The white horses grazed on the meadow grass and Purefoy's imagination followed the story of Miss I. N. Cognito's wanderings with the growing conviction that she must be telling the truth. All the same he was still suspicious. In the modern world everyone in faintly civilized society had to have some means of identifying themselves even if it was only some nuns in an orphanage or someone who had known them for a time.
'That doesn't help you get into the UK,' Ingrid said. 'You try coming into Heathrow with no passport or birth certificate and no one to vouch for who you are. It's weird. Those immigration officers don't even pretend to think you're telling the truth. We tried it one time on a cargo flight from Lusaka. That was a mistake. It got the crew into terrible trouble and they gave us the most gruesome body searches. And laxatives in case we'd swallowed condoms of drugs or diamonds. Not nice.'
'What on earth were you doing in Lusaka?'
'I told you we had become born-again members of the Benoni Sect. Some woman had visions or something back in 1927 and the people thought this was a good time to move out of South Africa with some money to build missions in South America.'
'They could have given you some means of identification…'
'Could have. Didn't because we told them the religion was a phoney and it's amazing how intolerant religious people can be when you refuse to believe. They cast us out into outer darkness, in this case Brakpan, and we had to make it on our own.'
'So how did you get into this country?'
'By making friends with a nice Greek who had a corner store and two sisters who didn't mind losing their passports. We had to give them back to him in Athens. After that it wasn't so difficult. We worked our way along the Mediterranean to Spain, on yachts mainly, and a sweet old man in Palamos needed crew. His wife didn't like crossing the Bay of Biscay in winter and went home by air. So one day we sailed into Falmouth and came ashore when no one was looking.'
'And you still have no papers? You don't have a passport or a birth certificate or anything?'
'Oh, but I have. Once you're here it's easy to get a birth certificate.'
'How?' Purefoy asked. He wanted certainty. She gave it to him.
Purefoy looked at her in amazement. 'You didn't,' he said. At least, I hope you didn't.'
'Well, we had to do something. And he was such a pathetic man. All alone in the world and slaving away in Somerset House and no one had been nice to him before.'
'So you got a passport in the name of Mrs Ndhlovo?' said Purefoy suspiciously.
'Oh no, not Mrs Ndhlovo. She was only a temporary expedient much later. I'm Isobel Rathwick and I was born in Bournemouth. I'm entirely legitimate now. All the same I much prefer Mrs Ndhlovo. I don't want you to call me anything else It gives me a lot of fun with all those serious people who are concerned about the Third World.'
'I'm sure,' said Purefoy. And what about your sister? What's she doing now?'
'Being frightfully respectable in Woking. She's married and has two daughters, but every now and then she has to break out and go back to being herself.'
'It all sounds very odd to me. I don't see how you can live a lie.'
'Because we've had to invent ourselves, Purefoy dear, just like everyone else.'
'Not me,' said Purefoy. 'I'm certain I know who I am.'
'You only think you do,' Mrs Ndhlovo thought but she didn't say it.
They strolled back up King's Parade and looked at the stalls in the market and had tea in a little café behind the Guildhall, and this time Purefoy told her about his sparring rounds with the Dean and the Senior Tutor, and how Skullion had been taken away.
'Oh Purefoy, how brilliant. And it's all because of me and Brigitte. I think I shall become something called…What shall we call it? A Provocator, yes, a Provocator and conduct classes for shy young men who believe everything they are told or read in books. I'm tired of Male Infertility and Masturbatory Techniques and all those earnest women feeling deeply about Female Circumcision and not a smile among them.'
'But you are an expert on it. You can't just give it up like that.'
'I took it up just like that,' said Ms I. N. Cognito. 'I got the slides in London and read up on all the rest. And if you want to know why, because I was bored with being a stewardess on airlines and being polite to people I would never want to see again. Oh, the lies one had to tell! And they were always the same boring lies. At least as Mrs Ndhlovo I could be more imaginative, but that's got boring too, and people, usually most unattractive ones, will come up to me afterwards and ask questions. The number of really awful women who have tried to proposition me! But now it's all going to be different. I want you to show me your Porterhouse. I'm going to apply for the post of Provocator. Junior Provocator. Do you think they'll accept me?'
'They've got enough troubles already,' said Purefoy.
In the bedroom at General Sir Cathcart D'Eath's 'safe house' near the Botanical Gardens Myrtle Ransby was experiencing a sense of the unreal combined with a hangover that was the worst she had ever known. She had arrived at the right time the night before as the General had ordered, having had one or two brandies to steady her nerves which were still affected by meeting the American with the bloodstained apron, the awful knife and the partly dismembered stallion at the Catfood Canning Factory. She had let herself in the back door and after one or two more brandies-there was no one else about-she had managed with great difficulty to get into the black latex suit and had put the hood on over her en bouffant. Then she had sat down and waited, every now and then helping herself to some more brandy. The client hadn't turned up. Myrtle rummaged in her bag and read the General's instructions again. He had definitely said Friday at 8 p.m. It was now nearly nine. Well, she'd get paid whatever happened. Those torn notes were going to become whole ones even if she had to sit there all night. Two hours later she decided to take the hood off and get some fresh air. This entailed removing the rubber gloves first and they wouldn't come. She was interrupted in her struggle with the things by the need to go wee-wee and she was fighting another battle, this time with the bottom half of her costume when the phone rang. Myrtle told it to go fuck itself and stayed where she was. Then, when it was too late, she made an attempted dash for the thing and tripped over. The phone stopped ringing. Myrtle reached for the brandy bottle and drank quite a lot more. It was almost midnight when she tried to go to the bathroom again and inadvertently switched the light off and couldn't find the switch again. By now her efforts to rid herself of the gloves, the hood and the rest of her costume had become a waste of time. In the darkness she crawled about the floor and found the brandy bottle and finished it. Presently she passed out and spent the night where she lay, happily unaware of time, place and her own condition.
Morning, not a bright morning in the shuttered room, was very different. It took her some time to work out why she could hardly breathe, could only see out of part of one eye-the hood and en bouffant had both changed position-and was encased in something that was at once cold and sticky. Slowly and painstakingly she managed to get to her feet and make it with the help of the wall to the bathroom and turn the light on. The image in the mirror did nothing to restore her self-esteem. Used to fairly awful mornings in the company of boys at the airbase with peculiar tastes in fetish costumes, she had never seen herself in anything approaching this bizarre condition. Myrtle Ransby sat down on the lavatory and began to cry before dimly remembering that she had promised her husband she'd be back by one o'clock at the latest. She had also been promised the other half of the two thousand pounds. For a moment fury rose in her. She had been betrayed, was in a strange house and in a rubber suit that was far too small for her. She felt like death. Worst of all it was the weekend and somehow she had to get home. At that moment the effects of the brandy made themselves felt in various ways.