by Isobel Chace
`Hullo there,' he said, lifting a hand in greeting. 'I'm Norman White, don't you know? The balloon man. I hear we may be working together.' His eyes fell on Annot and his expression brightened visibly. `I'm hoping so, at all events,' he added with greater enthusiasm. 'It's the very greatest fun! You'll all love it, I know you will!
CHAPTER SIX
Annot, who had always thought of balloons as silent shadows floating through the skies, was shocked by the noise they were making to get the thing into the air at all. If the din didn't frighten all the animals for miles around, nothing would, she decided to herself and went back to the Range Rover to gain for herself a little peace and quiet. James and the Samburu were holding open the mouth of the balloon while Norman White directed the two gas jets into the interior and pressed the triggers, Another roar of sound rent the still air of the morning and Annot looked determinedly away, trying to think of other things. It would not have been strictly true to say the balloon frightened her, but she was secretly relieved that she had been forbidden the excitement of actually travelling in the wicker basket— which couldn't have been much more than four feet square —but would only have to track the balloon's progress from the ground.
She had liked Norman White from the first moment she had set eyes on him. With him she felt at home; he was English in a way she understood very well, with a nonchalant exterior that hid a sharp intelligence which was mostly used to mock himself and the things he held dear. She knew he liked her too, and she had enjoyed talking to him the night before, long after the others had been driven to their rooms by the insect life. They had watched the honey-badgers disporting themselves in the pale arc of light from the lamps that lit the water-hole by the lodge's verandah. The black and white animals, so pretty to look at and so vicious in their manners, had looked much smaller
than they really were out there, fighting over the pieces of rib that the lodge kitchens had provided to attract them, and in the shadows the jackals had peered out at them, waiting their opportunity to steal their prized treat from under their noses.
'Who would have thought you would be Jeremy's niece?' Norman had said, his mouth curling with amusement as one jackal, braver than the rest, came fully into the light, daring the honey-badgers to send him back whence he had come.
'Is it so odd?' she had retorted.
'Somehow one never associated Jeremy with a family like ordinary people. But if James accepts you as Jeremy's niece, then his niece one must suppose you to be.'
'What else would I be?' she asked.
His eyebrows had risen and he gave her a derisive look that made her blush. 'What indeed?' He took a pipe out of the pocket of his misshapen shorts. 'Tell me, pretty lady. if Jeremy is your uncle, what is James to you?'
'James?'
'Why the surprise?' Norman murmured,- busily lighting his pipe. 'Aren't you supposed to be engaged to one another?'
Annot felt a pricking sensation on the back of her neck. The truth was, she told herself, that she didn't like to think about James at all. He had succeeded in putting her into a false position from which there seemed to be no way out, and it was in danger of spoiling everything for her!
'Oh, that!' She dismissed it lightly. 'That's a convenience to stop people gossiping—'
'Is it? Is it necessary when you have Mrs Drummond and daughter along to chaperone you very adequately as well?'
'I suppose not,' she murmured, 'I hadn't thought about it.'
But she was thinking about it now, just as she thought about it most of the night with increasing resentment
against its author. Why ever had she agreed to such a thing?
She hadn't hesitated to tell Norman that James didn't mean a thing to her. `He's been kind—in his way—and I didn't like to make difficulties for him,' she confided. 'I think he has a thing going for Judith, but he needs time to get used to the idea. You might say we're making use of each other—in a way.'
`I might,' Norman drawled with meaning, 'I might take it to mean that you're still on the open market, Annot. Have you thought of that?'
She was pleased rather than otherwise that he should think her attractive enough to chat her up start thinking now,' she said.
`You do that, my pretty one,' he recommended.
And she had, though it gave her much more pleasure to dwell on the warm feeling Norman's interest in her had given her. He was much nicer than James! A little dull perhaps, but none the worse for that, and much, much nicer than James!
The balloon was no longer stretched out on the ground, but reaching skywards like some gigantic orange and yellow parachute. Estimating it with her eye, Annot reckoned it was as high as a modern block of flats as it pulled against the restraining ropes that tethered it to the ground. It towered over them with the life and purpose of an enormous giant straining at the leash.
James came over to her and put a casual hand on her shoulder. 'Do you still want to do your own photography?' he asked her.
`Of course,' she declared bravely.
`Well, you're not going to,' he answered with a derisive smile. 'Perhaps, when I've learned to fly the thing myself, I'll take you up for a trip—'
'Don't bother! I have only to ask Norman and he'll take me!'
James' fingers bit into her shoulder. 'I think not. It wouldn't be kind to raise his expectations, Annot, and you know it. You need more than romantic surroundings to have a satisfactory romance! Just ask yourself if you'd look twice at Norman back in England.'
'I'll do no such thing!'
'If you don't,' he murmured, 'I'll put him straight myself. Now, you'd better run over the finer points of this camera again before you let me loose with it.'
Annot suppressed an angry retort, determined not to pay any attention to anything that James might say. 'I don't think it will work,' she said instead. 'That balloon makes a fantastic amount of noise!'
'Not all the time. If you want some shots of the movements of the herds, I don't see how you can do better. I'll do the best I can for you.'
For Jeremy,' she amended. She didn't want to be beholden to him, although she was already that. It bothered her that somehow she was going to have to repay him for the time and expense he had laid out on her behalf, and she didn't know how she was going to do it. It made her feel a little better if she could insist that it was all being done for Jeremy and not for her at all.
`Isn't your name going on the photographs for the magazine?'
'Well, yes,' she admitted, 'but only if Jeremy doesn't turn up. I couldn't say they were his, could I?'
He picked up the camera he was to use. 'Too honest, or too afraid of being found out?' he taunted her.
She cast him a resentful look. 'A bit of both, if you must know. I don't see what it has to do with you, though!'
He pressed the button on the side of the camera, releasing the lens and taking it out carefully. 'Don't you?
Haven't you realised that everything you do has to do with me?'
'I don't see why! I hate all this "let's pretend" business—'
He was openly amused. 'I'm sure you do,' he agreed calmly, 'but how else am I to keep you in order.? You'd have us all running round in circles if you could, my girl, but I won't play and Norman needs the money we're paying him for the use of his balloon. Satisfied?'
'What about Judith?'
'You can leave Judith to me. She's much more easily controlled than you are. I haven't noticed her batting her eyelashes at the defenceless Norman!'
Annot's mouth dropped open. 'And you have noticed me? Well, let me tell you—'
'I shouldn't,' he murmured.
Her temper burned brightly within her. 'Why not?' she demanded.
'You might not get the reaction you're looking for.' He gave her a slow, affectionate smile. 'Come on, Annot, admit it, Norman doesn't mean a row of beans to you and never will
'That's got nothing to do with you!' she stormed at him.
He shook his head at her. 'The balloon won't wait, or I'd give yo
u a taste of what you're looking for! Which lens do you want me to use?',
With a huffiness that was not usually part of her nature, she found the wide-angled lens she thought he would find most useful. 'You'd better take the zoom too, for close-ups,' she said.
'Okay.' He fitted the wide-angled lens to the camera with an ease that spoke of greater familiarity with a camera than she had allowed for. It didn't endear him to her. Then he looked up quickly, his eyes holding hers for a long, painful moment. 'Are you sure you can manage things down
on the ground?' he questioned her then.
'I expect so.'
'That might not be good enough,' he said dryly. 'Okumu is the best guide I know, but he doesn't drive. I don't want you getting bogged down or anything like that, so keep to the main tracks as far as you can.'
'I am, as it happens, quite a competent driver!' she snapped.
'On motorways I expect you are. Africa can be a frightening experience for a novice, though. I wish Judith had come out with us—'
'I'm sure you do, but I can do anything she can do! Better!' she declared wildly. 'This isn't my first visit to Africa, you know.'
'You were younger then,' he retorted, then smiled slowly. 'I'm only trying to ensure that it isn't your last!' His eyes narrowed as he looked her up and down. 'You're not afraid to be on your own with Okumu, are you?'
She was genuinely astonished. 'Why should I bee'
'No reason at all,' he assured her. 'He'll look after you like the baby you are. Most Africans are good with children and animals.
'Are they?' she said bitterly. 'Well, please explain to Okumu that I'm in charge down on the ground. You can do as you like up there!'
James laughed, slinging the camera and the spare lens over his shoulder. 'My dear girl, Okumu is a Samburu moran. He doesn't take orders from any woman. If you're wise, you'll follow his advice to the letter—he understands rhinos and elephants as if they were his brothers, and more than once my life has depended on his being right about which way they'll jump.' He turned on his heel, looking back at her over his shoulder. 'Besides,' he added, 'that's one of the things I agree with the Africans about.'
`And what's that?' she demanded, knowing even as she
asked that she would have done better to keep a still tongue in her mouth.
'They don't like bossy women----and neither do I!'
If she had had anything in her hands she would have thrown it at him, and that surprised her. She was seldom aggressive and even more seldom antagonised into a strong desire to be rude, but she would have loved to have annihilated James in that moment, with her tongue or with anything else that came to hand. She wanted to knock him off his superior perch once and for all—and have him admit it! Yes, more than anything, she wanted him to admit that she had got the better of him and have him look up to her for a change. How sweet such a moment would be! It would be pure nectar to her, a balm that would restore her battered pride and customary good humour to their usual pre-eminence among her emotions.
`Mind you don't trip,' she said sweetly as James swung himself into the basket.
'I won't,' he returned, his voice as honeyed as hers. 'Look to yourself, Miss Lindsay, and take your own advice!'
She shrugged her shoulders. 'I'm not going anywhere,' she reminded him.
He leaned out of the basket, rocking it violently. 'Annot, you'd trip over your own tongue if I let you every time you look at me! And as for not going anywhere, you'd better be there when we come down or I'll know the reason why riot!'
Norman, who had ignored them both up to this moment, stepped into the basket beside James, his eyes anxiously looking up into the balloon.
'Let go!' he commanded. let go now!'
Annot looked about her in a panic, not knowing what to do, but she need not have worried, Okumu stepped forward, raised his panga high above his head and cut through the restraining ropes. At the same moment, Norman fired the
jets of gas and with a mighty roar the balloon lifted up into the air and began a stately dance over the elephant-ravaged trees.
`They'll never make it!' Annot whispered, choked with a primitive fear that she couldn't understand. 'I just know they'll crash!'
Okumu watched the balloon more philosophically. `They'll be all right while it's in the sky, but when they come down—who knows what will happen then?'
Annot shut her eyes against the vision of the basket being dragged out of control across the rough ground, perhaps even into the path of an angry elephant. They would break every bone in their bodies! She knew it as surely as she knew the sun was shining. 'I should never have let him do it!' she exclaimed.
Okumu shaded his eyes with his hand. 'It's better he should break his bones than you should do so,' he remarked.
`Do you think he might?' Annot paled at the thought. 'Not James, I mean, but Norman has never done anyone any harm!'
The Samburu began to pull up the iron weights that had held the balloon to the ground while it had been filling up with hot air. 'The balloon man will not be the one to defend you from the bwana's wrath if you fail him We had better follow before we lose them!'
Annot turned to him in amazement. 'Lose that?'
Okumu nodded. 'It is possible,' he insisted. 'It can hide in a valley, or come down unexpectedly, or be blown across the border unawares. We need to stay with it all the way.'
Annot hadn't really intended to argue with him. 'We'd better go, then,' she capitulated. Now that the moment had come, she was more scared than she liked to admit at the prospect of taking the Range Rover over the virgin soil of the Amboseli. All round the lodge were huge lumps of volcanic rock that had been spewed out, maybe by Kilimanjaro
itself, in some bygone age. They lent a desolate, burned-out look to the scenery that was otherwise splendid in every way. True, the trees had suffered from the great herds of elephants that roamed the reserve, and the dust was pervasive, rising in clouds behind the vehicle and enveloping them in a film of red that got in their clothing and their mouths, gritting against their teeth, but there was something majestic about the flat land and the range of hills that culminated in the snow-topped Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in the- African continent.
Okumu sat beside her, his back straight and his eyes constantly roaming the horizon. `Go this way,' he would say at intervals. Often it would seem to Annot they were turning their backs on the balloon, only to come round the side of a hill and find it still ahead of them.
`But your people don't come from here, do they?' she asked him, impressed by his detailed knowledge of the terrain.
He shook his head. 'My people live in the north. My family come from the same district as Elsa the lioness. When she was still alive I have seen Elsa and her cubs, but then I came south to be with the Bwana James. The Samburu are related to the Masai; we are both Maa speakers, and we have the same customs and the same beginnings.'
She smiled at him 'You feel at home here?'
'I feel at home everywhere in my country,' he returned. `But your people didn't originate in Kenya, did they? she questioned him
`Who knows? In the beginning our people lived in a crater-like place with high escarpments all round them. One season the rains failed and many people and cattle died, but it was observed that the birds continued to fly down the steep cliffs bringing grass and young leaves with them to make their nests. The elders met and decided to send out scouts to climb the escarpment and find out what
was beyond them. But how were they to make the ascent? It was very difficult, but at last they found a path and, when they reached the top, they were astonished by the fertility and the wealth of the land that lay beyond. There were wide pasturelands, water, and plenty of room for the people to live and prosper. Also, the land was empty save for wild animals. The only people there were lived far, far away in another country.'
'So everybody followed the scouts out into the new land?' Annot put in.
`Not everybody. A bridge was built so that the people and
the stock could climb out, but it was still a gigantic undertaking. At that time all the people lived together—there were no clans, or age-groups, or any other divisions. Everyone spoke Olmaa, from which the Masai derive their name. Then the great ascent began, but in the middle of the exodus the bridge broke, throwing half the people back down into the crater. There was now a division between them. The people at the top could not go back, and the people at the bottom could not get out. In the end it was decided to leave things as they were. The people who were left behind became Ilmeek, those who are not Masai. Later on the Somali people managed to climb out, but by this time they spoke another language and they remained apart from the Masai. Thus the people were divided into Maa speakers and others. The Samburu speak Olmaa and are therefore at one with the Masai—that is why I live among them without strain. To them I am no different from the Masai of another clan, and they accept me and all my people as they would any strangers of their own people.'
Annot's interest was caught. 'I heard them singing in the Masai village last night,' she said. 'It was late and it sounded beautiful.'
`You were not asleep?' Okumu asked.
She shook her head. 'I was talking to—to someone else
on the verandah and watching the honey-badgers.'
`I have heard you were talking,' the Samburu said distantly.
'If I had gone to my room Mrs Drummond would have wanted to talk, and Dorcas found it difficult enough to go to sleep with the light on, without having the two of us chattering as well!' She wondered why she should bother to defend herself. She could have told James the same thing, but she hadn't thought he would believe her. At best it was a half-truth that she had been concerned for Dorcas. She had wanted to talk to Norman. He was an easy person to talk to—and it had been none of James' business whom she talked to, or when she did her talking!
`Go that way!' Okumu jerked out suddenly.
Annot wrenched at the wheel, turning the Range Rover off the main track across the dried-out Lake Amboseli. It was hard going through the loose dust; the tyres spun, gained a momentary purchase and shot forward, only to spin helplessly again. Annot tried to even out her pace, keeping her use of the accelerator down to a minimum. Too late she remembered that James had told her on no account to leave the main trails across the reserve.
