Dream of Darkness, page 12
‘She has held a chair. Now she freelances, if that term applies at that level.’
‘So why were you seeing her?’
‘She might, of course, be my mistress,’ he said, leading her towards the restaurant, ordering her a glass of wine and himself a large gin as the waiter sat them down.
‘Thank you for looking dubious,’ he went on. ‘In fact, one of the many strings to her bow is the post of editorial advisor to a big publishing house. Lit. crit. stuff mainly, but I thought as an aspirant author, I might as well use what contacts I’ve got.’
‘And how did she react?’
‘Rather like talking to a puffball. You feel if you exhale too hard there’ll be nothing there. But enough of me. What brings you to town so unexpectedly?’
Briefly, she described her encounters with Archbell and Kanyagga, pausing only when the waiter brought their drinks. ‘And again,’ said Ellis, downing half of his at a swallow. ‘And we’ll have the cold beef salad.’
She didn’t argue, but continued with her account.
When she finished, he said, ‘Busy day.’ She tried to examine him as Vita would have done and concluded that he was concerned but not surprised.
‘Do you know this man Kanyagga?’ she asked.
‘I know someone who fits the description. Only he doesn’t work for the High Commission. He’s a supporter of Mwakenya. And an active member of the ANC.’
She said, ‘Then you didn’t suggest he should look me up? Nor, presumably, has Archbell got a boat down there.’
He replied with sudden savageness, ‘That bastard’s probably got boats everywhere. He’d have come dry-arse from the Titanic.’
‘You don’t like him?’ said Sairey.
He smiled crookedly and said, ‘Love him like a brother, as Cain said to the Lord.’
The new drinks arrived. Sairey hadn’t touched her first, but Ellis was ready.
‘Why do you want me out of the way, Daddy? Has it something to do with these two men? And why involve Aunt Celia? Did you think she’d have more chance of persuading me out of the country than you?’
He considered this, then, to her surprise, nodded and said, ‘Perhaps I did, at that. You’ve never been what you’d call a doting daughter, have you?’
The unfairness of this hit her like a whiplash.
‘Perhaps you need a doting father for that,’ she retorted. ‘Or even a present one.’
‘Fine, fine, fine,’ he said, with more irritation than remorse. ‘You’re right. Mea culpa. Look, Sairey, you must have gathered all this has got something to do with my memoirs. Various people, including my former employers, don’t like the sound of them, but it’s all under control, believe me. Only, I don’t like you being harassed. So why not take a little holiday in the States? You’d love it.’
‘I haven’t finished my treatment yet with Vita.’
‘The way you’re squaring up to me, I’d say she’d got you back in full fighting trim,’ he said dryly.
Their salads arrived. He pushed his plate aside impatiently and ordered another drink. Sairey said, ‘Daddy, how could an agricultural advisor’s memoirs upset so many people? What exactly was your job?’
He said, ‘If I tell you, will you go to America?’
‘No. Don’t you think I’ve a right to know what it is you don’t want me mixed up in?’
He smiled without much humour and said, ‘Your mother used to say things like that.’
‘Perhaps if you’d told her, she might still be alive.’
It was birdshot fired at random, but it hit some mark. His face went stiff and dark and suddenly she was afraid of discovering where the wound was.
She said, ‘There’s something else, too. Someone left this in a book of mine lying around the garden. It could have been anybody.’
She passed over the airmail envelope, with a feeling she identified as relief. When she’d spoken to Allan Bright on the phone and he’d invited her to share his sandwich in the park, she’d known she couldn’t go, not even if her father had been unavailable all day. These were Bill Bright’s last words on these thin sheets, she had no doubt of that. Allan was entitled to read them, yet they were addressed to her father, and that’s where her first loyalty must lie. But she still felt ashamed.
She watched him read. His face gave nothing away. As soon as he had finished she said, ‘This Commission? What is it?’
‘It was set up by the NRM, that’s the National Resistance Movement who’re in charge in Uganda, to investigate what really went on during the Amin regime.’
‘How did Bill Bright die? Was he executed?’
‘Oh no. They rarely executed whites. That would cause too much fuss. He died in a road accident. There were many such accidents.’
‘But they didn’t bother to arrange one for Mummy?’
He raised his hand to massage his brow, covering his eyes.
‘Her death wasn’t an official killing, so there was no need to stage a cover-up,’ he said.
She accepted this, glad of an excuse to move on from the topic.
‘But what about the wholesale massacres of the Acholi and Langi? They couldn’t pass all those deaths off as accidents, could they?’
His hand moved and his gaze met hers again.
‘Madmen like Amin think that the deaths of unimportant people are themselves too unimportant for anyone to bother about,’ he said. ‘You seem pretty well informed on what went on, I must say.’
‘Students of literature need “O” level History to get into Cambridge,’ she said. ‘Who were these Panel Beaters he talks about?’
His gaze fell away.
He said, ‘At Makindye prison, where Bill was held when he was first arrested, there was a system whereby new inmates were beaten up three times a day, regular as mealtimes, by a special team of half a dozen men, hired solely for this purpose. Their nickname was the Panel Beaters. I thought I’d achieved something when they moved Bill out of Makindye, which was military, into PSU custody. I thought … ’
He finished his drink.
Sairey said, ‘Daddy, with things like this going on in Uganda, why the hell did you take me and Mummy back there with you?’
‘Because that’s where my job was,’ he said flatly. ‘I was going to be stuck there for the foreseeable future. Your mother didn’t care to be left in Nairobi. If she was going to be a grass widow, she said, she preferred the green grass of St James’s. I didn’t want that kind of distance between us again. So I took you both to Kampala.’ ‘Despite the danger you must have known existed?’ said Sairey accusingly.
He sighed and waved his glass at the waiter, who took it with a reproving glance at their untouched salads.
‘Sairey, you see things differently when you’re close up to them. Yes, things were bad, but we were looking at them still in political terms. They were bad because Uganda was slipping away from us. Amin was coming more and more under the influence of Libya who wanted him to establish a purely Muslim state. Even before the Tories got dumped in 74, they were beginning to wonder if there weren’t perhaps some things worse than socialism. And with Labour back in power, the political point of view changed completely. But there was still work to do. Damage limitation. And there were still strong British interests in the country, British businessmen working there, British settlers …’
‘Like Bill Bright.’
‘Yes.’ His drink came. He drained half of it. ‘In 1975, the OAU conference was held in Kampala. Amin was the Organization’s president then. He was photographed being carried on a litter by a bunch of grinning Brits. It got in all the papers. Public opinion at home saw him as a clown. Informed opinion saw him as a menace. Only a very few were prepared yet to see him as a monster. So Kampala seemed as safe to me then as many other capitals, certainly safer than Belfast. Also, I was an old army mate of Idi’s, a man of influence and privilege. Invulnerable, they told me. That was why I had to be their man in Kampala. I reminded them later.’
He spoke bitterly.
Sairey said, ‘They? Archbell, you mean? And …’
‘Yes, your grandfather. Sir Joe.’
‘He didn’t want you to take us into Uganda?’
‘Not a lot.’
‘And you reminded him that he’d reassured you it was completely safe?’
‘I didn’t take you and your mother to join me to spite Sir Joe, if that’s what you’re sniffing around, Sairey.’ He glanced at his watch and said, ‘I’ve got to go.’
‘But you haven’t had your lunch.’
‘No? Then you must regard this as a simple retreat, darling. There are things I’m not yet ready to talk to you about. You’re quite right about America. It would please me to have you safely out of the way. And if you weren’t, in the eyes of the law, an adult woman, I’d parcel you up and pack you off screaming and kicking and weeping. For your own sake. Because I love you.’
He folded Bright’s notes and put them in his briefcase.
‘Will you show that to Allan?’ asked Sairey as if she hadn’t heard his last words.
He looked at her in surprise and said, ‘You’re very cool, I must say.’
‘Perhaps I’ve learned to look behind displays of emotion,’ said Sairey.
Nigel Ellis considered.
‘Vita, I suppose? Don’t get too perceptive, darling. Remember, gold does glister, too. Will I show this to Allan? I don’t know. I’ll tell you when I’ve made up my mind. Meanwhile, think seriously about America. It would please me enormously if you went. Goodbye, Sairey.’
He rose, leaned over the table and kissed her.
‘Sorry about the lunch. Have anything you like. It’s taken care of.’
‘It always was,’ said Sairey, as she watched him stride through the door, still athletic and attractive, still distant and unreadable.
The waiter was at her shoulder, looking questioningly at the untouched plates.
‘Can I get madam anything?’ he asked.
Sairey began to shake her head, then stopped and smiled at him. It occurred to her that St James’s Park was just around the corner.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Some doggie bags to put this stuff in. And a bottle of house white – no, make that Chablis – with the cork loosened. Some rolls. And a couple of glasses, too.’
13
At first she thought Allan wasn’t in the park, then she saw him on a bench, half hidden by a newspaper. He didn’t seem to notice her approach but when she reached him he looked up without surprise and said, ‘Hello.’
‘Hello. Finished your lunch?’ she answered.
‘Wasn’t very hungry. The ducks did well,’ he said.
‘Let’s see if this can tempt your appetite.’
It did. She watched him eat and drink. Occasionally, their eyes met and he smiled. Finally he said, ‘You’re not eating much.’
‘No. I’m enjoying watching you.’
‘Is this the new voyeurism, then? All the kicks of eating with none of the cholesterol?’
‘Is that what a university education does to you?’
‘What?’
‘Make you a smart-ass.’
He grinned and said, ‘I’m ready for coffee now.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t bring any coffee.’
‘No coffee. Pity. It’s attention to details like that which turn a nice thought into a work of art. Fortunately …’
He reached into the briefcase which rested against the side of the bench and produced a flask. They had to share a cup. The coffee was strong, black and bitter. ‘Ugandan?’ she asked.
He gazed at her with an ironical twist of the mouth, and for the first time looked his age.
‘Instant,’ he said. Then he smiled properly and was a boy again, open, eager, exuberant – and very attractive. Sairey hadn’t considered this before. At their previous encounters he had been a mystery, a menace, a surprise; now, though those elements had not been entirely dispersed, he was also an acquaintance who might possibly become a friend who might …
He reached across her and his sleeve brushed her breast. Instantly, their relationship retreated two stages, but he was only claiming the plastic cup from her.
‘What happened to you when my father transferred to Kampala?’ she asked.
‘You remember I didn’t go with you? Ah, what an impression I made on that funny little girl!’ he laughed.
She smiled her agreement. It didn’t seem the moment to point out that the only recollection she had of him, or those times, was under the prompting of Vita’s hypnosis.
‘You won’t recall all the background, of course. Not even Nigel Ellis’s daughter could be as precocious as that. What happened was, Uncle Ocen got released from his first arrest. He wasn’t a big fish, you see. Even then, it must have cost my father a small fortune in bribes. Ocen headed south immediately, into Tanzania. Obote was there under Nyerere’s protection, training his fellow refugees for a counter-coup.
‘With Ocen out of the way, things settled down a bit for my parents. My father was a hard man to mess with. He’d been around a long time, was liked and respected by everyone. Also, he had been an officer in the KAR, which always impressed Amin. I think they even thought of bringing me home. But during ’72, Amin was getting closer and closer to Libya and further away from his early allies, Britain and Israel. He broke completely with Israel first, denouncing it in a joint communiqué with Gaddafi, then chucking all Israeli personnel out of Uganda. Britain, he was more careful with. There was the question of aid, also of Commonwealth relations. But he chucked out all the Asians holding British passports that summer and carved up their property among his own men. Shops, businesses, hotels, transport firms, all in the hands of men who didn’t have the first idea how to run them. The result was a rapid collapse of the economy. The black market became a way of life. The official supply of goods was just crazy.’
‘No coffee, but a surplus of toilet paper,’ mused Sairey.
‘That’s right,’ he said, looking at her shrewdly, as if sensing a hidden significance. ‘Then in the autumn, Obote’s supporters launched an invasion from Tanzania. It was a miserable failure but it drove Idi wild. Various rebel leaders were identified, among them Ocen. Suddenly, instead of wondering if it was safe enough to have me home, it became imperative that my mother herself got out! Friends and relatives of known rebels were disappearing at a terrifying rate. So Apiyo came to live with your family outside Nairobi. Surely you must remember that?’
Sairey smiled ambiguously. Something was stirring in the depths, she felt, but what it was, she could not yet say.
‘We were both with you for almost a year. Our mothers became close friends, I think. My father came as often as he could. All Uganda’s supply lines run through Kenya, so it was politic to keep on good terms. I think your father used his influence to make mine appear more influential than he was, so that his trips to Nairobi had official blessing in Kampala.’
‘It all sounds so … convoluted,’ said Sairey. ‘So devious.’
‘So dirty?’ suggested Allan. She didn’t contradict him. ‘Yes, it was. Kenya’s whole attitude to Amin was devious and dirty. There was little love for Obote, you see. One socialist neighbour to the south was enough, without having another spring up in the west. They couldn’t get rid of him quickly enough when he flew into Nairobi after the coup. As for Amin, the fact that he was a child as far as proper government went was, if anything, a plus factor. The worse state he got Uganda into, the fatter the pickings for the men who controlled his lifelines. As for the monster inside the child, as long as he restricted his nasty games to his own side of the border, what business was it of big business? The only positive action they took against him was in ’78, when they switched off his oil supply till he changed his mind about a territorial dispute. Just think what they could have done from the start if they’d wanted!’
He spoke with a bitterness which took him far beyond his own age, into a timeless grief and rage.
Sairey took his hand.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘For what? For having lost only one parent?’ he snapped.
She tried to pull her hand away but he held on to it.
‘Wait, wait, wait,’ he urged. ‘Don’t pay any heed. I’m sorry, too. Sometimes it hurts so much thinking about it that I just lash out.’
She let her hand rest loose in his.
‘Tell me the rest,’ she ordered, suddenly feeling herself emotionally in charge. ‘What happened to you and your mother after we went to Kampala?’
‘We took a flat in Nairobi. My mother got a job there. She was trained as a teacher, you know. Again I think your father used his influence. He was a powerful man.’
‘Powerful?’ Sairey thought this was a strange word.
‘Oh yes. He still is, I think. In office, the power comes from knowing how to keep secrets. Out, it comes from knowing how to tell.’
‘You don’t sound as if you like my father much,’ said Sairey.
‘Don’t I? That would be strange, as I have so many reasons for being grateful to him. Perhaps today I’ve found one more.’
He squeezed her hand and she pulled it away sharply, realizing even as she did so that his suddenly unctuous tone had been a parody of Hollywood sentimentality and that he was laughing at getting a raise out of her. But she also realized that this was another successful diversion.
Allan was serious again.
‘I went to school in Nairobi. I enjoyed myself as boys do. I missed my father, of course, though I did see him a couple of times when he managed to fly over from Entebbe. And I even missed you sometimes, though I was glad not to have that undignified lapidi label stuck to me any more! I daresay you missed me, too?’
She smiled enigmatically, but this time it wasn’t enough. He examined her face till she felt herself flush, then he said, ‘You don’t remember me at all, do you?’
It seemed pointless pretending. She shook her head and said, ‘I remember nothing of those times.’
‘I thought not. Was it your mother’s death …?’
‘They think so.’
‘You were very young. It was different with me. It’s the times after my parents’ death that I’ve forgotten. But earlier, that long stay at your parents’ bungalow, that year with my mother in Nairobi … I can recall every moment.’
