“Go on,” Christopher said, immediately attentive. He peered closer to the splinter. She could smell his aftershave.
“Actually, it’s not so little, is it? It’s a buffalo-type creature called Pelorovis. It went extinct about eight hundred thousand years ago, and its claim to fame is that it had turned-down tusks.”
Christopher looked doubtful. His skin was shiny with sweat.
“Oh yes. Every other animal with horns near its mouth—elephants, mammoth, rhinos, pigs, boars—has horns or tusks that turn up. Why did those on Pelorovis turn down? What was their function and was it associated with why they became extinct?” Natalie felt more sweat drip inside her shirt. “It’s one of the great mysteries in my speciality and the beast has never been found as early as this, two million years ago, not in sub-Saharan Africa anyway. So the discovery will be well worth a paper for Nature.”
He put his hand on her shoulder. “Well done. Your first discovery. We should celebrate.”
“It’s hardly earth shattering.”
“No, but it’s important. That will go down well with my mother. She might not get out the champagne but you’ve made your bones, as they say in the Mafia. How are you getting on with my mother, by the way?”
Natalie nodded. “We had an interesting talk the night I shared her tent with her, but … but …”
Christopher raised his hands. “Hold on! She’s done something to irritate you. Or you have, to irritate her. It can’t have been important or she would have told me. What is it? What’s eating you?” A smile was beginning to appear around the edges of his mouth.
Natalie massaged her temple with her fingers. “It’s nothing in itself. Nothing. But … well, every night after dinner, after we’ve discussed whatever we’ve been discussing, I like to sit outside my tent and wind down. I love the skies down here, the night sounds of the bush—the animals bantering, like it’s market day. Or killing each other in a shower of screams. And I have one cigarette—I’m not a big smoker, just one. And a tiny nip of whiskey. Tiny, but it relaxes me.”
Natalie faltered. Christopher was Eleanor’s son, after all. She wasn’t sure she should have started this. But she had, and he had asked. “The night after the … accident, as I arrived to sleep in your mother’s tent, she smelled whiskey on my breath. It was … she made me feel like a lush. And she made me hand over my flask. She said alcohol wasn’t allowed on the digs here, except when she chose to celebrate some discovery or other, and that if the locals found the flask they would get drunk.”
“She has a point, Natalie.” He wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt.
“Has she? Has she? I’ve been thinking about what she said, and watching. Half the black Africans who work here are Muslims and would never touch a drop of drink. The others, if they were drink crazy, could easily steal the sugar we have and brew their own concoction. They don’t, but that’s not the point. I’m an adult, Christopher. Totally responsible, totally sane, someone who loves her job.”
She was getting worked up. It was much too hot for that. She forced herself to breathe more slowly. “I am perfectly capable of having one cigarette and one nip of whiskey a night without letting it interfere with my work, without sinking into a haze of alcohol fumes and dancing naked through the camp. Your mother ought to acknowledge that.” Natalie looked down at the ground and inspected the dust on her boots. “I’ve said more than I intended.”
“No, no,” he replied, putting his hand on her arm. “It’s not the first time people have used me as a kind of … Trojan horse to get to my mother.” He grinned. “And I know what you mean. She can be fierce. For her, there’s only the dig, and I have to remind her that there are other things in life.”
He wiped his forehead. “Take Virginia, my sister, who’s a doctor in Palestine. As a girl she was very close to our grandfather—we all were in our own way, but she particularly adored him. However, they turned out to be ships in the night, in one way at least. As he lost his faith, so she grew more and more interested in the Bible. That’s why she’s in Palestine, not only to help the Palestinians but because she’s fascinated by the Holy Land. I think my mother’s ferocity so far as the gorge is concerned, although it fired Jack, Beth, and me, put Virginia off. She’s quasi-religious and part of it is because she’s anxious to show there are other things than the gorge.”
Natalie nodded. “I understand, but that’s not what I’m getting at. I don’t mind a bit if, while we are all here, the dig comes first, dominates everything else. It’s such a privilege to be in Kihara that I wouldn’t query that. My only point is simple: we are not all the same, but that doesn’t mean that those of us who aren’t Eleanor Deacon are drunks and liars and cheats who are intent on putting the whole excavation at risk.” She felt the wet shirt on her back. She had made herself hot all over again. “I’d better stop. I’m making it sound more of a problem than it is.”
He looked at her for a moment without speaking, then examined his watch. “We’ve only another hour before we stop. I promised Daniel and Arnold I’d help them out today. Finish the area they’re in.”
He made to move when they both heard the metallic drone of an airplane engine. There was no mistaking that sound, throaty and high pitched at the same time. They each turned 180 degrees, to watch as it came out of the sun towards them.
“He’s low,” said Natalie as the airplane approached. She might still be the newest person in camp but, by now, she had seen more than a dozen planes buzz the gorge prior to landing and none of them had flown so low—this one was barely two hundred feet above them.
Natalie and Christopher both shielded their eyes from the sun as the noise from the aircraft grew in intensity and it swept up the gorge directly overhead. The noise from its engines swelled till it was deafening.
Suddenly, not fifty feet from where they were standing, something hit the ground with a thump and a cloud of soil-sand billowed towards them.
“What on earth—?” Natalie was mystified. “Have we just been bombed?”
But Christopher was running towards the cloud.
She watched his silhouette as, half hidden by dust, he looked around him, then he stooped and picked up a bundle.
“Newspapers,” he said, coming out of the cloud and smiling. “It’s Jack.”
“Newspapers?” said Natalie.
Christopher nodded. “When we were boys, living in Cambridge, during the war, Jack did a newspaper round. He hated it—it was the tamest thing he ever did, so he’s always said. It’s his way of letting us know he’s arriving, spicing up newspaper delivery. These are the Nairobi papers. Come on, let’s get back. He’ll have all the latest political gossip.”
• • •
Natalie stared at the scarlet embers of the campfire. The smoke stung her eyes slightly and scratched at her nostrils. She barely noticed. Above the crackle of the flames, which curled fondly around the logs, there rose the warm chords of Elgar’s cello concerto.
How different the camp was tonight. Eleanor, unless Natalie was mistaken, had embellished her mouth with lipstick. Daniel had on a crisp shirt she hadn’t seen before. Even Naiva wore a fresh uniform. Clearly, Jack Deacon wasn’t just anybody.
When they had returned to camp, earlier that day, after their morning’s digging in the gorge, Jack was already in the camp, unloading the two Land Rovers that had met him at the airstrip. He had his own plane and flew it himself, as Christopher had said. It had crossed Natalie’s mind that his arrival was a bit like that of Father Christmas—he had brought with him all manner of gifts: film for Christopher, penicillin for Jonas, wooden fencing for Aldwai, a case of champagne, batteries for this and that.
But his most precious possession was all his own: a wind-up record player and a couple of dozen records. “All I could fit into the Comanche,” he said.
Everyone was sitting around the logs now, listening to the Elgar as the flames of the fire began to subside. It had been weeks since any of them had the chance to hear music
and everyone sat very still, just listening, locked in their own thoughts and memories. Wherever Jack went, apparently his music went with him.
“Who’s the film star?” he had said to Christopher when Natalie had got down from the vehicle they had driven back from the gorge.
He was surrounded by equipment—buckets, shovels, bolts of cloth, even a few books.
“Careful,” said Christopher. “This is Natalie Nelson, Doctor Natalie Nelson. She’s had her Ph.D. for all of six months. Today she made her first discovery.”
“Six months?” said Jack Deacon, holding out his hand. “That’s two months longer than me. I’m Doctor Jack Deacon, Doctor Nelson. Have you got used to the title yet? I haven’t. Doctor Deacon sounds like a fairground quack to me, someone who cures—” He grinned. “You fill in the rest.” He nodded. “Doctor Nelson isn’t bad. It sounds efficient, clinical, it sounds as though you know what you are doing.” He grinned again.
In truth, Natalie thought, Jack Deacon was a bit like a film star himself. Who did he remind her of? He had full, dark eyebrows, hair that rose up from his forehead in a wave, very slightly buck teeth, and prominent cheekbones. Who was it? Who was it? It was a film about American soldiers in World War II that she was thinking about, she had seen it in Cambridge. Not Marlon Brando, though he had been in the film too.
A log fell and a shower of crimson sparks rose into the air.
Yes, she had it. The Young Lions, that was the film. Starring Marlon Brando—and … and … Montgomery Clift—the name came to her: that was who Jack reminded her of.
Her mind went back to the Elgar. She knew it well. It was one of the pieces Dominic adored. Where was he now? she wondered. How often did he think of her? Did he think of her at all? She was thinking about him a little less each day, wasn’t she?
She changed the subject inside her head. The conversation at dinner had been different from usual too: politics. Eleanor had set that particular ball rolling.
“What are people saying in Nairobi, Jack? How soon will independence come?”
He wore a pale blue shirt with a plain gold ring on the little finger of one hand. Natalie thought he looked tired around the eyes.
“Most people are pushing for next year, but I think it will be further away than that. If I were a betting man, I’d put money on mid-’63.”
“Who, exactly, do you mean when you say ‘people’?” said Christopher.
There wasn’t much family resemblance between him and Jack, Natalie thought. Jack was a couple of inches taller, more muscular. There were one or two wisps of gray hair near his ears. He must be—what?—thirty-threeish. A bit old to have just got his Ph.D.
“I mean the leading figures in KANU and KADU—Kenyatta, Nzoia, Nambale.”
“These are men you know?” Eleanor had leaned forward so that her face came into the direct light of one of the hurricane lamps hanging from the roof of the refectory tent. That was when Natalie had noticed she was wearing lipstick.
“Yes, of course I know them—Nairobi’s not a big place. I’m a member of KANU, I’m on one of their committees. That’s why I couldn’t get here any sooner. I came as quickly as I could, after I heard about the murder.”
“Which committee is that?” said Arnold. “How many committees do they have?”
Jack extended the thumb of one hand. “A constitutional committee.” He put up his index finger. “A land reform committee, a foreign policy committee, a finance and tax committee, a labor law committee, an education committee—that’s the one I’m on—”
“Oh? Why is that?” Eleanor played with her spectacles.
Jack pushed back his chair. “Think about it. We white people are going to have a tricky time when independence comes. This is a black country. Black people, black politicians, will want to see immediate change. So we are going to see a rapid evolution in patterns of land ownership, in the ownership of the big industrial companies and the commercial outfits, like car dealerships, breweries, cinemas, bus companies.” He swiveled the ring on his little finger. “But there are two areas especially where they will need the whites, where white people who were born and raised here can be a big help—the banks and education. Most of the banks here are owned by whites, because most of the money originates in London or Johannesburg or New York. I know nothing about money but I do know about education and they—I’m talking about people like Kenyatta and Nzoia—know that they are going to need the help of educated people, white people with the right contacts, in universities in Britain, South Africa, America, to train schoolteachers, university professors, doctors, above all the bureaucracy that will run Kenya in the future. If Kenya is to be truly multiracial after independence, the best hope is that we—the whites—can help shape the country via its educational institutions.”
“And will it be multiracial?” Kees rested his chin on the fist of one hand. “Those newspapers you brought with you suggest there’s quite a bit of anti-white feeling building up.”
Jack tugged at one ear with his fingers. “Yes. Some chimpanzees, en route from Nairobi to the Medical Research Council laboratory in Britain, arrived dead. It seems they may have been poisoned, as a protest against what some people see as scientific colonialism. The specter of independence is infecting everything just now.”
He shifted in his seat. “There are two things of particular importance that are happening. KANU and KADU are jostling for position, and, with independence so very real all of a sudden, with a constitutional conference in London next February, old, traditional grievances are beginning to resurface, tribal memories and resentments, which may well come to a head after independence, if the various tribes don’t get what they want. And of course underneath it all, everyone knows that the more trouble there is, the quicker the British will want to leave.”
There had been a silence around the table then for quite some time.
Until Christopher had said, “What’s in it for you, Jack?”
Jack frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, come on. People say they go into politics for this or that idealistic reason but there’s always a personal—a selfish—motive, isn’t there? What can a white person hope to achieve in a black country? You must have some secret aim—money, power, position.”
Silence around the table.
Jack stared hard at Christopher.
This was a Christopher Natalie had never seen before.
The silence lengthened. Then Jack lifted his glass to his lips and drank some water. “I’ll ignore that.”
That was when Eleanor had changed the subject, and said to Natalie, “I understand you found a femur of a Pelorovis this morning. What can you tell us?” She removed her spectacles and rubbed her eyes.
Natalie fingered her watch. Above them, four hurricane lamps swayed in the breeze, casting a warm yellow glow over everything. “I’ll have to make some checks in the books I have with me, but I’m fairly certain it’s never been found so early down here. We had thought Pelorovis evolved about one and a half million years ago, then went extinct eight hundred thousand years ago—quite a short lifespan for a species, which generally last at least two million years. So this extends the life span and makes it an important find. Of interest to specialists only, I would say, but yes, well worth drawing attention to.” She brushed hair off her face. “Among zoologists it’s famous for having these down-turned tusks—very weird.”
“What are the theories?” Arnold Pryce, in a dark green shirt, had lit up his pipe. The smell was not unpleasant.
“About why its tusks were turned down?” Natalie was longing for a cigarette herself but she preferred to smoke alone. “One theory is that Pelorovis fed on small mammals and used its tusks to spear them. Another is that it fed on mammals—like voles—that live underground, and used the tusks to break through the soil.”
“Were they never used for defense?” Christopher rested his elbows on the table and looked levelly at Natalie. He was wearing a crisp white shirt that made his skin look
darker. It suited him, she thought.
“I don’t see how they could have been, do you?” She held her hand out and curved her fingers down. “In order for the tusks to point forward, the buffalo would have to lift back its head. Very uncomfortable and not a strong posture for fighting.”
“Were its tusks ivory, like elephants, or hair, like rhinos?” Kees wore a button-down American-style shirt. He was the most fastidious dresser of all.
“Oh, ivory. Pelorovis was not related to the rhino in any way.”
“So, a short paper for Nature, yes?” Eleanor replaced her spectacles.
“If you agree, yes. Just a letter to the editor, describing what we’ve found. A few hundred words. Nothing earth shattering.”
“Never mind. It’s important in its way, scientifically, and every little thing adds up. It’s positive.” Eleanor looked around the table but no one said anything. She glanced at Christopher and then back to Natalie.
“Christopher tells me you have a theory about some stones you have encountered, some boulders. Is now a good time to discuss it?”
Natalie wiped her lips with her napkin. “I think ‘theory’ is a rather grand word for what is really just an idea, a hunch.” Her glance took in Christopher. She hadn’t thought he had paid much attention in the gorge when she had pointed out the boulders. But he hadn’t missed a thing.
“But go on anyway.” Eleanor’s gaze raked the table and she smiled. “No one’s going anywhere. I think we can all drink coffee and listen at the same time.”
This was a signal to Naiva to bring in the tray of coffee mugs.
Natalie reached for another banana. “Well, all right, here goes. My idea is this. When we excavate the gorge, we are looking essentially for three things—fossil bones, stone hand axes, plant remains. Fine. But what if early man already had a culture—and don’t jump down my throat, yet. I don’t mean symphony orchestras or film studios. What about the rudiments of a shelter?”
She paused, to give others the chance to object, but no one said anything.
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