by Frank Coates
‘The kusi?’ Dana asked.
‘The sou’easter, you would call it, memsahib. It is very strong today.’
‘Oh, I see. The south-east trade wind.’
‘And it carries the dhows northwards to Arabia with trade goods. Spices and sisal, coffee and maybe a little gold. I myself would be sailing, inshallah, if I were twenty years younger.’
‘You were a sailor?’
‘I once owned the finest dhow in all of the Coast Province. One hundred tons she was.’ His eyes, buried in a host of wrinkles, twinkled. ‘With the kusi we would sail to faraway Arabia. We were like the wind itself.’ His eyes misted and his smile wavered. ‘Ah, but now, what can I do? I can show my grandchildren the dhows. And I can remember the beautiful places. I can remember how things were.’
‘Where else did you sail?’ she asked.
‘Many places. Lamu, Kismayu, Mogadishu. Many, many places. All the way to the Red Sea.’
‘This place you mention, Lamu. It’s on the north coast of Kenya, isn’t it?’
‘It is, memsahib. My third wife, Jamina, she is from Lamu.’
‘How far is it?’
‘To sail there — one day when the kusi is with you.’
‘And what about by road?’
He smiled. ‘No roads, memsahib. Only by sea. These new captains, they like to do business in Lamu. They don’t like to sail the dhow to Arabia these days. They can make money with cargo to Lamu and they are home in a week or two. Not like me. Six months I wait until the kazkusi comes from the north-east. Then I come back home from Arabia.’
Dana looked again at the dhows on the harbour. There were those that appeared to be the size of fishing boats, but larger ones too.
‘Did you say there are no roads to Lamu?’ she asked, interrupting him.
‘To Kilifi, yes, memsahib. To Malindi, not good. But to Lamu? No. To Lamu you must take to the sea; the dhow.’
‘Then I would ask a favour of you, mzee.’ She used the polite title for an elderly gentleman. ‘I would like you to help me arrange a dhow to take me to Lamu.’
If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. ‘To Lamu …’ The old man stroked his chin. ‘Yes, it is possible. I have many friends with dhows. When would the memsahib like to go?’
‘Now.’
In spite of her rush to leave Mombasa, she realised that to board a dhow dressed as a European would invite attention — the kind of attention that might tip off a European man looking for his missing wife. She went to the market and bought a number of kangas and a head scarf. She arrived late at the sea front where she found the old man wringing his hands.
‘Hurry, memsahib,’ he said. ‘The tide is turning.’
He took her bag and led her down the steps of the old stone wharf to a small skiff. A boy of no more than ten sat at the tiller.
‘My grandson will take you to Captain Masood.’
He pointed to a large dhow bobbing at anchor in the harbour. An unfamiliar flag fluttered at the masthead and men dressed in dhotis and headscarves hurriedly loaded sacks from a lighter drawn alongside. In her haste to get away, she hadn’t contemplated the journey in any detail. Now she realised she would be at sea on a strange craft with men she’d never met, going to an island she’d only heard associated with slave traders. She turned her eyes from the dhow to the old man.
He was smiling at her. ‘The captain is a friend of mine,’ he said. ‘He will keep you safe.’
Although she’d only known him a few hours, there was something about the old man that elicited trust. Maybe it was his old-world manners, or the way he held her eyes when he spoke.
‘Thank you, mzee,’ she said. ‘You have been very kind.’
She extended her hand to him and he took it in both of his. His hands were very soft and his fingers waxy and cool.
‘I hope you find the peace you seek in Lamu,’ he said, looking into her eyes. ‘And whatever fortune comes your way, may Allah grant you the strength to accept it.’
He held her hands for a long moment and she felt he had more to say, but couldn’t because time was against them. She had the odd feeling that the old man somehow knew the reason she was going to Lamu. He seemed to have such wisdom and she felt that if she could tap into it she would find the answers she needed. Why was she having this baby? What would happen when she did? How would she survive if Edward disowned her? The old man would know these things. If only there was time for him to tell her. She realised too that he was the only one who knew of her journey. Her only connection to her real life. If she never arrived in Lamu nobody would know where to look.
He pressed her hands. ‘It is time. May Allah go with you, memsahib.’
She stepped into the skiff and the boy cast off. The little craft moved swiftly towards the dhow where two men were wrestling with the sail. The dhow was larger than it appeared from the wharf.
She turned to wave farewell, but the old man had gone.
Dana had had a few days’ head start so, immediately the train pulled into Mombasa, Sam went to a shipping agent. He learned that a ship had left for England the day before, but the agent eyed Sam with suspicion when he asked if Countess Dana Northcote was on the passenger manifest.
‘And what does that have to do with you, kafir?’
Sam contained his anger. ‘She’s a friend.’
‘Is she now? Well, friend or not, the manifest is confidential. Now, if I were you, I’d bugger off before I call the native policemen.’
Still hoping that Dana might have taken passage on a later ship, Sam searched the streets and alleys for hotels, enquiring about her.
‘I’m looking for a European lady who might have checked in over the last few days. Light brown hair. Green eyes. About so tall.’
Most of the managers refused to give him any information. Many threatened him with the police. It confirmed the problems they’d have living together, but it didn’t deter him.
He read the shipping schedule in the newspaper and noted that vessels of the British India Steam Navigation Company and Deutsche Ost-Afrika, sailing from Tanganyika, were due out over the next few days. He was on the wharf an hour before boarding times to search for Dana among the hubbub of embarking passengers.
Amid the festivities, kisses and friendly farewells, the oompahing of the Mombasa brass band and the draping garlands of paper streamers, he searched for her. When the ship’s horn sounded its departure, he felt its deep reverberations collide with his heart.
His last chance was among the few passengers taking passage on a cargo ship, the MV Mogadishu, bound for England via a series of piddling ports. After it despatched its passengers and cargo, she was made ready to sail again to Britain. All day he waited, sitting on a stack of cargo pallets or strolling up and down the wharf to kill time. Passengers embarked singly, usually untidy men with a rucksack over their shoulder, or occasionally a small family group with cloth-covered bundles and suitcases bound with twine. There was no bustle or haste and very few people came to see them off.
Sam waited into the evening and, at around eleven that night, long after the last of the passengers boarded, the crew cranked up the gangway, and she sailed. He continued to watch the ship as it made its manoeuvres preparatory to leaving the harbour. He waited because he could think of nothing further he could do. Against all his instincts, he’d let Dana into his heart and this was his punishment: she’d abandoned him without so much as a kiss goodbye.
He’d been searching for two weeks and only one person had recalled seeing someone like her. An old man he met wandering along the harbour wall nodded and smiled when he described Dana, but the man was doddering and confused. He claimed — clearly mistakenly — that she had sailed a few days earlier to an obscure island up the Kenyan coast: Lamu.
CHAPTER 29
The voyage had taken less than twenty-four hours, but with a following sea, it had been an uncomfortable one for Dana. The nausea that had prompted her to see her doctor in Nairobi returned full force; it was w
ith shaking knees that she staggered ashore at Lamu.
With the solid stone wharf beneath her feet, she allowed herself some time to revive, watching the bustle of activity until the young deckhand Captain Masood had assigned to her returned to take her to a guest house.
He led her from the brilliant light of the sea front into a warren of deeply shaded alleys, some no more than a yard or so wide between rough coral-stone walls. The houses had huge, elaborately carved wooden doors and shuttered windows. People streamed through this labyrinth. Most of the women wore the purdah and veil. Some, like Dana, were dressed in brightly coloured kangas. The men were in spotless cream or white kanzus or dhotis. Dana had difficulty keeping up with her guide as everyone had to give way to the many donkeys carrying the commerce of the town on short, tottering legs. In some places they passed through tunnels formed by buildings connecting houses on each side of the alley. Occasionally Dana could catch a glimpse of a rooftop garden trailing bougainvillea and other creepers into the alleys below.
As Dana became completely disoriented, and certain she would never find her way out of the maze, the deckhand stopped at a double set of wooden doors. He leaned against one side and, when it swung open, gestured Dana to follow. After a moment’s hesitation she did so. When he closed the door behind her the clamour of the alley, the donkeys, the crush of people, the noise and the bustle, were immediately gone.
Dana gasped. She was in a courtyard with a narrow path that meandered through a jungle of ferns, palms and flowering shrubs. A tinkling fountain rained on goldfish glinting in a lily-covered pond and an enormous bougainvillea climbed the wall to a second storey, which had rounded stone archways and stained timber balconies. A canary warbled in a cage hanging from a bower covered in orchids.
The young man had disappeared inside the house, leaving Dana to marvel at her surroundings. She found a small table tucked away in a corner, and two chairs, one of which was occupied by a ginger cat, which began purring even as she approached.
She sat with the cat, feeling so contented in this blissful place that she thought she might also begin to purr.
She had started out on her journey with trepidation, having no plan other than to find the freedom to make her own choice about her pregnancy. Now that she had found this refuge she knew what she would do. This was a place of tranquillity. A place to give birth and to prepare for whatever life might then offer. Whether it was to be destitution or acceptance, if she were ever to find the strength to face that future it would be here in this garden of Eden.
Dana spent many long hours in the garden, reflecting upon her decision. Initially, the peace and beauty of the guest house garden gave her strength. Then, like a thief in the night, loneliness crept from the corner of her mind where all her insecurities lay, and teased them into life.
During the day it was Polly and her friends who she longed to see — and Averil, who was more of a dear friend than an older sister. She missed their company, their mindless chatter about fashion and the latest dance music. Gossip about the neighbours and whispered conversations about their last dinner party. She missed their outings — a cup of tea at Pomeroy’s, a gin and tonic at the Norfolk or Muthaiga Club. A day at the races.
At night she thought of Sam. She yearned to be in his embrace, to run her hands along his strong arms and body as he propped himself above her, kissing her, and for the delicious pleasure he gave her as he lowered himself onto and into her.
She had no idea what information Sam had received about her disappearance. Presumably, he would learn she was not at Kipipiri. Most likely Edward would have invented an explanation about her departure that would satisfy their friends: an ailing relative in England and a dash to be at the bedside; a mysterious illness needing specialist treatment. Whatever the reason stated for her sudden flight, Sam had every right to expect a message from her. But she couldn’t risk it. The postmark on her letter would reveal her hideout. When he knew she wasn’t in England he would become suspicious about the reason for her disappearance. He would perhaps try to find her and so would discover her pregnancy.
They’d shared a deep passion, but they had not explored beyond that. There had been no talk of love or a commitment to the future. If the baby turned out to be his, she didn’t want him to feel obliged to support a family he hadn’t deliberately created. She felt entirely responsible for her predicament.
If the baby was Edward’s, then she had other options, but she could not look beyond the birth. Her life would hang suspended until then; though once she’d settled, she took stock of her situation.
The baby was due in February. By then all her funds would have been exhausted paying the guest house costs and meals. She’d made no provision for the unexpected and would need money to pay for a midwife and items for the baby.
She thought she would be able to use her modest bank savings to bolster her cash, and although the Lamu post office acted as an agent for her bank, she worried that Edward would be keeping an eye on those funds and, if they were withdrawn, use his influence with the bank to discover where the money was transferred. She decided to leave it untouched until after the birth.
She’d left most of her important jewellery items in the box on her dressing table at Zephyr, but had thrown a small beaded bag of other pieces into her suitcase before she left. There was her lion’s fang trophy that she’d been carrying back and forth to Nairobi for weeks. Her intention had been to have it fitted with a silver chain in place of the plain leather thong, but she’d repeatedly forgotten to do so. There were also two pairs of inexpensive earrings, and a spare watch. None of them would amount to much.
Now she looked at her rings. She had a plain gold wedding ring, which had belonged to her beloved grandmother. There was also the sizeable diamond that Edward had bought her after they were married. He called it their post-marriage engagement ring. Dana had been twenty at the time, and would have dearly loved an engagement party as was the custom among all her friends, but Edward refused. He thought it inappropriate that the 10th Earl of Seddon be formally engaged after divorcing his wife of fifteen years.
The gold dealer near the spice market made her a reasonable offer and Dana sold it with not a touch of remorse.
With her short-term financial position secured, she decided to write a note to Edward, which she sent by dhow to Mombasa for posting.
Dearest Edward,
This is to let you know I am safe and well.
I have decided to have our baby in the hope that when you see it you will find it in your heart to love and accept him or her. If you do not, then I will raise the child on my own.
I will contact you again when the baby is born at which time we can discuss our future and the future of our child.
Love
Dana
PS Please don’t trouble yourself by trying to trace me through this letter. Although it is postmarked Mombasa, I am far from there.
CHAPTER 30
In the four months since her arrival, Dana had seldom seen the Swahili owner of the Kidege Guest House, which quite suited her. He was a middle-aged man with bad teeth and a worse disposition, always complaining about the costs of running his business. Dana was almost always his only paying guest and she thought she, of all people, could have been spared his ill temper.
In the owner’s absence, Kidege, or Little Bird, Guest House was effectively run by Amina, a big-bosomed black woman from Uganda. She could not be persuaded to explain how she travelled from Jinja, where the Victoria Nile embarks upon its long journey to the sea, to work in Lamu, but Dana suspected it had something to do with a man, because Amina remained unmarried in a place where women were in great demand as second, third or even fourth wives.
Amina was pleasant company, which was fortunate. As October approached and the kusi died, the heat became too distressing for Dana, now five months pregnant, to move comfortably around the island during the day.
It was time to find a midwife, and she asked Amina for help. Uncharacterist
ically, her new friend was reticent.
‘Memsahib should be in Mombasa for this baby,’ she said, as she plucked the dry laundry from the upstairs railing.
‘No, I can’t go to Mombasa. I came to Lamu to have my baby.’
‘No doctors here for a white lady, memsahib.’
‘Then a midwife will do. Surely there’s someone here in Lamu who delivers babies. Won’t you take me to her, please?’
Amina fussed with the sheet she was folding, straightening the corners and smoothing every last wrinkle.
‘Amina,’ Dana implored. ‘Please?’
Two days later, Amina led Dana through the serpentine alleys to a small stone house in a part of the town she’d not seen before.
The midwife was old with crooked teeth and fingers gnarled with arthritis, but she had a kind smile in her rheumy eyes. Amina had barely completed the usual salutations before she started feeling Dana’s belly. Then she stared into her eyes and ran her hands up her arms and down her body to her legs.
Dana felt like a yearling in an auctioneer’s yard, being examined for flaws and infirmities.
Amina continued to translate Dana’s explanation of her pregnancy, but the midwife seemed uninterested. Instead, she went to a large chest where she withdrew some carved wooden images and items of bone and ivory. She waved each of them over Dana, making a humming sound and occasional muttered remarks. Dana asked what she was saying, but Amina shrugged, saying it wasn’t in any language that she could decipher. Finally, the midwife smiled her crooked smile and announced to Amina that she would be able to deliver the memsahib’s baby.
Amina thanked her and, as Dana made the tortuous walk back to the cool escape of Kidege Guest House’s garden, she wondered what Dr Whitmore might think of the midwife’s diagnostic methods.
