The Constant Gardener

One piece of paper — that's all he asked as he frantically slewed and skimmed his way through drawers and shelves — one insignificant sheet of Her Majesty's Stationery Office blue, with one side of writing, mine, saying the unsayable in words that for once do not equivocate, do not say, On the one hand this, but on the other hand there's nothing I can do about it — signed not S or SW but Sandy in good, legible script and very nearly the name WOODROW in block capitals after it to show the whole world and Tessa Quayle that, for five deranged minutes back in his office that same evening, with her naked silhouette still taunting his memory, and a king-sized glass of hospitality whisky at his timid lover's elbow, one Sandy Woodrow, Head of Chancery at the British High Commission in Nairobi, performed an act of unique, deliberate, calculated lunacy, putting at risk career, wife and children in a doomed effort to bring his life closer to his feelings.

And having written as he wrote, had enclosed said letter in Her Majesty's envelope and sealed said envelope with a whisky-flavored tongue. Had carefully addressed it and — ignoring all sensible internal voices urging him to wait an hour, a day, another lifetime, have himself another Scotch, apply for home leave or at the very least send the letter tomorrow morning after he has slept on it — had borne it aloft to the High Commission mail room where a locally employed Kikuyu clerk named Jomo after the great Kenyatta, not troubling to inquire why a Head of Chancery might be sending a hand-delivered letter marked PERSONAL to the naked silhouette of the beautiful young wife of a colleague and subordinate, had slung it in a bag marked LOCAL UNCLASSIFIED while obsequiously chanting, "Night, Mr. Woodrow, sir," to his departing back.

* * *

Old Christmas cards.

Old invitation cards marked with a cross for "no" in Tessa's hand. Others, more emphatically marked, "never."

Old get-well card from Ghita Pearson, portraying Indian birds.

A twist of ribbon, a wine cork, a bunch of diplomats' calling cards held together with a bulldog clip.

But no small, single sheet of HM Stationery Office blue ending with the triumphant scrawl: "I love you, I love you and I love you, Sandy."

Woodrow sidled swiftly along the last shelves, flipping open books at random, opening trinket boxes, acknowledging defeat. Take a grip on yourself, man, he urged, as he fought to turn bad news into good. All right: no letter. Why should there be a letter? Tessa? After twelve months? Probably chucked it in the wastepaper basket the day she got it. A woman like that, compulsive flirt, husband a wimp, she gets a pass made at her twice a month. Three times! Weekly! Daily! He was sweating. In Africa, sweat broke out on him in a greasy shower, then dried up. He stood head forward, letting the torrent fall, listening.

What's the bloody man doing up there? Softly back and forth? Private papers, he had said. Lawyers' letters. What papers did she keep upstairs that were too private for the ground floor? The drawing room telephone was ringing. It had been ringing nonstop ever since they entered the house, but he had only now noticed it. Journalists? Lovers? Who cares? He let it ring. He was plotting the upstairs layout of his own house and applying it to this one. Justin was directly above him, left of the stairwell as you went up. There was a dressing room and there was the bathroom and there was the main bedroom. Woodrow remembered Tessa telling him she had converted the dressing room into a workroom: It's not only men who have dens, Sandy. Us girls have them too, she had told him provocatively, as if she were instructing him in body parts. The rhythm changed. Now you're collecting stuff from round the room. What stuff? Documents that are precious to both of us. To me too maybe, thought Woodrow, in a sickening reminder of his folly.