which was so horribly painful that I grabbed him in the only grip I remembered from gymnasium days, the headlock, twisted his skull violently, and fell with him on the floor. His face was uppermost, and his killer’s eyes glared with a hunger for death that was beyond hatred or cruelty – a look almost pure. I hung on, he seized me in the most vulnerable parts. I howled: then suddenly he let go, when fingers were thrust into his throat and nose. I saw beyond the fingers the arms and fierce face of Johnny Fortune. Ronson, prancing with rage and agony, cried, ‘You take the side of this white man? You enemy of your people?’ Johnny increased the pressure. ‘You stop now, Billy? You stop and tell me what is this you think you doing?’
11
Back east, chastened, in the early dawn
When Billy was near dying, I let him just breathe, but not till he loose his tight hold of Montgomery. I stood back and waited, ready, in case these two Gambians might start some fight again. But all three in the room – Billy and Ronson Lighter and Montgomery – was rubbing themselves silently in different places. ‘Put your clothes on, Montgomery,’ I said. ‘Is never a good choice to fight without your garments.’
These ponces’ celebration parties! Always they end up in struggles. But when I came down from Theodora’s flat to visit Billy and, I thought, do him a favour by my warning, I did not expect to find this sort of battle. Perhaps soon someone would tell me the reasons of this strange argument.
‘I’m glad to see you, Johnny,’ said Montgomery, when he was more clothed. ‘Who told you I was up here?’
‘That Alfy Bongo. So of course I didn’t believe him, but I came upstairs to check, and heard from little Barbara you was here. Will someone now please explain to me?’ I added, giving cigarettes around, for I wished to show what friendship I could to Billy and to Ronson Lighter, and not make them think the white man could rely on me entirely, always, and for everything.
Ronson speak first. ‘This Jumble shop us,’ he cried out. ‘He sell us to the Law, and come here spying the effects.’
‘What is all this, Ronson Lighter?’
‘I tell you. Tonight we punish Cannibal in the gamble-house. Is I who do it, with the knife I buy. This Jumble see it, and go tell the Law about me.’
‘So it was you, Ronson,’ said Montgomery.
‘You know was I. Tamberlaine tell us what you see in there.’
‘But I didn’t know it was you with the knife,’ Montgomery said. ‘And I haven’t told anyone about it.’
‘A-ha! Can we believe this word?’ cried Billy Whispers.
‘Whether you do or not, you might have asked me before you both attacked me.’
‘Is you who attack us,’ cried Ronson, ‘with this your kettle.’ He picked it up and waved it fiercely. I took it from him.
‘I do not know,’ I said, ‘what my friend Montgomery see. But that he tell the Law, I don’t believe. If he do that to you, then why he dare come here after?’
‘To spy!’ said Billy. ‘To put the eye on us.’
‘You’s foolish, Billy,’ I said to him. ‘If anyone tell the Law of Ronson, it will be Cannibal.’
‘Cannibal not dare to. He know I end his life if he start yapping.’
‘Ronson try to end his life anyway, man. That takes away his fear of speaking to the Law.’
Billy Whispers looked at me as if a knife was all I was fit for too. ‘Fortune, I know you’s not my friend,’ he said. ‘You never was my friend at any time.’
I looked hard at this Gambian, to show I did not fear him. ‘Billy,’ I said, ‘if I am not your friend, there can only be one reason. It is the drug you give to my friend Hamilton Ashinowo, that kill him dead and steal his life away.’
‘Who say I do that?’
‘Cole. I catch him at your party here downstairs and talk to him. He put the blame on you and run away.’
‘And you believe that man?’
‘Is true, then?’
‘And if is true? I sell that stuff to Hamilton. He buy it; he want it; I give it. I satisfy his need.’
‘Then do not wonder, Billy, I am not your friend.’
‘So you betray me. You put the Law on me as well.’
‘Billy,’ I said. ‘What puts the Law on you is your life here with Dorothy. Why don’t you cut out, man, go