Free City of Spades by Colin MacInnes Page A

have two delightful friends outside most keen to meet you. Would you be willing to receive them, even if in your off-duty dress?’
    ‘Negroes?’
    I nodded.
    Theodora took off her spectacles (which suit her), eyed me reflecting, then said, ‘Bring them in.’
    The Africans stood looking at Theodora with frank curiosity, an amiable show of modesty, and complete self-assurance. I introduced them.
    ‘A nice place you have here,’ said Johnny Fortune. ‘You’re an eager reader of literature, too, as I can see.’
    ‘Miss Pace,’ I said, ‘is a doctor of some branch of learning – economics, I believe.’
    ‘Letters,’ said Theodora. ‘Montgomery, please go upstairs and fetch back my bottle of gin.’
    When I returned, I was disconcerted to hear Theodora say: ‘This legend of Negro virility everyone believes in. Is there anything in it, would you say?’
    ‘Lady,’ Johnny answered, ‘the way to find that out is surely by personal experiment.’
    ‘And is it true,’ the rash girl continued, unabashed, ‘that coloured men are attracted by white women?’
    ‘I’d say that often is the case, Miss Pace, and likewise also in the opposite direction.’
    I hastened to pour out gin. I did not like my friend Theodora treating them in this clinical manner.
    ‘Mr Fortune,’ I said, ‘has come here to study the movement of the isobars.’
    ‘With what object?’ Theodora asked.
    ‘Because back home, my studies over, I’ll get a good job upon the airfield.’
    ‘I see. And you, Mr Ashinowo, as I think it was. What do you do?’
    ‘Lady,’ said Hamilton, ‘at one time I pressed suits by day and worked in the Post Office by night.’
    ‘Doing what?’
    ‘As switchboard relief operator. But I was sacked, you see, for gossiping, they said, with some subscribers.’
    ‘And you did?’
    ‘I tried to make friends that way when nice voices called me up for numbers. But this, I was told, was not my duties, and they sacked me.’
    ‘And now?’
    ‘I live on hope mostly, and charity from the splendid National Insurance system.’
    I broke in impatiently on all this. ‘The point really is, Theodora, would you care to step out with us, for time is getting on.’
    But politely, though quite firmly, she replied, ‘No, I don’t think so, thank you, Montgomery. I’m sure you gentlemen will excuse me, but I have work to do.’
    ‘Do change your mind,’ said Johnny to her. ‘Even a serious lady like yourself must at times relax herself.’
    She smiled and shook her head. My two friends knocked back their gins, told me they would be calling home a moment, and gave me directions where to meet them in an hour. I saw them to the door and, like two innocent conspirators, they set off loping and prowling up the street.
    Theodora was typing again when I returned. ‘I think I’m in danger,’ I told her, ‘of becoming what Americans call a nigger-lover.’
    ‘“Negro-worshipper” is the polite phrase, I believe. You spent the whole evening with those people?’
    ‘Yes. And I say, thank goodness they’ve come into our midst.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because they bring an element of joy and fantasy and violence into our cautious, ordered lives.’
    ‘Indeed. Isn’t there another side to the coin?’
    ‘There must be, but I haven’t found it yet. Unless it is that they live too much for the day …’
    Theodora got up and fiddled with her documents. ‘It’s always a danger,’ she said, ‘to fall in love with another race. It makes you dissatisfied with your own.’ She tucked typed sheets away in little files. ‘Most races seem marvellous,’ she continued, ‘when one meets them for the first time. It may surprise you, Montgomery, but once I was enamoured of the Irish. Yes, think of it!’ (She shuddered.) ‘I loved them for what I hadn’t got. But I’m damned if I love what I found out that they had.’
    ‘You’re swearing, Theodora. It’s unlike you.’
    ‘You’d better go to bed.’
    I drained the gin.