Two flags drooped over the Government Building. The rains would lash them to life, revealing not the triple crucifixion which is Britain's pride, but the U.N.O. banner and the more arrogant standard of Dunia – the moon of Islam in custard, and surrounding it, a symbolic armoury of traditional weapons, everything of curved, serrated, triple-spiked that could conceivably sophisticate the boring act of just execution. Under the flags was a sculptured frieze denoting the dignity of labour: men watching the grain grow, placid buffaloes unyoked. Below was the super-cinema entrance. A wide colonnade surrounded the building, and in the pillared shade clerks strolled, hand in hand, or workless men crouched sullenly.
The corridors of all three storeys were full of wandering spies. There were no closed doors, only saloon swingers, so that every office was like a small and dark Kool Kaffi. State secrets, reprimands, dismissals could be picked up with ease. On the second floor, to which Lydgate had laboriously climbed, there was a wide range of information to be gained, for here were nearly all the departments – Agriculture, Drainage, Education, Propaganda, Religious Affairs, Forestry, Law, Customs and Traditions, Modernisation of the National Language, Heraldry and Official Symbols, the Treasury. Here also was the State Council Chamber. Here too the offices, outer and inner, of the U.N. Adviser and his staff. And here Mr. Mudd.
In Mr. Mudd's office there was irritability – the strain of digesting a heavy lunch, the effect of too many forenoon cigarettes, ill-advised lunch-time cans of beer. A blonde girl in a flowered frock, carrying files, came out, peevishly swinging the swing-door. Mudd's snarl could be heard clearly. Lydgate caught the door on its return swing and walked into the cave-like half-dark. Mudd sat under the fan, snarling.
Mudd looked like a retired jockey. This was because he was a retired jockey, though of amateur status only. He now wore a stock and a horseshoe pin only on Sunday mornings; on working days he wore the badge of the Inner Circle – a bow tie. A bow-tie on duty was worn also by the U.N. Adviser, the State Irrigation Officer and the State Architect. Lydgate now fixed Mudd's bow-tie with a stern and angry gaze. Then he spoke.
“It's about this house I've been allocated.”
“Oh, yes? Everything all right? No trouble about keys and so on?” It was a voice fit for a bookmaker's clerk, thought Lydgate. Lydgate, with the miasma of the brandy fuming above the coils of spaghetti, felt in control of the situation and said:
“You know bloody well everything's all wrong. You know bloody well because you're bloody well responsible for it.”
Mudd made various tic-tac movements. Then he said, “I don't like your tone, Frank. I'd resent that tone if I didn't know you better. I don't know anything about the house. It was available when you made your application, that's all I know. Allocations are made by the whole housing board. I'm chairman, and the chairman has no vote. If you don't like the house you can go back to your old one.”
“Look here, Harry,” said Lydgate. “You know as well as I do that these meetings of the housing board are a mere formality. You make all the decisions. You never were much of a man for listening to the views of committees, anyway. You knew damn well what you were giving me. It's a sheer bloody insult, that's what it is. The whole thing's rotting. A slum landlord would be ashamed of it. What I want to know is, why did you give it me?”
“It's Class F quarters,” said Mudd. “That's what you're entitled to. You're classed as a single man, you know.”
“There's nothing about being single or married in the circular about points for housing. It says five points for each child. It doesn't mention wives. Well, that gives me ten points before we go any further. And I've been seven months in the territory. That gives me three points for each month of waiting. And I know damn well that that single New Zealand woman has just walked into a three bedroomed house, and she's only been here a fortnight.”
“It was in her contract,” said Mudd. “She wouldn't sign it otherwise.”
“All I ask for,” said Lydgate, “is my rights.”
“Rights?” said Mudd. “You've got no rights. Let's have a look at your confidential file.”
“What's my confidential file got to do with it?”
“It always helps. I like to have all the information.”
“I think,” said Lydgate, “we know all there is to know about each other. I know I wasn't a government officer in Shurga. Perhaps that gave me certain advantages. Perhaps that gave me a clearer view of what was going on. I know you bitched every contract I tried for. I know that you as good as ruined me.”
“That's a bit melodramatic.”
“Life in the colonies is a bit melodramatic. Except that there are no pure-minded girls and no heroes. But there are plenty of villains. You, for instance.”
“You failed because you were no damned good as a business-man. You were too soft.”
“Yes, too soft. That's right. I honestly thought you could make money through fair means. I honestly thought that tenders were considered on their merits. You know why I failed. I failed because I couldn't give big enough bribes.”
“Bribes?” Mudd twitched his nose as though hearing a dirty word. “Bribes?”
“Oh, stop playing the innocent, Harry. Who bought you that house in Wiltshire? I seem to remember a little Syrian called Amin. He did very well for himself in Shurga. He was properly grateful. But he was grateful in a very subtle way. Your bank account has always been above suspicion.”
“Hup!” called Mudd. “Hup! Hup!” Lydgate stared.
Mudd seemed to be having a passionate attack of hiccups. And then Sebastian Hup came in, crouched, obsequious, but his face twisted in tragic agony.
“Ah, there you are. Fetch Mr. Lydgate's confidential file.”
“Yes, sir. E oblique C oblique L oblique seven two eight.” Sebastian Hup nodded seriously at Lydgate and then smiled tortuously. Apparently he knew the book well and was appreciative of its contents. “At once, sir.”
While they waited Mudd whistled four bars of the Post Horn Gallop. Then he said pleasantly, “And how is your little what's-her-name?”
“My little – ?”
“Oh, your servant, your friend, your whatever-you-like-to-call-her.”
“I don't know. Well, I suppose. But I can tell you how she's going to be when she sees the bloody rat-hole you've put us into. She's going to be bloodthirsty. And I don't think I mean that metaphorically.”
Mudd laughed. “She was a nice little thing. One of the cleaner street-girls of Shurga, as I remember.”
Lydgate smiled. “You don't remember. I know for a fact you don't. Nor does anybody. Strange, isn't it? But it's true. There are certain things that can't be faked, even in these days.”
“Oh, well, she's made up for lost time, I gather. I gather that the child she's going to have isn't going to be your child.”
“At least she's honest. Not like Mrs. Ali. Ali still, apparently, can't understand his good fortune in getting the cold storage import monopoly. And the child, so I hear, swears horribly when he's taken off his rocking-horse.”
“Ah, here it is,” said Mudd heartily, taking the confidential file from Sebastian Hup, Sebastian Hup decided to play a bird-boned midget yellow Christ-faced English butler. “Will there be anything further, sir?”
“No, no, that's all.” Sebastian Hup bowed and returned to his pantry. “Now then,” said Mudd, opening up the thick file. “Let's see, let's see. An interesting career, but a bit patchy. That was quite a respectable job in Madrid, wasn't it? Why ever did you leave?”
“I don't see what all this has to do with the Dunia senior officers' housing board.”
“Three years in Nairobi, importing small machine tools. That didn't last long, either. Ah yes. That was the time of your first marriage. Was she a black girl?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“Anyway, it didn't last long. Then you were gold prospecting in Malaya. You stuck it out a bit better there. I believe there was some talk of your marrying a Chinese girl.”
“She died. Look here, Harry, what's all this got to do with anything?”
“Oh, nothing particularly. I just like to refresh my memory, that's all. If you had married her I don't suppose it would have lasted long. And then Changi during the Jap occupation. And then New Guinea in some capacity that doesn't seem at all clear. You soon chucked that. You don't seem to stick at anything very long, do you?”
“The trouble is, Harry, I always keep coming up against people like you.”
“And then a year in Australia. And then Shurga. You seem to have liked Shurga. You stayed there nearly five years. Ah, yes. That's when you married Lydia. And you're still married to Lydia, aren't you?”
“Only because she won't divorce me.”
“What I can't understand,” said Mudd, “is where you got your money from. I mean, you started off as a contractor with about thirty thousand bucks in the bank. Oh, I know you lost it. But where did you get it from? Was it Lydia's money?”
“Mind your own bloody business.”
“Well, you know, these things are my business. This state has to vet its contract officers very carefully, you know. On the whole, I think you were very lucky to get this job here. What are your qualifications? None. Oh, you know a few words of the local lingos, I admit, but that's not much really. You've no real administrative experience, and that's the thing that's needed.”
“I can manage all right. A kid of two could manage. These government jobs don't take all that much managing. I'm only a sort of rubber stamp.”
“Well, I still say you've been very lucky.”
“Come off it again, Harry. You'd been trying to get a European Passport Officer for well over a year. What I want to know is, where is all this leading?”
“This, I suppose. You stay in the house we've given you. And if you don't like it you know what to do. That house is just about up your street. Literally, I suppose. It's a suitable house for a throw-out. Do you think we're going to have you and your Potok keep and a couple of illegitimate kids up on the hill? Don't be bloody silly. You're in your element there, man. You've got a nigger clerk with seven kids at one end and a couple of Sudu drunks at the other. Then you've got these two Eyeties who are putting the marble in the Mosque and soon you're going to have Forbes and his Chadi. They're a cut above you. They're married.”
Lydgate could not speak. He had a pain over his heart, a click in his throat, blood in his eyes. “Why, you – ” he tried. “You – ” Mudd seemed well satisfied. “All right,” he said. “You can run along now. Go and finish your unpacking. Though I don't suppose you have much.”
“You – ”
“Oh, yes,” said Mudd. “I nearly forgot. There's one little item of news which may interest you. Lydia's coming back to Africa.”
“What?”
“Yes. She wrote about a month ago. She says she's fed up with Sydney and hungers for African moons and palms and what-not. Silly girl. But a nice girl. And a useful girl, too. We're a bit short of typists who know how to spell. So she's going into the Police Department.”
“I've been standing up a long time,” said Lydgate. “It kills me to ask you, but may I sit down?”
“I wondered why you didn't sit down when you came in, old boy. I thought, well, it's up to you. I thought perhaps you had piles or something.”
“I don't think I'd notice them if I had them,” said Lydgate, lowering himself on to a chair. “I seem to have everything else.”
“Yes. Well, there it is. We're going to have Mrs. Lydgate and Mr. Lydgate in the same territory again. Just like the old days in Shurga. With certain obvious differences. But those needn't last long, need they?”
“What are you getting at?”
“It would be nice to see the Lydgates happy together again. In a nice little house on the hill. It would sort of clean things up. It's not nice to have government officers slinking about with Potok mistresses and what-not. The U.N.A. doesn't like it. It doesn't go down well with distinguished visitors.”
“They don't have to know, do they?”
“They always find out. There are always people who are glad to tell them. And you're not exactly reticent about it.”
“I,” said Lydgate, standing up again, weary, an old man, “will do as I like. Which means that you'd better keep that bitch out of my way. Because I might do what I want to do. I might do what I should have done years ago. And you won't like that.”
“Lydia a bitch? Dear little Lydia? She's a very nice girl. And a very attractive girl. Voluptuous – isn't that the word? And a very kind girl. We shall all be glad to see her again. Well, Frank, I think that's about all. I've got work to do, even if you haven't. Drop in again sometime. It's always pleasant to talk about the old days.” Mudd made a great show of examining, with puzzled concentration, a random document from his in-tray.
“Oh, I'll be in again,” said Lydgate. “By God, I will. I'll be in with a bloody big chopper. Or perhaps it won't be me. Perhaps it will be somebody with a family history of head-hunting. Good-bye, you jumped-up, short-arsed, big-headed little – ”
“Hup!” hiccupped Mudd. “Hup! Hup!” Sebastian Hup, who had evidently been listening outside, came in as Uriah Heep. “Yes, sir,” he said, rubbing his hands damply. “At your service, sir. What shall it be my humble pleasure to do for you, sir?” He bowed low, teeth showing in agony, moving his shoulders like one chilled by a Dickensian winter. “If Mr. Lydgate needs a cure for piles, sir,” he began to say, “I can recommend – ”
“Mr. Lydgate,” said Mudd. “Yes, Mr. Lydgate. File Mr. Lydgate away,” he ordered.
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