by Carl Hancock
The quiet of private contemplation replaced the high spirits that had come when they had discovered that Lydia was back amongst them. Alex looked at his watch, unnecessarily, for one glance towards the east told him what the time was. For him the coming of a new day was a moment for stillness and waiting. He had watched the unfolding of the dawn thousands of times from that veranda, not always with the luxury of the leisure to rejoice in the wonder of it.
That first light was the purest of the day. It seemed to have come to wash away the failing darkness. Its power intensified relentlessly and rose to a climax when lines of grey puffs of cloud hung above the horizon against a background of a strong red that began to fade quickly before vanishing with the irresistible rise of what was for a few seconds a plate of molten gases.
Two hours later the rumble of the heavy procession ceased and the large vehicles stood in a line twenty metres back from the shell and the rubble they were about to carry away. In ten minutes the site was clear of people. The veranda would stay, but the rest of the old house would be carried off. The broken pieces of stone, brick and plaster would be dumped in piles on the other side of town ready to be used as hard core for the base of the new hospital. Burnt trees would be uprooted in the house garden and with the considerable remnant from the flower farm built into a huge bonfire. Villages around would have the picking of this heap for firewood or charcoal before a final burn-off.
None of those ten who had seen the arrival of the new dawn would stay to watch the wrecking crew at work. Gloria, still bubbling with energy, was anxious to return to her Peter and her church. Did she have stories to tell him! Inspector Caroline would ferry her along the lower road back to her home and combine her role as social worker with a professional inspection of the car crash the night before.
None of the McCalls could stomach the prospect of watching the final destruction of the family home. They had their distractions lined up. Their first stop was to be Nakuru Park.
Chapter Seventeen
n the morning after his disastrous night away from home, Abel Rubai returned to his Pink Palace in Karen in a state of almost total exhaustion. And there was nothing to show for the energy, physical and emotional, he had pumped out of himself. If there was any consolation, it came in the form of some new realities, some changed perspectives that had forced themselves on him, none of them comforting in their individual selves.
Less than twenty-four hours after sending Patrick Uchome and his wife in pursuit of Lydia whatever - ‘See, I cannot even remember her name’ - he found it difficult to understand why he had ever attached such importance to a nobody like her. Her physical attractions had served him well for a brief evening. It was also true that it bothered him that she might have evidence on him about the silencing of the meddlesome Mboya. How foolish of him to have contemplated even the slightest threat to him posed by this frightened … child.
He understood why the nonsense had taken hold.
‘Papa, you taught me too well! Remember that night when a lion had taken one of the village boys and you kept me from my bed until you had made my head weary from repeating that single word: “Control! Control! Control!”’
‘Yes, it was a good word. I lived by it and, in my turn, I tried to teach it to Julius… It is a fine thing to be able to control an elephant or a buffalo, but to waste my time trying to swat an ant because she might sting me, this is a crazy behaviour.
‘And today I will have to tell a mother that I helped to kill her son. I will give her money to buy a new house. She would laugh at me if I told her my truth.’
Envy. Sally, in one of her attempts to get him to spend more time in the church, told him that this envy stuff was one of the killing sins. ‘Seven of them, and each one can kill a soul stone dead.’ There was a time when he could have recited them off pat. He had thought then that the one that would trouble him least was looking at what other folks had and worrying and wanting to grab some of that for himself.
Wrong. This was a reality that had taken its time to dawn on him. But there that morning, lit up in bright lights he saw it, gnawing at his mind like an infection of the brain. The McCalls, the Mboyas, the Daniels, the Briggs. He had tried to hurt them all, succeeded in part, but they all shared a bond that he could barely comprehend. ‘Superiority complex.’ He had laughed when Sally suggested, only partly in jest, that he was in danger of developing one.
‘Sal, that’s not a complex. That’s just a little touch of reality. I am a superior being!’
On that worst of mornings, there was no person he could go to and share the secrets of his heart. That heart had become too private, too secretive. He was a hard man and could live with that. He would have to. But for a time he could see what it was like on the other side, where the weak people and the soft people lived their lives.
For an hour he dozed in his red armchair in his screen room. It revived him. The household would soon be rising. He would enjoy a leisurely breakfast. Perhaps Sally would want to read him snippets from The Nation. Her boy would be on his way over to Karen dukas right now to fetch her copy. Perhaps she would read him a piece about yet another accident on the sharp bend by the Italian church on the lower road to Naivasha. He would like to know the truth behind that one himself.
* * *
‘Patrick Uchome. Haven’t I heard that name from somewhere, Abel?’
‘So The Nation got the story already. Yes, I know him. Did some jobs for me once in a while. Police called me last night.’
‘Says here that his wife was with him in the car. They were both taken.’
‘Yep. I went into town late last night. You know the morgue on Ngong Road? No family down here, so …’
‘You identified them?’
‘His father has a small tea plantation up near Kericho. Usual story. The eldest son doesn’t want to be stuck on the land, so there’s another young man who packs his bag and climbs aboard the Eldoret Express or the Kisii Executive - you know the names.’
‘Just like a certain Abel Nathaniel Rubai …’
‘Yeah, hoping to make the golden shilling in the big city. Actually, Sally, he was a fine painter. Studied art. No money in it though. That’s why he helped me out sometimes. Anyway, I arranged for the local police to let his people know. I got business I can do up there today, buying a bigger share in a plantation. I’m taking him home. Late morning, after I’ve checked on that new slice of old forest that’s coming down in the next month.’
‘Abel, you’ll have the papers writing nasty things about you again. And those European conservatives …’
‘Conservationists. The same Europeans who’ve been plundering this country for a hundred years or more. Ask yourself how many local Africans own one of the flower farms on that lake you’re so fond of.’
‘I’m sorry, Abel.’
‘Me, too, Sal. Hey, isn’t this the day you got an appointment down at the hospital?’
‘Should I cancel it and come up with you?’
‘No. Look, by the time I get there, the grave will be dug. Your job is to care for the living. I think Reuben ought to come though. He might as well start getting used to experiencing other people’s grief. When he’s the MP …’
‘Abel, there’s been plenty of grief around lately …’
Abel closed his eyes and sighed in a whisper, ‘But not always in the right places!’
Chapter Eighteen
reakfast at Rusinga was a quiet affair. Freed from his recent ordeals and back home with Ewan, Bertie was keener than ever to please his guests. From the tables set out behind the thick cei-apple hedge there was no view of the demolition going on at Londiani, but the grinding noise of the machinery at its work was carried across the plain on the still morning air.
‘Shall I play some music? Can’t be too pleasant to hear the old place being bashed about.’
Rafaella’s reply was swift and decisive.
‘No need, Bertie. The strange thing is that now that it’s all started, I no longer se
e this bashing up as the end. More like a new beginning. When I get home tonight, I want to walk around the garden, push my hands deep into the soil and start dreaming, again.’
Bertie had laid on more food than his guests could cope with.
‘Thought so. But after we’ve gone, the girls will take it across to the workers. Encourage them to do a good job!’
Rollo had a question.
‘Why am I not feeling knackered. Sorry Grandma …’
‘I’ll sorry you with this handbag. Knackered, that’s fine. Don used it a lot. But you know how I dislike …’
‘Yes, I know, Madam McCall Senior, but are you feeling exhausted? You don’t look it …’
‘Oh, shut up, Rolls. I saw you having a nap.’
‘Eddie, you fibber. That was not me having a nap. I was in deep contemplation, trying to figure out what might have happened to Lydia …’
Alex intervened. ‘Boys, the trip to the park is not compulsory, you know. Just the place to get away from, I don’t know, but please forgive the French, some of the shit that has been hitting our fan lately, if you get my drift.’
The twins exchanged amused expressions. Eddie nodded, so Rollo handed out the reprimand.
‘Dad, we’ve left school now, but to prove to you that you didn’t waste all that money you spent on our education, over to you, brother.’
‘Father, it really is not good form to mix your metaphors as you just did.’
‘Mixing my metaphors! Who was your English teacher?’
Maura was pleased and relieved at the show of light-heartedness on display in Bertie’s garden.
‘I think most people are demonstrating that they are full of beans, single metaphor, on this lovely morning, so I suggest that we drink up, shut up and be on our way!’
Alex touched his best friend on the arm as they all made their way around to the front yard.
‘Sorry that we need to take both vehicles. The insurance company says they are almost ready to pay out on the Land Cruiser.’
‘You know I’m pleased to do something for you for a change. So it’s back to Nakuru, but this time with the boy, and hoping to come back to sleep in my own bed tonight.’
The Pajero and the farm Land Rover stuck together for the whole of the leisurely drive from South Lake Road to the Lanet Gate entrance of the park. The twins were delighted to be entrusted with the job of driving. Bertie, against the law and against common sense, sat next to Eddie with Ewan in his arms. Behind, Alex sat between his mother and his wife, from time to time grasping the hand of each. They had made that journey hundreds of times. Riding the highways of the homeland was never a dull experience, but this one was special, not only because they were together and well when recent events could have made for a very different situation. Nothing that they saw through the windows of that comfortable vehicle gave them less than a thrill. The orange sellers seated on tiny stools with their bulging nets of fruit in the shade of the yellow fever trees on the rise up to Gilgil, the breathtaking view of wide open country for miles ahead as they ran down towards Kikopei on the steep drop out of Gilgil, the ancient flanks of the Great Rift to their left and their right on the undulating road between Soysambu and Greensteds. The idea of coming away for the day was turning out to be inspired.
The journey in the rickety farm Landy was much less smooth but just as high-spirited in its own noisy way. Tom and Rollo spent a lot of the journey swapping stories about their days in their English boarding school, mimicking teachers, describing hilarious adventures that sounded more like disasters, to Rebecca and Lydia. Rebecca listened with an air of tolerant amusement, Lydia with a bewildered credulity.
Once inside the park, they were all glad to see that the storms of the previous week had left everywhere, trees and bush with a feel of freshness. Their passage along the gravel tracks did not raise clouds of dust behind them. The chances were good that the soda lake would have plenty of water. In their early visits, when the boys were young, the idea had been to move slowly to make sure that they did not miss out on the sighting of a single creature. Seeing rhino was a bonus, getting close to the pride of lion a special treat, but the top encounter was catching sight of the master of camouflage, the sinuous, gorgeous leopard.
On that day being there was enough. Except for Lydia, who had never seen one of these animals of the homeland and who marvelled at dik-dik, gazelle and warthog as enthusiastically as she stared unbelieving at the huge ridge of a buffalo horn, the ride was the pleasure. They trailed around the Euphorbia Forest and still felt no affection for what Maura described as one of nature’s misfits. They drank sodas on the rocks of the Baboon Cliffs and watched a family of Eddie’s favourite giraffe below them as they stepped their dignified way into a thick clump of woodland.
An eleven year old Tom had been challenged by his grandfather to describe the essence of what the boy had dismissively called the ‘Lake Nakuru pong’.
‘Do you know what essence means, Tom?’
‘No, but I think it stinks like animal manure, wet sand and flamingo droppings. Is that essence?’
‘It’ll do, son.’
Tom put his arm around his grandmother’s shoulders as they stepped out again on the familiar wide stretch of brown and black sand that was always blessed by a cooling breeze.
‘Do you still like the pong?’
‘Love it!’
Without looking he knew that the smile on Rafaella’s beautiful face was heightened by a glint of tears in her eyes.
The big decision of the late morning was where to take lunch. There were two choices: stay in the park and eat at the lodge - delicious food but lots of tourists. They took the second option and chose to go to the Rift Valley Club - predictable fare in familiar surroundings. They could relax and melt into the background, a quiet interlude before going on to Gilgil to organise an important piece of family business.
Wrong. Their arrival caused a minor sensation. Alerted to the news that the McCalls had arrived in the car park, the club secretary rushed out to the top of the steps, camera in hand, asking for a group photograph for the club archives. The dining room was unusually crowded for a Monday and members and their guests were soon on their feet to greet them with a round of applause. A bemused Alex caught sight of Toby Barclay, a farmer friend from Njoro, at his usual table close to the door.
‘Toby, what are they putting into the beer here today?’
‘Come off it, Alex! First time in here for a while, isn’t it? Your family, a bunch of bloody heroes. We’ve been following the stories. They could make a film. The chairman’s in today. Look, he wants you to sit at his table.’
After a warm handshake and a hug, Toby waved Alex on his way. Progress to the centre of the room was very slow. Tom and Rebecca, Alex, Eddie and, most recently, Bertie had all featured on the front pages of The Nation and The Standard in the previous months, every one of them in some kind of serious danger. Everyone they passed wanted a word, often several. The ‘well dones’, the ‘good lucks’ went on and on until the chairman, Edward Narong, came to their rescue.
‘How is it, Alex, my friend? You have suffered some mighty blows recently. Those fires. So many of your people taken.
What is happening to us all?’
The downcast expressions on the faces of Maura and Rafaella alerted Edward’s wife, Mary. She refocused the whole direction of the table talk.
‘Ewan, I hear you have been in the park this morning. You must be thirsty and no one has brought you a soda. Bad manners. I’ll see to it. Henry, this young man would like you to bring him a …?’
Ewan glanced at his father to check that he was allowed. When Bertie smiled his approval, Ewan surprised the company.
‘Papa likes the White-cap. Uncle Alex and the boys, too. And can I have the lemonade?’
A smiling Mary queried. ‘And for the ladies?’
Ewan buried his shaking head into his father’s arm and added shyly, ‘My friend, Rebecca, says that ladies are special.’ And adde
d more perkily, ‘Rebecca can sing, you know.’
Edward took up the spirit of enthusiasm. ‘Yes, you are right. And I think they would like champagne. Henry will need help to bring all these drinks.’
Ewan caused more amusement when he slid from his chair. ‘I can help. Sometimes, when we are waiting for our supper I will go to the fridge …’
‘But, Ewan, you don’t know where the fridge is in this place.’
‘Yes, Eddie, but Henry can show me …’
Bertie had another moment of feeling pride in his son and, as usual, the joy of it was shot through with the pain that Anna was not there to share it with him.
Leaving the club through the bottom gate they found themselves held up straightaway. Gilani’s supermarket was reopening after the lunch break and the mass of workers was packing the road as they filed back through the partially open door to begin the afternoon shift. After that, with the Land Rover in the lead, they were soon climbing out of town along the avenue of jacaranda on the A104, the main road to all parts south.
There had been an exchange of passengers. Lydia had swapped places with Maura and Tom was now driving the slower, hardworking Landy with Rebecca by his side. They were passing the entrance to Greensteds School when Rollo broke a long silence.
‘Feeling nervous, Thomas?’
Tom let the Land Rover drone on another hundred metres before responding to but not answering his brother’s question.
‘Do you know, I reckon that at least half the times I’ve driven home on this road, we’ve had rain somewhere between here and Lord Delamere’s Nose. Amazing, don’t you think?’
It was Rollo’s turn to let the silence drift on before picking up the point.
‘Shall I take that as a no?’
Maura, who was a little apprehensive about the business that was awaiting them in Gilgil, specifically in Pembroke House, was not enjoying the brotherly sparring and cut in.
‘At this rate, you two would not have proper conversation if we were going all the way down to the coast.’
