P.s. Come soon to Bielefeld, Tessa, it is a beautiful and very secret little town that you will love! B.
* * *
It is evening. Tessa is heavily pregnant. She is pacing the drawing room of the Nairobi house, now sitting, now standing. Arnold has told her she must not go down to Kibera until she has had the baby. Even sitting at her laptop is a tiresome chore for her. After five minutes of it she must prowl about again. Justin has come home early to keep her company in her travail.
"Who or what is waghalsig?" she demands of him, as soon as he opens the front door.
"Who is what?"
She pronounces the word with deliberate anglicization: wag like "wag" the dog, halsig like "hall-sick." She has to say it twice more before the penny drops.
"Reckless," Justin replies cautiously. "Daredevilish. Why?"
"Am I waghalsig?"
"Never. Impossible."
"Somebody's just called me it, that's all. Fat lot of dare deviling I can do in this condition."
"Don't you believe it," Justin replies devoutly, and they break out laughing simultaneously.
* * *
Letter from Messrs. Oakey, Oakey and Farmeloe, Solicitors of London, Nairobi, and Hong Kong, to Ms. T. Abbott, postbox Nairobi:
Dear Ms. Abbott,
We act for House of ThreeBees, Nairobi, who have passed to us your several letters addressed personally to Sir Kenneth Curtiss, chief executive officer of that company, and to other directors and officers of the managing board.
We are to advise you that the product to which you refer has passed all requisite clinical trials, many of them conducted to standards far higher than those laid down by national or international regulation. As you rightly point out, the product has been fully tested and registered in Germany, Poland and Russia. At the request of the Kenyan health authorities, that registration has also been independently verified by the World Health Organization, a copy of whose certificate is appended to this letter.
We must therefore advise you that any further representations made by you or your associates in this matter, whether directed at House of ThreeBees or some other quarter, will be interpreted as a malicious and unwarranted slur on this highly prestigious product, and on the good name and high standing in the marketplace of its distributors House of ThreeBees Nairobi. In such an eventuality, we are under standing instruction to institute legal proceedings with full vigor and without further reference to our clients.
Yours faithfully…
* * *
"Old chap. A quick word with you, if I may."
The speaker is Tim Donohue. The old chap is Justin himself, in whose memory the scene is playing. The game of Monopoly has been voted into temporary suspense while the Woodrow sons hurry late to their karate class and Gloria fetches drinkies from the kitchen. Woodrow has taken himself off to the High Commission in a huff. Justin and Tim are therefore seated alone and head to head at the garden table, surrounded by millions of imitation pounds.
"Mind if I tread on holy ground in the interests of the greater good?" Donohue inquires in a low, tight voice that travels no farther than it needs to.
"If you must."
"I must. It's this unseemly feud, old chap. The one your late lamented was conducting with Kenny K. Bearding him at his farm, poor fellow. Phone calls at unsociable hours. Rude letters left at his club."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Of course you don't. Not a good subject around the halls just now. Particularly where the coppers are concerned. Sweep it under the carpet, our advice. Not relevant. Ticklish times for all of us. Kenny included." His voice lifted. "You're bearing up marvelously. Nothing but boundless admiration for him, right, Gloria?"
"He's completely superhuman, aren't you, Justin, darling?" Gloria confirms as she sets down her tray of gin and tonic.
Our advice, Justin remembers, still staring at the solicitors' letters. Not his. Theirs.
* * *
E-mail printout Tessa to Ham:
Coz. Angel heart. My deep throat at BBB swears they are in much worse financial doodoo than anyone lets on. She says there are in-house rumors that Kenny K is considering mortgaging his entire nonpharma op to a shady South American syndicate based in Bogota! Question: can he mount a company sell-out without telling his shareholders in advance? I know even less company law than you do, which is saying a lot. Elucidate or else! Love, love, Tess.
But Ham had no time to elucidate, even if he was able to, immediately or otherwise, and neither did Justin. The clatter of an elderly car hauling itself up the drive, followed by a thundering on the door, brought Justin leaping to his feet and peering through the prisoners' spy hole, straight into the well-nourished features of Father Emilio Dell'Oro, parish priest, arranged in an expression of pitiful concern. Justin opened the door to him.
"But what are you doing, Signor Justin?" the priest cried in his operatic boom, embracing him. "Why must I hear it from Mario the taxi driver that the signora's grief-demented husband has locked himself in the villa and is calling himself a Swede? What is a priest for, in the name of heaven, if he is not the companion of the bereaved, a father to his stricken son?"
Justin mumbled something about needing solitude.
"But you are working!" — peering over Justin's shoulder at the piles of papers strewn about the oil room. "Even now, in your grief, you are serving your country! No wonder you English commanded a greater empire than Napoleon!"
Justin offered something fatuous about a diplomat's work never being done.
"Like a priest's, my son, like a priest's! For every soul that turns to God, there are a hundred that do not!" He drew closer. "But la signora was a believer, Signor Justin. As her mother the dottoressa was, even if they disputed it. With so much love for their fellowmen, how could they close their ears to God?"
Somehow Justin shooed the priest away from the doorway to the oil room, sat him in the salon of the freezing villa and, under the flaking frescoes of sexually precocious cherubs, plied him with a glass and then another of Manzini wine while sipping at his own. Somehow he accepted the good Father's assurances that Tessa was safely in the arms of God, and consented without demur to the celebration of a memorial mass to Tessa on her next saint's day and a handsome donation to the church's restoration fund, and another for the conservation of the island's superb hilltop castle, one of the gems of medieval Italy, which scholarly surveyors and archaeologists assure us is soon to fall down unless, with God's will, the walls and foundations are secured… Escorting the good man to his car, Justin was so keen not to detain him that he passively accepted his benediction before hastening back to Tessa.
She was waiting for him with her arms folded.
I refuse to believe in the existence of a God who permits the suffering of innocent children.
"So why are we getting married in a church?"
To melt his heart, she replied.
* * *
PIGBITCH. STOP SUCKING YOUR NIGGERDOCTOR'S COCK! GO BACK TO YOUR RIDICULOUS EUNUCH HUSBAND AND BEHAVE YOURSELF. GET YOUR SHITTY NOSE OUT OF OUR BUSINESS NOW! IF NOT, YOU WILL BE DEAD MEAT AND THAT'S A SOLEMN PROMISE.
The sheet of plain typing paper that he was holding in his trembling hands was not intended to melt anybody's heart. Its message was typed in thick black capitals half an inch high. The signature, unsurprisingly, omitted. The spelling, surprisingly, immaculate. And the impact upon Justin so violent, so accusing, so inflaming, that for a fearful few seconds he lost his temper with her completely.
Why didn't you tell me? Show me? I was your husband, your protector supposedly, your man, your other bloody half!