The Sweetest Dream (55 page)

She hated Colin. She had always seen novelists and poets as
something like counterfeiters, making something out of nothing
and getting away with it. She had been too early on the scene
for his first novel, but she had rubbished his second and the
Lennoxes, and his third had caused her paroxysms of rage. It was
about two people, apparently unlike each other, who had for each
other a tender and almost freakish love–that it continued at all
seemed to both of them a jest of Fate. While involved with other
partners, other adventures, they met like conspirators, to share
this feeling they had, that they understood each other as no one
else ever could. Reviewers on the whole liked it and said it was
poetic and evocative. One said it was ‘elliptical', a word that
goaded Rose to extra frenzy: she had to look it up in the dictionary.
She read the novel, or tried to: but really she could not read
anything more difficult than a newspaper article. Of course it was
about Sophie, that stuck-up bitch. Well, let them both watch out,
that's all. Rose had a file on the Lennoxes, all kinds of bits and
pieces, some stolen from them long ago, when she went sniffing
about the house for what she could find. She planned to ‘get
them' one day. She would sit leafing through the file, a rather fat
woman now, her face permanently set in a malicious smile which,
when she knew she had found the word or phrase that could
really hurt, became a jeering laugh.

On the plane to Senga she was next to a bulky man who took
up too much room. She asked for a change of seat, but the plane
was full. He shifted about in his seat in a way that she decided
was aggressive and against her, and he gave her sideways looks
full of male dishonesty. His arm was on the rest between them,
no room for hers. She put her forearm beside his, to claim her
rights, but he did not budge, and to keep her arm there meant
she had to concentrate, or it would slide off. He did remove it
when he demanded from the attendant who was offering drinks
a whisky, threw it to the back of his throat at once, asked for
another. Rose admired his authoritative handling of the attendant,
whose smiles were false, Rose knew. She asked for a whisky and
took it in a swallow, not to be outdone, and sat with the glass in
her hand, waiting for a refill.

‘Bloody skivers,' said this man, whom Rose knew was her
enemy as a woman. ‘They think they can get away with murder.'

Rose did not know what he was complaining of, and only
said, in an all-purpose formula, ‘They're all the same.'

‘Right on. Nothing to choose between any of them.'

Now Rose saw two black men, who had been at the back of
the plane, being waved forward by an attendant through to Club
Class–or perhaps even First.

‘Look at that! Throwing their weight around, as usual.'

Ideology demanded that Rose should protest, but she refrained:
yes, this was one of the unregenerate whites, but there were nine
hours ahead of close proximity.

‘If they spent less time showing off and more on running the
country then that would be something.'

His arm and shoulder now threatened to oppress Rose.

‘Excuse me, but these are small seats.' And she vigorously
shoved him back in his seat with her shoulder. He opened half-shut
eyes to stare. ‘You are taking up too much room.'

‘You're not exactly a lightweight yourself,'–but he withdrew
his arm.

Here supper was served, but he waved it away–‘I'm spoiled
for good grub on my farm.'

She accepted the little tray, and began eating. She was sitting
next to a white farmer. No wonder she loathed him. Again she
wondered if she should insist on changing her seat. No, she would
make use of this opportunity and see if she could get an article
out of it. He was openly watching her eat. She knew she ate too
much and decided to reject the fancy pudding.

‘Here, I'll have that if you don't want it,' he said reaching out
for the little glass of cream goo. And he had it swallowed in a
gulp. ‘Not up to much,' he said. A boor, as well. ‘I'm used to
good grub. My wife's a zinger. And my cook boy's another.'

Cook
boy
.

‘So you're well served,' she said, using the political jargon of
the moment.

‘Pardon?' He knew she was criticising him but not what for.
She decided not to bother. ‘And what do you do with yourself
when you're at home? And by the way, where is home, are you
going back to it or leaving it?'

‘I'm a journalist.'

‘Oh, Christ, that's all I needed. So I suppose you are planning
another little article about the joys of black government?'

Her professionalism switched in and she said, ‘All right then,
you talk.'

And he did. He talked. All around them went on the bustle
of the meal service and drinks and duty free, and then the lights
were switched off and still he talked. His name was Barry
Angleton. He had farmed in Zimlia all his life and his father before
him. They had just as much right as . . . and so on. Rose was not
listening to his words, because by now she had understood she
fancied him, though she most certainly disliked him, and that hot
grumbling voice made her feel as if she were being dissolved in
warm treacle.

Rose's relations with men had been geared to misfortune,
because of the times. She was, of course, a strict feminist. She had
married in the late Seventies, a comrade met while demonstrating
outside the American Embassy. He agreed to everything she said
about feminism, men, the lot of women: he matched her, smiling,
with formulations as progressive as hers, but she knew this was
merely surface compliance, and that he did not really understand
women or his fatal inheritance. She criticised him for everything
and he went along with her, agreeing that thousands of years of
delinquency could not be put right in a day. ‘I daresay you've
got a point there, Rosie,' he'd say, equably, with a little air of
judicious assessment, as she ended a harangue that took in
everything from bride-price to female circumcision. And he smiled.
He always smiled. His fair, plump eager-to-please face infuriated
her. She loathed him while she told herself that he was essentially
good material. She was confused because, since she disliked almost
everything, disliking her husband was not ground enough for
self-examination, though she did sometimes wonder if her habit
of keeping up irritated admonitions when they were in bed might
possibly account for his becoming impotent. But the more he
agreed with her, the more he smiled and nodded and took the
words out of her mouth, the more she despised him. And when
she demanded a divorce, he said, ‘Fair enough. You're too good
for me, Rosie. I've always said so.'

This man Barry–now that would be a different matter.

On the steps outside the airport building she saw him give
money to a porter in a way that made her seethe, so commanding
and lordly was it. Now, observing her with her big suitcase,
looking about her for the car she had ordered, he strode over and
said, ‘I'll drop you in town.' He heaved his case to stand with
hers, and went off to the car park. In a moment a big Buick stood
before her, the front door open. She got in. A black man had
materialised and put her cases and his into the car. Barry dispensed
more money.

‘I ordered a car.'

‘Too bad. He'll find someone else.'

On the plane he had ended a perforation with, ‘Why don't
you come to the farm and see for yourself?' and she had refused
and now she was sorry she had. At this moment he said, ‘Come
out to the farm and have breakfast.'

Rose was familiar with the approaches to the city of Senga,
and thought it a tedious little place and full of self-importance. In
fact what she really thought about Zimlia was the opposite of
what she wrote about it. Only Comrade President Matthew had
justified it, and now . . .

She hesitated, and said, ‘Why not?'

‘Why not she says, and expects an answer.'

They did not drive through the town but past it and were in
the bush in a moment. Not everybody loves Africa, and, having
left it, longs only to go back to an eternally smiling and beckoning
promise. Rose knew that such people existed: how could she not,
when the lovers of the continent are so vociferous, always talking
as if their love were proof of an inner virtue? It was too big, for
a start. There was a disproportion between the town–which
called itself a city–and cultivation, and the wildness. Too much
bloody bush and disorderly hills, and always the threat of an
untoward dislocation of order. Rose had scarcely been out of the
towns except for brief walks in a park. She liked pavements and
pubs and town halls with people making speeches in them, and
restaurants. Now she told herself it was a good thing that she was
actually experiencing a white farm and a white farmer, though
she could not of course write down his complaints, which were
nearly all about the blacks, and that was simply not on. She could
say, truthfully, that she was broadening her mind.

When they stopped outside a big raw brick-house in a clump
of gum trees that she thought ugly, he remarked that she must
go around to the front and up the steps and in, while he went to
the kitchen to order breakfast. It was still only half past seven, a
time when normally she would expect to sleep another hour. The
sun stood high, it was hot, the colours were too bright, all scarlets
and purples and strong greens and a pinkish dust lay about
everywhere. Her shoes almost disappeared into it.

As he went off she had heard, ‘My wife's away this week. I've
got to organise the bloody kitchen myself.' This had not sounded
like an invitation to get into bed and skip the preliminaries. As
she reached the top of the steps, and was on a verandah open on
three sides that at first she thought was a still unfinished room,
he appeared briefly to say, ‘There's a bloody crisis with the barns.
Go in and the boy'll give you your breakfast. I'll be with you
shortly.'

She did not eat breakfast. She did not want any now. But she
went into a big room which made her think it could do with
some softening up, nice cushions perhaps?–and through it to a
room where a large table stood, with an old black man, smiling.

‘Sit down, please,' said this servitor and she sat down and saw
all around her plates of eggs, bacon, tomatoes, sausages.

‘Do you have any coffee?' she said to this servant, it being
the first time in her life she had addressed one–a black one, that
is.

‘Oh yes, please, coffee. I have coffee for the missus,' said the
old man eagerly and poured coffee which she was agreeably
surprised to see coming strong from the silver spout.

She served herself an egg, and a curl of bacon, and then in
strode the master. He flung down some bit of metal on to a chair,
pulled out a chair with a scrape and sat.

‘Is that all?' said Barry, despising her plateful and piling his.
‘Go on, force yourself.'

She took another egg and asked, knowing she did not sound
as casual as she had intended, ‘And where is your wife, did you
say?'

‘Gadding. Woman gad, didn't you know?'

She smiled politely: she had understood some hours ago that
feminist revolution had not reached everywhere in the world.

He piled on eggs and bacon, he drank cup after cup of coffee,
then said he had to go around the farm to see what the kaffs had
got up to while he was away. She should come too, and see for
herself. At first she said no, but then yes, at his frowning stare.
‘Always hard to get,' was his comment, but apparently without
anything behind it. She would have liked it if he had said, Go
into that room, you'll find a bed, get into it and I'll be along.
Instead she spent some hours bumping in an old lorry from one
point on the farm to another, where a group of blacks, or some
mechanic or overalled person waited for him, and where he gave
orders, argued, disagreed, gave in with, ‘Yeah, okay, you may be
right, we'll try it your way,' or ‘For Christ's sake look what you've
done, I told you, I told you, didn't I? Now do it again and get
it right this time.' She had no idea what she was seeing, what
everyone was doing, and while smelly cows did appear, which
she knew was to be expected on a farm, she did not understand
anything at all and her head ached. Back at the house tea appeared
when he clapped his hands. He was sweaty, his face was red and
wet, he had grease on his sleeve: she was finding him irresistible,
but he said he would bloody well have to go and do some
paperwork, this government was killing them with paper, and could
she look after herself until lunchtime. She sat on the verandah
that was closed in around her by glare, on some reassuringly
recognisable cretonne, and looked at magazines, from South
Africa. Presumably his wife's world: and hers, too.

An hour passed. Lunch. Meat, a lot of it. Rose did know
that meat was politically incorrect, but she adored it and ate a
lot.

Then she was sleepy. He was giving her looks that she thought
might be interpreted as a come on but it seemed not, for he said,
‘I'm for a kip. Your room's through there.'

With this he strode off in one direction, and she found her
case standing on a stone floor beside a bed on which she fell and
slept until she heard a loud clap of hands and the shout of ‘Tea'.
She tumbled off the bed, and found Barry on the verandah, his
long brown legs stretched out in front of him for what seemed
like yards, in front of a tea tray.

‘I could sleep for a week,' she said.

‘Oh, go on, you didn't do too badly last night, snoring away
on my shoulder.'

‘Oh, I didn't . . .'