'They are restless today,' Linda said.

Bobby, driving very slowly, let the old joke pass. Africans stared from the road and down from the lorries, their black faces featureless below their felt hats. Bobby began a low wave but didn't complete it. Linda, encountering stares, adjusted her scarf and looked straight ahead. Even when they had passed the crowd Bobby continued to drive slowly, anxious not to appear to be running away. In the rear-view mirror the blank-faced Africans with their patches and hats grew small. Out of the settlement, past a curve, Bobby checked again: the road behind showed clear.

The light hurt. Linda put on her dark glasses. The scrub stretched in every direction and seemed to end only with the hazy mountains. In the high sky clouds grew swiftly from the merest white wisps, became silver and black with storm, then disintegrated and reshaped. Bobby and Linda didn't talk. It was some time before Bobby took the car up to speed again.

Linda said, 'You know what they're up to, don't you?' Bobby didn't reply.

'They are going to swear their oaths of hate. You know what that means, don't you? You know the filthy things they are going to do? The filth they are going to eat? The blood, the excrement, the dirt.'

Bobby leaned over the wheel. 'I don't know how much of those stories one can believe.'

'I believe you know. It's been going on all weekend in the capital.'

'There's an awful lot of gossip in the capital. Some people will insist on their thrills.'

'Hate against the king and the king's people. And against you and me. I can do without that sort of thrill.'

'I know, I know. You think oaths, you think terrorists and _pangas__. But that's not the issue today, thank goodness. And you know, all I believe they do is to eat a piece of meat. I don't think they even eat it. They just bite on it.'

'Well, I suppose going up to Government House to eat dirt and hold hands and dance naked in the dark is no better and no worse than going up to sign the visitors' book.'

She laughed. It broke the mood.

'I must say I didn't like the looks we got there,' Bobby said. 'For a minute it made me feel we were back in the old days. I would've hated to be here then, wouldn't you?'

'Oh, I don't know. I suppose I would have adjusted. I adjust very easily.'

'I wonder whether we aren't a little jealous of the president and his people. At a time like this we feel excluded, and naturally we resent it. I'm sure we would like them a lot more if they were more easygoing. Like the Masai. Speaking personally, I haven't found any… "prejudice": Above her dark glasses her narrow forehead twitched. 'Oh, it's easy for you, Bobby.'

'What do you mean?'

'I think it's going to rain this afternoon. Just when we leave the tar. I'm looking at those clouds piling up there. If you travel a lot with Martin you get this eye for clouds. That untarred bit of road is my private nightmare. Just half an hour of rain and it's all mud. I can't stand skids. It's like being in an earthquake. It's the one thing that really makes me hysterical. That and earthquakes.'

'I wouldn't say the clouds are "piling up": 'Still, wouldn't it be romantic if we had to spend the night at the colonel's, watching the rain come sweeping in across the lake?'

'He's very much the sort of character I prefer to keep away from. Everything I hear about him leads me to believe he's a total bore.'

'He's a very settler settler, I must say. He doesn't care for anyone: 'I suppose you mean Africans: 'Bobby. Pay attention. The first time the Marshalls went there she asked for a port and lemon:,"My dear!", 'My dear. He just lifted up his scrawny arm and pointed to the door and shouted, "Get out!" Even the barboy jumped.'

'Ittykit in Suffafrica. I forgive him that. I might almost say it's a point in his favour. But why do you say it's easier for me?'

'Oh, Bobby, I've gone over this so often with Martin. We appear to talk of nothing else. When I was a girl lapping up my Somerset Maugham and learning about the great world I never dreamt that so much of my married life would have been spent anguishing about things like "terms of service".'

'Ogguna Wanga-Butere is my superior,' Bobby said. 'He is my – "boss". I show him respect. And I believe he respects me.'

'I'm sorry, but when those names trip off your tongue like that, you make them sound very funny.'

'I very much feel that Europeans have themselves to blame if there's any prejudice against them. Every day the president travels up and down, telling his people that we are needed. But he's no fool. He knows the old colonial hands are out to get every penny they can before they scuttle South. It makes me laugh. We lecture the Africans about corruption. But there's a lot of anguish and talk. about prejudice when they rumble our little rackets. And not so little either. We were spending thousands on overseas baggage allowances for baggage that never went anywhere.'

'It was nice to have,' Linda said.

She was abstracted; her good humour had gone. Her bony forehead, curving sharply from the flat, thinning hair below her scarf, had begun to shine; above her dark glasses the worry-lines were beginning to show.

'Busoga-Kesoro brought me the papers. He said, "Bobby, this claim by Denis Marshall has been passed and paid. But we know he didn't take any baggage anywhere this last leave. What do we do?" What could I say? I knew very well there would be talk over the coffee-cups about my "disloyalty". But who are my loyalties to? I told B-K, "I think this should go up to the minister.", He was exaggerating his role; he was talking too much. He saw that; he saw he was losing Linda's interest. He leaned over the wheel, smiled at the road, shifted about on his seat and said, 'Where shall we stop for coffee?'

'The Hunting Lodge?'

He didn't approve. But he said, 'What a good idea. I hear it's under new management.'

She said in her new abstracted manner, 'After the property scare.

'The Asians did very well out of that.'

She didn't reply. He fell silent. He would have liked to abolish the impression of talkativeness, to be again, as at the beginning, the man with personality in reserve. But now the sombre person was she.

The road ran black and straight between· the flat scrub.

'I believe you are right,' he said after a time. 'The clouds are piling up. At times like this one doesn't know whether to press on or to hang back.'

His manner was conciliating. She made no effort to match it.

She said firmly, 'I want coffee.' They looked at the road.

'I'd heard,' he said, 'that Sammy Kisenyi wasn't the easiest of men. But I didn't know that Martin was so unhappy.'

She sighed. Bobby was stilled; he leaned back against his seat.

Then, stilling him further, keeping up the tension, Linda with great weary self-possession rearranged her hair and scarf.

Far away on the road something shimmered. It was more than a mirage. They concentrated on it. A mangled dog.

'I'm glad I've seen it,' Linda said. 'I was waiting for it.' Her tone was mystical. 'You always have to see one.'

'So you'll be leaving?'

'Oh, Bobby, it's so different for you. In your department the work goes on and there's always something to show. But radio is radio. You have to put out programmes. And if you're an old radio man, as Martin is, you know when you are putting out rubbish.

And surely the point of coming out here and giving up the BBC was to do something a little better than that. I suppose it's Martin's fault in a way. He was never one of the pushing P. R. O. types.'

'I see that. About the radio. I do feel they overdo the politics and the speeches. There could be a little more editing.'

'When I think that Martin was offered the job of Regional Director. But he said, "No. This is an African country. This is a job for someone like Sammy."