The Governor's Lady by Norman Collins

have seemed tantamount to cheating. In the result, breathing heavily and with his eyes hypnotically fixed on his copy, he diligently hit one wrong key after another, bearing down on it each time like a nawy, and pausing only to wrench the little type-heads apart when two of them happened to come up together and get jammed. The flimsy trestle-table at which he worked, rocked and sagged and shuddered, and the floor around him looked as though it had been showered in pygmy confetti as the centres of the ‘
o
’s’ and the insides of the loops on the ‘
b
’s’ and ‘
d
’s’ and ‘
p
’s’ were cut clean out of the paper by the hammer-blows.
    Not that it really mattered. With so many urgent affairs of State on the Governor’s mind, even the book itself seemed temporarily to have been forgotten. And, with the last section of the Trade Tables finally handed over to the typist, Harold found himself suddenly with nothing to do.
    There he was, nearly five thousand miles from home; scratching himself at intervals because the heat had already brought up a rash on both his forearms; slightly queasy inside from the blown-up, over-ripe dessert that the houseboy had just served him at dinner; and dispirited.
    From his chair on the verandah, with the pot of pale, ineffectual coffee on the table beside him, he could see the lights of the Residency through the distant bank of bombax and uroko trees.
    It was less than half-a-mile away, but somehow the distance seemed immeasurable. The lights might have been illuminations on another planet. They made him feel more isolated still. And, with his legs stuck out onto the stool in front and his chin resting on his chest, he found himself thinking about Lady Anne.
    He remembered those full, shining eyes set in the pale face with its frame of dark hair. He remembered the amused, almost pitying kind of smile. And he wondered if she had remembered that invitation that she was going to send him to come across to the Residency some time when they were both feeling bored.
    He gave a little shudder, and shook himself. Even the bar at the Royal Albert would be better than the empty bungalow. It would give him something to do; even possibly someone to talk to.
    It was not until nearly ten o’clock when Harold finally reached theRoyal Albert. That was because the taxi had broken down. An ancient landaulette of immense size, it had proved to have something gravely— even mortally, Harold suspected—wrong with the engine. The driver, surrounded by a small circle of his more knowledgeable friends had remained in the hotel courtyard, standing beside the open bonnet assuring everyone that it was the matter of a moment, a mere twist with a spanner, or a screw-driver or something, to eliminate those deafening back-firings.
    The bar itself was empty when Harold entered. He had just ordered himself a lager that the boy had assured him was cold, very well cold, sir, like iced, when he saw someone approaching. He was a young man; a remarkably fashionable young man. Beneath the glistening black face, the pale blue shirt and the marigold-coloured tie caught the eye like a challenge. He was wearing a red buttonhole and his new plaited shoes were strikingly criss-crossed in strands of contrasting leathers.
    He walked up to the bar with an easy, contemptuous swagger.
    â€˜Good evening, Charles,’ he said, as he perched himself on one of the high stools. ‘My usual.’
    The barman smiled back at him.
    â€˜Yassaar,’ he said. ‘Your usual. What you want to drink, sah?’
    It was a gin-fizz that the young man ordered. He was very knowledgeable about it, and insisted that the boy should make it with Booth’s and Rose’s. He was still discussing the merits of other gins, other fruit juices, when he suddenly became aware of Harold. He looked again. And, having looked a second time, he gaped. His glass held halfway to his lips, he was