AFTERTHOUGHT
Another kidney
JOHN WELLS
a, new mystery kidney disease which can affect the pigmentation of the skin is caus- ing havoc among immigration officials at
London Airport, it is unreliably reported. The disease, which is highly contagious, is apparently unpredictable in its effects, turn- ing white skin to a rich chocolate or ebony black, and bleaching darker skins to a pale whitish pink, and the immigration staff are apprehensive on several counts. 'Apart from the dangers of catching it ourselves,' one spokesman put it, 'there's the more obvious danger of not catching the other: I refer to the ever-growing flood of unwanted coloured immigrants hammering at the door and re- questing admission, which of course we are unable to permit: and then we shall catch it from the Home Office, if you take my meaning.'
Specific cases are hard to trace because of the blanket of security that is immediately thrown over them. One particularly tragic case is that of immigration officer George X. who must remain anonymous, and who spoke to me in his secret hideaway in the sewers underneath London Airport where he now lives with his wife and four children. Mr X first realised he had the disease after a day spent conducting medical inspection and bone X-rays on a group of would-be immigrants from India. He re- turned to his home with a slight headache, and woke up in the morning to find himself a pale khaki. His wife went down with the disease the following day, turning a terrify- ing blue-black all over her eighteen-stone body, and the children became saffron yellow a few days later.
Since then I have been on the run. I intended approaching my colleagues with a medical certificate immediately after the diagnosis, but as soon as they saw me com- ing one of them shouted something to the effect that I was an illegal immigrant dressed up in their uniform, though not in as many words. I was foolish enough to panic, and took refuge here, where I was subsequently joined by my dear wife and children through the good offices of a Dutch taxi-driver at a cost of one hundred pounds. What will be- come of us I do not know. We are prepared to face anything except the dogs.' Mr X was referring to the regular dog patrols through the underground tunnels at the air- port, which recently nosed out an Asian
family who had been living there for some weeks. So far, however. Mr X remains safe. His colleagues on the surface refuse to believe the story, and their scepticism in general has increased considerably since the outbreak of the mystery epidemic. This week already more than three hundred innocent suspects, including the first violinist of the \gw York Augmente4. Variety Orchestra and a party of Israeli chess finalists, have been seized and submitted to harrowing Physical examinations in the belief that they may be Kenyan Asians suffering from the disease and exhibiting albino symptoms. heir vigilance has also been sharpened by the suggestion that the Kenyan refugees may he spreading the illness among themselves 'It purpose, in order to avoid detection and nter the country on their existing pass- 'rts. Scores of United Kingdom paSsport
holders have been arrested on arrival for the colour of their hair. As a Home Office expert put it to me, `They are damn in- telligent, the Kenyan Asians, and they're the last sort of person we want in this country.'
Still further confusion is feared at the Foreign Office, where a plague of this kind sweeping Africa could cause what one spokesman described as a 'total breakdown' of British diplomatic activity. 'The present incumbent apart, Foreign Secretaries have always found the Dark Continent a bit on the stiff side, and all we can do is push them roughly in the right direction, give them phonetic spellings and so forth. But even we can only manage within limits. Turn your South Africans black, say, and your Nigerians white, and we shouldn't know whether we were coming or going. Every- one would be falling over themselves to pour your small arms into South Africa— blow external defence, they'd hand them over for internal security, safeguarding national boundaries, anything—and how do you imagine we could support a racialist regime like Nigeria—they've practically wiped out one race—if they all suddenly turned white overnight? And as for some African politicians a bit further south—it could be disastrous. Especially if we had to mingle with them. The thought of Sir Alec . . . . it's too horrible to contemplate . . . and God knows what his Glen Folk would say.'
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