“Lil, where’s Azania?”
“I don’t know, father.”
“What do they teach you at school, I’d like to know.”
“Only niggers.”
“It came in a cross-word quite lately. Independent native principality. You would have it was Turkey.”
“Azania? It sounds like a Cunarder to me.”
“But, my dear, surely you remember that madly attractive blackamoor at Balliol.”
“Run up and see if you can find the atlas, deary.
… Yes, where it always is, behind the stand in father’s study.”
“Things look quieter in East Africa. That Azanian business cleared up at last.”
“Care to see the evening paper? There’s nothing in it.”
In Fleet Street, in the offices of the daily papers; “Randall, there might be a story in the Azanian cable. The new bloke was at Oxford. See what there is to it.”
Mr. Randall typed: His Majesty B. A…. ex-undergrad among the cannibals… scholar emperor’s desperate bid for throne… barbaric splendour… conquering hordes… ivory… ele-phants… east meets west…
“Sanders. Kill that Azanian story in the London edition.”
“Anything in the paper this morning?”
“No, dear, nothing of interest.”
Late in the afternoon Basil Seal read the news on the Imperial and Foreign page of The Times as he stopped at his club on the way to Lady Metroland’s to cash a bad cheque.
For the last four days Basil had been on a racket. He had woken up an hour ago on the sofa of a totally strange flat. There was a gramophone playing. A lady in a dressing jacket sat in an armchair by the gas fire, eating sardines from the tin with a shoe horn. An unknown man in shirtsleeves was shaving, the glass propped on the chimney- piece.
The man had said: “Now you’re awake you’d better go.”
The woman: “Quite thought you were dead.”
Basil: “I can’t think why I’m here.”
“I can’t think why you don’t go.”
“Isn’t London hell?”
“Did I have a hat?”
“That’s what caused half the trouble.’
“What trouble?”
“Oh, why don’t you go?”
So Basil had gone down the stairs, which were covered in worn linoleum, and emerged through the side door of a shop into a busy street which proved to be the King’s Road, Chelsea.
Incidents of this kind constantly occurred when Basil was on a racket.
At the club he found a very old member sitting before the fire with tea and hot muffins. He opened The Times and sat on the leather topped fender.
“You see the news from Azania?”
The elderly member was startled by the sudden ness of his address. “No… no… I am afraid I can’t really say that I have.”
“Seth has won the war.”
“Indeed… well, to tell you the truth I haven’t been following the affair very closely.’
“Very interesting.”
“No doubt.”
“I never thought things would turn out quite in this way, did you?”
“I can’t say I’ve given the matter any thought.”
“Well, fundamentally it is an issue between the Arabs and the christianised Sakuyu.”
“I see.”
“I think the mistake we made was to underesti-mate the prestige of the dynasty.”
“Oh.”
“As a matter of fact, I’ve never been satisfied in my mind about the legitimacy of the old Empress.”
“My dear young man, no doubt you have some particular interest in the affairs of this place. Pray understand that I know nothing at all about it and that I feel it is too late in the day for me to start improving my knowledge.”
