A drink with the girls

Howard Davies

Vor the average tourist, the greatest danger of a trip to Zimbabwe remains the risk of encountering the occasional unreconstructed `Rhodie'. This endangered species is, however, easily identified. It lies in wait in lounge bars of wayside hotels, can be dangerous when roused, but increasingly lacks spirit. Its latest ploy, the Falklands gambit — How come Britain sent the fleet to the Falklands where no islanders died and yet stood by while 1000 kith and kin perished in the war against the 'terrs'? can be adequately dealt with by an involun- tary drop of the lower jaw. Now that the jeux sont faits, so to speak, their hearts aren't in it.

Far greater dangers await the unwary Brit who crosses Beitbridge into the Republic of South Africa, Constellation of African States, or whatever they like to call it. On the way from Bulawayo to Johannesburg I rashly decided to break my journey in the Northern Transvaal, at the Mountain Inn close to a town called Louis Trichardt. Louis was an early Voortrekker who led most of his followers off a cliff having taken a wrong turn on the way to the sea in Natal. But in spite of this misadventure a hamlet in the Northern highveldt was nam- ed after him. Now it is a flourishing town of perhaps 20,000 souls — mostly Afrikaners — together with a few coloureds, lots of blacks and, I discovered to my cost, two fundamentalist Christian lesbians.

After a passable dinner in the hotel din- ing room, washed down with a bottle of Roodeberg 1977, I repaired to the 'pub', lined up a large KWV brandy on the rocks and, having spotted a group of White Rhodesians at the end of the bar, hid behind a book, The Ice-Cream War. My idyll was interrupted, however, when two very large and, well, just a tiny bit butch ladies paddled in. Like a couple of rhinos approaching a water hole they lumbered to the bar and ordered passion fruit cocktails.

I soon sensed that I was being watched, so, vaguely recalling that wild animals are supposed to recoil if looked firmly in the eye, I glanced up. This was a mistake. My reading was over for the evening. The open- ing gambit was straightforward, forceful, and hard to ignore — 'It's rude to read a book when people want to talk to you'. There's no answer to that, I thought, closed my book, and for a time things went quite smoothly, though I underwent something of an inquisition; where had I been, where was I from, how were things in Zimbabwe, was it true there were tortures and deten- tions etc?

I said there were certainly long detentions without trial, and probably a fair number of toenails were pulled out. But Zimbabwe was perhaps not the only country in Africa where such things occurred. Even in South Africa, I diffidently suggested ...

Oh, yes, indeed, she said. She studied law in her spare time. The Aggett trial was a case in point. It was clear that he had been tortured in jail. I was much relieved. Another agonised South African liberal. Harmless, if unexciting. But she wanted to know what I thought of apartheid, which is not, as a general rule, the kind of question South Africans come out with in so many words.

Now I am not wildly left-wing in British terms. I do not, therefore, have a ready- made speech on the evils of apartheid in my knapsack. But fortified by another brandy and assuming I was on home ground I managed to cobble together a suitably com- passionate, if slightly apologetic, little homily about human dignity, segregated lavatories, repression and all that.

It was a trap. As I stuttered to a close Susanna's nostrils flared. There was an ominous silence. She took a large slug of passion fruit and moved in for the kill. In low, clipped tones she laid it on the line. `Look,' she said, 'do not talk to me about repression. I am completely gay. My friend and I are the only two lesbians in Louis Trichardt [this I could believe]. The only place we can drink is this bar because the police leave tourists alone. So I know about repression. It is not the blacks who are repressed. The only job I can get is at a supermarket checkout but half my salary goes in tax to support kaffirs in the homelands who do not want to work. And whose country is it anyway? There were no kaffirs in the Transvaal when the trekkers arrived. The first blacks they met were Ndebele on their way north.'

She took a breather. Fortunately, because her voice had become louder and louder during the speech and the bar had fallen strangely silent. But there was more to come. The lavatories. I wished I hadn't mentioned them. 'The kaffir does not use a toilet. He does his business on the ground. Trying to make him use a toilet is like trying to make a dog sit on a chair. It is a waste of time.'

I am a firm believer in agreeing with argumentative people in bars as bedtime ap- proaches, but this did seem a bit much. So when another large drink appeared — free for no reason I could immediately identify — I hinted delicately at a moral objection to this line of argument. Of course the average South African black was a fairly basic chap, but this was no reason to treat him as a member of a different species that sort of approach.

Aha! So I had a moral point of view. On what was it based? Did I believe in the life hereafter? — Well, no, not quite ... In that case what possible justification could I have? With no belief in God I was just a piece of matter, like my book. The inter- view was at an end. Game set and match to apartheid. Her cohabitee was bored; 1 was released. With a pitying smile she wished me well. As pieces of matter went I was not too bad to talk to.

Another large brandy appeared as they left. Through a glass darkly I perceived that the Rhodies at the end of the bar were con- vulsed. They had been buying the drinks and listening in. It was better sport than hunting `terrs'. Of course they weren't too keen on dykes but anyone who put British pinkoes in their place was good enough for them.

And another thing, the Falklands. How the hell could Mrs Thatcher justify sending

the whole Royal Navy when in the case Rhodesia ...

South African brandy is remarkatY smooth. But the system can take only much punishment in an evening. I made.rapid and unsteady exit. 'Bloody mies" — can't even take a drink. Proba a poof, like Soames' was the last thing` heard as I staggered into the Whites 00'