In Pursuit of the English Read Online Free Page A

it this morning.’
    Towards five in the evening I went again in search of the landlady, Mrs Coetzee was now awake, seated at the kitchen table, slicing pale yellowish slices off an enormous golden pumpkin. Her arms stuck out at her sides like wings, supported by wads of shaking fat. Great drops of sweat scattered off her in all directions. Jemima stood beside her, rapidly squeezing pale pink ground meat into flat cakes between her palms, I coughed, Mrs Coetzee nodded. She returned to her work. She had no English.
    The supper was served in a room into which refinement had been injected in the shape of a dozen small tables that were covered with red tissue paper, and set with a knife, fork and spoon at each place, A coloured paper lantern was lied with string to the naked light bulb. We ate roast pumpkin, fried meat cakes, and fried potato hash. Afterwards, there were fried pumpkin fritters. Everyone was eating avidly from starvation. The portions were no larger than necessary to maintain life. I immediately pinpointedmy hosts for after dinner. They were a small, fair pretty woman, looking incredibly clean and neat; and a bald, fierce-looking man with a well-brushed moustache. I smiled at them, but as they stiffened and merely nodded back, I imagined I must be mistaken. When I presented myself at the door of No. 7, however, they were smiling and full of welcome. They had been here for three weeks, and were waiting for a flat to fall vacant in Ndola, where he was to work on the copper mines. ‘I will not. I simply will not stay here, Timothy,’ she kept saying, with crisp plaintiveness. And he kept saying, with bluff reassurance: ‘But, my dear, of course we are not going to stay here.’ We drank brandy, and made small talk, We offered each other many commiserations. We said goodnight, smiling. As far as I was concerned the evening had passed without any of that vital communication essential to real human relationships. I imagined it had been a failure.
    Next morning, when I woke, the double bed opposite had two elderly women in it. They were asleep. I shushed my son and we waited. They woke, good-natured, smiling and unembarrassed when Jemima came in, without knocking, and slopped down four cups of tea on the floor just inside the door. They smiled and nodded. I smiled and nodded. Conversing in smiles and nods, we all dressed, and they departed in an ancient dust-covered car in a direction away from Cape Town.
    I went into the kitchen, Mrs Coetzee was slicing pumpkin. Jemima was slicing beef into pale strips. I said: ‘Mrs Coetzee, I would like to ask what those two strange women were doing in my room last night.’ Jemima spoke to Mrs Coetzee. Mrs Coetzee spoke to Jemima, Jemima said: ‘Says they are cousins from Constantia.’ ‘But why in my room?’ ‘Says boarding house is full.’ ‘Yes, but it was my room.’ ‘Says you can go.’
    I retired. Myra Brooke-Benson was just going into No. 7. She gave me a pretty but measured smile, appropriate to our having bumped into each other, with apologies, on the pavement a week ago. Nevertheless, I told her what had happened. ‘My dear, anything is possible here,’ she said. ‘Asfor me, I simply will not have it. I have been trying to get her to give me a carafe for drinking water for a week, and if I don’t get it, I shall report her to the city authorities.’
    I gave the question of my correct relations with the Brooke-Bensons some thought, and at last hit upon the right mode, or method. I found a piece of writing paper, and a clean envelope, and wrote: ‘Dear Mrs Brooke-Benson. I would be so happy if you and your husband would join me tonight after dinner for a drink. Yours sincerely.’ This I pushed under her door. I was sitting on my bed waiting for her reply, in another envelope, to insinuate itself under my door, when she knocked, and said: ‘Timothy and I would be delighted to accept your kind invitation for this evening. It is so very kind of