find a way to dine on board the Drommedaris no matter what government comes, the power of being white has been extrasensory so long, they feel it within them like a secret ability to bend metal by looking at it. If they ‘get out’ they will come back; we shall ask them to. She is the only woman who has accepted a cognac (the public relations director made the approved female choice of a sweet liqueur) and she’s joined the party on the ship of fools but (too much wine, as well) for her it’s a listing oil tanker she’s on that will spill its cargo to slick territorial waters round the new state.
Why do I drink on these occasions? Why does duty make me drink? She sat in the car beside Ben, going home. What have I done, to put him in such company, what have I done to him.
But why me? What has he done to himself?
In the morning, they were in the mood to laugh over the evening. ‘Hand in the till’ became itself a password between them for ironic judgments in their private language.
The pulsations of perception throb, and die down. Throb again. How, in the end, between the swirling newspaper and slimy drains of the roof-top hidden from the streets and One-Twenty-One, evidenced as testimony bared to the sky; the probabilities in London of fulfilment or unhappiness in attachment to a redhead whose photograph was not sent; the claim of the ancestors and its codification in a land policy paper that may deprive business associates of river frontage for weekend trout-fishing, Better I see nothing, Don’t come back on Wednesday— how, between all these, will you know, will you recognize the beat: this is my self.
Chapter 9
What happens, happens early in the morning, when the hand with the blue vein raised from outer wrist-bone to the base between first and second finger feels for the switch on the radio. Sometimes as he draws the hand back she takes it for the return to life, and closes her eyes again, waiting for the news; his hand and hers, the warm pulse palm-to-palm of a single creature who exists only while bodies are still numb in half-consciousness. The news is brought to you by this bank or that with its computer services and thirty-two-day deposit convenience at maximum interest. There are wars and famines too far away to stir response: there are coups and drought drawing nearer, there are the killings of the night, still closer. Some mornings, attacks on farms; a white farmer shot, the wife raped or killed, money and car missing. Taken. ‘Taken’ to mean the motive is robbery; as if robbery has a single meaning in every country at every period. Take cars, take money, take life. These mornings robbery means taking everything you haven’t got from those who appear to have everything: money, a car to sell for money, a way of life with house and land and cattle. Otherwise, why kill as well as rob? Why rape some farmer’s ugly old wife? No violence is more frightening than the violence of revenge, because it is something that what the victim stands for brings upon him. It is seldom retribution for a personal deed, of which innocence can be claimed. The rape has nothing to do with desire; the penis is a gun like the gun held to a head, its discharge is a discharge of bullets.
She lies in a body-warmed bed, the first refuge after birth and the last, for those fortunate enough to die a natural death.