The White Father (27 page)

Perhaps, then, it wasn’t a fertility rite? But what was it? Why did Amy send Dayu out of the room when Mackenzie asked her about it? Why did she mutter that it wasn’t right? Shrieve wished he had never left the Ngulu. He had
accomplished
so little for them, anyway, by his absence. Yet previous absences had caused no outbreak of fertility nonsense. Then there were the calf-skin or skins. They shouldn’t be stinking still—they were usually dry and hard after three or four days’ sunshine. Had the Ngulu killed more calves? Were they the same skins that Mackenzie had seen the previous week, or new ones?

Shrieve took Mackenzie’s letter from the side-pocket into which he had slipped it during his talk to Hoggart, and put it into his inside breast-pocket. His fingers touched another envelope, of thicker paper than Mackenzie’s flimsy air mail stuff. On top of all the worry about the Ngulu there was Jumbo Maxwell. The letter was from their old commander, Sidney Trevelyan, in reply to Shrieve’s greetings and questions.

“My dear Hugh,” he began, “It’s extremely good to hear from you after all this time. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to the reunion on Friday week. I don’t honestly
enjoy these affairs much usually—the war seems very long ago, and I try not to think about it—but it will be a very great pleasure to see you again.

“As for Jumbo, well, it’s a sad story, I’m afraid. He’s had a rough time, and I’m sorry to say he’s thoroughly deserved it. I’m not in the least surprised to hear that he tried to touch you—though I’m staggered that he had the nerve to try for so much. He’s been in prison twice, as you obviously don’t know, for fiddling little frauds and confidence tricks, and he’d been on probation first, too. He was always a swindler, I fear, but a petty one, and without the guts or intelligence to make a decent job of it. He got the probation for cashing a phoney cheque for three pounds ten—what a miserable sum, I ask you! Then he went to jail for misapplying the funds of some awful little drinking club he’d somehow persuaded someone to let him manage. Again, a trivial sum—forty odd pounds. He got two months that time. That was about four years ago. Then last year they caught him again. He’d been living with some woman, and he’d got hold of her Post Office Savings book and managed to forge whatever signature was necessary. For his twenty-two pounds he got another four months.

“I may say that I gave evidence of character for him at the first two trials, and I think that’s partly why he got off with only two months after a previous conviction—the defence made great play with the war record, naturally. There was a good deal about a brave man down on his luck falling into temptation. But I refused to give evidence at the third trial, because I simply couldn’t go on swearing that I thought he was a man of good character. To be frank, his stupid little crimes revolted me. Needless to say, I’d lent him a bit of money, like a fool, when he came out of jail the first time. I didn’t expect to see it again, but I did tell him pretty bluntly that he’d better stay out of any further trouble. All I got for my pains was one of those reproachful and indignant speeches he was always so good at, when I refused to take my oath again that he was of impeccable moral uprightness.

“It’s my own belief that he was lucky not to be accused of
living on the woman’s immoral earnings, too. She was, or had been, obviously a tart. She was getting on a bit, and quite nice, really. She said she was sorry, but she’d had enough of Jumbo, he’d had nearly every penny she’d saved, and when a man took to forging her signature to get what little remained, she wasn’t interested any longer. She said he’d been quite friendly
company
, but now she’d look elsewhere. I can’t blame her. I suspect she was concealing quite a number of other peccadilloes of his. But that’s Jumbo Maxwell’s history, I’m afraid. The other chaps know all about him, of course. We even passed the hat round to raise his bail. But I’ve had my fill of him now, and I’m sure the others have, too. Those of us who turn up at the reunions he organises do so because we want to see each other, or perhaps out of kindness to Jumbo. But there aren’t many who show up any more. There it is. I wouldn’t be coming myself this year if you hadn’t turned up. I suspect most of the others feel the same. We don’t have much in common any more, except perhaps Jumbo, and we’re all sick to death of him.

“However, I mean it when I say how glad I shall be to see you next week. I understand you’ve been having a pretty hectic time with all that independence business cropping up. You must explain it all to me. I’m afraid I take the rather
old-fashioned
line that it wouldn’t do any harm if the government spared a thought for the white man for a change. But it’s none of my business, thank goodness. Best of luck with your conference, and I’m sorry to be so gloomy about Jumbo. But the facts have to be faced.”

That Jumbo had been in prison did not altogether surprise Shrieve, who had often felt, during their shared wartime years, that there would be something dreadfully wrong with British justice if he kept out of it all his life. But he was saddened all the same. The really awful thing about Jumbo was, as Trevelyan said, that his crimes were so mean, so small, so unintelligent. Could he really believe that people would overlook forged cheques, wrong money in the till, phoney signatures in Savings books? Or had he got away with such things before, the
smallness 
of the sums making people say, “Forget it, it’s not worth  bothering about”? Perhaps Jumbo had escaped ten times for  every time he’d been caught, by trading on people’s contempt  for the meanness of his thefts. Such things happened. It didn’t  take long for a man like Jumbo to inure himself against any  feeling of shame.

Shrieve blew his nose violently as he walked along. He felt restless and fretful. It annoyed him to think about Jumbo, so he worried about the Ngulu instead. If only there was
something
more practical he could do. He had done what he could in England: the conference was beginning, it was out of his hands now. To sit idly by while the decisions were made was worse than frustrating, it was a torture. If only he could address the conference for, say, twenty minutes…. But district officers weren’t invited to address constitutional conferences. There was always the possibility that he might be invited to give evidence to a sub-committee, of course, if one was appointed to deal with minor business. And he had, after all, done his best. The letter was there for all to read. He would meet the Africans soon. It was probable that people who mattered were talking about the Ngulu, mentioning them over cocktails and dinner, and, simply by mentioning them, making it more likely that something would be done.

If it wasn’t all too late. If the Luagabu weren’t preparing a raid. If the Ngulu weren’t reverting to customs supposed forgotten. If talk was enough.

*

Next morning, rising again to the eighteenth floor of the Brachs Building, Edward tried to keep his face calm. He had had a letter from Fred Martin saying the audition had been very promising, and they would now like to give him a
test-recording
. There was even a hint that a contract might be offered. Contracts, of course, shouldn’t be signed without consulting a battery of lawyers first, but to be offered one at all was amazing, incredible; almost worrying. He had felt sure that the audition had been a disaster, that he wouldn’t be invited to call again, that the whole absurd fantasy was over.
He had been, even, rather relieved. Yet now, here he was, the lift doors were opening, and what preposterous possibilities awaited him?

Miss Francis was sitting by the receptionist as the double door to Champney, Morrison, Dulake opened itself before him.

“Good morning, Mr Gilchrist,” she said, a smile splitting her face into two unnatural halves. Everyone in the Brachs Building seemed to smile a lot.

She led him to a recording studio similar to the one in which Edward had watched Chet London a few days earlier. Fred Martin was chatting with a group of musicians, three of whom had electric guitars, and the four women who had been oooh-aaahing for Chet London sat composedly in one corner.

“Great to see you, Ed,” said Martin, shaking his hand. “We really liked that audition. Really we did.”

“Oh. Good.”

“Come and meet your backing group. They’re the
Swaymen
. Wait till you hear them.”

Their names were Mervin, Slim, Tex and Stu, and they were all spotty, except Stu, who was very small with almost white blond hair and seemed about fifteen. He was the only one who looked as though he’d had enough orange juice as a baby. The others were pasty as well as spotty, though their clothes were very smart. They had on narrow cotton slacks with no
turups
, winkle-pickers, and very loose long jackets. Mervin, the drummer, was tall and thin, with very heavy rims to the glasses through which he peered about the studio as though in a fog. Edward had never, to his knowledge, met any trainee male nurses, but he felt quite sure that if he ever did they would look exactly like Mervin, Slim, Tex and Stu.

“How do you do,” he said.

They looked at him and mumbled.

Martin smiled widely and said, “A great bunch of boys, Ed, a really up-and-coming group.”

“I see,” said Edward.

“And now I want you to meet the girls. Girls, this is Ed, a great new discovery. Ed, these are the girls. Miss Fielding,
Mrs Manning, Miss Slattery, Mrs Mitchell. They’re one of the strongest backing teams in the business, isn’t that right, girls?”

Miss Fielding, who had been knitting, looked up and nodded briefly. Mrs Manning and Mrs Mitchell said, “That’s right, Fred,” then went on exchanging notes on their children’s schools. Miss Slattery, who was reading
The
Guardian,
and who only did this kind of work to pay for her singing lessons (she hoped to sing in opera one day—she was younger than the others on a closer inspection) did not deign to look up. A headline read:
CONFERENCE OFF TO FRIENDLY START: MR
BLOAKU IN JOVIAL MOOD
.

“Now,” said Martin, “while they’re getting ready in here, we’ll go along to rehearse with Steve Daniels down the corridor.”

Obediently Edward followed him to a smaller room where a short, bald man was playing the piano.

“Steve,” said Martin. “This is the boy.”

“Hi,” said Daniels. He nodded at Edward without stopping his playing. It was a Debussy Prelude.

“Right,” said Martin. “Now, let’s hear you sing, Ed.”

“Do you want me to do ‘Tinder’?”

“‘Tinder’? I don’t think I know that number, do I?” said Martin. Today he was wearing an Old Wykehamist tie. It seemed, somehow, to suit him better.

“But it was the number I sang, you remember.”

“Oh, sure, that. Yes, I remember. Yes, it was a nice number. Very nice. You wrote it yourself, I remember.”

“That’s right. With Pete Harrisson.”

“Well, we’re not going to record that this morning,” said Martin. “Later, maybe. This morning we want you to
concentrate
on the Sway.” He turned to Daniels and said, “O.K., Steve, let’s have a little quiet. You’re giving us the wrong atmosphere.”

“The Sway!” said Edward, appalled. “But I can’t do that, I don’t have that kind of style at all.”

“I think you do, Ed,” said Martin. “I think you may make a
great Sway singer. And so do the bosses,” he added, smiling. It never did any harm to let the singers think that he didn’t make the important decisions. And besides, with Mr Brachs taking a personal interest, he didn’t.

“But,” said Edward. “I mean, I can’t. I just can’t sing that sort of stuff. It’s not me.” He felt totally bewildered. How could they have made such a ridiculous mistake?

“I think you underestimate yourself, Ed,” said Martin, patting him on the shoulder. “You wait till you hear yourself. Steve, it’s your job to convince him. Bring him along when you’re all ready.” He smiled genially and went out.

“Yeah,” said Daniels, more to himself than to Edward. “Well, do you read music at all, at all?”

“Yes. I can’t sight-read to sing as well as I can to play, I’m afraid.”

“You play?” said Steve. “Yeah, well so do I. Let’s just look over this, shall we?” He handed Edward a sheet of music. “I’ll play, you just hum along, right?”

The words were imbecile, and Edward read them with horror while Daniels played the monotonous tune.

“This is ridiculous,” said Edward.

“It’s all ridiculous,” said Daniels. “You think the music business isn’t ridiculous? You think I’m not ridiculous sitting
here playing this piano? Ridiculous, spidiculous, my friend, that’s show business.”

Pleased to have found a genuine Jew in Champney,
Morrison
, Dulake, Edward began to try the song. Pop music didn’t seem right without contemptuous Jews running it. Only Daniels, of course, wasn’t exactly running it.

“You want to be top of the pops?” said Daniels, after they’d run the song through three times. “You want to be
heart-throb
of the nation? You’re nuts. Let’s try it again.”

They tried it again. The tune was simplicity itself, but the words, being so alike, were hard to remember. After another fifteen minutes Daniels said, “O.K., O.K. Let’s leave it like that, shall we? You’re not going to get any better, I’m not going to get any better, let’s leave the rest to the engineers.”

“Do you like pop music?” said Edward as they went back to the studio.

“Like it?” said Daniels. “It feeds me, doesn’t it?”

He led Edward into the studio and handed him over to Martin. “All yours, Fred,” he said. He shrugged expressively at Edward and went out.

“Now,” said Martin, “I’m putting you in the hands of Jeff, the studio director here. I’ll see you later. Best of luck, Ed.”