Richer Than All His Tribe by Nicholas Monsarrat

Author:Nicholas Monsarrat
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Richer Than All His Tribe
ISBN: 9780755140244
Publisher: House of Stratus
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

President Dinamaula had driven to the opening of the new session of the Legislature in splendid state. The Government had recently presented him with a second official Cadillac – a vast, pure white, open model in which he sat on a miniature throne, flanked by a bodyguard of men in the new Government House uniform of scarlet and gold, clinging to the platform which ran all round the car.

This magnificent chariot, with a police escort, outriders on motorcycles, and a long train of ministerial cars behind it, wound slowly through the streets of Port Victoria, decorated for the occasion with flags, banners, and giant placards with the presidential portrait on them. The police sirens wailed, the people ran alongside, cheering and waving their arms. The procession took more than an hour on its journey, and attracted huge crowds wherever it went. The day was, naturally, a public holiday.

Nicole Bracken, sitting with Molly Crump in one corner of the House of Assembly gallery which accommodated the diplomatic corps, the official wives, and any distinguished strangers who might wander that way, looked about her with a melancholy feeling which she could scarcely disguise. It was not because she and Molly were grass widows for the day, their husbands being involved in the ceremonial of this occasion; it was because she thought, as David did, that the Legislature had become one of the most depressing places on earth.

It had settled down into a 15-9 majority steamroller, and the poor official opposition might have been beating the air with ostrich feathers, for all the good they could do. Everything that Dinamaula wanted went through like – well, David had once said, like a dose of salts, and though, since the children had been present when he said it, she had felt obliged to object, she was not objecting to its truth.

Of course, there was a new Prime Minister who had succeeded the President; but he was only Chief Murumba of Gamate – a silly old stooge who did nothing but nod to the sound of his master’s voice.

In debate, the Port Victoria vote totalled a solid, vociferous eight; and the Gamate contingent, though split by the President’s marriage troubles, still added another seven. Fifteen votes out of twenty-four, used like a fist after perfunctory discussion, meant that the National Party could follow its own sweet will, in anything it chose.

It had turned the Legislature into something like a joke: a terribly expensive club limited to twenty-four members, of whom fifteen sat back and enjoyed their privilege, while the other nine, camping out in the forlorn cold, made futile gestures of revolt.

The coming election was not going to change any of this. In fact, Dina might well find a way of making it worse.

At that thought, Nicole sighed so deeply that it could be heard above the buzz of voices round them, and Molly Crump, a perceptive friend, turned to look at her, and then whispered: ‘Cheer up!’

‘My feet are killing me,’ said Nicole.

They had

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