by Isobel Chace
Too? She glared at him resentfully. 'Perhaps he should have more sense!' she said, escaping his finger with difficulty.
'But she wouldn't like that at all!' he retorted. 'Females are ever perverse, even in the wild!'
He turned his back on her, opening the door of the Range Rover and gesturing to Dorcas to get in. 'You'll have to be three in the back,' he said. 'I'm taking Okumu with us.'
'Okumu?' Annot queried. 'Is he your Samburu gun-bearer?'
'He speaks the same language as the Masai,' James answered her. 'The Samburu and the Masai are related to one another and share many of the same customs, and the Amboseli Reserve is run by the Masai. The Kajiado District Council took it over in in return for a fairly handsome government annuity. The idea is that the Masai should slowly move out of the area and leave it to the exclusive use of the animals, but somehow no matter how often they leave they always make their way back there. If anyone knows where Jeremy is, it will be one of them. The border with Tanzania goes straight through their traditional lands and they come and go at will.
'Surely Jeremy wouldn't have been such a fool as to have crossed the border without going through the usual formalities?' Annot protested.
'Balloons are notoriously difficult to control,' he answered dryly. 'Get in, girls! Are you going to travel in the front or the back, Annot?'
Annot muttered something about being sure that Judith
would expect to go in the front and got in beside Dorcas with the speed of lightning, in case James should see fit to touch her again, and that she couldn't allow until she had had time to work out some kind of defence against the impossible feelings he stirred within her whenever he came near.
Once they were on the road she told herself she had made a good choice. Okumu, his long spear in his hand, sat self-consciously beside her. Under one arm he had placed a bundle of leaves, a primitive but effective form of deodorant, and his black skin was painted in patterns of white that must have taken hours to apply. His hair was dressed with red ochre mixed with animal fat, and looked like so many looped shoelaces falling to below his shoulders. Annot wondered if it was a wig or his own hair, but she was too much in awe of his superb appearance to address him directly until he had first spoken to her.
But then he did speak. 'Have you enough space, mama?' he said in a deep voice, whose accents were as educated as her own.
`Thank you,' she murmured.
'And the little girl?'
Dorcas peered at him round Annot. She had none of the older girl's reservations about initiating a conversation with him
'I'm not really little,' she told him. 'Besides, you've only just stopped being little yourself. James told me you've only just become a moron.'
`That is true,' he answered, 'but I am old to be a junior warrior. My own people are away to the north and I had my work to do here.'
'Well, you look magnificent anyway,' Dorcas told him kindly. 'What do you do while you're being a moran?'
It's a bit like military service,' he explained. 'We protect
our people from marauders and guard their homes. We are renowned as being very brave fighters.'
`But there aren't any marauders nowadays,' Dorcas objected.
'But we practise all the time in case they should come back one day and surprise us. Besides,' he added with a lopsided smile, 'when we are morons we find it very easy to impress the young women of the surrounding villages. A beautiful girl must always know that the man who chooses her is the bravest of his age-group, then they will have fine children together and be happy.'
Dorcas approved this attitude. She turned eagerly to Dorcas. 'At least you know James is brave!' she exclaimed. `He's much braver than Jeremy!'
`Jeremy is my uncle, so I could hardly marry him,' Annot said dryly. She would have preferred to have talked about something else, but Dorcas had other ideas.
'Have you ever fought with James?' she asked Okumu.
The Samburu flourished his spear with vigour. 'Often. Together we have tracked every kind of animal, to find out more about how they live. The bwana is interested in the habits of many creatures—and men too.'
But not women! Annot said to herself. Certainly not herself! She enlarged on that, reflecting bitterly on the way he took all women for granted—Judith, herself. Look at the way he had ridden rough-shod over her finer feelings by insisting on this ridiculous engagement that nobody could possibly believe in, because it must be obvious that they weren't in the least bit in love with each other.
The road seemed endless. It had led at first across the sun-burned Athi where a few herds of gazelle and the occasional giraffe hinted at what the animal life had once been like before the white man had come and fenced off the land the better to farm it, thus destroying the ecological relationship that had been maintained between the Africans and the
animals since the beginning of time. Only in the Masai game reserves were things still the way they always had been, with both animals and men existing side by side in their wild terrain.
They turned right after a while, heading for the Tanzanian border, and the tarmac petered out into a murram surface that put up a plume of rust-coloured dust behind them, announcing their presence to anyone who was watching for fifty miles or more.
At the gate of the game reserve the locals had set up quite a market-place, selling the Masai jewellery, heavy collars made from tiny beads all strung together; rings which had been made to match; a variety of carved animals, carved by the Wakamba who specialise in the craft; and pictures made from banana plants, showing both animals and domestic scenes of women drawing water or grinding corn, their babies strapped securely to their backs.
They had plenty of time to admire the artefacts on display while James and the Samburu talked to the game wardens and paid the fees that were necessary to get into the reserve. Annot, whose interest in souvenirs was strictly limited, gravitated towards the men, trying to understand what they were saying. She had known some Swahili as a child, but she thought she had long ago forgotten most of it. It seemed this was not true. She couldn't understand everything, but she could make out long sequences of what they were saying and soon came to the speedy conclusion that most of it involved her far more than anyone else.
'Whose balloon is it?' James was asking.
'He is an Englishman. He is making experiments at the moment, but he wants to get away before the rains come. He is staying in one of the lodges—you will find him there.'
'Does he know anything about Jeremy Lincoln?' James persisted.
The warden shrugged. 'It could be. He spent some days
waiting for some photographer to turn up, but he never came. He's afraid of Lake Amboseli flooding before he is ready; there has already been rain across the border, but Tanzania always gets rain before we do.'
'Is that the balloon we're going to use?' Annot inquired, tugging impatiently at James' sleeve.
'Not you, my love. Just possibly I may go up with him and take your photos for you—'
`James, you couldn't!'
`Don't you trust me with your cameras?'
She faced up to him bravely. 'I want to do it myself. I have to do it myself! I owe it to Jeremy. I had the dickens of a job to persuade the magazine to use my work in place of his, and it has to be my work. It would be fraud if I submitted your photos instead.'
'But, my dear girl, you would be developing them, choosing which one to use, and very likely touching them up too. Does it matter who actually points the camera at the animal?'
`To me it does!'
'It would!' His exasperation was obvious. 'Can't I get it through your thick head that these hot-air balloons are dangerous? Anything might happen to you!'
'Nothing that couldn't happen to you too,' she pointed out.
He looked her up and down with a meaning, very masculine look. 'That's what you think!' he exploded.
Annot had no answer to that. It was unfair, she thought, the way James could devastate her defences by the sim
ple technique of using her sex against her. Surely he'd heard that women were having adventures all over the world these days, often by themselves, without the aid of any man? Yet he seemed to think that she would break apart unless she were guarded and cherished and prevented from doing anything for herself!
She changed the subject, trying hard to look -calm and confident. 'Have they heard anything about Jeremy?'
He put a hand on her upper arm and walked away from the gate office. 'Leave it to Okumu,' he said when they could no longer be overheard. 'If they do know anything they're not likely to tell anyone who might pass it on to the authorities. We know they're not personally involved, but they may have heard gossip which they're unlikely to tell to a white man '
She allowed herself to be walked back down the road and half-shoved up the bank to the area where the stalls were set out.
`james—' she began tentatively.
'What now?' he joined her at the top of the bank, a quizzical expression on his face. 'Have you never been told that it's sometimes better to leave well alone?'
`I like to get things straight,' she insisted, then spread her hands in a gesture of despair. 'You don't understand, do you? I don't want to be awkward—'
He let go of her arm, running his hand down the line of Masai beaded collars. 'Choose yourself something you might wear sometimes,' he· commanded her.
`But, James—'
`The balloon is called Icarus,' he cut her off.. 'You know what happened to him, I suppose?'
:Didn't he fly too near the sun?' she muttered, not caring for the allusion. 'That was different!'
`Was it? The wax melted in his man-made wings and he fell from the skies like a bolt from the blue. He was killed, remember?'
'I'm hardly likely to be killed in a balloon!' she retorted. He chose an elaborate collar that came into three pieces
and fastened it with ungentle fingers round her neck. `How do you like that?' he asked her.
'It makes me feel like a slave, if you must know—it
reminds me of the collars they forced the slaves to wear when they were looped together. It gives me a funny feeling when it bobs up and down against my chin.'
'Very appropriate,' he said dryly. 'I like you in it.' 'But I'll never wear it!' she blazed.
'I think you may. I'll remind you that you have it from time to time,' he assured her, as imperturbably as ever.
'I still won't wear it!'
He brought some notes out of his pocket and paid for the collar without further reference to her. Annot struggled with the catch to undo it, but the three layers kept getting tangled with one another, defeating her.
'Take it off!' she commanded James, her temper rising.
'Why? It suits you,' he drawled, jumping down the bank and holding out his hand to her to help her down. 'It'll give you something else to think about besides arguing with me!'
'James! Do you know you're unbearably conceited?' She put her hand reluctantly into his because the bank was steep and she was half afraid she would fall if she didn't 'I don't need anything else to think about!'
He slipped both hands up under he arms and lifted her bodily down beside him. 'No, I suspected you were enjoying yourself too much to be easily diverted into more profitable channels of thought!'
'Such as?' Her breath caught in the back of her throat as he showed no signs of releasing her, but held her relentlessly up against his hard body.
'Such as, my pet, that your uncle may very likely have come to grief in that same balloon and may well need more from you than a few photographs. It's strange that no one admits to knowing anything about him! Okumu says it's common knowledge among the Masai with whom he's living that Jeremy's Range Rover is somewhere in Amboseli. That means Jeremy must be somewhere here too.'
'Oh,' she said.
'Is that all you have to say?'
She searched his face for some clue as to what he was really thinking, but there was none that she could discover. He was as enigmatic to her as ever.
'James, I am grateful '
'That's something else you might think about,' he interrupted her. 'It might not be gratitude I want from you!' `Oh?'
'Annot, if you say Oh just once more, I'll
`Annot, what a super necklace! It looks absolutely lovely on you! I do like those colours together, and it goes beautifully with 'your shirt. Don't you think so, James?' Dorcas's face shone with unabashed enthusiasm. 'Mama says you have to stand tall like the Masai do for their jewellery to look anything, and Annot does, doesn't she?'
'I'd have to have notice of that question,' James reflected, his eyes on Annot's startled face. 'The Masai dance well too, and I've yet to see Annot doing any kind of dance. But the beads certainly go beautifully with her shirt!'
'I think so,' Dorcas sighed. 'Is that why you bought them for her?'
No, it wasn't,' Annot interposed hurriedly. 'He bought them to annoy me!'
'Nothing of the kind,' James retorted. 'Why should I want to annoy you?'
Annot cast him a speaking look, as she bent down towards Dorcas. 'Please undo it for me,' she asked the girl. 'It makes me uncomfortable.'
Dorcas fiddled with the hook of one of the clasps and succeeded in getting it loose. 'I keep catching your hair in it,' she apologised, 'you've got it awfully dusty! You should have worn a scarf like Mama.'
`It doesn't matter,' said Annot, 'I'll wash it when we get to Amboseli. It'll soon dry in this heat.'
'But don't you go to a shop for that?' Dorcas asked her. 'Not often.'
'Mama does—'
'What does Mama do?' Judith Drummond had strolled across the road to join them, holding a small carved elephant she had bought for her daughter in her hand.
'You go to a shop to have your hair done,' Dorcas enlightened her. 'Annot just washes hers. It's no good, Annot,' she added, 'I can't undo the last one. It's all twisted and the wires are terribly stiff.'
'Perhaps I should try,' Judith volunteered. She turned Annot round so that she could see what she was doing. 'I can see you're very impulsive in your purchases as well as in some other of your actions! Aren't you afraid of catching something from these things?'
'I can't say it occurred to me.' Annot's voice was muffled by her arm as she strove to lift her hair out of the way.
'I gave them to her,' James put in, 'I think they suit her.'
Judith's fingers tightened on Annot's neck. 'I wouldn't have said there was anything primitive about Annot,' she said. 'Masai women don't have much fun, and Annot certainly does have that!'
'Can't you do it?' Annot asked her anxiously, beginning to feel she was destined to wear the collar for the rest of her life.
'You'd better let me try,' James soothed her. She knew immediately his firm touch against her skin and was dismayed at her awareness of him. Supposing he noticed, what would he think of her? She burned inwardly with humiliation, hating both him and his unwanted gift to her.
'I told you I'd never wear it!' she declared violently. 'I couldn't go through this every time!'
His only reaction was to laugh at her. The catches came loose with a minimum of fuss and he held the offending collars out to her. 'You have only to ask me to do it for you,'
he taunted her. 'That and other things!'
'I'll never ask you for anything! ' She snatched the beads from his hand, smoothing them down with trembling fingers. 'Never ! '
'Softly, sweetheart,' he rebuked her. 'One of these days I might believe you, and what would you do then?'
She didn't deign to answer him. Turning her back on him, she stalked back to the Range Rover and got into the back seat. Judith came after her, a faint smile lifting the corners of her lips.
'You are impulsive!' she said over her shoulder as she resumed her seat in the front. 'I wouldn't dare speak to James like that. You're not a very loving couple, are you?'
'Should we be?' Annot countered.
'My dear, only you can answer that, just as only you can decide if you aren't heading f
or more trouble than you can handle. James isn't an easy man to handle, and if the best you can offer him is these little-girl tantrums, I don't think you'll hold his interest for very long. But don't listen to me! I'm just a jealous hag who wants him for myself! Only I happen to like you too, and not even James' most ardent admirer could describe him as a kindly man!'
Annot fingered the beads thoughtfully. 'Sometimes I hate him!' she said aloud.
'Well, if I were you I shouldn't let it show,' Judith advised her. 'You'll only be the loser if you do.'
Annot wasn't hating James, though, when he got into the driving seat and drove through the gates of the reserve in silence. She was remembering the sensation of his touch against her neck, and her skin burned with the memory, making her heart pound against her ribs in an agony of frustrated excitement. She would have to pull herself together, she thought wildly. She couldn't go on like this, starting whenever he came near her. She was a grown woman, and Judith's jibe of 'little-girl tantrums' hurt. Some-
how or other, she had to treat James as naturally as she did everyone else, but it was a tall order, and one she wasn't at all sure she could fulfil.
Her first impression of the Amboseli was the flat, desolate nature of the scenery; the broken down, shiny grey wood of the trees telling surely of the presence of the vast herds of elephants who had made that part of the country their home. But the only animals they saw on the way to the lodge were some jackals playing by the side of the road, a few hares speeding over the sandy ground, and a herd of zebras grazing on the spiky, sun-dried vegetation.
The lodge blended in so well with its surroundings it was hard to see it at all. Mud-coloured, it had been designed to look as much like a Masai village as its luxurious standards of comfort would allow. A couple of porters rushed out to open the doors of the vehicle for them, followed more slowly by a white man, dressed in very obviously English-made shorts that came right to his knee and were held up by what looked like an old school belt, complete with the S-shaped buckle and the faded striped colours that all such belts have.
