'Isn't that typical!' Bobby said.

'In the end she settled for steward. It always seems to me such an absurd word,' Linda said.

Bobby said, 'It offended Luke. He said to me afterwards, "I am not a steward, sir. I am a houseboy."

'Who is Doris Marshall?' Carter asked.

'She's a South African,' Linda said.

Carter looked puzzled.

'Luke is Bobby's houseboy,' Linda said.

'I imagine,' Bobby said, looking at Linda, 'she thought she was bending over black-wards.'

Linda cried, 'Bobby!'

'We are on to my favourite subject,' Carter said. 'Servants.'

Bobby said, 'It always fascinates our visitors.'

Carter ate.

'I can't,' he said later, looking round the dining-hall, once more playing the visitor, 'I can't get over the Britishness of this place.'

'When I was in West Africa,' Linda said, 'everyone was always saying what rotten colonialists we were and how good the French were. And when you crossed the border it looked true. You saw all those black men just like ours sitting on the roadside and eating French bread and drinking red wine and wearing those funny little French berets.'

'So at least,' Bobby said, 'we might be spared over here.' Carter looked at Bobby and said with direct aggression, 'You do pretty well.'

It began to rain. The dining-hall grew dark; the roof drummed. 'That stretch of mud,' Linda said. 'It's the one thing that makes me hysterical, skidding on mud.'

'I wonder if it's true about the curfew,' Bobby said. 'You don't have to take my word for it,' Carter said. 'I don't have to take your word for anything.'

Linda appeared not to notice. 'Poor little king,' she said, going girlish and affected. 'Poor little African king.'

After this there was nothing like conversation. They finished the bottle of Australian Riesling; and then, to the visible relief of the boy, lunch was over. Bobby seized the bill when the boy brought it. Carter became morose.

'Office,' the boy said. 'You pay office.'

The African was still there, sheltering under the narrow eaves.

Rain blurred the edge of the hill, dripped down the tiled roof of the cottages onto the flowers, washed the gravel path. It was almost chilly. Carter was alone in the dining-hall when Bobby went back. They didn't talk; Carter turned and looked out at the rain. Linda, when she came in, was as bright as before.

It was time to leave. Bobby began to fuss.

'I'll stay here for a little,' Carter said.

'Will we be seeing you later perhaps?' Bobby asked.

'Let's leave it open,' Carter said.

Bobby ran through the rain to the car and drove it up to the hall entrance. Linda got in. She looked at Carter; she seemed concerned now. There was some sort of movement in the shadows behind Carter, and the ruined man appeared, leaning forward, as if with exaggerated interest. As Bobby was driving off the woman with the arm-sling came out on the office steps. She gestured towards the African with her uninjured hand and shouted through the rain.

Bobby stopped and rolled down the window. 'Can you take him down to the road?'

'Oh Lord,' Linda said, leaning over the seat to clear her things away.

The African opened the door himself. He filled the car with his smell. Through the rain, the windows misting, they drove off, Linda rigid, Bobby wiping the windscreen with the back of his hand. When Bobby looked at the rear-view mirror he caught the African's smiling eyes.

'You work here?' Bobby asked, in the brisk, friendly, simple voice he used with country Africans.

'In a way.'

'What you do? What your work?'

'Anyanist.'

'Oh, you mean _trade__ unionist. You _organize__ the workers, you _bargain__ with the employers. You get your members more money, better conditions. That right?'

'Yes, yes. Anyanist. What you do?'

'I work here.'

'I don't see you.'

'I work in the south. The Southern Collectorate.'

'Yes, yes. South.' The African laughed.

'I'm a civil servant. A bureaucrat. I have my in-tray and my out-tray. I also have my tea-tray.'

'Civil servant. That is good.'

'I like it.'

They were driving slowly down the rocky slope, the rain washing against the windscreen, almost too fast for the wipers. An African came round the corner at the bottom of the slope, walking up to the Hunting Lodge. He saw the car and stood at the side of the road to wait for it to pass. His hat was pulled down low over his head and the lapels of his jacket were turned up.

'He is getting absolutely soaked,' Bobby said, still in his friendly simple voice.

'That is obvious,' Linda said.

'You stop,' the African in the car said to Bobby.

When Bobby looked in the mirror he met the African's gaze. 'You stop,' the African said, looking at the mirror. 'You take him.'

'But he is not going in our direction,' Bobby said.

'You stop. He is my friend.'

Bobby stopped beside the African. Rain ran down the sloping brim of the African's hat; nothing could be seen of his face. Still in the rain, he took off his hat; he looked terrified. The African in the back opened the door. The man came in. He said 'Sir' to Bobby and sat on the edge of the plastic-covered seat until the first African pulled him back.

The Africans made the car feel crowded. Linda rolled down her window and breathed deeply. Rain spattered her scarf.

The level polo ground was awash and now, with the scattered clumps of reeds and grass rising out of the water, looked more than ever like a swamp. Rain had darkened the ruined pavilion. 'Is your friend a unionist too?' Bobby asked.

'Yes, yes,' the first African said quickly. 'Anyanist.'

'I hope you don't have too far to go in this weather,' Bobby said.

'Not far,' the first African said.

Rain splashed the frothing red puddles in the deep wheeltracks.

Sometimes the car slithered. The road began to rise to the high embankment of the highway.

'You turn right,' the African said.

'We are going left,' Bobby said. 'We are going to the Collectorate.'

'You turn right.'

They were now nearly where the red dirt road turned to sand and rock and widened for the last sharp climb to the highway. The African was still looking at the rear-view mirror.

'Is it far, where you want to go?' Bobby said.

'Not far. You turn right.'

'Christ!' Linda said. She leaned back and put her hand to the rear door handle. 'Out!'

Bobby stopped. The wet African, behind Linda, at once jumped out. Almost at the same time the African who had been talking opened his door and got out and put on his hat. Immediately he was faceless, his smile and menace of no importance. Bobby moved up to the embankment, leaving them there, standing on either side of the dirt road, hats pulled down to the shape of their heads, soaking in the rain, two roadside Africans.

'What a smell!' Linda said. 'Absolute gangsters. I'm not going to get myself killed simply because I'm too nice to be rude to Africans.'

Just before he turned into the highway Bobby looked in the mirror: the Africans hadn't moved.

'I've had this too often with Martin,' Linda said. 'It's these damned oaths they're swearing. They feel that everybody's scared stiff of them as a result.'

'But still, it makes me so ashamed. So cocky, and then going just like that. What I can't understand is why he should have hung around for so long up there. You don't have to be from a foundation to find that a little sinister.'

'Sinister my foot. It's just stupidity, that's all. Let's open this window. You can smell the filth they've been eating.'

The rain slanted in, big drops. Bobby, looking in the mirror, saw the Africans standing on the highway. Black, emblematic: in the mirror they grew smaller and smaller, less and less distinct in the rain and against the tar. They began to walk. They walked off the highway, back into the road that led to the Hunting Lodge. Bobby didn't think Linda had seen. He didn't tell her.