Short of Glory by Alan Judd Page B

Africans. Patrick met Joanna as she came through the door. They stood by a sideboard.
    ‘Aren’t you having any?’ she asked.
    ‘I was but the ambassador took it. He thought it was for him. I’ll get another.’
    ‘Does that sort of thing often happen to you?’
    ‘Quite often, yes, but I usually overcome it somehow.’ He was the only person in the room without a drink but if he went for one someone else might talk to her. ‘Actually,
I’m more interested in food at the moment.’
    ‘You’ll be out of luck there. Diplomats have a reputation for not being over-generous when it comes to entertaining the natives. Despite handsome entertainment allowances, I’m
told.’ She smiled as she looked round. ‘There were some peanuts on this sideboard earlier – or did the ambassador take those as well?’
    ‘No, I got them – and the crisps. It’s all right, I’ll nip round the corner and get something afterwards.’
    She laughed as at something quaint. ‘No one “nips round corners” in northern Battenburg. There’s nowhere to nip. There aren’t any pubs or fish and chip shops or
Chinese take-aways like in England. Everyone drives to restaurants. Why don’t you come back with us and have something? We’re going to eat anyway.’
    This was more than he expected but the implied cohabitation was a setback. Jim was already watching when she turned to wave him over. ‘Patrick is starving. I said we’d feed him
afterwards. He can come back with Sandy and Clifford.’
    Jim clapped Patrick on the shoulder again, like a father trying to put some gumption into his weakling son. ‘Needs feeding up, does he? Well, you’ll get it, Pat. It’ll be a
good old Lower African fry-up, nothing fancy. We’d go outside and have a braii – barbecue in your language – if it weren’t so damn cold. What d’you reckon of the show?
I don’t get it at all. Is this really how people entertain in England?’
    Patrick did not hesitate long over the question of loyalty to diplomatic colleagues. ‘No. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
    ‘Then what the hell are they doing it for?’
    ‘Haven’t a clue.’
    ‘So what do people like this do in England?’
    Patrick thought. ‘I’ve never met people like this in England. Perhaps they’re only like it when they’re abroad.’
    Philip announced ‘round two’ and there was a rush to top up glasses. Jim yet again put his hand possessively on Patrick’s shoulder. ‘I’m glad you’re coming
back. We must get to know each other. I’m sure we’ll have a lot to talk about, you and I.’
    His friendly manner had an unasked-for complicity about it. ‘What things?’
    Jim grinned. ‘Just things.’
    Philip told his audience that Mr Botha would now demonstrate how the American musician Scott Joplin had adapted early jazz rhythms to his own use. Mr Botha, seated on a higher chair this time,
demonstrated with precise severity. Between tunes Philip read aloud from a potted biography of Joplin, at one point getting the pages wrong so that Claire was halfway to her feet and gesturing with
her braceleted arm before he corrected himself and inserted the missing decade. A plume of smoke from Sir Wilfrid’s pipe became a slowly revolving cloud which enveloped the piano, causing Mr
Botha to cough twice and look round. Philip stepped forward to see where the smoke came from, saw and stepped back.
    At the end the Japanese and his wife again led the company in quick-fire applause which was prolonged by relief and embarrassment. When Mr Botha bowed Philip clapped more vigorously than before
and the applause was renewed. It had already gone beyond what was polite or credible and was beginning to die away when Sir Wilfrid, who had been groping for his pipe after it had fallen from his
mouth during the first barrage, began to clap loudly and widely as if to make up for his tardiness. Those whose hands were slowing then speeded up. Mr Botha bowed twice more, smiled nervously and