The High Commissioner. Jon Cleary
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downstairs and Quentin, his wife and Lisa Pretorious had been waiting in the hall for him.
“You look most distinguished, Mr. Malone,” Sheila Quentin had said, and Malone had felt a youthful glow of pleasure: he had never expected in all his life to be called distinguished.
He looked at Joseph, standing nearby, and winked; but the butler had not moved a muscle. I should arrest that bastard, Malone thought, for insulting a police officer. Then he had glanced at Quentin and the humour in him had been doused. The High Commissioner, handsome and distinguished though he was, looked exhausted, a man who had all at once begun to age. Looking at the tall grey-haired man in the beautifully cut dress suit, Malone felt he was looking at a corpse dressed for a wedding instead of a funeral: someone had got the dates wrong.
“Would you be kind enough to escort Miss Pretorious?” Sheila Quentin had said; and Malone had offered his arm to the cool lovely blonde who was looking at him with new, almost unbelieving, interest.
“If you’ll have me,” he said, as the Quentins had gone ahead of them out the front door to the waiting car.
“I wonder that Tumbarumba ever let you go,” Lisa had said. He looked quickly in front to see if the Quentins had heard the remark, but if they had neither of them showed any reaction. “I wouldn’t have recognised you as the man I let in a while ago.”
Her smile had taken the ice out of her remark. But she knows I’m an outsider, Malone had thought.
Now here at the reception he felt even more of an outsider. Then through an open arch he saw a waiter go past bearing a tray of food; his stomach reminded him he had not eaten for almost nine hours. He followed the waiter, easing his way through the groups of people with more politeness than he felt. He knew it was stupid to feel resentful because people didn’t turn and welcome him with open arms. But he had been spoiled back in Sydney: there, even the crims had been friendly to him. Except when he came to arrest them.
The supper room was almost deserted but for a few disguised journalists pecking at the perks of the diplomatic social round, and two Negro men in evening dress.
“Enjoying yourself?” The older of the two men, tall and portly and cheerful, had a voice as rich as that of Quentin’s butler; but he had none of the servant’s snobbery, he was a man born to be friendly.
“Not much,” said Malone with undiplomatic truthfulness; hunger always sharpened one’s candour. Then he remembered that he was in an African embassy, that the men beside him were coloured. “Do you belong here?”
“I’m the ambassador. I’m not enjoying it, either.” He laughed, a deep gurgle of merriment that made jelly of his jowls. The younger Negro, lighter skinned and thinner, smiled with more controlled humour. The ambassador was piling a plate with food; he held a bouquet of crab, salad, tomato, celery. “But the food is good. Help yourself. Where are you from?”
“Australia,” said Malone, and saw the younger Negro look at him with sudden interest.
“With Quentin? A splendid chap. I can even forgive him your White Australia policy. He’ll be the one to make a success of this conference.” He added a ribbon of mayonnaise to the bouquet in his hand. “If it’s going to be a success.”
“You don’t think it will be?” Malone followed him round the table, using the ambassador’s plate as his own example: if a diplomat could be a hog, why not a plain policeman?
“Champagne? The wages of sin and diplomacy, Bollinger ’55. Back in my country I’m expected to drink a concoction made out of tropical fruits. We call it Château-neuf-du-Papaya. Terrible stuff.”
“Jungle juice,” said the younger Negro in a soft American accent. “The Aussies used to make it and sell it to our guys in New Guinea.”
“Really? I’m surprised you won the war. Well, now I have to find somewhere quiet to eat this.” The ambassador looked at the heaped plate, then winked a piebald eye at them both. “My father died of gluttony, a surfeit of underdone missionary. What a pity he didn’t live to appreciate the fruits of independence.”
He went rolling out of the room, chuckling to himself. Malone grinned and the younger Negro said, “His father went to Oxford just as he did. Periodically he takes a course in atavism, to come down to the level of some of his politicians back home.”
Malone steered clear of any racial comment: he wasn’t sure that he was not being baited. “Do you work for him?”
“I’m like you, a guest here. The name is Jamaica.”
“You’re an American?”
Jamaica nodded. He might have been a handsome man had his face not been so tight: all his feeling towards the world was screwed in behind the closed defence of his face. The sculptured head, with its close-cropped hair and its stiff dark features, reminded one of a helmet with its visor down: all Jamaica’s pain, joy, hate and love would be his own secret.
“From Georgia.” His voice was softly accented, but he had been gone a long time from Georgia. “I haven’t seen you around before. Are you here just for the conference?”
Malone hesitated, then nodded. “I expect to be going back at the end of the week.”
“You think it’ll be finished by then?”
“Don’t you?” Malone added Russian salad to his plate, hoping it would not indict him in the eyes of the American.
Jamaica shrugged. He wore his evening clothes with less ease than had the African; his jacket was too large and when he shrugged one shoulder slipped forward a little, as if he had dislocated it. He’s like me, Malone thought, he’s wearing someone else’s tail plumes. “You know what conferences are like.”
“I don’t. This is my first.”
Jamaica picked up a stick of celery, bit into it. Across the room the journalists watched attentively, their stares hidden behind their champagne glasses. Their dress suits were less expensive than those worn by the other guests, but they wore them with as much ease; most of them were middle-aged or elderly men who had been on this round for years. Malone, a policeman with little affection for newspapermen, looked at them and thought of them as vultures dressed as penguins. But Jamaica ignored them; all his attention was on Malone. The celery crackled in his mouth as he said, “Your man Quentin is a great one for compromise, isn’t he?”
“You Americans don’t like compromise, do you?”
“It was a European invention.”
“You’re wrong there, mate. I think it was the Chinese.”
“The Chinese aren’t interested in compromise now.”
“That’s the only thing you have in common. You two ought to get together.” Stone the crows, I’m talking like a bloody diplomat; and Malone almost beamed with pleasure at his repartee. This was better than talking cricket scores and football results with the other blokes in the Murder Squad.
“You Australians aren’t in a position to be too independent.”
“No,” said Malone, his plate at last full. “That’s probably why Quentin is plumping for compromise.”
“You’d better be careful.” Jamaica’s voice was even, toneless: you could read into it any emphasis you wished. Malone read a warning, close to a threat; and turned his head sharply to ask Jamaica what he meant. But the American was already walking away. “I’ll see you around.”
Malone stared after him. Why was the American so sour, what did he mean that Malone should be careful? Then Malone was aware of someone moving along the supper table towards him.
Across the room one of the journalists had taken a step forward, but had stopped when he saw the small Oriental woman in the yellow ao dais moving towards the Australian.
“Who’s the woman?” the journalist whispered to