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“Twenty-five,” said Obi. “And you?”
“Now that’s strange, because I’m twenty-five. How old do you think Miss Okeke is?”
“Women and music should not be dated,” Obi said, smiling. “I should say about twenty-three.”
“She is very beautiful, don’t you think?”
“Oh, yes, she is indeed.”
The Madeiras were now quite close; two hours or so, someone said. Everyone was at the rails standing one another drinks. Mr. Jones suddenly became poetic. “Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink,” he intoned. Then he became prosaic. “What a waste of water!” he said.
It struck Obi suddenly that it was true. What a waste of water. A microscopic fraction of the Atlantic would turn the Sahara into a flourishing grassland. So much for the best of all possible worlds. Excess here and nothing at all there.
The ship anchored at Fu
nchal at sunset. A tiny boat came alongside with a young man at the oars and two boys in it. The younger could not have been more than ten; the other was perhaps two years older. They wanted to dive for money. Immediately the coins were flying into the sea from the high deck. The boys picked up every one of them. Stephen Udom threw a penny. They did not move; they did not dive for pennies, they said. Everyone laughed.
As the sun set, the rugged hills of Funchal and the green trees and the houses with their white walls and red tiles looked like an enchanted isle. As soon as dinner was over Macmillan, Obi and Clara went ashore together. They walked on cobbled streets, past quaint cars in the taxi rank. They passed two oxen pulling a cart which was just a flat board on wheels with a man and a sack of something in it. They went into little gardens and parks.
“It’s a garden city!” said Clara.
After about an hour they came round to the waterfront again. They sat under a huge red and green umbrella and ordered coffee and wine. A man came round and sold them postcards and then sat down to tell them about Madeira wine. He had very few English words, but he left no one in doubt as to what he meant.
“Las Palmas wine and Italian wine pure water. Madeira wine, two eyes, four eyes.” They laughed and he laughed. Then he sold Macmillan tawdry trinkets which everyone knew would tarnish before they got back to their ship.
“Your girl friend won’t like it, Mr. Macmillan,” said Clara.
“It’s for my steward’s wife,” he explained. And then he added: “I hate to be called Mr. Macmillan. It makes me feel so old.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s John, isn’t it? And you are Obi. I am Clara.”
At ten they rose to go because their ship would sail at eleven, or so the captain said. Macmillan discovered he still had some Portuguese coins and ordered another glass of wine, which he shared with Obi. Then they went back to the ship, Macmillan holding Clara’s right hand and Obi her left.
The other passengers had not returned and the ship looked deserted. They leaned on the rail and spoke about Funchal. Then Macmillan said he had an important letter to write home. “See you in the morning,” he said.
“I think I should write letters, too,” said Clara.
“To England?” asked Obi.
“No, to Nigeria.”
“There’s no hurry,” he said, “you can’t post Nigerian letters until you get to Freetown. That’s what they said.”
They heard Macmillan bang his cabin door. Their eyes met for a second, and without another word Obi took her in his arms. She was trembling as he kissed her over and over again.
“Leave me,” she whispered.
“I love you.”
She was silent for a while, seeming to melt in his arms.
“You don’t,” she said suddenly. “We’re only being silly. You’ll forget it in the morning.” She looked at him and then kissed him violently. “I know I’ll hate myself in the morning. You don’t—Leave me, there’s someone coming.”
It was Mrs. Wright, the African lady from Freetown.
“Have you come back?” she asked. “Where are the others? I have not been able to sleep.” She had indigestion, she said.
CHAPTER FOUR
