from Birmingham said.
This is the miracle of our age: that one may be borne swiftly and smoothly along in winged luxury, constantly fed and reassured, while underneath one unrolls the great viridian mat of central Africa, that territory to be flown over but never conquered, whose mysteries deepen as the rest of the world grows shallower, whose beasts and peoples breathe a secret, greener air, whose prodigality seems to make of the continent a very planet, subject to its laws and psychologies – this, I say, is the miracle, that one may be borne over all this superbity to the tune of turbo-props and notice nothing of it because of the vacuous gossip of an engineer from Birmingham.
‘I mean, Dakar just doesn’t compare with Cairo in any way,’ he added, ‘as regards amenities or anything else.’
Soames Noyes did not remember the chatty man’s name. They had been introduced rather hurriedly by Sir Roger at the Southampton airfield. Soames never remembered names upon introduction; although his thirtieth birthday was creeping up on him as surely as a tide, he was still paralysed on all meetings with people. For an instant, he would be back at his kindergarten, Miss Munnings would be conducting the Deportment Class and saying, ‘Now, when you are introduced to somebody, you stand with your feet so, left hand resting gently on the hip so, right hand extended so, and you say “How do you do?” Now, Soames, will you come out here and give the other boys and girls a demonstration?’; and little Soames would go sacrificially before them all and stick out his rump and hand in such a way that the class burst at once into derisory laughter. And in the moment it took for this splinter of memory to flush through his brain, Soames would have missed the name of the new face, even when the new face was saying, ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Noyes. Of course, managing the Midland branch of Unilateral, I’ve never come in contact with you, but we’ve all heard of you, even up in the wilds of Birmingham.’
‘How are they all in Birmingham?’ Soames asked facetiously, mainly because he guessed that this plump, grey-faced engineer would be what in the lower echelons of the firm was called ‘a good, solid Unilateral man’.
‘Fine, fine. And a lot of them a fair bit envious of your and my little trip to Darkest Africa, Mr Noyes, I don’t mind telling you.’
There were four Unilateral men on the ‘little trip’. In the seat opposite Soames and the nameless Birmingham man were two more engineers, one a cheerful type called Wally Brewer, one a quiet, wiry man called Ted Timpleton who was now white round the jaws and sat looking steadfastly away from the plane window. Soames was not a technical man; he belonged to what was spoken of as the Unilateral façade. His job was to talk charmingly and not too intelligently to Unilateral clients, to soothe away their little worries over expense-account dinners, to reassure them that Unilateral electronic computers were the best in the world, to ingratiate.
The plane contained a fifth passenger: Deal Jimpo Landor. He looked the typical African, clad in magnificent tribal costume, with one black, almost purple, arm resting nonchalantly over the back of the seat in front of him. In fact, he was an eighteen-year-old ex-public schoolboy with a manner, as Soames had already discovered, more reminiscent of a Teutonic philosopher than of the Uele warrior stock from which he came. The playing fields of Eton had made him frightfully earnest. His deep eyes were abstracted now, as if his thoughts ran ahead to his own country of Goya, which the aircraft was rapidly nearing. His father was head of Goya and would have a suitable welcome awaiting his firstborn.
The most valuable part of the pay-load lay not in the five passengers nor the pilot but in the storage compartments of the plane. There, carefully packed, crated, stencilled and numbered were the component parts of an Apostle Mk II, Unilateral’s newest, most svelte electronic computer, bound for the palace at Umbalathorp, Goya.
Six weeks had passed since Unilateral received the order for this machine. Deal Jimpo Landor had come in person to the glossy showrooms in Regent Street. To give his visit an additional touch of unreality, he was dressed in the full official regalia of a Princeling Son of the President of the Republic of Goya. Awed Regent Street assistants ushered him into the manager, Waypole’s, office, where Soames, as it happened, had dropped in for a gossip.
Having been primed for the audition by a hurried phone call from below, Waypole and Soames rose from their chairs and executed stiff bows to the gaudy new arrival.
‘You are not the owner of this firm?’ Deal Jimpo asked, when the introductions were completed and he had accepted a seat.
‘I fear not,’ Waypole said, nervously flicking a speck of pollen from his carnation. ‘I am in charge of this branch of our organisation, however, and can contact our chairman by phone, should that be necessary.’
‘I do not want to cause trouble,’ Deal Jimpo said. ‘Please do not bother the chairman yet. I am wishing to buy just one of your very best computing machines.’
‘May one ask – is it for yourself, sir?’ Waypole said.
‘No, it is for my father’s republic in Africa,’ the young negro replied. ‘In Goya, we are most progressive and have everything on Western principles without any bother from reactionaries. Perhaps you read The Times yesterday where my republic is referred to as “the black Scandinavia”. To become still more progressive we require one computer. I think my people would like best a red one.’
‘They actually are all turned out sprayed slate grey,’ Waypole said faintly, ‘but of course we can make alterations to suit customers’ requirements. Please excuse me just one moment.’ He turned to Soames, who was fighting a stubborn rearguard action to keep his face straight, and said in a low, agitated voice, ‘Soames, my dear man, for heaven’s sake go downstairs and check up if this place Goya exists. I always thought it was a painter. Unless I am mistaken, this is a practical joke being played on me by an odious fellow called Betts-Lewcombe who was on my staircase at Balliol.’
Soames returned from this quest a few minutes later and, standing behind the Princeling, made an involved gesture intended to explain to Waypole that a quick phone call to the Daily Telegraph Information Bureau had revealed Goya to exist in very fact as a small republic wedged between the Congo, the Sudan and a bit of ex-French Equatorial Africa, with a flourishing cocoa bean industry and a President called M’Grassi Landor; that it looked as if, in this instance at least, the odious Betts-Lewcombe’s name was cleared.
Enough of this signal was comprehensible to Waypole for him to gather that its opposite, the bum’s rush, had not been mimed. Casting his eye more benevolently upon Deal Jimpo, he said, ‘I have here some brochures of our various computer models; perhaps you would care to look at them at your leisure and see which you think would best suit your – er, peculiar circumstances.’
Fishing in a drawer of his desk, he produced a batch of sumptuous folders and handed them across to his visitor.
‘Thank you,’ Deal Jimpo said, opening the top folder. Inside was a colour photo of a smartly uniformed young lady pointing smilingly at the bulk of an Apostle Mk II.
‘I will take this one,’ Deal Jimpo said definitely, planting his thumb on the machine.
‘Er, that,’ said Waypole, smiling as if in the throes of gastroenteritis, and nobly giving the stranger a chance to change his mind, ‘is the star member of the entire range of our machines and is only just in full production. We have sold it to Edinburgh, Harwell and the Air Ministry, but so far our only clients overseas are the Saga Uns people in Hamburg and the Sûreté. Its basic price is £400,500.’
‘It sounds as if it should be very suitable for Umbalathorp, thank you,’ Deal Jimpo said gravely. ‘I will write you a cheque now but I shall not require the machine until tomorrow.’
The edges of Waypole’s carnation curled. He slumped slightly in his chair.
‘There may be a slight delay in delivery,’ he said, a wave of emotion rippling on his voice.
‘Of course – for the red painting,’ Deal Jimpo agreed. ‘Well, no hurry at all. I do not sail for home yet for two days.’
It was at this moment that Waypole caught sight of Soames frozen