holding a little court of coloured boys lying round her, relaxed, inquisitive and amused. She was treating them to a display of mental pyrotechnics which delighted them as an athletic performance, however little note they took of what she said. And though her questions and observations were outrageous, they took no offence because they recognised in Theodora what I had never thought her to be – a natural.
Her chief interlocutor was a bland West Indian called Tamberlaine, who said:
‘Oh, calm you English are, certainly, Miss Theodora, like a corpse is, and reliable, as you say; but always reliable for what no man could desire: like making sure he pays his income tax instalments highly punctually.’
‘But what you haven’t got,’ said Norbert Salt (reluctant to see this West Indian steal his American thunder), ‘is the social graces and spontaneous conduct we’re renowned for. Also,’ he said, rising to his feet and clasping Moscow Gentry by the hands, ‘you’ve not got our glorious beauty. See now, what a beautiful race we are!’
The pair posed in an arabesque, like the bronze group above the entrance to some splendid building.
‘I’d like also to rebuke you, if you’ll permit me,’ Tamberlaine went on, his voice rising higher to attract eyes from the arabesque, ‘for the peculiar observations you English make to we people in public houses, omnibuses, and elsewhere.’
‘For instance?’ said Theodora, resolutely impartial, her spectacles aglint.
Tamberlaine ran to the door, and reappeared wearing a bowler hat and an umbrella. ‘Now I shall show you,’ he announced, ‘a conversation between myself and some kind English gentleman. This gentleman, he say to me,’ (Tamberlaine’s accent became the oddest mixture of West Indian and deep Surrey) ‘“I do envy you fellows your wonderful teeth.” To which I reply in my mind, if not with my voice,’ (Tamberlaine removed the bowler), ‘“Well, sir, me don’t envy you your yellow horse-fangs, and if you look clearly down my throat, you’ll see most of me back ones anyway is gold.”’
The performance was applauded. ‘Go on,’ said Theodora, seemingly unmoved.
‘Or else,’ Tamberlaine continued, ‘he come up to me and say,’ (bowler on) ‘“Don’t you miss the hot weather over here?”’
‘Oh, no, man, no, not that familiar saying!’ cried several voices.
‘Sometimes,’ the West Indian dramatist proceeded, ‘this Englishman is a more serious person, with a feeling of sorrow for past wrongs committed. In this case, he will raise his hat to me and say, “I think, sir, that conditions in the Union of South Africa are a scandal.” To which I inwardly reply, “Then please go there and tell Mr Strijdom of your sentiments.” Or else he will look very sad and sorrowful and tell me, “You may find, sir, that there is sometimes a certain prejudice in England, but believe me, sir, that some of us are just as worried about it as you.”’
Laughter and renewed applause.
‘Let me tell you,’ cried Norbert, snatching the stage from Tamberlaine, ‘what’s the craziest thing of all they say. Is this.’ He wheeled, returned with a mincing step, torso rigid, legs flaying like mad stilts, stopped dead, and said, ‘“I like coloured people, myself.”’
‘That one,’ said Moscow Gentry, ‘wins top prize for pure impossibility.’
Theodora was displeased: even saddened, I thought, as if at last minding more for generosity than for justice.
‘You’re all very unfair,’ she said. ‘You must remember our people often mean well, and are only shy. Often they do like you, and want to help you if they can, but just don’t know how to tell you.’
Tamberlaine looked slightly vicious: he no doubt felt he’d got her on the run.
‘Well, lady,’ he said, ‘all that may be. But please remember this. We’re not interested in what your kind ideas about us are, but chiefly in your personal behaviour. We even prefer the man who doesn’t want to help us, but is nice and easy with us, to one who wants to lecture us for our benefit.’
There was a loud clap of a pair of hands. Mr Vial stood on an occasional table in the middle of the room, supported round the hips by willing hands of manicured white guests and long Caribbean fingers.
‘Miss Isabel Cornwallis,’ he announced, ‘has telephoned to say she can’t be with us.’ There were polite, disappointed cries of ‘Ah!’ Mr Vial hung his head as if dejected; then, raising it up, with a bald, beaming glare, he cried, ‘But the voodoo will take place all the same!’
The lights went out.
A hand took mine. ‘It’s all right, hon’,’ the voice