A Good Man in Africa

Can't you keep this bloody place tidy?"

There are so many hypochondriacs out here. I think Murray can spot them a mile off."

Actually I can't stand the man. Sanctimonious, Calvinistic, so-and-so. Totally unsympathetic — can't think why he became a doctor — hectoring, bullying — sort of moral storm-trooper.

I want you to get to know Murray because I want you to bribe him."

My maid Innocence. She's dead.

That's Africa for you, eh? Trouble-free sex and tranquillizers. What do they call it? Post-pill paradise or something. Load of nonsense. Never seen a more neurotic, glum bunch in my life.

Like Rome, Nkongsamba was built on seven hills, but there all similarity ended. Set in undulating tropical rain forest, from the air it resembled nothing so much as a giant pool of crapulous vomit on somebody’s expansive unmown lawn.

Morgan liked to imagine the town as some immense yeast culture, left in a deep cupboard by an absentminded lab technician, festering uncontrolled, running rampant in the ideal growing conditions.