“I’m delighted to meet you,” she said, and took the wine glass in two hands. Munday saw the jewel right itself between her breasts.
“We’ve just been discussing your lecture,” said Janet Strick.
“No complaints, I hope,” said Munday. Outlined in the long blue cloth was her leg, from hip to ankle; its unadorned completeness more than its shape attracted him.
“Only praise,” said Caroline.
Drawn to her he avoided her eyes, and having examined her he looked closely at the others, Motherwell with his pipe, Awdry’s Foreign Office tie and suede shoes, Strick’s flowered shirt and tie in matching material, and next to him Janet Strick in her short skirt. Janet was pretty, her skin was young, she had a smooth face, a large head and a good fleshy figure. Her hair was long; Caroline’s was short, and yet there was something luxurious about Caroline, the message on her mouth, the angle of her chin, the bones lifting at the base of the neck, the distinct edges of her hips and the thrust her dress hugged. She was not thin, but her short hair and the proportions of her features made her appear so, the way she stood—her weight on one leg—the length of her fingers which circled the glass. From the moment he saw her he wanted to be near her, to touch her; he felt a mingled desire and respect, the same helpless yearning he had experienced watching Alice crouch in her denim jeans. But he saw in Caroline a power that could be terrible, not the youthful pleasingness of Alice, but the sensual wisdom of a woman who knows that she is within a few years of losing her beauty. Though she had a veneer of glamour, what cowed him was the destroying bloom he saw in her bones. She could hold him and crack him.
She said, “I imagined you’d be very severe and scientific.”
“Perhaps I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
“My Africans used to do imitations of me, behind my back. They thought I was a bit of a taskmaster.”
“Did that upset you?”
“They can be tricky little bastards.”
Then she did something that aroused Munday; she closed her eyes and smiled and rocked her head back on her long neck.
“I agree,” Awdry said, and he began to tell a story of African treachery.
In an effort to conceal his submissive interest in Caroline, Munday pretended to listen to the story (it concerned an African’s clumsy forgery of a local chief’s official papers), for he sensed the interest was obvious on his face. But attempting to suppress it he felt it more deeply, as he had with Alice. He remembered that he had fled the daughter, not the mother, and he saw himself as a weak man, incomplete, who had denied himself passion, though he had seen it enacted close to him, while he had stayed on its periphery, observing, sometimes mocking, never venturing nearer. He saw that his severity was fear, and what virtue he had always claimed for himself was cowardice.
“What happened to the African?” Caroline was saying.
“Him? Oh, we let him go,” said Awdry. “The Crown had a case against him, but we weren’t sure how it would go down locally. He was in the wrong, of course—everyone knew that. As it turned out, he would have been safer with us.”
“Safer?” Caroline became interested. “But you said he was free.”
“He got a dose of village justice,” said Awdry. He winked at Munday. Munday shrugged.
“That sounds ominous,” said Caroline.
“It was quite a field-day,” said Awdry. “Mob of people pounced on him, sank their teeth into him and spat out the pieces. Everyone was laughing—Africans find torture frightfully amusing. When the poor chap died they assumed he must have been guilty.”
“I never believe a word you say,” said Caroline. “They can’t be as bloodthirsty as that.”
“Doctor Munday will vouch for me,” said Awdry.
“Two points,” said Munday in his tutorial manner. “One, there’s usually some kind of deliberation before a man is found guilty. And, two, where property is involved the punishment is fairly harsh.” He went on, though in doing so he felt an awkward sense of betraying people he knew for people who were only interested in discrediting Africans. It was the penalty of his long residence among Africans, he believed: his knowledge of them only seemed to incriminate them. But he was anxious to hold Caroline’s attention. He said, “I remember an African who got a five-inch nail hammered into his skull. He had killed his wife at a beer party. I’ve heard of others who’ve had their feet chopped off—and they still use the ant-hill in some parts of Uganda. A Chiga girl who commits incest is thrown over a cliff by her father—”
“Why that’s savage,” said Caroline, her eyes flashing.
“Perhaps no worse than our own death penalty,” said Munday. “The gallows, what-have-you.”
“You’re way out of date,” said Awdry. He was laughing.
“Capital punishment’s been abolished,” said Caroline.
“I had no idea,” said Munday.
“Bloody silly, if you ask me,” said Awdry. “But there it is. Ah, here comes Jerry. We ean eat.” Jerry, the last guest to arrive, was out of breath, apologizing for being late as he handed his coat to Awdry. On the way over, he said, he had stopped to have a look at his cows and had found one which hadn’t been milked. The milking had delayed him.
“Jerry’s the only one who really belongs here,” said Caroline. “The rest of us are all foreigners.”
“The native among the expatriates,” muttered Munday.
“I was bom up the road,” he said to Munday. “Broadwindsor way.”
He was young, with a frank sunburned face, and square shoulders that had stretched his fashionable suit-jacket out of shape. Though his movements were shy—he glanced continually at his hands and heavy shoes—he had a clipped way of speaking, the local accent Peter Motherwell had tried to imitate (Jerry was saying, with the guileless scorn of a Bwamba, why his wife had had to stay at home). Now Munday understood the embarrassment of Peter’s mimicry. It was that of the settler joke, told when the houseboy was in the kitchen.
“Doctor Munday. Jerry Duddle,” said Caroline. “Doctor Munday’s been telling us the most horrible stories.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Jerry.
Munday was about to ask him about his farm when Janet came over and asked, “Jerry, do you have any views on hunting?”
“I don’t hunt much myself,” said Jerry. “Don’t have time for it—too busy with the farm. I do a little fishing.”
“But, don’t you agree that hunting’s cruel?” Janet had stepped in front of Munday and was facing Jerry. “Cruel? In what way?”
“It’s bloody.”
“Bloody expensive,” said Jerry. “Those floats set you back a few quid.”
Janet raised her eyes to the ceiling and said, “I suppose I’m alone in thinking it should be banned.” Jerry said, “I always say if people can afford to do something, and they enjoy doing it, who am I to tell them they’re wrong?”
“That’s our boy,” said Awdry; and Peter said, “Hear, hear!” Awdry crossed the room to show Anne Motherwell and Michael Strick and the vicar’s wife a framed photograph on the wall, a group of Africans on the bank of a flood-swollen river, near which a Land Rover was parked. Awdry said, “Five minutes after that picture was taken, this old man was drowned trying to ford the river.” Munday was on his way over to see the photograph of the doomed man. He noticed Emma near the fire, her hands clasped on a drink. She was alone.
“Are you all right?”
“I thought I was going to faint,” Emma said. “I think I startled that young man.”
Munday wondered which young man she was talking about. He looked around the room and then said, “Seems they’ve abolished capital punishment. I had no idea. That Summers woman was telling me.” '7 could have told you that,” said Emma.