Manly Pursuits Read online

  for

  my daughter

  Sophie Brown

  and

  in memory of

  my friend

  Peter Lundwall

  LADY CAROLINE: I don’t think that England should be represented abroad by an unmarried man, Jane. It might lead to complications.

  LADY HUNSTANTON: You are too nervous, Caroline. Believe me, you are too nervous. Besides, Lord Illingworth may marry any day. I was in hopes he would have married Lady Kelso. But I believe he said her family was too large. Or was it her feet? I forget which.

  Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

  Generally, the most vigorous males, those which are best fitted for their places in nature, will leave most progeny. But in many cases, victory depends not on general vigour, but on having special weapons, confined to the male sex. A hornless stag or spurless cock would have a poor chance of leaving offspring.

  Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

  Contents

  Part One

  Cape Town 1899

  Oxford 1870

  Cape Town 1899

  Oxford 1870

  Cape Town 1899

  Voyage

  Cape Town 1899

  Cape Town 1899

  Oxford 1874

  Cape Town 1899

  Childhood

  Cape Town 1899

  Hinksey 1874

  Cape Town 1899

  Olive Reveals A Secret

  Part Two

  Great Granary 1899

  London 1885

  Great Granary 1899

  Great Granary 1899

  Oxford 1891

  Great Granary 1899

  Great Granary 1899

  Oxford 1895

  Great Granary 1899

  Miss Schreiner Tells Another Story

  Oxford 1898

  Great Granary 1899

  Great Granary 1899

  England 1895

  Great Granary 1899

  Clapham Junction 1895

  Cape Town 1899

  The Impatient Imperialist

  No gratitude

  Acknowledgements

  A Note on the Author

  Part One

  Cape Town 1899

  This morning he asked me if it was true that blackbirds can hear their worms moving in the earth. No apology for his five-day absence; no enquiry about the voyage; no reference to my nervous collapse or the reports of my Oxford physicians; not even a how d’ye do and good to meet you at last. (We had communicated entirely by telegram.) Above all, no explanation as to why the arrangements had changed so suddenly; why, in complete contradiction to the previous plans, I had been ordered to bring forward my date of arrival from spring to autumn – or autumn to spring, depending on which hemisphere you happen to occupy.

  I was warned about this, of course. He’ll take you by surprise, the Captain said. That’s how he’s made his millions, by coming in at an angle. He was like that as an undergraduate over twenty years ago, as I remember. Tall and gauche, in his habitual blue sailor tie with white spots, he shambled uneasily among us pale academics, startling us with sudden displays of the diamonds he carried in his waistcoat pocket when he registered our sneers. He’d lived rough beside the Kimberley mine, and enjoyed talking dysentery and fleas. Rumour has it he read his Aristotle and Marcus Aurelius in English! His library is full of translations, shelves of them typed and bound in red morocco: every reference made in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. They smell of smoke and ash when you open them (which I frequently do). Miraculous that they were saved from the fire, and by the butler at that.

  You’d think his architect would have encouraged him to make the new place more of a home – along the lines of the dons’ cluttered comfort – but this place is a museum piece, built in the Stoic mould. All teak and whitewash, flags and firearms, and a bath eight feet long hollowed from a slab of granite. Every hinge and handle is hand-wrought, yet the symmetry of the house is such that it could have been fashioned by a machine, with no feeling for the imperfections that create a home. And if he’d built the house a few hundred yards higher up the mountain slope he’d have ensured a magnificent view of a distant mountain range, and caught the morning sun. Instead we freeze in these great dark rooms, inhaling the bitter aroma of tropical hardwoods (six shiploads brought in from the East Indies) just because he wants historical continuity. As if building your house (twice) on the ruins of an old barn that stored the First Settlers’ crops gives you some sort of sacred power – a mantle of belonging. And he a vicar’s son from some provincial market town in England, with plans to ruin and subjugate the descendants of those very Settlers he admires so much.

  I’m particularly annoyed about the position of the aviaries. When the matter was first raised, one of his so-called secretaries assured me – by telegram – that the birds would get at least ten hours’ sunshine a day. They won’t sing unless they’re fooled into thinking it’s spring, it’s as simple as that. Now I find the aviaries have to be at the rear of the Great Granary because certain members of the public are allowed to wander freely in the gardens (in spite of the fire) and would frighten or tease these nervous British birds. So we’re right at the back of the main building, impinging on the drive that leads to the kitchen, and in the shade all day – either cast by the Devil’s Peak mountain, or the shadows of these wretched conifers that have been planted all over the mountain slopes. He sees himself as some sort of Capability Brown of the Cape, grooming the mountainside to look like the gardens of a stately home. The natural habitat of the mountain is this scrubby fynbos – the odd thorn bush throwing out a torrent of hot perfume; flowerheads that sprout fur and feathers instead of petals; lilies that burst into bloom only after a savage mountain fire; and silver trees with leaves like daggers. But we see little of this from the Great Granary, hemmed in on all sides, as we are, by dark forests planted a mere twenty years ago, as if in preparation for my songbirds. They wouldn’t survive in the heat of the fynbos, it’s true, but who knows what ghastly predators lurk in the plantations? My telegrams informed me that the purpose of the songbird introduction is ‘to improve the amenities of the Cape’. Presumably the kangaroos, llamas and zebras enclosed in adjacent meadows perform the same function. I believe my employer is commissioning some sort of Temple of Theseus, with colonnades, for his lions.

  I am attempting to rest, in obedience to my physician’s stern orders. Rest does not come easily to one whose entire adult life has been stretched on the rack of chronic dyspepsia. And since my collapse (of which I remember little) I feel that the convolutions of my brain are but a microcosm of the coils of my abdomen where ancient ulcers erupt and poison disseminates, so that orderly thought is replaced by chaotic outbursts (of which this observation is a telling example). I have therefore asked to be excused from the Great Granary’s indigestible evening meals.

  My medical supervisors in Oxford agreed that the turmoil in my head would best be quietened by a complete change of environment, as far removed as possible from the claustrophobic confines of my college. A rest home in Eastbourne was mentioned. I refused to budge. An eminent psychologist under the unfortunate influence of Vienna suggested hypnosis. I turned my face to the wall and declined to move from my bed. My elderly scout, Saunders, unpacked my cameras in a row at my bedside in the hope that this reminder of my lifelong hobby might encourage me to take a photograph. I groaned impatiently. So when the request came from the Cape Colony for two hundred British songbirds to be selected and delivered personally by the world’s leading authority on birdsong to an anonymous diamond tycoon, it was considered to be the perfect excuse for me to venture out of my shuttered rooms and sail into the brilliance of the Southern hemisphere. Needless to
say, I had no interest in the whim of some tycoon, and communicated my displeasure by refusing to eat.

  It was Saunders, grown pale and drawn with the effort of tempting me to sip at bowls of gruel specially prepared in the college kitchens, who whispered ramshackle stories of Africa into my ear: potted accounts he had read in our national broadsheets of the travels of G.B. Challenger, that famed elephant hunter and explorer, whose ambition it was to retrace the zigzagging steps of the Reverend David Livingstone, and erect a monument in his honour at Ujiji. (Funds had been raised through public subscription for a leading Pre-Raphaelite sculptor to produce a statue of the doctor pointing his finger at the African landscape, with the inscription: I leave it to you! on its plinth.) It is true to say that Saunders was less interested in Challenger’s achievements than in the antics of Mary, the female poodle who accompanied the explorer wherever he went, and had endeared herself to the nation through her playful acts of bravery and devotion, which included rescuing her master from the fury of a wounded rhinoceros by jumping in its path, and twirling a coloured ball upon her nose. Who will ever understand how this gentle manservant (who had never travelled further south than Basingstoke, to visit his sister and her unruly family) managed to instil into my consciousness the wild plains of Africa, sharp with shadow and yellow light; the mangrove swamps that lift a stinking frill of roots as the brown Zambezi estuary rises and falls; long, lean peoples in round huts beside inland oceans turned pink with one-legged flamingos? – for Saunders had no idea of geography and imagined Cape Town to be swarming with the elephants, crocodiles and mosquitoes which Challenger met and killed on a daily basis in central Africa. Perhaps his trembling voice awoke in me memories of the eventful career in the New World of my tutor, Mr James, who had roused me from a childhood inertia with his ability to rattle off the binomial nomenclature of cats that barked, dogs that hung by their tails from trees, and plants that opened and shut like umbrellas in Amazonian forests and African jungles, with photographs to prove it. Whatever the reason, I found myself agreeing – by telegram – to supervise a cargo of songbirds that would leave Southampton in time for the Cape Town October spring.

  Then, out of the blue came the cable requesting – commanding – me to leave immediately. Because very large amounts of money would be paid to the zoology department for the project, the university insisted I agree to this change of plan, even though I had only just vacated my sick bed, and, in doing so, had contracted the unpleasant bronchial infection which still plagues me. The month was April, and the nightingales, chaffinches, robins, starlings et al. I had ordered from a reliable farm in Sussex were singing and laying eggs for all they were worth. I argued that if we arrived in Cape Town in autumn all mating would cease and there would consequently be no birdsong for the nameless millionaire who required it so urgently. My feeble voice was powerless against the imperative of a sum of money large enough to subsidise the building of a new laboratory. Saunders packed my bags almost overnight.

  It was not until I boarded the Northampton Castle that the identity of the bird-loving tycoon was revealed to me. It came as a shock. The Colossus, they call him now. After one of the seven wonders of the ancient world: the hundred-foot bronze statue of the sun-god Helios guarding the harbour entrance of an Aegean island. Let us hope my diamond entrepreneur does not follow the example of the original Colossus, which was toppled by an earthquake and sold for scrap, in forty-seven wheelbarrows, eight hundred years later.

  Yesterday morning my breakfast was ruined by the arrival of a flirtatious mother and her sly daughter. They seemed incapable of perceiving that I require silence for successful digestion, and clearly regarded my lack of response as a challenge to their feminine wiles.

  The mother (whose husband is an administrator up in the north of the Colony and who speaks in a guttural Boer accent laced with pantomime gentility): ‘Come on, Professor! You need building up! I’m going to put a fried egg on your plate next to that teeny little piece of bacon!’ And she brushed her bosom against my shoulder as she leant over. I shuddered, but could not bring myself to tell her that I cannot eat eggs first thing in the morning.

  The daughter (aged sixteen): ‘Oh, leave the poor man alone, Mother. Just think how fat Daddy is compared to the Professor. You overfeed everyone you see!’ And she coiled herself round her chair, sliding her eyes to see if I was grateful for her support.

  She is biding her time until the return of the noisy young men who appear to play some sort of secretarial role in the life of my absentee host. They rise at five, bathe noisily in ice-cold water, gulp down some rough porridge and coffee, then tear up the mountain on horseback. They are out all day; they ride straight into town to conduct company business or run the Colony, or plot the downfall of the old Boer in the north, who is undoubtedly plotting theirs. I wait for the shouting to subside into the distance, then heave myself out of my hard but warm bed. The Negro manservant – I cannot bring myself to call him Kaffir, for that is the name my mother gave her favourite dog when I was a small child – brings me the great jug of hot water on which I insisted after the first disastrous morning. I ask him if his employer has returned from his election campaign. He replies, Not yet, baas, in a voice drenched in apology, then seals his lips. I want to ask him whether it is an African custom for the host to be absent when his guest arrives, but I contain my pique. I’ve been in this mausoleum for nearly a week, and still not a sign of the man who has employed me, I want to say to this manservant in frock-coat and high collar, the tribal markings etched in parallel lines across his cheeks. He has no tip to his middle finger. His name, by some devious route, is Orpheus. I am disturbed by his silence.

  In fact, I am already homesick for Oxford. I long for the claustrophobia of my rooms and the soothing murmur of donnish gossip. When a new guest, usually a woman, wanders into the dining-room, I pray she will be British. You know after the first two words they speak. I like my Good Mornings crisp and rectangular like my bacon rashers, not an operatic aria as these colonial women will make their greetings. Usually with a garish display of teeth as they linger unnecessarily on the final syllable. They ask enthusiastic questions about British birds. The air is sprayed with exclamation marks as they respond to my dry pronouncements. They gabble on about the fire: a couple knew the house before it was gutted. All the oil paintings and some valuable tapestry had been destroyed, as well as period furniture which has been painstakingly replaced. They wonder whether the fire was accident or arson. The general opinion is arson. The Colossus, though worshipped by the present company, has many enemies. Since the Raid four years ago, there have been a dozen further attempts at burning his house down. They accept his absence with smiling tolerance. I learn he is touring the north of the Colony, making speeches: in spite of his disgrace he fills halls with supporters who would forgive him anything.

  After my experience with the mother and daughter I rose an hour earlier today in order to be alone with my bacon and slice of toast and pot of China tea. The coffee here is monstrous. The secretaries drink it by the gallon, especially when playing billiards in a vast smoky room at the back of the house. I can hear them shouting with caffeine-inflamed voices which they lower when I pass by. I collided with one of them in a corridor once: he stank of coffee and brandy and Turkish tobacco. He looked at me with bloodshot blue eyes (every young man in this house has blue eyes of a particularly vibrant hue), and murmured an apology in Dutch.

  This morning the clatter of the early risers didn’t disappear down the avenue for once, but shut itself up in the drawing-room, like a giant trapped animal trying to claw its way out. The noise had continued for a good hour when I descended for breakfast. A piercing female voice rose above the rumble of male dialogue (and clash of coffee cups) and I wondered if it might belong to the Colossus’ formidable sister, who had been rescued from the flames of the Great Granary by the butler (only after he had rescued the library books, saving what he thought his master valued most). It was certainly a voice at home w
ith male company, breaking into high-pitched giggles through the gusts of masculine badinage.

  I had just swallowed my first sip of tea – the best moment of the day, in my opinion, as the smoky fragrance of the East rises from the back of the throat and stimulates the olfactory nerves – when the dining-room door shot open. I tried to control the spasm of annoyance which I am told momentarily contorts my otherwise bland facial features, and replaced my cup (surely not genuine Ming?) delicately on its saucer, though with shaking hand. For some reason my place had been laid at the head of the long dining-table – a table, I may say, which had been carved in its entirety from one massive trunk of Yellowwood, an indigenous tree which grows in the Colony’s little rain forest. I could thus hear several people burst into the quiet of the dining-room, but could not see them, the door being behind me. A billow of cigar smoke immediately wreathed itself round my head; I coughed discreetly, a mere sparrow’s cheep. The chatter was dominated by the woman’s strident voice. Her talk was distinctly unwomanly.

  ‘I tell you, if we change to a four-foot-eight-and-a-half-inch gauge we will go through Africa at a rate of fifty miles an hour rather than twenty. In other words, we’ll get from Cape to Cairo in 110 hours on the wider gauge instead of 270 on the standard southern African rail gauge. More than twice the existing speed, and for the same price!’

  This pronouncement was followed by a sharp pause in her chatter, as my self-effacing presence was registered.

  It is in pauses such as this that long-inactive memory cells come suddenly to life.

  ‘I say, Wills,’ came the Colossus’ now familiar falsetto voice, now just behind my back, ‘is it true that blackbirds can hear their worms move in the earth?’

  As if a question of national importance had just been posed in the House, the secretaries fell silent. No one moved. It appeared that my interrogator expected me to turn round to face him. This I proceeded to do at considerable strain to my neck muscles, as some inner rebellion at this treatment compelled me to leave my feet firmly planted under the table and thus pointing in the opposite direction. I raised my eyes.