“I’m not a political refugee,” I managed.
“Of course you are! It’s dangerous in Zanzibar. Look at what happened to Geoffrey. Geoffrey, haven’t you got Marcella started on political refugee status?”
I looked around the table, caught a leering look from one of the men, and quickly brought my eyes back to Kamara and the familiarity of an African face. “Have you been here long?” I asked.
“Here? In England, you mean? Oh, yes, quite long. More than three years now. Not here in Reading, of course. No, that would not be possible. In London. I am visiting Yvonne, that’s all.” He chuckled again, a habit that seemed to argue that nothing here was real or serious.
More beer arrived. The noise increased. A headache was forming behind my teeth.
“So, you’re in the same field as Geoffrey?” came a man’s voice. “Development?”
I shook my head, at a loss.
“Marcella was in business,” Geoffrey filled in.
“Well, that’s nearly the same thing,” conceded one of the men.
“I don’t think so! Almost the opposite, I would say,” insisted Yvonne.
I closed my eyes, and would have liked to close my ears, while voices batted my life between them:
“Isn’t Zanzibar socialist?”
“Are you East African Asian, Marcella?”
“A mixture? No wonder she’s so beautiful.”
“I hear the IMF has been causing trouble in Tanzania. Structural adjustment. How are things in Zanzibar?”
“Difficult.” Geoffrey jumped in. “The IMF puts pressure on the government in Dar, and Dar pressures Zanzibar. Very divisive. It creates the conditions for a liberation struggle and Western-sponsored repression.” Was this my home they were talking about?
“The old neocolonial one-two,” someone confirmed in a drawl. “Set ’em up and knock ’em down.”
Not wanting to hear more, I turned back to Kamara. “What do you do in London, Kamara?”
“Myself? Oh, I have a job. I work for the local government. They pay me quite well, actually.” He was amused by this too.
“Could I find work in London?”
“You want to come to London? You want to leave Geoffrey already? "You want to break his heart?” He laughed. “Certainly. I don’t think you will have a problem. I can find you somewhere to stay, if you like. Now that I think of it, I know two very nice girls—women, actually—who you could stay with. They would be delighted to have you, I’m sure. I don’t see why not. Very hospitable. I sometimes stay with them myself. They are from Mauritius—I don’t think that’s so different from Zanzibar.” He turned from me. “Geoffrey, one moment please. Sorry to interrupt your seminar. I think you know Monique and Gabrielle in Bayswater. You have met them at least. I want to give Marcella their number. I think they should be friends.”
Geoffrey glanced at me, his mouth still open with opinions on my behalf, then nodded vigorously. “Yes, good idea.”
“You see,” said Kamara. “No problem. Here is my number ... and this is their number.” Kamara’s card read, Latif Kamara, Housing Officer.
Of course it would be the night I had the headache that Geoffrey wanted to be amorous. The beer, the admiration of his friends for me, produced a sudden lust in him. “Slowly, slowly,” I said, but I could not slow him. He pushed me on the bed and pulled at my jeans and underwear. His nose was between my legs, the first time he’d done that, and I could only think that this night of all nights I probably wasn’t very receptive. I tried to bring his head to mine, to cool and coax him, make him make love, but he pushed me down and pinned my knees to my shoulders, so that I searched his face for a reassuring look. But his eyes were closed as if to make me vanish and I gave in to it, relaxing my legs, reaching down to guide him into me. He had never been this big before, not even close. My head was fit to burst, but it was no longer my head. He pumped over me as if the work of weeks must now be concentrated into minutes. He was obliterating me. I closed my eyes and tried to make my own love. He groaned, a long, aching, sad, lost sound that was still continuing when I must have become lost in my own cry, since I next found myself angry and struggling to breathe against the hand that was held across my mouth to silence me, Geoffrey hissing, “The neighbours.”
KAMARA HAD BEEN WRONG: THERE WAS A PROBLEM.I had no money to go to London and the phone numbers in my bag were just numbers. I wrote a letter to my sister Maria asking if there was anything her husband could do to have my savings sent abroad, but I knew he would not help. His Goan clerk’s soul would never let him bend the rules. I was thinking of myself as less and less a Goan and more a free agent moving among the racially committed. I wrote to Mrs F, enquiring whether all was well, but not daring to ask for anything. After all, she disliked Geoffrey, had done everything to keep me at home, and I’d left her with a political mess, my mother and an unwanted soft ice-cream business on her hands. I could hardly expect help from her. And all I could manage for Mummy was a postcard and the news that I was all right, here in England.
Life returned to its cramped dullness after Geoffrey’s single demonstration of passion, and I was unsure whether or not to take up the following Friday’s invitation to the pub. I decided not, and Geoffrey seemed relieved. I began spending less time in bed. I went out more, did the food shopping, and at Geoffrey’s insistence bought a few winter clothes for myself. Nothing expensive. I opened my eyes a bit, started reading Geoffrey’s Guardian from end to end. My dry, unproductive cough became a constant companion. Somehow, on little evidence, I was coming to assume that my time in Reading was limited.
The
