Mackenzie Ford

by The Clouds Beneath the Sun (v5)

  “Of course I’m giving evidence. I saw what I saw. I’ve signed an official statement for the court and I can’t go back on that without putting myself at risk of perjury or contempt of court. Not that I intend to,” she added quickly.

  Sutton leaned back on the bed, not speaking. He looked at Natalie, then into the middle distance, then back again at Natalie.

  “Dr. Deacon made it very clear that you are in a minority of one in the camp, that everyone else thinks the local law should take precedence, that it is more important to keep the dig going than to avenge Richard’s death. She even said that that is what Richard himself would have wanted. She wanted us to talk to you and get you to change your mind, and withdraw your evidence.”

  “And you agreed?”

  “I didn’t say that.” His eyes bored into hers. “I wanted to hear what you have to say first.”

  “And now that you have?”

  He spoke even more quietly. “I’m Richard’s father, Dr. Nelson. My son, a talented, beautiful, intelligent man, was cruelly hacked to death by a savage, a barbarian, an inferior form of life acting in accordance with some primitive, stone-age custom.” He nodded. “Yes, I’m all for respecting ancient traditions, provided they don’t get too much in the way of progress, but to be sliced to death, all because …” He checked himself. His words were becoming more emotive than he was used to. “All because a burial ground was ransacked. The very idea fills me with … loathing isn’t a strong enough word.” He shifted his frame on the bed. “I hate strong feelings, Dr. Nelson. I distrust them.” He tapped his temple. “They interfere with what goes on up here, and in my business life I have learned to control them.” He shook his head, though he did even that tidily, without waste or show. “But … at the moment… I’m so … so bitter, so dripping in fury, so coiled up inside, so full of fire, that I’m almost ready to kill, myself.”

  He refolded his handkerchief, neatly, and slid it back inside his pocket. “So, as you can imagine … I am relieved, to put it no stronger, that you are acting according to a conscience that I recognize. Russell North said some good things about you in New York, and I’m glad that you have lived up to the advance publicity.”

  He allowed himself a smile. “But I want to tell you something else, Dr. Nelson, Natalie, something I want you to keep in mind after Nancy and I leave later today.” He brushed dust off his shoes with his fingers. “The trial is still weeks away and you will be cooped up here, surrounded by people who disagree with you, people who—in some cases—are your senior in professional terms.”

  He reached across to the small table just inside Natalie’s tent and picked up the water jug. “May I?”

  Natalie nodded, and Sutton poured half a glass. He offered the remainder to the two women but both of them shook their heads.

  He finished the water in several small swallows. He took out his handkerchief again and wiped his mouth.

  “As the trial approaches, the pressure on you, to change your story, to withdraw your evidence, is likely to mount. You may get to the point where you feel that such pressure is irresistible.” He shook his head and bit his lip at the same time. “If you even consider changing your mind, Dr. Nelson, remember this—I will not sit idly by and let my son’s death go unavenged.”

  He was now looking intently at Natalie.

  “If Ndekei is convicted, then it is not very important to me whether he is hanged or sent down for a very long time. But … but, if he never faces trial, because you change your testimony, and withdraw your evidence, because pressure has been put on you … then … then, you may rest assured that Richard Sutton Senior will not stand aside until he has seen justice done.”

  There were beads of sweat at his temples and he again dabbed at them with his handkerchief. “This is not an empty threat, Dr. Nelson, by a distraught father in the first flush of grief.” He poured himself more water. “Nancy, why don’t you go back to the main tent, where it’s cooler? Let me finish up here with Dr. Nelson alone?”

  It wasn’t a request and Nancy Sutton got to her feet, smiled a tight smile at Natalie, and headed back to the refectory area.

  Richard Sutton watched her go, all the while wiping his forehead with his handkerchief. “In New York, Dr. Nelson, I’m a lawyer, a corporate lawyer. I work for a big property developer and it is in the nature of the property business that, legally speaking, corners get cut, toes get trodden on, strings get pulled. My job, one of my jobs at any rate, is to sort out the messes.” He nodded briefly again. “Yes, I think I can say I’ve sorted out one or two messes in my time. New York is … Well, I’m sure you know all that. I know a lot of people. The property business has a rough end, where it joins up with the construction business, and there are all sorts of things I can do.”

  He reached forward and touched her knee. “I’m not picking on you, Natalie, or not only you.” He gestured around him. “Now that I’ve been here, I know what Dr. Deacon’s outfit amounts to … the camp, the gorge, the neighbors … I know what I’m dealing with.”

  He let a long pause go by before adding, “And I’m a man of the world, Dr. Nelson, the real world, the twentieth-century world, not the million-year-old world that you and Dr. Deacon inhabit and my beloved boy inhabited and all these bones inhabit.”

  Another silence. The broadside was over.

  Natalie’s anger had risen as he had spoken. But she had fought it and was now wondering instead how Richard Sutton Senior would respond to being told his son was homosexual. Did his wife know? Would it make any difference?

  She said nothing as he reached for his jacket and stood up.

  “You probably weren’t expecting any of that. I understand your father runs a church choir, so I may have sounded heavy handed. But I don’t want you to underestimate me. If you give evidence, as you have just promised, then that’s all I ask, and everything will be over. If you don’t …” He put his hand on Natalie’s shoulder. “I hope it won’t come to that.”

  He stepped away, then turned back. “I’m going to look at Richard’s tent. See you at lunch.”

  • • •

  Jack placed his canvas chair next to Natalie’s table and sat down in it. He laid some chocolate next to the flask of whiskey and leaned back.

  Natalie drew on her cigarette. Around them the night was very dark—no moon yet. There were the sounds of baboons and elephants in the distance. She didn’t speak.

  A hurricane lamp burned just inside the tent, throwing a weak yellow light over the thin earth and the straggly grass that had been trampled in the constant coming and going in and out of her tent. The smell of kerosene hung in the air.

  Jack scratched his head. “Exhausting day. I gather they gave you a going over before they turned on the rest of us.”

  The briefest of smiles played over Natalie’s features. Lunch had indeed been a high-octane affair. Richard Sutton Senior had let lunch be served before repeating his threats to the entire assembled company. He had still kept his voice low, his movements precise, but his eyes had raked back and forth over everyone at the table, like a searchlight, looking for resistance, weakness. He let no one escape.

  He was like an animal in the wild, Natalie thought, defending its young, or its territory.

  In theory Natalie should have been relieved that she was, for the time being anyway, no longer in a minority of one, that Sutton was taking her side. But his manner of doing it, the menacing contradiction behind his precise movements and vague threats, the raw force in his quiet tone, merely embarrassed her and caused her to doubt the strength of her own position.

  Matters had deteriorated even more when Sutton had said that, during the afternoon, he wished to be shown the Maasai burial ground. Eleanor had refused point blank, and forbidden anyone else to go there.

  Whereupon, Sutton had turned to Natalie. “You can show me.”

  Natalie had colored. “I will not.”

  “What do you mean? I wish to see the burial ground. So does Nancy.”

&nb
sp; “No!” said Natalie vehemently. “It will make the situation worse.”

  “Not for my son it won’t. I wish to know … is this a proper burial ground—or some primitive jungle junkyard—?”

  “Stop!” cried Natalie. “Stop. I’ve told you about my testimony, I’ve told you I won’t change, that I will tell the court what I saw. Yes, I believe that your son didn’t deserve to die.” Natalie’s throat was clammy with sweat. “What happened to him was barbaric and unjust. How many times do I have to say that?” She pushed her plate away from her. “But I will not take you to the burial ground. Things are complicated enough as it is, and it doesn’t matter what sort of burial ground it is—it’s sacred, and I accept that we have to respect that. It’s not a tourist attraction.”

  “Listen—”

  “No!” Natalie jutted her chin forward. She wasn’t often stubborn but she was good enough at it when she needed to be. “No.” She breathed out audibly. “No.”

  Sutton sat upright, motionless, and without speaking. His eyes again swept from one person to the other. They came back to rest on Natalie. He nodded. “Have it your way.”

  Then he looked at Eleanor, and in the same quiet tone added, “I want justice for my son, Dr. Deacon. Call it vengeance if you prefer. It’s all the same to me. But don’t underestimate me … I can damage you and …” He pointed at Natalie. “If she doesn’t give evidence, you’ll find out what I mean.”

  “Are you threatening me, Mr. Sutton?” Eleanor too was sitting very upright.

  Sutton shrugged and got to his feet, and they left.

  He had made a point of shaking hands with Natalie but he’d said nothing else. Presently, they had all heard the sound of the Suttons’ plane taking off and disappearing into the afternoon sky.

  Natalie stirred in her chair and turned towards Jack. “Yes, I’d been subjected to the Sutton Senior species of charm when they visited me this morning. Even though I had told them I was giving evidence, Sutton still felt the need to—” She formed her fingers into a pistol shape and pointed them at her head.

  “You are still determined to give evidence then?”

  “Jack—please!” She stubbed out the end of her cigarette and reached for another. “I have to. I must. Please don’t try to—”

  “I won’t, I won’t,” he said quickly. He rubbed his eyelids. “It’s just that we’ve all had a wearing day—a difficult few days, in fact. I just wondered if you’d wavered, that’s all.”

  Natalie couldn’t let even Jack see that she had doubts. The moment she did that, she knew, she was lost.

  She shook her head firmly. “No. It’s funny … I see the arguments of the other side very clearly and, intellectually speaking, they worry me. But in here”—and she pointed to her heart—“I have never wavered. Years of upbringing, I suppose, and, yes, maybe, having a father who’s religious. I saw what I saw and it’s my duty to tell it in court. I know what the consequences are likely to be—and I’m far more worried about the threats from the Maasai than from Sutton. But I have to give evidence. It’s the tradition I was brought up in.” She pulled on her cigarette. “I can’t change.”

  She breathed the cigarette smoke out through her nostrils. Was that true? she asked herself. Was that true?

  • • •

  “There, look at that.” Jack pulled on the hand brake of the Land Rover and switched off the engine.

  “What, exactly, is it that I am looking at?” replied Natalie.

  They were on their way to Karatu to shop for supplies, visit the pharmacy, and to collect the post—some deliveries were made by air, when it was convenient to do so, otherwise regular post came by road to a poste restante in Karatu.

  Jack had pulled up near a thicket of acacia trees and thorn bushes.

  “You haven’t been working on your bush eyes lately,” he said softly. “Follow the top line of those flat-topped acacias, from left to right. About a third of the way along, there are the heads of two giraffes—”

  She followed his directions. “Oh yes,” she breathed after a moment. “Cute.”

  “Don’t you think,” murmured Jack, sipping water from a bottle, “don’t you think that, from a distance, the way giraffes stand, the way they are built, it always looks as though they are kissing, or about to kiss, or whispering in each other’s ear?”

  Natalie smiled. “I hadn’t thought about it, but now that you mention it, I suppose so.”

  “And they’re usually in twos, not herds. That strengthens the impression. And look—” He pointed. “Lower your eyes, underneath the adults, see … a young infant giraffe.”

  Sure enough, Natalie could just make out a baby giraffe caught up between the legs of the adults.

  “I’ve always thought it would make a good book,” said Jack. “How the so-called wild animals of Africa look after their young. They can be quite ferocious about it, though it’s mainly the mothers of course. Fathers don’t seem to have that instinct so much, though in humans we do.”

  “You think so?”

  “Oh yes, don’t you? Even if a father’s instincts are not as strong as a mother’s, human males take a much greater interest in their offspring than, say, male lions or baboons do in their young. How and why and when did that feeling evolve, I wonder?”

  She weighed what he had said. “You are feeling broody.”

  He laughed, put the Land Rover in gear, and waved farewell to the giraffes.

  They drove across the plain for a while before joining the tarmac road from Elangata. They saw more people now, walking along the road, and working the land. There was more traffic too. Most of it drove along the smooth central crown of the road, just as Jack did, almost until a collision seemed certain, then pulled off to the rougher edges.

  And then, laid out before them, about half a mile away, were two rows of buildings, set back from the road. Dust was being churned by the amount of traffic in the town and a spindly radio mast shot up above everything else.

  “Welcome to Karatu,” said Jack, as he pulled the Land Rover off the highway and into a filling station. “Can you fill her up with diesel while I go across the street to the post office?”

  “Sure.”

  They both got down, Jack taking with him the leather pouch he’d been keeping behind the driver’s seat. He handed her some money. “That should cover it.”

  “Where do I find you when I’ve filled up?”

  “Well, don’t forget you need to fill up all the spare cans in the rear, as well. That will take a while. But if I’m not back, the post office is that green-painted building over there.” He pointed. “The one with all the security grilles.” He made off.

  A group of small children had gathered to watch Natalie, and a wizened old man, with no teeth and gray hair, who appeared to be the attendant. At her request he started filling the Land Rover’s tank, while Natalie laid out all the spare cans in a line, so they could be filled afterwards. As the attendant held the nozzle of the hose wedged in the Land Rover’s pipe, Natalie looked about her.

  All of the buildings were the shape of shoeboxes—there was no architecture, as such, in Karatu. There were several shops, selling food or hardware, a hairdresser’s, a shop where you could have letters written, a shop with a display of boots outside, and a pawnbroker’s.

  No bookshops. The only books she had brought with her to Africa were work-related. But she found she had warmed to Jack’s idea of spending an hour or so a day off their main concern. It made sense. Like his interest in politics, it enlarged him.

  The attendant transferred the nozzle to the first of the spare cans.

  A bus chugged into town, billowing black diesel exhaust from somewhere deep underneath. It stopped and countless people were disgorged, several of whom climbed up a ladder at the rear of the bus to reclaim their belongings on the roof. In no time the bus was on the move again.

  The cans were filled. The attendant helped Natalie lift them into the back of the vehicle and she handed over the money. There
was a little change and she waited while it was brought.

  She drove over to the post office and parked in front of the building. Another bus, just as laden and swathed in black exhaust as the first, was pulling up. Natalie locked the doors of the Land Rover, but as she did so, Jack appeared through the door of the post office. He held up a bundle of letters.

  “Look,” he said, holding out a long air-mail envelope. “It’s from Russell.”

  The California postmark was not the only giveaway. Russell had scrawled his name and address on the envelope, as Americans tended to do.

  She felt the paper between her fingers. A couple of pages at least. Or else he had enclosed something in addition to whatever he had written.

  She folded the envelope and put it in her pocket.

  “We’re all set with the diesel,” she said. “By the way, why so many spare cans? I thought Land Rovers came with especially large tanks of their own.”

  “They do,” said Jack, throwing a bundle of letters onto the backseat. “But some of the cans are for use with the plane. I have to fortify it with tetraethyl lead, but if I refuel myself, at least I know the right type of juice is being used.” He opened the door to the driving seat. “You do hear stories of people getting mixed up at big airports and confusing jet fuel with Avgas. It happened not long ago near Mutonguni. Two KANU politicians and their pilot were killed. They still don’t know if it was an accident or deliberate.”

  He got behind the wheel. “Now, I have one more errand before we head back. I need to stop by at the clinic, pick up some spectacles for Daniel. They’re being repaired. Then we can hit the road home.”

  The clinic was on the far side of town, down its own bumpy track, and it took them about fifteen minutes to complete the drive. The building, when they came to it, was a white-painted hut, with a thatched roof. “I shouldn’t be long,” said Jack, switching off. “You don’t need to come in.”