Fugue for a Darkening Island Page 3

  When I had dressed, I was ushered into a plain hall which was full of men. The ratio of whites to blacks was about one to one. I tried not to show my surprise.

  The men were sitting at several benches, eating, smoking and talking. I was instructed to take a bowl of food from the serving-hatch, and although this did not satisfy my hunger, I was told I might have more if I requested it. At the same time, I learned that cigarettes could be obtained at the hatch, and I collected a packet of twenty.

  I was wondering about Isobel and Sally, and assumed that they were receiving similar treatment somewhere else. I could only hope that we would be reunited before going to bed.

  While I was consuming the second bowl of food, I noticed that several more men came into the hall from time to time and that they were given the same treatment irrespective of race. At my own table there were more Negroes than whites, and although I felt uncomfortable at first, I rationalized that being in the same position as myself, they represented no threat to me.

  Two hours later we were ushered to other huts near by, where we were to sleep on narrow beds equipped with only one blanket, and without a pillow. I did not see Isobel and Sally.

  In the morning I was allowed an hour with them.

  They told me how badly they were treated in the women's quarters, and that they had not been able to sleep. While dis cussing this, we heard a report that the government had reached a negotiated settlement with the leaders of the militant Afrims and that everything would be back to normal in a matter of days.

  It was this that made us decide to return home, arguing that if our house was still in danger we would return to the refugee camp that night.

  After a great deal of difficulty, we contacted a U.N. official in the camp and told him we wished to leave. For some reason he was reluctant to agree to this, saying that far too many people were wanting to leave, and that it would not be wise until the situation had stabilized. We told him that we considered our home to be safe, and he warned us that the camp was nearly full, and that if we left now he would not be able to guarantee us a place should we return.

  In spite of this, we left the camp after retrieving our clothes and our car. Although our suitcases had obviously been searched, none of our belongings was missing.

  At the time of the second Afrim landing I was in a small spa town in the north of England, attending a symposium of academics. I remember little of the proceedings. I can recall, though, that the event was well organized and that the formal programme was adhered to rigidly.

  On two consecutive occasions I happened to share my lunchtable with a young woman from Norwich, and in time we became friendly. During the secondof our lunches together I was spoken to by an acquaintance from my days at the university. We exchanged greetings and he joined us at the table. I did not wish to see him, but I was polite to him. Shortly after this the young woman left us.

  I found my thoughts turning to her during the afternoon, and though I made several attempts to find her I was unsuccessful. She did not appear for dinner and I assumed she had left the conference early.

  I spent the evening in the company of my university friend, exchanging reminiscences of our student activities there.

  That night, as I was undressing in my hotel room, there was a knock at my door. It was the young woman. She came in and we shared the remainder of a half-bottle of Scotch I had. Our conversation was of little consequence. She told me her name, though I have since forgotten it. We seemed to make intellectual contact, even as our subject-matter was trivial. It was as if the ponderous content of the day's formal proceedings had exhausted us both of the capacity for thought, though not of the ability to establish a rapport.

  Later, we made love together on my bed, and she stayed in my room for the rest of the night.

  The following day was the last one of the conference, and apart from a small ceremony in the main hall there were to be no formal events. The young woman and I shared a table for breakfast, aware that this was probably the last time we would spend together. It was during breakfast that the news came through of the second Afrim landing, and we spoke for several minutes about the significance of this. Following a confused discussion with Lateef, I found myself working alone in a small town on the south-coast. It had been clear to me that Lateef had not formed any plan, and that my present mission was as ill-defined as his instructions had been. As far as I knew he wanted to have some kind of defensive weapons against future attacks, and we who had been sent foraging were to attempt to provide some.

  I had little or no idea where to start, or what would constitute an effective defence.

  I felt uneasy because the town was within Afrim-held territory, and although I was not impeded in any way I felt my movements were being observed.

  All shops had been looted. The main parade was a desolate line of ruined stores, their racks emptied by repeated pillagings, but in one store I discovered a domestic-sized glass-cutting instrument, and pocketed it in lieu of there being anything else of worth.

  I moved on down to the shore.

  There was a large group of white refugees here, living in a crude encampment of old beach-huts and tents. Though I approached them, they shouted at me to go away. I walked along what had once been the beach promenade in a westerly direction until out of their sight.

  I encountered a long row of bungalows which, judging by their affluent appearance, at one time would have been occupied by the wealthy retired. I wondered if the Africans had any plans to use them and why the refugees I had seen were not camping there. Most of the bungalows were unlocked and there appeared to be nothing to prevent entry. I walked along the row, glancing into them all. There was no food to be had from any of them, nor anything that could be conceivably used as a weapon. Though most of them were still furnished, removable commodities, such as sheets and blankets, had been taken.

  About two-thirds of the way along the line I encountered a bungalow that was empty of all furniture. Its doors were locked securely.

  Intrigued, I broke in through a window, and searched it. In one of the back rooms I noticed that some of the floorboards had been removed and replaced. I levered them up with my knife.

  In the space below there was a large crate full of empty bottles.

  Someone had gouged a diagonal line across each of them with a file, thus weakening them. Near by was a neatly folded pile of linen, torn into squares about fifteen inches across. In another room, also under the floorboards, I discovered ten five-gallon drums of petrol.

  I considered the use of petrol-bombs to us and whether it would be worth telling Lateef of their presence. It was obviously impossible for me to move them single-handed, and it would be necessary for several men to come here to take them.

  In the time I had been with Lateef and the other refugees, there had been some considerable discussion concerning the kinds of weapons which would be of use to us. Rifles and guns were obviously the prime necessity, but they were at a premium. It was unlikely we would ever obtain them except by stealing. Then there was the problem of ammunition. We all carried knives, though they were of assorted qualities. My own had formerly been a carving-knife, which I had honed down to a usable size and sharpness.

  The kind of use to which a petrol-bomb is best put is as an anti-personnel device in enclosed spaces. Operating as we were in the countryside, we would have little use for incendiaries.

  In the end I returned the bottles, linen and petrol to their hiding-places, reasoning that if Lateef disagreed with me, we could always return for them.

  The lavatory was in working condition and I used it. Afterwards I noticed that a bathroom cabinet on the wall still had its mirror intact, and this gave me an idea. I prised it away and, using the glass-cutter, I sliced it up into long triangular strips. I managed to cut seven such strips from the thick glass. I fashioned the ends to as sharp a tine as possible, twice drawing my blood in the process. With a chamois leather I took from my bag I made handles for the daggers, wrapping it i
n strips around the thicker ends.

  I tried out one of the new daggers, swinging it experimentally in the air. It made a lethal but difficult weapon. I would have to devise some method by which the daggers could be carried conveniently so that their users would not be endangered by them if they fell. I packed the seven new daggers into a heap, and prepared to roll them up into a piece of sacking so that I might carry them back to the others. As I did so, I noticed that one of the shards had a minute fault in the glass, near the handle. I saw that it might shatter easily, perhaps lacerating the hand of whoever used it. I discarded it.

  I was ready to return to Lateef and the others. Night was falling, so I waited for the dark to come. The twilight was shorter than normal, because of the atmospheric murk and low clouds. When I felt it would be safe to move, I collected my possessions and started back towards the encampment.

  The time I had spent by the shore had had a strangely soothing effect on me, and I felt it might be good future policy to spend more time there. I resolved to suggest it to Lateef.

  I was hiding at the top of a barn because my elder brother had told me that the bogey would get me. I was about seven years old. Had I been older I would have been able to rationalize the fears that took me. They were formless, but for the clear image of some monstrous being with black skin that was out to get me.

  Instead, I cowered at the top of the barn, lying in my own private hidey-hole which no one knew was there. Where the farmer had stacked the bales of straw, a small cavity had been left between three of them and the roof.

  The comforting subjective security of the hide-out restored my confidence, and some time later my fears had receded and I was involved in a juvenile fantasy involving airplanes and guns. When I heard rustling in the straw below, my first panicky thoughts were of the bogey, and I lay in a state of frozen terror while the rustling continued. Finally, I summoned courage to creep as silently as possible to the edge of my hide-out and peer downwards.

  In the loose straw on the ground, at the back of the bales, a young man and a girl were lying with their arms around one another. The man was on top of the girl and the girl had her eyes closed. I did not know what they were doing. After a few minutes, the young man moved slightly and helped the girl to take off her clothes. It seemed to me that she did not really want him to take them off, but she resisted only a little. They lay down again and within a very short period of time she helped him remove his own clothes. Not wishing to change my position, I lay very still and quiet. When they were both naked he lay on top of her again and they began to make noises with their throats.

  The girl's eyes were still closed, though the lids fluttered from time to time. I can recall very little of my impressions during this; I know I was curious to see a girl who could open her legs so wide -- all the women with whom I had come into contact (my mother and my aunts) had seemed incapable of opening their knees more than a few inches. After a few more minutes the couple stopped moving around and lay together in silence. It was only then that the girl's eyes opened properly and looked up at me.

  Many years later my elder brother was among the first British National soldiers to be killed in action against the Afrims.

  The words of the official at the U.N. camp came to mind as I drove along the North Circular Road. The radio had confirmed that an amnesty had been offered by Tregarth's emergency cabinet, but had implied also that the leaders of the Afrims were not responding in a wholly favourable way.

  One possibility was that they did not trust Tregarth. On several occasions in the past he had initiated social reforms that had acted against the Afrims, and there was no reason that now they had an upper hand in a military sense Tregarth would compromise with them in a way prejudicial to his own administration. With a rift established in the armed forces, and another threatened within the police forces, any policy of appeasement which was at all suspect would not work.

  It was estimated that already more than 25 per cent of the army had seceded, and had placed itself at the disposal of the Afrim leaders in Yorkshire, and three ground-attack squadrons of the Royal Air Force had so far similarly changed allegiances.

  In a later programme we heard a group of political pundits speculating that public opinion in favour of the Afrims was diminishing, and that Tregarth and his cabinet would take more militant action.

  The only outward sign of the events taking place that we could discern was that traffic was unusually light. We were stopped several times by police patrols, but we had grown accustomed to this in the last few months and thought little of it. We had learned the appropriate responses to make to questioning, and maintained a consistent story.

  I was disturbed to notice that many of the police we encountered were from the civilian-reserve special force. Stories describing various atrocities had been circulating continuously; in particular, one heard of coloured people being arrested without warrant, and released only after experiences of personal violence. On the other hand, white people were subjected to harassment if known or suspected to be involved with anti-Afrim activities.

  The entire situation regarding the police was confused and inconsistent at this time, and I for one felt that it would not be an entirely bad thing if the force were to divide formally.

  Just to the west of Finchley, I was obliged to stop the car and refill the tank with petrol. I had intended to use some of the petrol I had put by as a reserve, but discovered that during the night two of the cans had been emptied. Consequently, I was forced to use up the whole of my reserve. I said nothing of this to Isobel or Sally, as I anticipated being able to restock sooner or later, even though none of the garages we had passed that day was open.

  While I was pouring the petrol into the tank a man came out of a near-by building carrying a pistol and accused me of being an Afrim sympathizer. I asked him on what evidence he formed this suspicion, and he told me that no one could be driving a car at this time without the support of one political faction or another. At the next police road-block I reported this incident and was told to ignore it.

  As we approached our house all three of us reflected by our behaviour the apprehensions we felt. Sally became restless and asked to go to the toilet. Isobel smoked one cigarette after another and snapped irritably at me.

  I found myself continually pushing up the speed of the car unconsciously, although I knew that it was generally better to stay at lower speeds.

  To relieve the tension between us, I responded to Sally's requests by stopping the car at a public lavatory about a mile and a half from where we lived, and while Isobel took her inside I took the opportunity to turn on the car radio and listen to a news bulletin.

  Isobel said, when they had got back into the car: "What shall we do if we can't get into the street?"

  She had voiced the fear none of us had liked to express.

  "I'm sure Nicholson will listen to reason," I said.

  "And if he doesn't?"

  I didn't know. I said: "I just listened to the radio. They said that the Afrims were accepting the terms of the amnesty, but that occupation of empty houses was continuing."

  "What do they mean by empty?"

  "I don't like to think."

  Behind us, Sally said: "Daddy, are we nearly home?"

  "Yes, dear," Isobel said.

  I started the engine and moved off. We reached the end of our street a few minutes later. The police and army trucks had moved off, but the barbed-wire barricade was still there. On the other side of the road, mounted on the top of a dark-blue van, was a television camera operated by two men. It was protected in front and at the sides by heavy plates of glass.

  I stopped the car five yards from the barricade, but left the engine running. No one appeared to be near the barricade. I blew the horn and regretted the action an instant later. Five men appeared from the house nearest to the barricade and walked towards us carrying rifles. They were Afrims.

  "Oh God," I said under my breath.

  "Alan, go and talk to them
. Perhaps our house is not being used by them!"

  There was an edge of hysteria in her voice. Undecided, I sat in my seat and watched the men. They lined up at the barricade and stared at us without expression.

  Isobel urged me again, and I got out of the car and walked over to them.

  I said: "I live at number 47. Can we get through to our house, please?"

  They said nothing, but continued to stare. "My daughter is ill. We must get her to bed."

  They stared.

  I turned towards the camera-crew and shouted: "Can you tell me if anyone has been allowed in here today?"

  Neither of them responded, though the man pointing the microphone in our direction looked down at his equipment and adjusted the setting of a knob.

  I turned back to the Africans.

  "Do you speak English?" I said. "We must get to our house." There was a long silence, and then one of the men said in a thick accent: "Go away!"

  He lifted his rifle.

  I got back into the car, put it into gear and accelerated away, swinging across the deserted road in a wide U-turn. As we passed the camera the Afrim fired his rifle and our windscreen shattered into opacity. I banged my forearm against it and a shower of glass fragments blew in. Isobel screamed and fell to the side, covering her head with her arms. Sally reached over from the back seat and put her arms around my neck and shouted incoherently into my ear.

  When we were about a hundred yards away I slowed a little and leaned forward in my seat, pulling myself from Sally's grip. I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw that the camera-operator had turned the instrument to follow our flight down the road. I stood with many others on the beach at Brighton. We were watching the old ship that was drifting in the Channel, listing to port at an angle of what the newspapers told us was twenty degrees.

  It was about a mile from the shore, riding the rough seas uneasily. The lifeboats from Hove, Brighton and Shoreham stood by, awaiting radio confirmation that they might take it in tow. Meanwhile, we on the shore were watching for it to sink, some of us having come many miles to see the spectacle.