City of Spades - By Colin MacInnes Page 0,60

fear we’re going to take liberties with them, or patronise them, as you people do.’

‘Do we now!’

‘Yes, you do. Africans don’t seem to care what anyone thinks of them. So even though they’re more clannish and secretive, they’re easier to talk to.’

Mr Tamberlaine considered this. ‘Listen to me, man,’ he said. ‘If we’s more sensitive like you say, there’s reasons for it. Our islands is colonies of great antiquity, and our mother tongue is English, like your own, and not some dialects. So naturally we expect you treat us like we’re British as yourself, and when you don’t, we suffer and go sour. Why should we not? But Africans – what do they care of British? For African, his passport just don’t mean nothing, except for travel, but for us it’s loyalty.’

I couldn’t resist a dig. I’d had, after all, to take so many myself in recent months. ‘I think,’ I said, ‘it’s easier for them than it is for you. They know what they are, and you’re not sure. They belong much more deeply to Africa than you do to the Caribbean.’

‘My ears is pointed in your direction,’ said Mr Tamberlaine, sipping his coffee, ‘for some more ripe instruction.’

‘Here it comes, then. They speak their own private tongues, their lives are rooted in their ancient tribes, so that even when they’re lonely or miserable here they feel they’re sustained by the solid tribal past at home. But you, you’re wanderers, cut off by centuries from Africa where you first came from, and ready to move off again from your stepping-stones strung out across the sea.’

‘Our islands is stepping-stones? Thank you now, for what you call them so.’

‘Wouldn’t you all move on to North or South America, if they’d let you in?’

‘Well, yes, perhaps we would, the way they treat us here, and how it is back home.’

‘You see, then. You’re not sure what you are – African, Caribbean, or American – and so you’re quite ready to be British.’

‘Thank you for the compliment to our patriotism. So many of our boy who serve in RAF would gladly hear your words.’

I saw the conversation wasn’t a success, and apologised to Mr Tamberlaine. ‘I’m just saying what I think – excuse me if it gives offence.’

Mr Tamberlaine smiled politely. ‘Is no offence, man. You say what’s in your mind, and that’s your liberty. What’s certain, anyway, is that we’re different, Africans and we. We don’t mix much, except when we stand shoulder to shoulder against the white.’

He got up, put on his tailored duffel coat, and said, ‘Now I must get out in the cold and do me pimpin’. You’re not interested in anything I have to offer, I suppose?’

‘Such as what, Mr Tamberlaine?’

‘A little coloured lady for you? You go with her, and add to your education of these different races.’

‘All right. Is it far?’

‘We go down Brixton way, man, and see there. I hope you have money for the taxi, there’s no all-night bus.’

10

In Billy Whispers’ domain

Tamberlaine was bored and silent on the journey, except for occasional altercations with the taxi driver, to whom he gave a succession of imprecise addresses (‘take us just by that football ground, that’s by that Tube station, cabby, and then I’ll tell you …’). We reached the area of chain-store windows, parks fit for violations, and squat overhanging railway bridges, all bathed in a livid phosphorescent glare, when Tamberlaine rapped the glass and shouted, ‘Here now! Here!’, as if the driver should have known our final destination. Tamberlaine strolled away, leaving me to settle, while the driver exhaled his spleen. ‘These darkies should go back home,’ he said, ‘and never have come here in the first place.’

‘They tip well, don’t they?’

‘Either they do, or they run off without paying. But it’s the way they speak to you. Calling me “cabby”!’

Tamberlaine had turned a corner, and I followed him into a tottering street of late-Victorian houses, where lights, despite the lateness of the hour, were shining through many a green or crimson curtain. ‘This is your London Harlem,’ he said to me. ‘Our Caribbean home from home. We try this one,’ and he climbed some chipped steps beneath a portico, knocked loud, and rang.

A head and shoulders protruded from above. ‘Is Tamberlaine,’ he shouted. ‘Gloria, is she there?’

‘No, man. Is here, but not available.’

‘Aurora, now, is she there?’

‘No, man. You come too late to see her.’

We tried at several other houses, without success, till the vexation of a wounded professional pride was heard in