“But that’s our trouble here. You’ve probably observed it. We are too vulnerable to other people’s ideas. We don’t have too many of our own. But, Peter, you say the idea of the agricultural commune in a society like ours is antihistorical. And yet you helped.”
“It was what they said they wanted.”
“Your theory of professed intentions.”
“If the choice had been mine I would have chosen some other project. Something in the city.”
“And yet for this antihistorical project, which you didn’t think would succeed, all kinds of people and organizations were pressured, to put it no higher.”
“We wanted to involve everybody. Or as many people as possible.”
“You certainly succeeded.”
“That way it seemed the thing might just work. And we received a lot of government encouragement. A lot of help.”
“The government too believes in professed intentions.”
“We were all misled. Perhaps we were all hoping against hope.”
“And perhaps, hoping against hope, we misled others. Where do you think the error started?”
“I suppose you can say it started here. In the society you have here. It isn’t organized for work or for individual self-respect.”
“We won’t quarrel about that. But you don’t think the leadership might have had something to do with it as well?”
“You mean Jimmy Ahmed.”
“Tell us about him, Peter, now that you’ve mentioned him. It’s a strange thing to say, but you know him better than most people here.”
“I found him attractive, a leader. He seemed to be able to get things done. And he had a following.”
“I know. I went to school with Jimmy. He was Jimmy Leung then. I’ve told you this before. And to me Jimmy’s always been something of a problem. I was in London when he suddenly emerged as the black leader. In fact, I was one of the first people to interview him. He was living in a big house in Wimbledon, and I thought he was quite well looked after. Even then he had powerful friends. But, you know, when Jimmy talked about this country, I couldn’t recognize it. Some of the things he said I found quite humiliating. I’ve told you about the banana-skin game he said he played at school. You would drop the banana skin and if it fell one way you were going to marry a fair-skinned person, and if it fell the other way you were going to marry a yellow person with freckles. You can imagine how the women columnists took that up.”
“I think you’re making too much of a small thing.”
“But sometimes small things can tell us more than professed intentions. I never played that game at school. I don’t know anyone who played that game. It sounds to me more like a Chinese game. But the people in England took it seriously.”
“I wonder. But I don’t know much about that. I didn’t know Jimmy in England. I met him here. I’d only vaguely heard about him before I came here.”
“We’re a dependent people, Peter. We need other people’s approval. And when people come to us with reputations made abroad we tend to look up to them. It’s something you yourself have been complaining about. But I have another problem here. You know the position of black people in England. You know the difficulties, the campaigns of hate. Yet some of us get taken up by certain people and are made famous. Then we are sent back here as leaders.”
“You think there’s a conspiracy? People aren’t that interested.”
“That’s what I mean. People aren’t interested. They are ignorant, they don’t care. But certain people get taken up. It is this element that is my problem, this element in a place like England that takes up some of us. Is it guilt? A touch of the tarbrush, as they say over there — black blood? Or is it something else? Some other kind of relationship. Services rendered, mutual services.”
“I think you worry too much about those people.”
“You think I do?”
Since he had smiled to speak his sentence for voice level, Meredith had been serious, unflustered, his expression neutral in spite of the sweat and the heat that had inflamed his eyes. Now, for the first time, he had spoken angrily. But Roche didn’t believe in the anger. He thought it forced, self-regarding, a lawyer’s courtroom anger; it astonished, disappointed him, and it left him calm.
Roche said, “How much longer are we going on?”
Meredith, readjusting his expression, said, “Not much.” Then he spoke to the microphone again.
“But we’ll leave it, Peter. You say you found Jimmy Ahmed attractive.”
“He seemed to get things done.”
“But what he was trying to do was antihistorical. Did you think someone with a shopkeeping background was really equipped for the task he set out to do? Or did you think, since it was antihistorical, it didn’t matter?”
“I thought he might have chosen another project. With Jimmy, you always had to bring him down to earth. Farming is a serious business. It requires a lot of boring application. It isn’t for someone who’s easily bored or wants quick results.”
“I think you are being naïve, Peter. You were a stranger when you came. I accept that. But did you think, after you’d got here, that someone with a Chinese shopkeeping background could be in tune with aspirations of black people?”
“He seemed to have followers.”
“Yes, followers. That’s why our brothels are full. But let’s leave that too. You said you came here because you wished to do creative work. That implies you felt you were needed.”
“I was wrong.”
“But it’s nice to feel needed. And that also implies that you felt you would be welcome. And you are welcome. But what a nice world you inhabit, Peter. You have so much room for error. I wouldn’t be welcome among white people, however much I wanted to work among them.”
“That’s the way the world is.”
Roche looked away and said, “I’m choking. I can’t think clearly in this studio.” But he spoke without temper.
Sweat was running down Roche’s forehead into his eyes and down his neck into his shirt. He was aware of the studio manager in the dimly lit cubicle; and he had half addressed those words to him. But there was no response from the big man behind glass, cool in his white shirt and striped tie. The man had missed the appeal; he remained neutral; his expression didn’t alter.
Roche looked away, past Meredith and the microphone, to the picture window, radiating heat. Beyond the two panes of glass was the silent view: the sun going down behind the hills, the sky turning pale ocher, the sea silver, the hills red-black, the royal palms darkening against the sky.
The studio manager, responding to the silence, said, “Shall we stop?” The curiously soft voice again, singsong and slightly effeminate.
Meredith, his face wet, his shirt wet and sticking round the collarbone so that his skin and vest showed, said, “We’ll go on for a little longer. It’s bad for me too, Peter.” He pulled out a loose white handkerchief from his hip pocket; but then he changed his mind; he didn’t use the handkerchief, and he left it on the green table.
“I don’t want to embarrass you, Peter. Especially now that you say you’re leaving us. Have you any plans for the future? Do you know what you’ll do?”
“I suppose I’ll go back to England and try to get another job.”
“In the same field?”
“No.”
“So you’re washing your hands of us. I feel we’ve let you down. I feel you haven’t enjoyed your time with us.”
“I wish my life had taken another turn.”
“What do you mean? Do you wish you hadn’t done what you did? Do you think it’s all gone to waste?”
“We’ve talked about this before, Meredith. I don’t think regret enters into it. I suppose I would do it again. I would have no option. I don’t suppose I ever thought about it going to waste or not. I just wish it hadn’t been necessary to do what I did. I wish the world were arranged differently, so that afterwards I didn’t feel I had been landed with a side. I wish I hadn’t walked into that particular trap.”