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

the extra flesh not too badly, he reckoned. He smiled at himself, his strong smile, showing all his teeth. There was something vaguely Brandoish about him, he felt. Hazel looked up from her nail painting, thought he was smiling at her and smiled back.
    Standing up he inflated his chest, sucked in his gut and flexed his buttocks. He didn’t really look thirty-four, he decided, that is, if you ignored his hair. His hair was the bane of his life; it was fine and wispy, pale reddish-brown and falling out. His temples took over more of his head every month. Somehow his widow’s peak held on, a hirsute promontory in an expanding sea of forehead. If his bloody receding didn’t stop soon, he reflected, he’d end up looking like a Huron Indian or one of those demented American Marines, currently wasting the inhabitants of South-East Asia, who shaved their heads leavingonly a prickly stripe running down the centre. Gently, with all ten finger tips, he teased the soft hair across his brow; it was too sad really.
    Back in his clothes he returned his attention to Hazel. She was spending a long time preparing herself for something, and it wasn’t for him. He looked around the room and its tawdriness set his spirits in the now familiar slide—the frame metal bed with its thin dunlopillo mattress, the cheap local furnishings, the bright ceiling light with its buzzing corona of flying insects and Hazel’s garish mini-skirts and shifts cast around the room as haphazardly as seaweed on a beach.
    “Can’t you keep this bloody place tidy?” he said complainingly. Then: “And where are you going tonight?”
    Hazel was struggling into a tight pink cotton mini-dress and she was wobbly on high-heeled patent-leather shoes. “I can’t stay here all night,” she said, not unreasonably. “I am going to the Executive. Josy Gboye is starring there.”
    Morgan laughed sardonically. “Oh yeah? And I suppose you’re going alone.”
    Hazel adjusted her wig, a heavily back-combed straight-haired black one modelled after the hair style of a British pop-singer. “Of course not,” she said simply, “I am going with my brother.” She fastened on her gold earrings. Morgan thought she looked like a tart, lurid and sexual, and deeply attractive. He realised he was jealous; he would have liked to be going to the Executive with her, but it functioned as an unofficial campaign headquarters for Adekunle’s party workers, and it would not be wise for him to be spotted there with the elections just a week away. Besides, the last person in the world he wanted to see at the moment was Adekunle. The barbecue at the club would be safer—safe and dull.
    Hazel saw his smouldering look and came over to him. She put her arms round his waist.
    “I want to go with you,” she said, nuzzling his chest. The stiff nylon hairs of the wig tickled Morgan’s nose making him want to sneeze. “But if you won’t allow me, what can I do?”
    Confronted by this logic he decided to be unreasonable.
    “All right,” he said. “All right. But be back here by 10:30. I think I’ll look in later.” He thought this highly improbable but he didn’t like being taken for granted.
    He bent down and touched his lips to her neck. Her skin was smooth and dry. He smelt “Amby”—a skin lightening agent most Kinjanjan girls used—talcum powder and a thin acidic whiff of fresh perspiration. He suddenly felt very aroused. He never failed to register amazement at the swiftness of his erections—and their subsidence—in Africa. He pressed himself against Hazel, and she backed off laughing, her almond eyes creased thinner with amusement. She gave her infectious, high-pitched laugh.
    “Dis man,” she said in pidgin English. “Dis man ’e nevah done satisfy, ah-ah!” She clapped her hands in delighted mirth.
    For some reason Morgan found himself smiling bashfully, a schoolboy blush spreading slowly across his face.

Chapter 3
    Morgan parked his Peugeot in the club car-park. He