‘O.K.,’ I said.
He sighed with relief, walked across the hallway, and opened a heavy polished door opposite.
We went in.
They unfolded themselves from sofas and carpet, pushed themselves tiredly off the walls, stubbed out one or two cigarettes and went on puffing at others.
‘Hi,’ said one of the men: and the others, like a sort of jungle pack, watched and waited. He was one of those who had been at the airport. He had no reason, as none of them had, to believe I would now be any different.
‘Hullo,’ I said.
Well, I could always do it, if I really wanted to. Almost every well trained actor can.
I watched them loosen, saw the tiredness go out of their manner and the smile creep into their eyes. They wouldn’t now chew me to bits in their columns, even if they still came across with those carefully sharpened questions they all had ready in their notebooks.
The man who had said hi, their apparently natural leader, put out his hand to be shaken, and said, ‘I’m Roderick Hodge of the Rand Daily Star. Features Editor.’
Late thirties, but trying to ignore the passage of time: young hair-cut, young clothes, young affectation of speech. A certain panache about him, but also some of the ruthless cynicism of experienced journalists.
I shook his hand and smiled at him as a friend. I needed him to be one.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘Unless you are all in a hurry, why don’t we sit down again, and then you can all ask whatever you like, perhaps in groups, and maybe I can move around a bit, and then everyone might have more time for things than if I just sort of stand here in front of you.’
They thought that was all right. No one was in much of a hurry, they said. Roderick said dryly that no one would go before the booze started flowing, and the atmosphere started mellowing nicely into an all-pals-together trade meeting.
They mostly asked the personal questions first.
According to their calculations, I was thirty-three. Was that right?
It was.
And married? Yes. Happily? Yes. My first or second marriage? First. And her first? Yes.
They wanted to know how many children I had, with their names and ages. They asked how many rooms my house had, and what it had cost. How many cars, dogs, horses, yachts I had. How much I earned in a year, how much I had been paid for Rocks.
How much did I give my wife to buy clothes with? Did I think a woman’s place was in the home?
‘In the heart,’ I said flippantly, which pleased the women’s mag girl who had asked, but was slightly sick-making to all the others.
Why didn’t I go to live in a tax haven? I liked England. An expensive luxury? Very. And was I a millionaire? Perhaps some days, on paper, when share prices went up. If I was as rich as that, why did I work? To pay taxes, I said.
Clifford Wenkins had summoned up some caterers who brought coffee and cheese biscuits and bottles of Scotch. The Press poured the whiskey into the coffee and sighed contentedly. I kept mine separate, but had great difficulty in explaining to the waiter that I did not like my liquor diluted in nine times as much water. In South Africa, I had already discovered, they tended to fill up the tumblers; and I supposed it made sense as a long drink in a hot climate, but while it was so cold it merely ruined good Scotch.
Clifford Wenkins eyed my small drink in its large glass.
‘Let me get you some water.’
‘I’ve got some. I prefer it like this...’
‘Oh... really?’
He scuttled busily away and came back with an earnestly bearded man trailing a hand microphone and a long lead. There was no sense of humour behind the beard, which made, I thought, for a fairly stodgy interview, but he assured me that what I had said was just right, just perfect for a five minute slot in his Saturday evening show. He took back the microphone which I had been holding, shook me earnestly by the hand, and disappeared into a large array of recording equipment in one corner.
After that I was supposed to do a second interview, this time for a woman’s programme, but some technical hitches had developed in the gear.
I moved, in time, right round the room, sitting on the floor, on the arms of chairs, leaning on the window-sills, or just plain standing.
Loosened by the Scotch, they asked the other questions.
What did I think of South Africa? I liked it.
What were my opinions of their political scene? I hadn’t any, I said. I had been in their country only one day. One couldn’t form opinions in that time.
Most people arrived with them already formed, they observed. I said I didn’t think that was sensible.
Well, what were my views on racial discrimination? I said without heat that I thought any form of discrimination was bound to give rise to some injustice. I said I thought it a pity that various people found it necessary to discriminate against women, Jews, Aborigines, American Indians and a friend of mine in Nairobi who couldn’t get promotion in a job he excelled at because he was white.
I also said I couldn’t answer any more of that sort of question, and could we please get off politics and civil rights unless they would like me to explain the differences between the economic theories of the Tory and Labour parties.
They laughed. No, they said. They wouldn’t.
They reverted to films and asked questions I felt better able to answer.
Was it true I had started as a stunt man? Sort of, I said. I rode horses across everything from Robin Hood via Bosworth Field to the Charge of the Light Brigade. Until one day when I was doing a bit of solo stuff a director called me over, gave me some words to say, and told me I was in. Good clean romantic stuff, for which I apologised. It did happen sometimes like that though.
And then? Oh then I got given a better part in his next film. And how old was I at the time? Twenty-two, just married, living on baked beans in a basement flat in Hammersmith, and still attending part-time speech and drama classes, as I had for three years.
I was standing more or less in the centre of the room when the door opened behind me. Clifford Wenkins turned his head to see who it was, frowned with puzzlement and went busily across to deal with the situation.
‘I’m afraid you can’t come in here,’ he was saying bossily. ‘This is a private room. Private reception. I’m sorry, but would you mind... I say, you can’t... this is a private room... I say...’
I gathered Wenkins was losing. Not surprising, really.
Then I felt the clump on the shoulder and heard the familiar fruity voice.
‘Link, dear boy. Do tell this... er... person, that we are old buddy buddies. He doesn’t seem to want me to come in. Now, I asked you...’
I turned round. Stared in surprise. Said to Wenkins, ‘Perhaps you would let him stay. I do know him. He’s a cameraman.’
Conrad raised his eyebrows sharply. ‘Director of Photography, dear boy. A cameraman indeed!’
‘Sorry,’ I said ironically. ‘Have a Scotch?’
‘Now that, dear boy, is more like it.’
Wenkins gave up the struggle and went off to get Conrad a drink. Conrad surveyed the relaxed atmosphere, the hovering smoke, the empty cups and half empty glasses, and the gentle communicators chatting in seated groups.
‘My God,’ he said. ‘My great God. I don’t believe it. I didn’t, in fact, believe it when they told me Edward Lincoln was giving a press conference right here in Johannesburg at this very moment. I bet on it not being true. So they told me where. In that ritzy room at the top of the Randfontein, they said. Go and see for yourself. So I did.’
A laugh began rumbling somewhere down in his belly and erupted in a coughing guffaw.
‘Shut up,’ I said.