‘To different races, to modern imports.’
‘And to blacks. It always comes down to them, doesn’t it, professor? Your real bugbear. What happened – you had an Afro-American babysitter you didn’t like?’
‘Quite the opposite.’ A hand smoothed down hair rusting-grey at the temples. ‘My views formed after extensive study and analysis as an adult. Have you ever been to Africa, Mr Kemp?’
‘Once or twice.’
‘I lived there. For ten years, on and off. And I’d like to rub the nose of every activist, every bleeding-heart proselytizer who bleats about cultural roots and historical wrongdoing, in the ripening flesh of every corpse I’ve ever stepped over on that continent.’
‘Perhaps you’d better stick to the lecture circuit.’
‘You know, there’s a joke that circulates quietly among white minorities in Africa. It goes – what’s the difference between a tourist and a racist?’
‘What is the difference?’
‘About a week.’ There was little jocularity to the delivery.
‘Your time there plainly coloured your perspective.’
‘Put black Africans on an island rich in natural resources and raw materials, educate them and give them the rule of law. Go back in a thousand years and see. There will be civil war, disease and starvation, dictatorship and corruption, appalling cruelty, and not a single building over one storey high will have been constructed.’
‘Or you might find a Mandela.’
A controlled snort of derision. ‘For every Mandela, there are ten Mobutus, a thousand Mugabes; for every Mandela, there are the thieves and bandits who succeeded him.’
‘I’m more of an optimist.’
‘But are you colour-blind, Mr Kemp?’
‘I try to be.’
‘How successfully?’
‘You’re not exactly the master-race yourself, professor.’
‘Touché.’ Pitt was unfazed.
‘Lucky I don’t mind redheads.’
‘A black minicab driver rams your car. Do you think, you damn fool? Or do you think, you frigging black bastard, you ape? And what do you reckon he’s thinking? You see, Mr Kemp, we’re all tribalist at heart. All prejudiced – wherever you think you might stand on the matter of redheads or ethnicity. Even blacks have a hierarchy based on skin-colouring. Why else the market for lighteners and hair-straightening agents? What’s group politics if not racism by another name?’
‘At least it’s a substitute for fighting.’
‘The warfare simply stays hidden – unless you happen to be caught in the cross-fire of South Central LA or uptown New York.’
‘It’s quite a leap from style and cultural identity to notions of racial supremacy.’
‘Supremacy doesn’t interest me, Mr Kemp.’
‘It interests those who quote you while they butcher a fellow human being.’
‘They misrepresent me.’
‘And all along, you were really just about peace and harmony.’
‘People put constructs on what I say.’
‘It’s what King Henry II pleaded when his knights slaughtered Thomas à Becket at Canterbury. Oldest excuse in history.’
‘I don’t seek excuse, I don’t need excuse. I flag up areas of racial variance, not racial superiority.’
‘Ah, it’s in the breeding. Some dogs have spotted coats, some dogs have pointy ears.’
‘Some are better suited to retrieving, or guarding property, or catching rats, others excel at lying on laps or trotting beside a carriage.’
Kemp shook his head. ‘Has Sesame Street shown an interest yet?’
‘You cannot prevent ideas, Mr Kemp. Not even your Security Service.’
‘Which is why the creator of such ideas must be careful.’
‘Not at the expense of truth.’ Pitt opened a pigskin briefcase and extracted a bar of dark chocolate. He unwrapped the outer paper carefully, deliberately. A party-trick or a party trap. He continued to speak. ‘My job is to point out ethnic distinctions, weaknesses, the problems caused – the disruption and dislocation to come – in creating the myth of equality, the lie that multi-cultures are happy, dynamic and integrated.’
‘White men can’t jump, black men can’t think. Is that it?’
‘An over-simplification. But, on the whole correct.’
‘What about the black lawyers, the black politicians, presidential advisers, defence chiefs, journalists, TV presenters?’
