Free Short of Glory by Alan Judd Page B

learn to make small talk.’
    ‘Less dangerous than big talk, eh?’
    ‘Easier than big talk.’
    ‘Well, maybe we are a bunch of racists and fascists but you’ll get used to that, I reckon.’
    Joanna McBride laughed at something Clifford said. Her lips lingered over the smile some time after the laugh had ceased. Patrick caught her eye fleetingly but she showed no recognition. Sandy
joined them. Jim talked about how unfairly Lower Africa was dealt with in world news. Other countries in the continent escaped criticism because they were black though they were every bit as bad,
often worse. It was because the liberal conscience was unconsciously racist, expecting better of white men than of black. Also it was weak and mistrustful of itself and sought to denigrate its own.
Patrick tried to see a way of swapping partners so that he could talk to Joanna.
    ‘What annoys us here more than anything is that we get criticised and others don’t,’ continued Jim. ‘Even the liberals get annoyed by that.’ He turned to Sandy.
‘Even your husband and he’s not Lower African.’
    Sandy was looking livelier than when in the car. ‘He’s not exactly liberal, either.’
    ‘Compared with me he is.’ They all laughed. There was an appealing frankness in Rissik that bordered on the brutal. He turned to Clifford. ‘What d’you think of our wines,
Cliff? Better than all that French plonk, eh?’
    ‘Not bad,’ said Clifford.
    ‘“Not bad,” he says. Damn good, that’s what they are. Damn good.’ Jim put his hand heavily on Patrick’s shoulder. ‘This one’s plonk, though, so
watch for the kick-back. You’ll be able to take more when you’re used to the altitude. The best wines come from the coast. This doesn’t. I’m going down there this weekend to
stock up with a few crates.’
    Patrick had an idea that the coast was a thousand or so miles away. ‘That’s a long way to go for a weekend, isn’t it?’
    ‘I’m borrowing a plane from a friend. Fly it myself. That’s how we live here. He’s seen nothing yet, has he?’ Clifford made a remark about the economy and the wine
industry which Jim followed up enthusiastically. Joanna listened, saying little. She had grey eyes speckled with green. She watched Jim talk.
    Patrick did not like it. He turned to Sandy, who was coquettishly touching the rim of her wine glass with the tip of her tongue. ‘A healthy interest for you if you’re not too
detached to take one,’ she said quietly. ‘At least she’s unmarried, though that wouldn’t bother you either way, would it?’
    ‘What makes you think I’m interested?’
    ‘It’s obvious. Everything about you is obvious. D’you really think it isn’t? Don’t worry, I’ll see if I can dispose of your rivals. It’ll give me a
vicarious thrill.’
    ‘Are they both rivals?’
    ‘Mine would be if he could, except that he’d be frightened to death, poor thing.’
    She turned to Jim and asked him abruptly where he came from. Interrupted in mid-sentence, he told her and she turned to Clifford and asked him if he had not been there. He said he had not, she
said he had and Jim began describing the area for Clifford’s benefit.
    Patrick raised his glass to his lips, partly to hide his smile, but managed the matter rather clumsily. When he took his handkerchief from his pocket something fell to the floor and rolled. He
looked for a coin and saw the bullet he had found in his bedroom. It rested against one of Joanna’s black boots. She looked down, then up at him, her eyebrows raised slightly and an amused
questioning light in her grey eyes. No one else had noticed.
    He bent and picked up the bullet. The action was enough to remind him that he might be slightly drunk. ‘There is an explanation.’ He did not know what he would offer.
    She looked at the bullet as he turned it in his fingers. ‘Don’t some people make beads and necklaces with them?’
    ‘I don’t know.’ He had been keen to hide the bullet