“Well, we can’t have a Coronation party without bunting,” she says, sliding the spoon into her mouth.
“I didn’t think we would be going ahead with it.”
“I think it’s more important than ever,” she says, looking at me. “To show them that we are resilient. All the fabric is in the barn, in boxes, and I have white cotton ribbon—enough to make at least thirty meters. That should keep you busy. And you’ll have to go through the menu with Jim.”
—
JIM IS IN the kitchen—his hands deep in a bowl, his face white with icing sugar.
He smiles when he sees me, but his eyes are lifeless. I have never seen him like this. He must miss Mukami, Njeri, his children. Or is it more than that? What happens in the shamba at night that we do not know about?
“Is everything all right, Jim?” I ask.
“Sawa sawa.” He pulls a damp handful of dough from the bowl, pats it into a ball and drops it onto the old slab of marble.
“Have you heard from Njeri? How is the baby?”
“Yes. They are fine,” he says, but he does not look at me. He dusts the dough with icing sugar, his hands black against the white stone.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Shortbread,” he says, in halting English. “I will cut a flag out of the top and paint jam, red and blue.”
“She designed it?”
“No, Aleela. I did.”
“It’ll be wonderful,” I say, but he does not meet my eye. I cannot reach him.
“She wants me to go through the menu with you,” I say, eventually. He dusts off his hands and comes over to the table.
There is a lot for him to do. We will have cucumber sandwiches, Victoria sponge, coffee and walnut cake, Constance Spry’s Coronation Chicken, raspberry jelly, Coronation Cup—a white wine and gin cocktail—sausages and pickles. Sara is buying sugared jelly sweets to decorate the Victoria sponge, so that it looks like a crown.
A booklet arrives with a note in it—addressed to my father. Your Turn May Come. It has been issued by the Department of Information in Nakuru. In the sitting room, by the light of the paraffin lamp, I read its warning.
Gangs of Kikuyu are entering the settled areas in increasing numbers in search of food, supplies, clothing, arms and ammunition . . . The probability of attacks being made against European lives and property in the coming months is therefore greatly enhanced.
I do not want to read it and yet I cannot stop myself. The situation in Kenya is overtaking us. Like the rising of a huge wave, I feel as though it will suck us under, and none of us—my father, Sara, Jim—will escape unharmed.
There follows a list of do’s and don’ts.
Locking up: Do this yourself. Don’t leave it to the servants.
Sara locks the house after Mungai has left each evening.
Windows: Have these protected with bars or expanded metal. Ensure that opaque curtains cover the windows properly.
Servants: Do not employ Kikuyu servants. If you have an outside kitchen, have a covered way to the house wired in with expanded metal. If you cannot do this, then lock all servants out of the house before dark. Do not admit servants to the house after dark unless absolutely necessary. If they have to enter the house ensure that their entrance is covered by a gun.
We have no choice but to employ Kikuyu servants, but none of them are allowed in the house anymore, except for Mungai, and he must be gone before it is dark. I think about Jim and all the Kikuyu I knew growing up. It is impossible to imagine them acting with violence, least of all against the family.
Chairs: Do not always have these in the same place. Move them around from time to time. Never place a chair with its back to the door.
My father has already told us to always sit facing the door.
There is advice on labor lines, farm guards, securing cattle and alarm systems.
Keep a good watchdog which barks and always keep it in the house after dark.
I am thankful for Juno, lying sleeping at my feet.
Have a strong room, accessible from inside the house, for emergency rations, rockets and other supplies.
Sara and I have nothing but a few guns.
Have a plan ready against an attack on the house . . . Don’t rely on the telephone: the wires are invariably cut before an attack.
There is no telephone here. How will we call for help? Where would we go? The Markhams are over an hour’s drive away; our only hope would be to wait until dawn forces the attackers to flee.
One point in particular scares me:
If your house is at all flammable, have buckets or containers of water and earth always filled and ready.
I can’t get the idea out of my head—waking up to a fire burning the house, fumbling for the key to let ourselves out, running into the dark night, into the arms of men waiting with pangas.
I daren’t light the paraffin lamp at night in my room, in case Mau Mau are beyond the window, and they should see where I am sleeping.
—
A NOISE, a call in the dark, shattering my sleep. I am standing up, halfway across the room, before I am fully awake—straining to hear. Was it the cry of a bird? An animal? A man?
A thin light filters through the curtains. It is almost dawn. I slide my gun off the table, press the safety. It is chill and heavy in my hand. My arms feel leaden and weak, so that I wonder if I’ll have the power to lift the gun and fire should I need to.
The noise comes again, somewhere not so far from the house, not far from my window. A low groaning. Something in pain. The sitting room is dark and full of shadows. I pad across the floorboards, my heart pounding. The gun is in my hand. I swallow heavily. Through the short hall to the door—still bolted. The silence is buzzing in my ears. Here is the door to Sara’s room. I stop for a moment, collecting myself in the dark, my ears and eyes straining to pick up anything that might tell me what it is. I can’t hear the noise from here. I consider calling Sara from her bed. But the light now is stronger behind the curtains and the night is receding as I watch. I slip the gun into my other hand. The lock turns easily, and I step outside.
It is that strange time of early morning when the air tastes wet and the sky lifts second by second from the darkness.
I walk around to the front of the house, onto the short grass that forms a clearing outside my bedroom window. I stand for a moment in the cloudless dawn. The noise again, and a dark shape lifting from the grass. For a moment I think it might be a man and I stop, breathless. The light illuminates a shadow, low and black against the sky. Two animals. Cattle. One is moving—lowing, deep from its lungs. I go closer, drawn despite myself, to see how it is.
The bull has been slashed across his thick hide, under his belly, so that his guts bulge out onto the grass. His ears have been sliced off. This is the one that is still alive. His breath heaves, coming from his open stomach, his nose sucking in air as though drowning. And the other has a stake driven into her, under her tail. Her two hind legs have been lopped off below her hocks so that all I see are the stumps. Her udders have been removed. There is blood, thick and wet on the grass, like afterbirth.
Sara appears beside me, and then there is Michael, running toward us. Sara lifts her gun at him. She is in her nightdress and she has no shoes on.
“Memsaab,” Michael says, holding his hands open. He is looking at her gun, at her face.
“Where is Kahiki?” Sara asks.
“He is at the boma,” Michael says. “He sent me here.”
“It’s a warning,” Sara says, lowering her gun. Her voice quavers. “They’re showing us exactly what they’re going to do to us.”
The belly of the bull is heaving. His head is on the earth, too heavy to lift, his nose reeling in the air, as though he cannot suck what he needs from the grass.
“It should be killed, Memsaab,” Michael says.
�
�I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it,” she says, shaking her head, not listening. Her face is pale, and her voice is rising on hysteria. “Why did the men from the shamba not come? Why didn’t they stop this?”
“They were scared. They wouldn’t leave the shamba,” Michael says.
“And the rest of the cattle?” I ask.
“We will find out,” Michael says. “Kahiki is bringing them in.”
Sara is backing up, walking toward the house, her hand held over her mouth.
“What should I do?” I call after her.
But she doesn’t answer. She turns and runs to the door, her bare feet tripping on the grass.
The gun is small and heavy in my hand, surely too small for such a large animal. I know I haven’t got it in me to pull the trigger, so close to this bull that heaves and pants his pain on the grass in front of me.
“Rachel—” Michael says, holding out his hand. I pass him the gun. His fingers are hot and dry against mine. A bird calls into the dawn, a flat three-tone whistle. Three blind mice.
He crouches down, puts the barrel to the bull’s head and squeezes the trigger. A bolt of sound. My ears ring with it. Blood pulses. The breathing stops and the bull’s head lies still in the grass. Michael turns the gun in his hand and passes it back to me. I wonder if he has ever killed a man so close. I look away; not wanting to see the bull that lies mutilated at his feet.
Light floods the twilight darkness. A coucal makes a cry like water being poured from a bottle; a wet, hollow glugging sound. Only then do I see the crimson rim of the sun rise throbbing from the horizon.
I look back at Michael. He is only two paces from me, but I cannot cross the distance. His gaze holds mine. I want him to put out his hand, to draw me into him as he did before, but he doesn’t move, just holds my eyes with his. The silence screams loud in my ears.
When I see that I want something he will not give me, I run from him, into the house.
—
SARA DOESN’T TALK about the slaughtered cattle at breakfast. Instead she dictates a letter to my uncle. She asks him to bring a piglet from the factory to roast for the party. I wonder what he would think—what my father would think—if they were here, seeing us so alone. When Kahiki comes in to say that they have managed to recover most of the cattle she waves him away. Her powder is pasted thick and pale on her cheeks, and around her eyes it gathers in her wrinkles, stained black where her makeup has run. She has been drinking—I can smell the gin on her breath.
She wants me to go down to the stables to fetch fabric for the bunting. Says that I must do it or she will write to my father and tell him I am being uncooperative. She is going to make jam for the Coronation. I have never seen her cooking and this feels strange, for her to be doing this now. I do not want to go down to the stables—I am embarrassed by how openly I looked at Michael. I know he saw all my need and my fear, and I do not want him to see me so vulnerable again. But Sara is implacable and I agree.
Michael is not in the yard when I get there. In the barn I find a box of folded fabrics. Old tablecloths, extra runs of cotton, a patchwork bedspread my mother had stitched when I was very young. It smells musty in here, and dry, and there are droppings in the box. I shake out the bedspread. It is padded and heavy, and there are yellow patches—urine from the mice—and faded creases where it has been folded too long. I will wash it at home. I choose a few folded yards of different colored cottons. I find a pair of scissors in the barn and place them on top of the fabric. I am just about to gather up the pile and carry it back up to the house when I hear a car engine coming down the track. I look up and see Steven’s jeep pulling into the yard. He turns off the engine and steps out.
“I gather you got a bit of a fright this morning,” he says to me, lighting a cigarette and dropping the match to the ground. He holds out the packet, leaning back against the car. I have not had a cigarette yet today and the desire for one shifts and wakes inside me. But I don’t come forward. I need to keep my distance. “We got rid of the cattle for you.”
“Does it mean there’ll be an attack?” I ask, my heart in my throat.
He inhales, licks tobacco off his lip. “Not necessarily. It’s just a warning. They’re trying to shake you up a bit.”
“Did you find out anything in the shamba?”
He exhales and holds the packet out again. “Go on. You look like you could do with one.”
The craving gets the better of me. I walk over to him and take one, blinking in the hot sun.
“There were no gangs at the shamba last night,” he says, drawing on his cigarette. “A few Micks came down from the forest. They let the cattle out of the bomas, slashed a couple of them and left.”
Michael walks into the yard. “Fill her up,” Steven says, glancing at him. He strikes a match and holds it out to me. I am relieved that Michael is here; I do not think Steven will hurt me in front of another man. As I bend my head to the flame he swings his body round, drops his cigarette to the floor and jams my arms against the passenger door. I shout but the cigarette is in my mouth. Smoke curls up into my eyes.
I try to move away from him, but his hands are immovable—he has me pinned. The metal is hot against the backs of my arms. My eyes water. I can hear Michael in the garage.
“Stand still like a good girl,” Steven says quietly, letting go of one of my arms and taking the cigarette from my mouth with one hand. He inhales.
“Do you know”—he strokes my cheek with the back of his fingers; I see the inside of his mouth, pink and wet, as he talks; I can smell the salt on his hand, can feel the sweat radiating hot and damp from his body—“I always had a feeling you would grow up to be rather attractive?” His body is very close to mine. I can feel my chest going in and out.
Michael comes round the back of the jeep and starts filling it up. He must see what Steven is doing to me. I cannot move my arm. His grip is tight against my skin. There is the clatter of metal against metal, the slow glugging of oil out of the can. There is no use calling out to him. I don’t want to look to see if he is watching. I want to cry.
“I am going to give you a little kiss,” Steven says, simply, looking me straight in the eye, still stroking my cheek with the back of his fingers.
“No,” I say, through clenched teeth.
“Come, come,” he says. “It’s just a kiss. That’s not a lot to ask.”
“Leave me alone,” I say, but I can’t get out from under the bulk of him. He has me trapped. Michael is just beside us. Steven must know it too, but he doesn’t care. He leans forward and I push my hand into his chest with all my force, but his flesh absorbs my strength. He is taller and stronger than I am and my spine is back against the car. His other hand is at my neck now, his fingers rigid on my throat so that I cannot breathe well. He puts his mouth on mine. It is wet and cold against my own, and I feel his tongue flickering like a fish against my lips. I want to bite him, but I won’t open my mouth. I try to kick up with my knee, deep into his body, but it has no impact.
“The car is ready, Bwana.” Michael’s voice is close to us. I hear it but I cannot turn my head. Steven presses his body closer into me.
“Bwana.” Michael’s voice is louder this time, more urgent.
“What a lot of fuss you make,” Steven says to me, drawing his head away and taking his hand off my neck. I can’t escape yet—his body is still blocking mine. He wipes the palm of his hand across his mouth, slowly, his eyes on mine. Then he steps away from me and reaches out and cups his hand to Michael’s cheek. “Oh, we liked men like you in the war,” he says. “The blacker the face, the thicker the neck, the darker the skin, the better the soldier you made.”
I stumble away from him and hear the car start behind me. When he is gone, I breathe out a ragged breath—a groan of anger and humiliation. My face is wet with tears. I can’t bring myself to look at Michael—there is too much shame. Inst
ead I see the red brown dust of the garage floor, the purple blooms of the jacaranda flowers scattered over it. The deep quiet, in the heat of the day.
“Rachel—” he says, in a low, soft voice, coming over to where I stand. “He has gone to Nakuru. He won’t come back today.”
I lift my eyes to his, no longer caring what he thinks of me or wants for himself, but knowing only what I need. His protection. His desire. I drop my head to his chest, wanting to feel his hands on me, giving in to what I am asking. His body is rigid and warm against mine. I thought he would put his hands on me, but he does not, and now I begin to doubt whether I have dreamed that he might want this.
“Please—” I say, through gritted teeth. I need him to take ownership of me. To obliterate Steven Lockhart. I will not feel safe until he has had me.
“Do you know what you are asking?” he says, softly. His hand has settled on my neck, more from instinct than affection, but it is all the touch I need; my spine contracts under his fingers.
“Yes,” I say, though I do not. All I know is that I am giving myself to him. I do not dare to look at him. I might lose my nerve. He lifts the weight of me and carries me into the dark barn. I hold my head against his neck, my mouth tasting the tears that have fallen against his skin, salt under my lips, but I am not crying anymore. There are no shades of light in here, only the rub of his clothes against mine. His hands slide up under my shirt, but I want more than that. I wait—breathless—until I feel the shock of his hand between my legs. He has found the core of me. I hold myself against him, his body, his smell is strange. I move his hand away, pulling him closer, wanting all of him.
—
MICHAEL. A chink of light falling through the doors of the barn. His arms letting me go. I rest my head against the wall, watching him stand and dress, caught in this strange stillness. A closeness as though our bodies are still connected, even though he is no longer touching me. He crouches down and looks at me. I cannot meet his eyes. Instead I look at his chest, the layers of muscle, the ripples of brown skin, the nearness of him. I look up. There is no dialogue in his glance. No question. It is just a blank reading of what we have felt, the fierceness, and what we have done. I feel a current of fear that I can feel so close to someone who is so completely strange to me. His body already begins to feel separate from me, and I feel with regret the pulling away of myself from him.
Leopard at the Door Page 23
