City of Spades - By Colin MacInnes Page 0,36

sight in future.’ Not to be surprised again, when they sat down this time she held him closely round the shoulder.

He said: ‘You’re like my sister Peach. That’s what she says to me as well – ah, women!’

The loud-speaker blared: ‘And opposite the old St Paul’s – turn your heads this way, please’ (the heads switched south) ‘—is the Bankside power station, a controversial electrification project, and there – the small yellow edifice is the one I’m alluding to – the former residence of Sir Christopher himself, from whence he watched across the river the lofty pile of his cathedral rising up, and then, just adjacent, in the district known previously as the “Stews” – with its bear-gardens, and colony of Dutch and Flemish women of easy virtue, as they were called (now all cleaned up, of course) – the site of the old Globe theatre, erected by the brothers Burbage in 1598 for the smash-hits of their mate Bill Shakespeare, who acted there himself in what he termed affectionately his “wooden O” …’

‘What is Peach like?’ asked Muriel.

‘Peach? She is like all our women. The more she loves you, the more she tries to grasp you and take charge of you.’

‘Your women are like that, out there in Africa?’

Johnny frowned.

‘You know something, now? Is a secret I’m telling you, so open up the ears and close the lips. One chief reason why our boys get settled often with your white girls here is that our own back home are such big bosses. They do everything for you, yes, much more than any white girl would, and cook so well, and work, but in exchange for this, they try to gain possession of your private person.’

Muriel mused. ‘But is it true’ (she paused) ‘that some of your boys really prefer us more?’ He didn’t answer, and looked downstream ahead. ‘I mean,’ she went on, ‘like us better just because we’re white?’

He turned towards her. ‘That’s what they say, isn’t it? That’s what the white newspapers all say in their Sunday editions. That all we want is rape some innocent white lady?’

‘You’re not being serious, Johnny.’

‘As if there was any need to rape!’

‘Don’t flatter yourself: you’re all so conceited.’

He preened himself, and looked it.

‘Now on our left,’ the amplifier intoned, ‘we have the Billingsgate fish market and wharves, so named after Belin, legendary monarch of the Britons in their primitive era, and best known now, of course, for the fish porters’ highly coloured language, of which I will attempt an imitation. Why, Gorblimey, you …’ (the loud-speakers emitted only deafening crackles) ‘… sorry, ladies and gents, but I’ve been censored. Beneath us at the moment – that is, beneath the boat and underneath the river bed – is the oldest of the numerous Thames tunnels, now disused, constructed between 1825 and 1843 by Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, the Frenchman. And now, my friends and folks, arising in historic splendour on the northern bank is the ancient Tower of London, celebrated alike for its Traitors’ Gate, Crown Jewels, scaffold, dungeons, ravens, Beefeaters, Bloody Tower and instruments of torture …’

Johnny and Muriel barely glanced, and gazed ahead at castellated Tower Bridge, the last gate before the river becomes the ocean that weds the city to the outer world. She pressed his shoulder down a bit, and laid her head on it. ‘You didn’t answer me properly, though,’ she said. ‘Do you really like us better?’

‘Does who like who?’

‘You boys like us white girls.’

‘Some of us do, perhaps.’

‘Only some, Johnny?’

‘Oh, you cannot judge by England, Muriel. There’s so few of our own girls here, it has to be a white chick or else nothing. And can you imagine us with nothing?’

They kissed discreetly, with a slight grin of complicity.

‘But if you had a free choice,’ Muriel persisted, ‘would you choose one of us? Choose us because we’re different? Or because, if you marry one of us, it’s easier to fit in and make a living?’

‘What is this, Muriel! You make me some proposition of matrimony? Don’t be so speedy, woman – we’ve only met up just one month. It’s the man’s supposed to make that invitation, didn’t you know?’ (She looked demure.) ‘I tell you something, though, and don’t forget it. If ever one of our boys does marry one of you, there’s no doubt who we think is being done the favour.’

Muriel reflected, vexed, then half understanding. ‘It’s true,’ she said, ‘your boys are often better class than girls they marry here …’

‘Is