“Now don’t you go blaming yourself. That’s ridiculous.” Eleanor reached out and put her hand on Natalie’s knee. “But thank you for telling me all of that. It has helped lift a load from my mind. Some of it, anyway.”
Eleanor was perking up, there was no doubt. She rose and moved across to the radio-telephone. “I must talk to Jack, see what’s happening. He tells me he’s invited you to Lamu for Christmas, to look at the Swahili village. Are you going?”
Natalie shook her head.
“Why on earth not? Everything will be all closed up here for a couple of days. Are you afraid of flying?”
“It’s not that. Christopher also invited me, to Kubwa hot springs.”
“Oh dear!” sighed Eleanor. “So you can’t accept one without devastating the other.”
“I think ‘devastating’ is putting it rather strongly. But I’m saying no to both of them.”
Eleanor pulled her chair closer to the radio-telephone. “I should be able to say something to help you, my dear, to give you some inside information about the boys that you don’t know, to help repay you for what you have just told me, and help you decide, one way or the other. But I daren’t, I daren’t, a mother can’t take sides.” She smiled as she played with the dials and knobs. “It’s a good job Jock isn’t alive. He’d have charmed you long before his sons did.”
• • •
As Natalie walked across the camp ground towards the refectory area, a great gray shadow swept across the row of tents and the trees where the Land Rovers were parked. Clouds. Huge white and slate-colored balloons billowed one upon the other high in the sky, like giant sailing ships. The short rains were arriving.
Most of the others were already there when she reached the main tent and the meeting had started.
Eleanor, dressed today in navy chinos and a white shirt, was holding the draft press release in front of her. This was a business meeting to finalize the details of the press conference before they all dispersed for the Christmas break.
She was already speaking. Or rather, shouting. At Christopher.
“I cannot believe it… I repeat: I cannot believe it! After all this time, after weeks of delay, you have only just found out … what were you thinking? Did you think? Did your father and I not teach you anything?” She threw her spectacles on the table in front of her. “Words fail me.”
Natalie sat down. Puzzled, she transferred her gaze from Arnold Pryce to Jack to Daniel. Jonas had followed her in and sat next to her.
“I’m sorry,” said Christopher. “I didn’t think to ask. I never imagined—”
“You should have imagined. It was your job to imagine, to anticipate any likely difficulty.” Eleanor slapped the table. “What are we going to do?”
No one answered.
Seeing Natalie and Jonas’s bewilderment, Jack leaned forward and said, gently, knowing he could set his mother off again at any moment, “The Coryndon museum, where the press conference was to have been, has separate lavatories for blacks and whites.”
He let this sink in.
Outside, rain began to fall. Natalie stared at it. Rain in Africa—this was a new experience for her.
“How did you manage to overlook something so basic?” cried Eleanor, again addressing her remarks to Christopher. “I told you to steer clear of the main hotels, for the very reason that they are whites only.” She thrust forward her chin in the manner she had. “The whole message of the research we do here is that mankind had its origins in this part of Africa, that the whole globe was peopled by migrants from here, that we are all one people!” She took a deep breath, her chest heaving. “That is what we stand for, Christopher, and it’s an important something that can’t be exaggerated.”
She wiped her neck with a handkerchief. “Think of the wars that have been fought, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, over nationalism, because one set of people thought that they, or their way of life, was better than others. We are all one people—that is conceivably the most important message there has ever been. We can’t announce our results in a place, even a museum, where that message is contradicted in the most … basic, humiliating way.” She shook her head. “What are we going to do? I just hope this news doesn’t get out—think what the press would do with it.”
“Have we lost any money?” said Jack. “Did we have to put a deposit down?”
Christopher nodded gloomily. “Yes, but not much.”
“Well, I don’t see a problem with the press, if they find out. We just tell the truth, that we discovered, late in the day, that the museum has a racial policy we can’t agree with, so we did what we did. Nairobi’s got lots of buildings—cinemas, school halls, churches … it can’t be difficult to find a replacement.”
He turned to his mother. “Do you want me to—?”
“No, it’s Christopher’s job. He’s made the mess, let him clear it up.” She turned in her seat so that she was facing Christopher. “Do you hear? It’s your mess, so it’s your Christmas that is going to be spoiled. You can drive to Nairobi tomorrow morning and, whatever it takes, you will find another place for the press conference, somewhere that is available to blacks and whites equally, somewhere that’s easy to find, somewhere that holds enough people, somewhere with proper electricity, so we can show slides, and where the rental isn’t an arm and a leg. Talk to Jack, he’s on this KANU education committee, he must know about the schools and colleges, at least.”
She put her spectacles back on and picked up the papers in front of her. “Now, let’s go through our argument, make sure it’s watertight, try to think of all the potential criticisms.”
Natalie looked at Christopher. He looked wretched. His mother had all but humiliated him in front of the rest of them. Yes, he had made a mistake, but was it anything more than that? Had Natalie herself been organizing the venue for the press conference, would she have thought to ask if the lavatories were segregated? She supposed not. On the other hand, she told herself, she was new to Africa, whereas Christopher had grown up here, so maybe Eleanor had a point.
Did Eleanor pick on Christopher more than she picked on Jack? Was Jack his mother’s favorite? Natalie couldn’t honestly say that Eleanor was anything other than scrupulously fair—scrupulously hard—on both of them.
But she couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for Christopher.
Eleanor was speaking again, as she pushed her eyeglasses back up her nose. “The press release itself, I think, is more or less on the right lines. The right information in more or less the right order. The one change I’d like to make is to adapt a suggestion of Natalie’s.”
The two women exchanged glances.
“It would be inappropriate to name our new hominid after either Richard Sutton or Kees van Schelde, and we all know there are unbeatable reasons for calling him, or her, Homo kiharensis.” She paused, briefly. “But Kees did identify a new form of hand ax—smaller, finer, sharper than what came before. With everyone’s agreement, therefore, I intend to name this new culture ‘Scheldian.’ It’s easy on the ear and ensures that Kees will be remembered, at least by his colleagues.”
She looked around. “Are we agreed?”
“Well done, Eleanor, good idea,” said Jonas. “It’s the right thing to do.”
“What about Richard?” said Arnold.
In reply, Eleanor looked at Daniel. “With your agreement, I’d like to name the gully in the gorge, where you and Russell and Richard found the knee joint, RSK, for ‘Richard Sutton’s Korongo.’ That too ensures he will be remembered.” She looked around the table. “Are we agreed?”
Natalie had a question. “In theory I approve, wholeheartedly. But isn’t that… aren’t you being a little bit—what’s the word?—forward, aggressive, attaching English-language names to parts of what is, after all, a Maasai gorge? Aren’t you being deliberately confrontationist?”
Eleanor nodded. “A good point and the answer is—yes, I am. We’ve pussyfooted around this for too long. Kenya is going to
be independent soon. Black people will regain what they say is theirs. But this gorge, and what it stands for, is just as much the work of white people as black people. It is, in itself, and as I said earlier, a monument to the fact that we are all one people. So that’s what I am going to add to your press release, that’s the gloss I shall tack on at the end.” She took off her spectacles, and let her gaze take in the whole table. “Since we are in this fight, we may as well punch as hard as we can. I’m not just aiming at Marongo. If we get the kind of press I’m hoping for, it will be very hard for the foundation to pull out now.”
• • •
“Okay everybody, just sit quietly while I fill her up with Avgas—we don’t want to run out in midair, do we?—and then I’ll be ready for the first group.”
Jack, Natalie, Eleanor, and Arnold were standing around Jack’s plane while he poured fuel into the tanks in the wings from the fortified spare cans he and Natalie had filled in Karatu. A group of about a dozen children sat on the ground next to the airstrip, their parents standing a little way off.
“Natalie,” said Jack. “If you don’t mind, I’d like you to sit in the back of the plane. If last year is anything to go by, some of the children get excited when we are in the air, and they fidget like mad, and don’t always keep their seat belts fastened. Make sure they do, will you? Now the short rains have started, there’s more cloud around and the air is less stable. If the children don’t have their seat belts on and we hit some holes in the air, they could get hurt.” He smiled at her. “Also, one or two get frightened once we have taken off, and they may need their hands held.”
“Okay,” he said, laying the petrol can back on the ground and screwing the lid back on the wing where the fuel pipe was. He clapped his hands. “Who wants to go first?”
All the children raised their arms.
Jack laughed. “Let’s do it village by village. Who comes from Tukana?” Four children raised their hands and he lifted one boy off his feet and carried him to the plane. Natalie did the same with a young girl. She got in behind the girl and sat next to her. Jack filled the plane with two more children and then climbed into the cockpit himself. He started his preflight checks.
Arnold was busy sketching the scene, and handing round his drawings to the parents.
Jack started the Comanche’s engines and taxied to the end of the airstrip.
“Is everyone strapped in?” he shouted.
“Yes,” Natalie answered for the children.
“Tukana, here we come!”
The plane lurched forward and gathered speed as it raced down the strip.
“Wave!” shouted Jack and the children in the plane waved to their parents as the Comanche lifted from the ground.
Jack and Natalie made three circuits in all, each lasting about thirty minutes, as they climbed in the sky, banked, and headed for one or another village, which they overflew at a low level. Each time they took in a stretch of the Sand River, where Jack knew they would see hippos, and where elephants were lurking in the vegetation. He kept up a running commentary all the time, pointing out aspects of the landscape that the children might otherwise miss.
One girl, Teza, was frightened by the noise of the plane and climbed on to Natalie’s lap, closing her eyes. But everyone else seemed to love their time in the air, and when Jack landed for the last time, two of the children went up to him, held him by the hand, and led him to a log they had found while he had been flying. They made him sit on the log and then they all stood in front of him, and began to sing.
Natalie stood under the wing of the plane, in the shade, watching and listening. Eleanor and Arnold had gone back to camp by now, but the children’s parents were still there.
The song didn’t last long and when it was over the children and their parents began to drift away.
Jack came over to Natalie.
“What was the song about?” she asked.
“Oh, it was a well-known ballad in this part of the Serengeti, about a mythical land where the only inhabitants are children, and all the wild animals are infants too, so there are no fights, no wars, no predators, everyone gets on. It was a nice way to say thank you, don’t you think?”
She nodded. “Have you ever had an accident in your plane?”
“Apart from the other day, do you mean, when Christopher tangled with those birds? No, I haven’t. I blew a tire on takeoff once and had to land very carefully, as slowly as possible, so the tireless wheel didn’t generate any sparks, to set the fuel vapor alight. Nothing worse than that. Why?”
She shrugged. “I think I’m getting the flying bug, so I should explore the risks.”
“Birds can be a problem, if you fly into a flock of them, or tiredness, and incomplete maintenance—you need to know your mechanics and have faith in them. Here in Kihara we have special risks too.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
He nodded towards the airstrip.
She followed his gaze.
The cheetahs were back.
• • •
“Good news and not-so-good news, everyone.” Eleanor sat back, her dinner half finished. Outside, the rain sluiced down, hammering on the roof of the refectory tent, rattling on the bonnets of the Land Rovers, hissing on the blackened logs of the campfire, precipitating smoke and steam and an acrid smell of burnt, wet whistling thorn. Eleanor had to raise her voice to make herself heard.
“Christopher has found us a venue for the press conference, a lecture theater at the Royal College, which he says is earmarked to become a university after independence. So it’s a suitably forward-looking institution which is not segregated in any way, shape, or form. And it has all the facilities we need to get over our message—film screens, slide projectors, a proper microphone system. It’s conveniently located and we can afford it.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“Poor Christopher.” Eleanor smiled, but sadly. “With all this rain, there was a flash flood near Ngiro. The road from Nairobi has been cut—washed away. It will be days before it is repaired and so he can’t get back. I’ve told him to sit it out in Nairobi, to hold tight there over Christmas. He can wait in town till the press conference and spend the time making sure everything runs like clockwork. And he can make early contact with the visiting journalists.”
“I could fly up and fetch him,” said Jack. “And take him back afterwards, so he can drive back the Land Rover.”
Eleanor shook her head. “Don’t worry, Jack. I’ve given him three flying lessons as a Christmas present. At Nairobi International Airport, in the private part. He’ll be fine, he’s got plenty to do.”
She looked round the table. “Now, originally we were going to break for the holidays after lunch tomorrow, it being Christmas Eve. In view of the weather, however, we may as well call it a day now, and start digging again after the break, and after the press conference. Maxwell Sandys is coming in a plane for me tomorrow morning, and we are flying up to Lake Victoria for forty-eight hours. I know Daniel’s going home to see his wife and family, in Nyanza. I’ve told the cooking staff they don’t need to come in after breakfast tomorrow. Has anyone else made any plans?”
Arnold leaned forward. “Jonas and I are going to the hot springs at Kubwa for a couple of days. Make ourselves even more beautiful.” He grinned.
“Natalie? Jack?”
Natalie was suddenly at a loss. With all the concentration necessary to prepare for the press conference, she hadn’t taken on board that the camp would be quite so deserted over Christmas. She didn’t know what to say.
“Don’t worry about me or Natalie, Mother. I’m going snorkeling on the reef off Lamu. Natalie’s coming with me.”
9
SHADOWS
“You sit there. You can look right out to sea. India is just over the horizon.” Jack held the chair for Natalie.
“Thank you. Have you ever been to India?”
He shook his head as he sat down. “I’m an Africa man. Doesn’t it show?”
>
“Whenever I’ve been around, you’ve kept your tail well hidden.”
The restaurant was very small, a veranda of about eight tables, of which only two others were occupied. It was lit by hurricane lamps and candles. The sea itself was the width of the beach away, inky black, collapsing on to the sand in soft slurps.
Natalie fingered the menu, a short card.
“Drink?” He ignored her last remark.
“I’d love one, but do they serve alcohol here? I thought you said that Lamu was mainly Muslim.”
“Mainly, yes, but not only. That’s why I chose this hotel, if you can call it that. How many rooms did they say they had—nine?”
She nodded. “Plus a pool, a restaurant and a shop. But the rooms are very comfortable, soft spongy beds. I’m sure I shall sleep well here.”
“What about the smell?”
“After the gorge? Oh no, it doesn’t matter, doesn’t even register. How many donkeys are there here?”
Lamu had been a surprise to Natalie in more ways than one when they had arrived.
The journey up from Kihara had been enjoyable and only mildly adventurous.
“How do we avoid the storms?” she had asked that morning, as they were loading their luggage onto Jack’s plane, with the aid of Mgina, who had turned up on her own initiative. In truth, Natalie had been rather thrown, the evening before, when he had announced, baldly, that she would be going with him to Lamu. But she hadn’t relished being virtually alone in the camp over Christmas, especially as that was the time of year her parents had always been happiest, when their choir was busiest. And, since Christopher was marooned in Nairobi, and not there to be upset, she had acquiesced.
“Simple,” Jack had replied. “We leave in the morning, before the storms build up in the afternoon. If we do meet any big clouds, we go round them, or above them, not through them. In any case, I’m going to fly east to the ocean, then up the coast. The clouds tend to gather over land, especially high land. The coast, as the saying goes, should be clear.”
Mackenzie Ford Page 37
