Water Theatre Page 25

  “You’re not old,” Martin protested.

  “Well, it’s a relief that you think so.”

  “You shouldn’t be depressed either. I think it’s great what’s happening here.”

  In the ensuing silence the beat of the ceiling fan loomed loud, until Grace asked in an affectionate tone, “Are you writing poetry these days? No? That’s very wrong of you. No one should betray their gift.”

  “I was never that good. If I didn’t know it before Cambridge, I know it now.”

  “So you let all those ferocious minds discourage you?”

  “They didn’t have to – I saw it for myself.”

  With a shake of her head, Grace asked, “So what are you going to do with your life? Take my word for it, Martin, you’d be quite hopeless as a politician.”

  “Do you think I don’t know that too?” He hesitated before adding, “Anyway, I’m pretty sure I want to work in television.” He saw Grace blink as she sipped at her gin. “Why not?” he demanded. “I think that’s where the future of communication lies. It’s going to wake the world up to what’s going on everywhere – all the poverty and injustice, and all the good new things that are happening too. It’ll change everything.” In the heat of the equatorial night Martin could feel the back of his shirt sticking to the chair. “Emmanuel says he can help. He’s going to fix things so that I get some experience working with the government’s film unit while I’m here. They’re making a documentary about development projects in the regions. It means I’ll get to see more of the country too. And Hal has friends among the British media people here. He’s going to talk to them about me. He thinks there’s a good chance one of them might consider taking me on, back home, after I graduate.”

  “I see. So you’re giving up poetry in favour of propaganda?”

  “Well, there’s more than one way of telling the truth, and…”

  “There’s no call to be quite so smug,” she interrupted, “particularly as we’re also rather good at concealing the truth, you and I. In fact, we’re rather better at it than poor old Hal, don’t you think?”

  Martin shifted his eyes uneasily away. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Oh don’t be disingenuous, Martin,” she sighed. “It really won’t wash.”

  Martin stared at her aghast. “You’d never say anything – would you?”

  Grace took a moment to answer. “I can’t imagine it would do any of us much good,” she said at last, “so I don’t suppose I will.” But she left him worrying over that hint of uncertainty.

  In the following days Martin was troubled too by the way Adam had begun to feel restless and distant, edgy at moments, perhaps even bored by his company. At first he’d put it down to Adam’s uneasiness around his parents, but he felt it most strongly after they had spent an enjoyable evening drinking with Adam’s friends. The group had all welcomed Martin warmly enough during their joyful reunion with Adam the day after his arrival in Port Rokesby, but in later meetings he was left feeling increasingly excluded by Adam’s devotion to these people he had known since childhood and had not seen for years. When he decided to raise the subject, he was dismayed by the response.

  “I don’t expect you to understand” – Adam was staring out into the night as he spoke – “but there are things between me and Ruth and the others that you can’t possibly share…”

  “They’re all fine with me,” Martin protested. “It’s only you who seems to have a problem.”

  “The thing is,” Adam looked away as he spoke, “it’s a bit awkward for me having to include you all the time. Everywhere we go, I mean.”

  “You mean you’re beginning to wish I hadn’t come.”

  “It’s not that. It’s just… there are some things I’d rather do alone.”

  “Well, don’t let me stop you.”

  “That’s the point. I don’t intend to. Anyway,” Adam resumed in the face of Martin’s resentful silence, “you can’t really complain, can you? Hal and Emmanuel are setting things up for you rather nicely. In fact, as far as my father is concerned, you’re being treated better than I am. But then that’s no great surprise.”

  “Perhaps if you were a bit less bolshie with him…”

  “I don’t really think I need your advice.”

  “That’s fine by me.”

  “Good,” said Adam. And then, after a moment, in a more conciliatory tone, “Look, I’m sorry but… well, there’s stuff I just have to do… I’m going to Adouada tomorrow. I’ll be staying at the Diallos’ house for a couple of days. You’ve got the car – Grace or Samuel will drive you wherever you want to go, and it won’t be long before you’re off on your trip upcountry. You’ll be fine.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” said Martin. “I can take care of myself.”

  He got up, leaving his beer unfinished, and went to his room, and when he came to breakfast the next morning, he found that Adam had already left the house. Grace was clearly upset by his departure, and Hal felt peeved because he had expected his son to attend a reception for the leaders of the recently organized Youth Brigade that evening, an event over which Emmanuel’s eldest son Keshie was to preside.

  “Oh well, it’ll only be the two of us then,” Hal said to Martin. “It’s a relief that one of you takes an interest!”

  Though the event ended late in the evening, Hal insisted that they should go for a drink in a nightclub bar which offered a cabaret of belly dancers. As they went in, Martin noticed that, apart from a couple of Africans, the clientele was entirely made up of European businessmen. Hal sat in silence over three straight whiskies before leaning towards Martin and saying, “You’re an intelligent chap. Here’s something for you to think about, okay?”

  “Go on,” Martin assented, by now slightly drunk.

  “Conceive of this then,” Hal began “and I’m only speaking theoretically, you understand.” He waited for Martin’s nod before proceeding. “All right, here’s the thing. You’ve established a new regime firmly founded on the twin pillars of freedom and justice, and you’ve done it with an overwhelming democratic mandate. Are you with me?”

  “Yes, but it doesn’t sound exactly theoretical to me.”

  “Ah, but hang on a minute. Let’s suppose that there are those who don’t share your principles. People with no such democratic ideals. People who are quite prepared to take advantage of the freedoms of your regime in order to cause trouble. Political trouble. What are you going to do about them?”

  “I suppose,” Martin frowned, “it would depend how serious the trouble was.”

  “True. So let’s suppose it’s serious enough to be worrying. Serious enough whereby, if left undealt with, things might start to get very iffy.”

  “Iffy enough to threaten the stability of the regime?”

  Hal nodded, and turned to where one of the dancers was jiggling her hips towards them. Reaching for his wallet, he took out a couple of the new currency notes and inserted them in the soft hollow between her hip bone and her belly. To the jingling of her shiny coin belts she swayed away, leaving a taint of sweat and perfume on the air.

  “You did say that this was strictly theoretical?” Martin said after a moment.

  “Absolutely. I like to think ahead. Call it contingency planning, if you like.”

  “Well, I’m not sure what to say. Have these people done anything illegal?”

  “Let’s say, not yet. Not as far as you know.”

  Studying his impassive face, Martin said, “Then I don’t see what I can do. I mean, I can’t just order them to be locked up, can I? Not if I really believe in freedom and justice.”

  Hal smiled at him. “So you’re no Saint-Just?

  “Who?”

  “Saint-Just. He was a rather terrifying young man at the time of the French Revolution. He made a case that Louis XVI should not be given a trial precisely because such an event might presuppose the possibility that he was innocent. More to the point, he also declared that there could be no liberty
for the enemies of liberty.”

  Again Martin took time for thought. “So you think I came to the wrong conclusion?”

  Hal answered him only with a wry tilt of his head, and for a long time that night Martin lay awake wondering whether Hal’s comment that he was no Saint-Just was a critical judgement on his limitations or an affectionate expression of relief.

  The next morning he learnt that, whatever other cares were on his mind, Emmanuel had made time to speak to his Minister of Information, who had in turn contacted the head of the National Film Unit. Two days later Martin boarded a crowded river steamer headed upcountry into the Eastern Region. He was now assistant to a wry-eyed journalist, Joe Lartey-Quah, who was taking a cameraman and sound technician to film the progress of a new agricultural cooperative and a number of other development projects in Emmanuel’s hometown Fontonfarom.

  If the film crew was sceptical about the young supercargo’s usefulness, they had the grace to show it only in sardonic comments on his ignorance, and such comments were invariably followed by good-natured laughter. They delighted in sending him on errands which turned out to be absurd, and in thwarting his efforts to learn the local language in ways that elicited cackles of hilarity from fat market mammies or blushes from young girls. Yet he took it all in good part, and soon began to tease them in return. He impressed them too by his willingness to learn, and learnt much about the country in the following four weeks – about the cheerful optimism of the people gathered round him, about their delight in celebration, their love of food, their reverence for the ancestors, and about the poverty of many of their mud-hut villages. He learnt the acrid taste of palm wine and the glutinous texture of fufu on his tongue. He learnt what was meant by the ravages of smallpox, dengue fever and bilharzia. And with each day that passed he seemed to learn more about himself, about his hunger for adventure and his lust for horizons wider than this African rainforest could open to his gaze. Under the amused tutelage of Joe Lartey-Quah, he acquired an alert eye for camera angles too, and quickly sharpened his skills in selecting images which best served an overriding editorial purpose. Above all, he became increasingly proficient at finding ways in which what he took to be the needs of others might be met through the satisfaction of his own priorities.

  Thinking back over these times many years later, as he sat through three long nights with his crew and other frightened journalists in the cells of Makombe Castle, he came to see how much more might have been revealed to him then – about the world and himself – if he had listened with a mind less persuaded of its own cultural superiority.

  Martin arrived back late one evening at the Brigshaws’ bungalow, having stayed too long in a dockside bar, celebrating the success of the expedition with Joe Lartey-Quah and his team. Already looking forward to the forthcoming days when he would begin to learn editorial skills in the cutting room, he was eager to share tales of his travels with Adam, but he found Hal and Grace embroiled in heated discussion about their son.

  “What good do you think shouting at him will do?” Grace was saying. “Do you want him to have another breakdown?”

  “Of course I don’t,” Hal snapped back. “But you can see he’s not thinking straight. Goddammit, she’s probably the first woman the boy’s ever had!”

  As Grace turned away, she saw Martin standing by the sitting-room door.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, embarrassed, “I didn’t mean to disturb you. Just thought I ought to let you know I’m back.”

  “Right,” said Grace. “Thank you.”

  “Is Adam here?”

  “No, I’m rather afraid he’s not.”

  “Oh, right.” Martin’s fingers tapped the door jamb. “I’ll be off to bed then.”

  “Hang on a minute,” Hal ordered, and glanced back at his wife. “He’s going to know soon enough, and he might just be able to help.”

  When Grace merely shrugged, Hal turned to Martin again. “The thing is, my damn fool of a son has decided he wants to give up Cambridge and stay here and get married. What do you think of that?”

  Martin was so astonished by the news that he could think of nothing to say.

  “And it’s not as if I don’t have quite enough on my mind as it is,” Hal muttered, after a pause.

  “Who to?” Martin asked. “I mean, who does he want to marry?”

  “Efwa Nkansa,” Grace said, “that primary school teacher from Adouada. The one who talks too much. Have you met her?”

  “Only briefly, but…”

  “But what?” Hal demanded.

  “I quite liked her.”

  “Of course you did,” Hal exclaimed. “We all like her. That’s not the point.”

  “Oh for goodness’ sake, Hal, this is hardly Martin’s fault. He wasn’t even here.”

  “No, but the lad needs to understand the situation. The point, Martin, is that Adam’s got himself infatuated. He’s lost his head. The girl’s all over him, you see, and…” He faltered there, grunted, fumbled with a button of his shirt. “Well, you’ve seen her. I’m not saying she’s not attractive. She is. But that’s just the trouble.” He glanced back at Martin, man to man. “You know what I mean.”

  Martin did indeed know what Hal meant, but at that moment he was doing some quick calculations. He had been away upcountry for only three weeks. Surely not enough time for Efwa to get pregnant and have it confirmed?

  “As you can see,” said Grace, who had now lit a cigarette, “we’re worried that he’s about to make a mess of both their lives.”

  “And he won’t listen to you?”

  “Worse than that,” said Hal, “he even accused me of being a closet racist. Me, damn it, after everything I’ve bloody done for these people!”

  “But that’s absurd.”

  “Of course it’s absurd. But I’ll be damned if I can get a sensible word out of him.”

  Exhaling a smoky sigh, Grace said, “Hal made the mistake of suggesting that Efwa is the kind of girl it’s okay to go to bed with, but not the sort you marry. Which wasn’t the cleverest thing to say in the circumstances, even if it were true.”

  “Of course it’s true,” Hal insisted. “That’s exactly the kind of girl she is. I just wanted to make him see sense.”

  “Instead of which you drove him out of the house.”

  Hal turned impatiently away from her. Grace drew cigarette smoke about her like a veil.

  After a long oppressive silence, Martin said, “Do you think it might help if I talked to him?”

  “Would you try?” Hal turned to him and beamed. “I think he trusts you. He might listen to you. And you know what? It couldn’t hurt to have a private word with Efwa too.”

  From the moment they sat down in the neon-lit bar of the Adouada Beach Hotel, Martin knew that this conversation with Adam was unlikely to go well.

  “It’s obvious that Hal and Grace have set you up for this,” Adam said, gazing out of the window, where breakers crashed onto the wide curve of the sand. “You’re going to have to choose sides, that’s all.”

  “I’m on your side, Adam,”

  “Good. Then you’re happy to be my best man?”

  “If that’s what you want. I’d be proud to. But…”

  “But what?”

  “I think your mum and dad are on your side too.”

  “Ah,” said Adam with a sour smile, “here it comes. Do you really think I can’t anticipate every weasel word you’re about to utter?”

  Martin ran his fingertip down the condensation on the green beer bottle in front of him. “I’m sure there’s nothing I can say that you haven’t already thought of.”

  Adam exhaled a long, frustrated breath. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I wasn’t straight with you – before you left I mean. But you can see why now. None of this has been easy for me. Nothing except being with Efwa, that is. That’s brilliant. That’s perfect. But the rest… Well, I don’t have to tell you what Hal and Grace can be like…”

  “They’re only concer
ned for you, Adam.”

  “I know that. Of course I do. But they don’t know me. Neither of them. They’ve no idea what it’s like to…”

  “To what?”

  But Adam turned away again in frustration. “Oh forget about it. I’m not looking for sympathy.”

  “I’m not offering you sympathy.”

  “What then? Just what are you up to?”

  “In case you’ve forgotten,” Martin said, “I’m your friend.”

  Adam made a self-reproachful grimace. “Oh shit!” he winced, “I’m sorry. Look, let’s not talk about this. Why don’t you tell me about your trip instead? Was it good? Did you have fun?”

  “It was great,” Martin said. “But listen, I’m worried about you. I’m worried you might be making a big mistake.” He saw Adam open his mouth to speak, but pressed on. “Just listen to me a second, all right? Efwa’s a lovely girl, Adam. I can see that. But what’s the hurry? I don’t understand why you have to give everything up to marry her next week. She seems to be crazy about you, so I’m sure she’ll be happy to wait till you’ve got your degree. In fact, I bet she’d prefer it. At least there’s a chance you could provide for her that way.”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Adam scowled. “This isn’t a sudden thing. I’ve been sick and tired of Cambridge for quite a while now. As soon as I got back here, I realized that I was less than half alive there. Just a brain twitching among other brains, a mouth mouthing like all those other mouths. The only thing I enjoyed was the acting. At least there was something honest about that. It wasn’t pretending to be anything other than acting. And don’t look at me as if you don’t know what I mean.”

  “There are phonies everywhere, Adam.”

  “Of course there are. But take a good look at the people here. It doesn’t matter whether they’re crooks or rogues or heroes, they’re fully alive. Alive in a way that nobody I know in England is alive. Watch them dancing and making music. Listen to them laughing. Hear them howling when they grieve. That’s what it means to be alive. Alive inside your skin. You must have seen it and felt it every day when you were upcountry. Well, that’s what Efwa’s given me. Not just a reason to be alive, but a whole new way of being alive.” Shaking his head, Adam uttered a little, dismissive sniff. “You remember all those dark ideas that used to haunt my mind back home? Well, they’re gone. They can’t thrive in this light. They were just the kind of bad dreams that a brain’s bound to have when it gets cut off from the body and the pulses and the real living heart stuff that throbs out of these people all the time. That’s why I’m staying here. That’s why I’m marrying Efwa. We belong together and we belong here. So if you’ve got any other ideas, you might just as well save your breath.”