A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd Read Free Book Online

she rarely talked. She spoke instead of clothes and status, her two main interests in life, and Morgan fully realised that a white lover and this flat represented a leap of several rungs on this unpredictable ladder.
    He had met her at a party at the university where she told him that at one time she’d been a primary school teacher, a career which he suspected she’d abandoned for casual prostitution, though he recognised that the term carried little opprobrium out here, as was witnessed by the unconcern over her two bastards. For all his cynical evaluation, Hazel was necessary to him, more so now than ever, he realised, as a boost to his tottering ego and a source of reliable, uncomplicated sex. At least, that was the plan, and he treated her selfishly and imperiously in the pursuance of it. But, somehow, it had never really worked out; the expected satisfaction had not materialised, and he was faced with the growing suspicion these days that things were in reality running along some subtle scheme of Hazel’s devising and that it was
he
not she who was being exploited—a feeling that the unexplained presence of people like Sonny in his life only served to emphasise.
    He noticed that she was holding an unlighted cigarette in her hand.
    “Can you give me a light?” she asked as if he were a stranger.
    Morgan sighed inwardly. He’d have to put a stop to this now. He stood up. “Look, I told you, no smoking.”
    The cigarette drooped between her lips. “You have never come for three days,” she said sulkily. “What am I supposed to do? And then you tell my guest to go,” she added accusingly.
    “I didn’t tell him; he just went,” Morgan said, then, wondering why he felt he had to defend himself, burst out: “Anyway, I don’t give a good God damn. When I give up smoking you do too, and no questions asked. What do you think it’s like for me to kiss you?”
    She looked coy at this.
    “And,” Morgan went on, “who was your ‘guest’ anyway? Sonny or whatever.”
    She put the cigarette down on the table and secured the tuck in her towel. “It was my brother,” she said flatly. Morgan felt his indignation seeping away. He tried to keep his eyes off the way her large breasts splayed beneath the towel, tried to ignore the tickle in his groin; he had to see this out first.
    “I thought you said you had no brothers.”
    “Yes, from my mother. This is same father, different mother.” She looked at him unperturbed. Morgan considered the veracity of her story; there was no way he could compete under these circumstances.
    “All right,” he said grudgingly, “but I don’t want him to come here again, OK?”
    Morgan dropped the condom in the tin waste-paper basket under the sink in the bathroom. He was still being cautious. Murray had told him to “use the sheath at all times.” It was typical of Murray to call it a sheath, he thought; he could still hear the man’s dry Scottish accent. It was typical also, he reflected bitterly, how Murray’s influence reached into the most private areas of his life. He shook his head in resigned disbelief; it was uncanny how it happened. But also he was still not entirely happy with Hazel’s explanation of Sonny’s presence and he didn’t feel like taking any chances. He always expected Hazel to make a fuss about his using contraceptives and the implications they had, especially as he had forced her to go on the pill a couple of months ago, but she had made no visible sign or comment as he had laboriously rolled it down over his flagging erection. The fan had been turned up to full and had swept the bed with cool draughts, drying the sweat on his buttocks and back.
    Afterwards, he found he could still taste the Fanshawes’ sherry in his mouth for some reason, and had sent a protesting Hazel out for some more beer to wash it away. “If you hadn’t given it to bloody Sonny-boy you wouldn’t have to go, would you?” he had satisfyingly rebuked her.
    While she was