The Constant Gardener

But the newsletter in question — known ever after as Issue 64 — was devoted to none of these matters. It was printed on both sides of a single sheet of shocking-pink paper a yard square. Folded small, it fitted nicely in the jacket pocket. A thick black border signified that Issue 64's anonymous editors were in mourning. The headline consisted of the one word TESSA in black letters three inches high, and Woodrow's copy was delivered to him on Saturday afternoon by none other than the sickly, shaggy, bespectacled, mustached, six-foot-six Tim Donohue in person. The front doorbell rang as Woodrow was playing tip-andrun Cricket with the boys in the garden. Gloria, normally a tireless wicket keeper, was grappling with a headache upstairs; Justin was hull down in his cell with the curtains closed. Woodrow walked through the house and, suspecting some journalist's ruse, peered through the fish-eye. And there stood Donohue on the doorstep, a sheepish smile on his long sad face, flapping what looked like a pink table napkin back and forth.

"Frightfully sorry to disturb you, old boy. Holy Saturday and all that. Spot of shit seems to have hit the proverbial fan."

With undisguised distaste Woodrow led him to the drawing room. What on earth's the bloody man up to now? What on earth was he ever up to, come to think of it? Woodrow had always disliked the Friends, as the spies were unaffectionately known to the Foreign Office. Donohue wasn't smooth, he had no known linguistic skills, he didn't charm. He was to all outward purposes past his sell-by date. His day hours appeared to be spent on the Muthaiga Club golf course with the fleshier members of Nairobi's business community, his evenings at bridge. Yet he lived high, in a grand hiring with four servants and a faded beauty called Maud who looked as ill as he did. Was Nairobi a sinecure for him? A kiss-off at the end of a distinguished career? Woodrow had heard the Friends did that sort of thing. Donohue was in Woodrow's judgment surplus ballast in a profession that was by definition parasitic and out of date.

"One of my boys just happened to be loafing in the marketplace," Donohue explained. "A couple of chaps were handing out free copies in a shifty sort of way, so my lad thought he might as well have one."

The front page consisted of three separate eulogies of Tessa, each purportedly written by a different African woman friend. The style was Afro-English vernacular: a little of the pulpit, a little of the soapbox, disarming flourishes of feeling. Tessa, each of the writers claimed in her different way, had broken the mold. With her wealth, parentage, education and looks she should have been up there dancing and feasting with the worst of Kenya's white supremacists. Instead she was the opposite of all they stood for. Tessa was in revolt against her class, race and whatever she believed was tying her down, whether it was the color of her skin, the prejudice of her social equals or the bonds of a conventional Foreign Service marriage.

"How's Justin holding up?" Donohue asked, while Woodrow read.

"Well, thank you, considering."

"I heard he was over at his house the other day."

"Do you want me to read this or not?"

"Pretty smart footwork, I must say, old boy, dodging those reptiles on the doorstep. You should join our lot. Is he around?"

"Yes, but not receiving."

If Africa was Tessa Quayle's adopted country, Woodrow read, Africa's women were her adopted religion.

Tessa fought for us no matter where the battleground, no matter what the taboos. She fought for us at posh champagne parties, posh dinner parties and any other posh party that was crazy enough to invite her, and her message was always the same. Only the emancipation of African women could save us from the blunderings and corruption of our menfolk. And when Tessa discovered she was pregnant, she insisted on bearing her African child among the African women she loved.

"Oh my Christ," Woodrow exclaimed softly.

"Bit what I felt, actually," Donohue agreed.

The last paragraph was printed in capitals. Mechanically, Woodrow read it also:

GOOD-BYE MAMA TESSA. WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF YOUR COURAGE. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, MAMA TESSA, FOR YOUR LIFE. ARNOLD BLUHM MAY LIVE ON BUT YOU ARE DEAD WITHOUT QUESTION. IF THE BRITISH QUEEN EVER AWARDS MEDALS POSTHUMOUSLY; THEN INSTEAD OF ELEVATING MR. PORTER COLERIDGE TO A KNIGHTHOOD FOR HIS SERVICES TO BRITISH COMPLACENCY, LET'S HOPE SHE'LL GIVE THE VICTORIA CROSS TO YOU, MAMA TESSA, OUR FRIEND, FOR YOUR OUTSTANDING GALLANTRY IN THE FACE OF POSTCOLONIAL BIGOTRY.

"Best bit's on the back, actually," Donohue said. Woodrow turned the paper round.

†

MAMA TESSA'S AFRICAN BABY