Girl with the Golden Voice

by Carl Hancock

  ‘They tried once before. Was it a warning or a mistake that he … I am very afraid that next time …’

  Rebecca spoke about her experiences with Julius Rubai in Kenya and New York. ‘I often think of that concert in the Bomas where he saw Mary and me. If someone tells him he cannot have something, he wants it even more …’

  There was a pause before Rafaella spoke. ‘Three years ago, before I lost Don, I would have told you not to give in to these bullies. I was used to having my own way. I expected a happy ending all the time. I have learned the hard way. Now I understand that many times you just have to accept. You cannot go out with your big stick and fight those who want to crush you. You wait and you hope that you come through.’

  ‘I am leaving.’

  ‘Your mother told me just now. Tom was down at the sheds very early.’

  ‘Pray for me.’

  ‘And you pray for me.’

  ‘Mrs Coulson is taking me down to Nairobi.’

  ‘Oh, yes, it’s her day. Is she coming here?’

  ‘I am meeting her in town.’

  ‘You can come in with me. I want to go to the matumba.’

  ‘Are you looking for a red dress?’

  ‘Not today. Next time you’re home we will search together. Don’t forget, life is full of unexpected ways. I will look after Tom … help him when he is ready. Rebecca, we will never be far away from each other.’

  Festus was driving the Range Rover. Mary had a day and a half of clinics in her rooms in Westlands. There were also the children to visit.

  Coming upon Mary in Gilgil was as unexpected as finding a jewel in a cornfield. Blonde, physically attractive, she had a brilliant mind. She and Maura McCall had been soul mates for years. It was Mary’s powerful spirit, her rich spirituality that had drawn the circle of up-country women to see her as their leader and their inspiration. Mary was a healer. If she had wanted, she could have made a name for herself far beyond the borders of Kenya. Lots of money, too, from the armies of confused people, thrashing around in their own particular spiritual darkness. She never broadcast her gifts. It was up to the seeker to find her. The prospect of meeting her could be daunting, as it was for Rebecca that midmorning.

  Mary had a talent for careful listening. She knew from Maura that Rebecca might have a great deal to say. She would not pry even though she wanted to help this beautiful but troubled young woman. She handed over an envelope. ‘Philip’s address and phone number are inside. He’ll be there until five today.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you. I want help to make my will.’

  ‘Your will!’ Mary failed to keep the surprise out of her voice.

  ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t bother him.’

  ‘No, my darling, no. Of course he’ll help you. It’s just that you are so young for thinking about things like wills.’

  Festus was taking the lower road to the city, a steady climb between open plains. Down to the right the lake sparkled. Rebecca wondered when she would see it again. Mary was very complimentary about a disc and a DVD of the live concert at the Flamingo.

  ‘A friend brought them in from the States. Wonderful stuff! I wish you people would do a concert over here.’

  ‘Toni talks of coming to the Bomas.’

  ‘You’d fill it five times over. I’ve never heard any music speaking for Africa like this. And your songs, Rebecca, out of this world!’

  Rebecca was not sure how much Mary knew about the end of the engagement. She was picking her topics carefully.

  ‘I think I shall go back to America for a while. Toni wants to go down to Brazil and Argentina for a tour. Perhaps even Australia.’

  She stopped abruptly. She was nervous and this made her talk too much, saying things to avoid long silences.

  ‘When you do return home, you’ll have the whole Coulson family in the front row at your first concert.’

  ‘Then again … well, you know how things can change suddenly.’

  Mary saw that Rebecca was ready. ‘Darling, you can say anything you like to me. Clear your mind, if you feel the need.’

  Rebecca had known Mary for a long time. Whenever she visited Londiani she was kind to her and her mother. An hour before she had shared with Rafaella and now here was Mary paying attention to her, ready to listen. Under her breath Rebecca was thanking God for saying yes to her plea for help.

  They were snaking their way up the steep, twisting part of the road that would bring them to the dual carriageway and the descent into the city centre. For a few minutes Rebecca looked out and let the blur of images rushing by prepare her.

  She was soon well into her story of how Julius Rubai had come into her life; how, for a long time, he had been little more than a petty nuisance. Now he frightened her and she was convinced that Tom’s life was in great danger. She was trying in the only way she could to protect him.

  Mary recognised that, even if she wanted to, there would be no shifting Rebecca’s resolve to see her plan through. The cycle had begun and would have to run its course for better or worse. Questions or advice would not help much.

  ‘Darling, you’re on a path that just now seems to be full of danger and wretchedness. As I was listening to you, something shone out like a very bright light. You are following your heart’s desire. You are travelling in darkness and in this darkness you are meant to be. We all have a shadow and you are embracing yours. Wonderful!

  ‘This may surprise you, but a part of me envies you. The love you have for Tom has a purity and depth that I have never seen before in real life.

  ‘Here’s my phone number and my email address. Anytime for anything. I’ll be ready. I promise I will never let you down.’

  Festus dropped Mary off in Westlands and drove into the heart of the city to the offices of Kaplan, Sturgess and Ryan. Philip was waiting on the steps for his new client. Mingling a little chat about music with the serious business, Philip soon carried out Rebecca’s wishes. The will was not long or complicated and it was quickly composed, signed and witnessed.

  ‘Please, can you keep it here for me?’

  ‘Of course. We’ll put it in our vault. I’ll give you a receipt.’

  ‘And if something happens, you know, will you give it to your mother? She can take it home for me and make sure about it.’

  ‘You could appoint her as a trustee.’

  ‘No, please, no paperwork. I trust your mother completely. Perhaps this is not the way you lawyers like to do business.’

  ‘We do tend to be a bit long on wordiness, but I’ll be very careful.’

  A few polite exchanges and Rebecca was gone. For a few minutes after she left, Philip sat in his armchair. He listened to the Wajiru band disc and thought about what his mother had told him on the phone about Julius Rubai while Rebecca was on her way to see him. Rubai was well-known in Nairobi social circles where he was neither liked nor trusted. He was also a person that it would be foolish to upset.

  Rebecca turned down offers of a lift to wherever she planned to go. From now on she would travel as any wash girl might. She turned the corner into Tom Mboya Street and she was soon lost in the throng and the noise of the matatu terminus. There was the usual loud music and the pushy touts hanging from their vehicles drumming up customers. Normally Rebecca hated the chaos, the coarse catcalls, the shouting, but today she was grateful that she could hide away in the bustle and confusion.

  She found a matatu going out to Karen. She would get off at the village dukas and find her way from there. Anyone would be able to point her in the direction of the Rubai house. She was tempted to pay well over the odds just to guarantee that the boys would not stuff the vehicle to bursting point. No, she would take her chances like everyone else.

  She was glad she had put on her dark glasses. As they turned out of Moi Avenue into Haile Selassi, the tape in the music system was changed and she was surprised to hear her voice and Mary’s hammering out of the speakers on either side of the dashboard. The minibus was full but not jammed and the passengers be
gan to clap and sing along with the music. A fat mama with a pretty face was swinging away in the seat next to her. Her fleshy arm nudged Rebecca.

  ‘I love this stuff. I love these two girls.’

  The mama was pleased to see her companion’s face wet with tears, even though she was not bothering to join in.

  They were well along the Ngong Road when Rebecca’s first solo began to blare out. It was a blues number and was being played far too loud. She tapped the driver on the shoulder and motioned him to turn the machine off. He obeyed reluctantly. She removed her glasses and began to sing the same song to the accompanying drone of the diesel engine. Within seconds the driver pulled over onto the verge and switched off.

  She finished the song in an awed silence. The response was enthusiastic and noisy. Mama hugged her and everyone else reached out to clasp her fingers, to touch her.

  ‘Now put the tape back on, but not so loud this time!’

  Karen dukas came into view. The locals on board all knew where the Rubai birthday cake house was and volunteered to escort her there. The driver offered to take her the extra three kilometres free of charge.

  She accepted a lift two kilometres along the Langata Road. She wanted to walk the rest of the way down the newly graded murram track off the main road, even though the driver and his tout pointed to the skies at the build-up of heavy cloud rolling in from the south. The Rubai land stretched up to the tarmac where she got down.

  The only human activity she saw as she hurried along came from the contractors’ men working inside the fences. They were bush-cutting, bulldozing and tree planting. Someone was creating a country park out here. The light rain that had started to fall as she began her walk became a downpour and Rebecca was still a hundred metres short of the lodge at the main entrance to the estate. She was cleared by the askaris who had radioed the main house to check. Sally Rubai wanted to send down a car but Rebecca refused. The weather would help to prepare her and delay her for a few more precious minutes. She accepted the offer of an umbrella and set off, glad that she had left her heavy bag back in the cafe on Tom Mboya Street.

  In the strong wind the umbrella blew inside out and she was soaked through by the time she arrived at the front door. Once inside water dripped from her onto the blue and white tiles of the hallway. Sally and her only daughter, Judith, did not try to hide their amusement. But Sally, cuddly and well-upholstered, also silently admired her guest’s firm, stunning figure that was exposed by the skin-tight, sodden clothes.

  ‘Rebecca, it’s lovely to see you. And you’re so famous now. When are you coming to sing for us? But we must get those wet clothes off at once. We’ve got this wonderful new machine. It’s so clever. Washes your clothes, dries them, presses them. Abel brought it from California.’ She called down a passageway. ‘Daniel, bring warm towels!’

  Rebecca caught sight of herself in a mirror and chuckled at her bedraggled reflection. If only those friendly passengers on the matatu could see her now! But she was happy to accept the towels and to follow the mistresses of the house up the wide marble staircase to a large bedroom where she could ‘freshen up’. Sally Rubai had talked incessantly since she had placed her foot on the first step of the blue-carpeted climb out of the hallway. Young Judith spoke four words, but these had a much more profound effect on Rebecca than the hundreds her mother had poured out in bland social chitchat.

  ‘This is Julius’s room.’

  It had been many days since Rebecca had made the crucial decision about her future. Still fresh in her mind were the numbing pains that came with the recognition of what would be involved in seeing the ordeal through to the end. But it was the innocent words of a child that detonated the bombshell of stark reality under her. The comforting words of Rafaella and Mary Coulson had brought her glimmers of hope. These were soon snuffed out and at that moment she began to understand the true meaning of despair. She managed to keep hold on her composure and listened and responded to Sally’s advice on where to find what she would need.

  ‘Take your time and when you are ready come down and we’ll have a chat …’ but she was very happy to close the door on mother and daughter and be alone.

  Julius’s room. Thank God he was not there! Perhaps next time he would be. She let herself slide to the floor, covered her head with a towel and sobbed. Nothing could protect her from the stream of imaginings that engulfed her. She remembered his naked body only too vividly — hard, muscular. This time there would be no Papa to protect her. This time he would paw her, caress her and enter her as a right. She screamed into the muffling softness of the towel and turned onto her stomach to weep into the carpet.

  ‘You look so beautiful but so weary, too! How do you manage to keep so slim? How stupid of me! A woman with the bloom of youth and a wonderful life waiting for her …’

  Rebecca was glad that Sally kept talking with few expectations of contributions from her side. She was a kind hostess, but Rebecca began to sense that she was looking for some explanation. Why had this young woman come visiting with no word of warning?

  ‘A message,’ Rebecca mumbled.

  ‘I don’t quite understand, my dear. A message. Who’s it for?’

  Rebecca was silent for a full ten seconds. Sally Rubai could see her visitor staring blankly around the room. She shrugged, poured herself a fresh coffee and waited. The girl had seemed distracted for the whole time she had been in the house. She must be in shock for some reason.

  Sally picked up no hint of the rage that was triggered in Rebecca’s mind by the show of wealth in that beautiful sitting room, from the white and gold chair where she sat to the pink porcelain cup in her hand. A stream of images raced by like pictures on a screen. They began with the bloodied faces of broken men, moved to the appalling crudity of a hospital ward to hundreds of children trooping happily out of schools without a single book between them … In the real world a finely dressed lady sat facing her with a heavy black Bible next to the coffee pot on her table. Wealth beyond belief just a few kilometres from the great slum of Kibera. And her own growing wealth. That very morning she, Rebecca Kamau, the wash girl of Londiani, had made her will. She had left every shilling to Thomas McCall. A final picture, the said Thomas McCall of the town of Naivasha being bundled into the back seat of a big car and driven off by men who would take no chances this time.

  ‘Mrs Rubai, you have not asked me why I have come calling.’

  ‘I knew you would get ‘round to telling me when you were ready. And you mentioned some message.’

  ‘Yes, a message.’

  ‘Not for me, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes, for you but for Julius mostly.’

  ‘Julius will be home tomorrow. Perhaps you would like to stay the night.’

  ‘No, that would be too much.’

  ‘Not at all. But … you have written the message down? Or should I write it down?’

  ‘No need. It’s very short. Just tell Julius that I am not marrying Tom McCall. The engagement is over. See.’ She showed her left hand, empty of rings. She stood up to leave. ‘You have been very kind.’

  ‘Lovely to see you. No doubt Julius will understand. Perhaps he would like to get in touch with you. Are you still at Londiani?’

  ‘I am not anywhere for sure yet. Julius will find me. He always does. I think I may be going back with the band for a time. Thank you for having my clothes dried. That must be some machine!’

  ‘We haven’t used it a lot. Abel and Julius like their clothes done in the wash tub. Hot water and a box of Omo. I think the girls prefer it that way.’

  ‘The rain has stopped. Shall I return the umbrella?’

  ‘No need. We have lots of them at the lodge. Look, let me drive you down to the tarmac at least The murram will be wet. You’ll ruin your shoes.’

  ‘I’m sure I will be able to find some dry parts.’

  As the door was opened to let Rebecca out, Sally touched her arm. ‘Child, you have such a weight on your shoulders. Are you sure you did the rig
ht thing to end your engagement?

  It was you, wasn’t it, not the boy?’

  ‘Yes, it was me. And I was right.’

  ‘But when I saw you with him, you seemed to love him so much.’

  ‘That is right. I love him, perhaps too much.’

  Sally was intrigued. She had oodles of time to follow up her questions but Rebecca was gone. She knew where Julius was spending his last day in London. She wondered if she should phone him.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  t ten o’clock on the evening of the party Maura could wait no longer. She had asked Tom to go up to his room and bring down a disc of his which she claimed the guests wanted to hear. On his way back she confronted him.

  ‘Tom, what’s wrong? And you know what I mean.’

  ‘Well, let’s put it like this. For the foreseeable future there will be no new Mrs McCall at Londiani.’

  Maura closed her eyes and tilted her head forwards. After a deep sigh, ‘It wasn’t you.’

  He shook his head. ‘She told me this afternoon. She wouldn’t say why. But tells me that she still loves me. You work that one out.’

  ‘I’ll tell your father. We can talk later if you want.’

  By midnight all the guests had left except for Bertie. Tom was grateful that he had been spared the embarrassment of announcing his news.

  ‘I appreciate you all sitting around like this, when I know you’re longing for your beds.’

  ‘Tom, you know my drinking rate slows down after ten and I’ve got this White-cap to finish. Can’t waste good beer!’

  ‘Come off it, Bertie. Anyway you lot are keeping me up. I’ve got two letters to write. I’d like to do them when … things are fresh.’

  Eddie and Rollo started the exodus. Rollo had to pass close to Tom. ‘Tom, I feel shattered by all this. I dread to think …’

  ‘Now don’t go all sentimental on me, brother of mine! You’ll have me in tears.’

  As he passed, Eddie touched Tom on the shoulder. ‘See you in the morning then. We’ll be coming down with you. Give us a shout.’