Mackenzie Ford

by The Clouds Beneath the Sun (v5)

  “Let’s clear our fences one at a time,” said Eleanor. “I’m tired, I need to sleep.”

  “He had you followed to Lamu?” said Christopher. “That’s expensive and shows … it shows a very determined adversary. Were you frightened?”

  Natalie nodded. “I was concerned. I wasn’t certain I—we—were being followed. It seemed a bit far-fetched. But Russell confirmed it. You’re right, Sutton Senior is very determined indeed.”

  “A good job Jack was with you.”

  She ignored that. “What provokes me the most is: how did they know Jack and I were in Lamu? His contact at the American embassy couldn’t have known that.”

  Christopher nodded, finishing the water he was drinking. “Sounds like he has a spy in our camp. That makes the blood go cold, right? You never thought of not giving evidence, did you? Never mentioned leaving the country?”

  “No, of course not. You know that. You all know that.”

  “What did you make of Lamu?” Christopher asked. “I haven’t had a chance to ask you.”

  “I loved it, except for the sea urchins. A swim in the sea was a real break, a real luxury.”

  “Where did you stay?”

  “The Cotton House,” said Jack.

  “In the rooms with the balcony?”

  Natalie nodded. “How about you? How was the Christmas Eve party at the Karibu Club?”

  “Yes, how was it?” added Jack. “Pick up any gossip?”

  Christopher shook his head. “It was all very tame. The only thing worth remarking on, the only surprise really, was that minister from Britain, you know, the one who came here—”

  “Jeavons, you mean, the minister of science?”

  “That’s the one. Well, he was here again and deep in conversation with John Tudor.”

  Jack frowned. “They can’t have had much in common, one a scientist, the other a judge.”

  “Wrong,” breathed Eleanor. “Jeavons is a minister of science, but by training a lawyer.”

  “Even so, what would they have to talk about?”

  “It was Christmas Eve, for pity’s sake,” said Christopher. “All I know is that they went at it for ages.”

  Natalie decided to change the subject. “How are the flying lessons going?”

  “Well enough,” Christopher said. “I’ve had no more panic attacks, if that’s what you mean—”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  He stood up. “I’m tired too. See you tomorrow.”

  “Don’t say you’re tired, Jack,” she said, after the rest of them had dispersed. “Someone needs to think this through.”

  He nodded. “Let’s go to my room.” He smiled and added, “You’ll be quite safe and We’ll have more privacy.”

  He was seated now, in the chair by the chest of drawers, as Natalie lounged on the bed.

  “I did know Marongo very well,” Jack said. “But we haven’t really been close for two or three years now. Since he’s been chief, he’s had to keep his distance. Yes, I’m an honorary Maasai but I’m also white—you can’t hide that fact. The closer independence gets, the more political Marongo becomes.”

  They had brought their whiskies with them and he swallowed some of his.

  “Independence means various things and one of the things it means is change, including political change. And I can see that we may have played into Marongo’s hands with this very press conference, and in a way that plays to Russell’s strengths as well.”

  “What? How do you mean?”

  “It’s my fault, really, with this whole idea of a presentation. We’ll soon see what the press makes of today’s events and either way we have achieved our purpose—we’ve made the gorge important. It will be very difficult for Marongo to destroy Kihara as it is now. That would make him and his Maasai savages. At the same time, a change of personnel could be very useful—I’m not saying it will happen, just that I can see how it would suit Marongo.”

  He added more water to what was left of his whiskey.

  “As it stands now, the gorge is indelibly linked to the Deacons. My parents put it on the map, scientifically speaking, there has been a trail of scientists, journalists, and politicians through here, and of course they are mainly white and they mainly came to see my father, then my mother—and, if things continue, it will be Christopher, Beth, and me. A change now, at independence, to a different team that is not the Deacons, but one selected—at least tacitly—by the Maasai, would associate them with whatever is discovered in the future. They would be reclaiming the gorge, but not destroying it.”

  “But Russell! Of all people!” As she said this, the thought also occurred to her that Marongo knew about Ndekei and Richard. Was homosexuality a sin among the Maasai and if so did Marongo now have a personal grievance against anyone connected to Richard? Did that explain what was happening?

  Jack lifted his glass to his forehead, to cool it. “Russell, or at least Richard Sutton Senior, is promising a lot of money, and politics—Marongo’s main interest now—is expensive. What’s more, Marongo is a pragmatist. Richard Junior has already been killed. The Maasai have, in theory at least, been converted to Christianity. You and I know that conversion is paper thin—they still worship their traditional gods, live in the old ways. But Marongo is the chief, his people will obey him, and he knows how to wheel out Christianity when it suits him, and it might suit him now, to make the most of the Christian idea of forgiveness and redemption. Think how that will play in the Western—the white—press. He, Marongo, forgives Russell, and Russell and Richard Sutton Senior redeem themselves by paying a forfeit and working in the gorge under Maasai direction.” He sighed. “It could work.”

  “I can’t believe I’m hearing this!”

  “I’m not saying it will happen—there’s a lot of fight in the Deacons yet. But it’s one scenario.”

  Natalie was breathing heavily, hating what Jack was saying. “Give me another scenario, please. Something more upbeat.”

  Jack finished his whiskey and refilled his glass with water. But he didn’t say anything for some time.

  When he did, he said quietly, “I would very much like to make love to you again, Natalie—”

  “Jack!” She colored. “What has that got to do with—?”

  “Hear me out. I’m not about to jump on you.” He gulped his water. “The night we spent together in Lamu was … well, it was memorable, despite those goons under the lamplight. I am not going to embarrass you by talking about the lovemaking, other than to say that the whole experience was … it sure beats finding fossils.” He grinned. “Or flying your own plane, and I’d swap my Ph.D. for it several times over.”

  He grinned again but she said, “I still don’t see what—?”

  “I’m getting there. I know Natalie Nelson, a bit anyway. I know who she is, what moves her, what matters to her. And I know that you agreed to spend the night with me in Lamu for a variety of complicated and simple reasons that might never come together again.”

  She was listening now.

  “I know some of those reasons, I can guess at others, still more are locked away inside you and are none of my business. But what I do know, Natalie, and I’m very sure of this, I know I can’t let you get away. If you want an upbeat scenario—I think it’s upbeat anyway—try this …” He paused. “Marry me.”

  She colored again. But she didn’t say anything. Her throat was dry.

  “Come and live in Africa, where there are lots of Lamus. Make it your life. Whatever happens in the gorge, there are other places to dig—the Rift Valley is thousands of miles long, there are plenty of places for other discoveries to be made. Learn to fly yourself—if Christopher can do it, you can.” He smiled. “Learn about African music, have your father come out here and listen to what the local tribes can do. Bring up some babies in the bush with all the wildlife and butterflies, the warmth—and the dung!” He swallowed what was left of his water. “Let’s have enough babies to start a choir.” He grinned. “You know how I
am about children. How’s that for a scenario?”

  Silence in the room. Downstairs the British journalists were growing rowdy.

  When Natalie did speak, it was to say, “In a month or so I shall give evidence that could, if your bleak scenario proves accurate, drive the Deacons from the gorge that has been their life for decades. How would certain other Deacons feel about me becoming a Deacon under those circumstances?”

  He shrugged. “You can keep your own name if you wish. I like Natalie Nelson, it suits you. I told you that, the first time we met.”

  “That wasn’t so long ago. How can you be so certain of your own mind so soon?”

  “You were immediately certain of seeing Ndekei.”

  “Not the same thing at all.”

  “Maybe not, but when you fly airplanes you have to be certain of a specific number of things—lives depend on it. That habit grows. I’m certain of what I feel for you.”

  “I’m like altitude, am I? Or barometric pressure?”

  He grinned. “No, you’re more like a weather pattern, a configuration, basically the same sunshine, a little cloudy at times, squally at others, the occasional growl of thunder … help me out here, I’m not sure I can keep this up much longer.”

  Another silence.

  “You’re right about Lamu. A weather pattern formed there, it built up—it did for me anyhow.” She reached across and laid her hand on his arm. “It was lovely. But—”

  “I knew there was a ‘but’ coming. ‘Buts’ have peppered my life, they are up there with ‘howevers’ and ‘nonethelesses.’ ‘Buts’ have presaged every disappointment, ignited every setback, begun the destruction of every hopeful scenario. I loathe ‘buts.’”

  “I won’t use that word, then. And I won’t give you an answer tonight. I won’t say no and I can’t say yes either, not right now.” She thought. “Did you really expect me to say yes this instant, to so sudden and so big a question?”

  Natalie swallowed what was left of her whiskey.

  “What a day. I need to go to bed—I’m mentally exhausted, though I’m sure I shan’t sleep.” She stood up and kissed him on the forehead. “A choirload of babies. That’s quite a scenario, Dr. Deacon.”

  • • •

  She had been right. Sleep wouldn’t come. It was hot in the room; the overhead fan was working but not being at all effective. It had started to rain outside—the short rains had reached Nairobi. The weather in her head was changing too.

  She had never hit a man before. She had never hit anyone before. She had never imagined doing so. But Russell … She didn’t want to think about Russell but she couldn’t avoid it. How could he conceive—plan, plot, precipitate—what he was trying to make happen? Jack and Russell were as different as could be. Jack—so far as she knew—was not at all the jealous type. But, like Jack, Russell thought politically. It was, as Jack had shown her, a dimension missing from her own makeup. Natalie had been brought up to avoid jealousy and revenge but she knew, from her own unavoidable feelings when she had been going out with Dominic and he spoke about his wife, what an unmanageable monster jealousy could be. Mgina had been right: like termites, jealousy corrodes even the strongest timber.

  Jealousy might even be the very foundation on which this whole terrible scenario was built.

  She heard shouting in the street. What was it? Drunken revelers? A political demo? Not at this hour surely, but that just showed how on edge she was, how much her life was determined by …

  Around three, the solution came to her. It was like a flower unfolding in her brain. Something that had always been there suddenly grew bigger, more colorful, more attractive, more appealing, took on a form all its own.

  She would change her story.

  She would give Ndekei his freedom, Marongo his victory, and the gorge a future.

  She would say, simply, that she had had second thoughts, that in her heart she could no longer be certain that the figure she had seen that night was Ndekei. She had not seen his features, so he could have been anyone. Yes, he was wearing a white T-shirt of the kind worn by Ndekei, but was he really shuffling, as she had thought? How could she tell, at that distance, in the dark?

  If she changed her story Russell would be stymied and a career in the gorge was hers for the asking, even marriage to Jack.

  There was the problem with Richard Sutton Senior, but what, despite his threats, could he do? Given the discoveries she had already made—some of which she hadn’t made when he had threatened her—could he really damage her?

  Should she tell Richard Sutton Senior that his son was a homosexual? Did he know? If he didn’t, it might make him angry, upset at the least. But the doubt that existed in her own mind, that the passions aroused by homosexuality might have been the real reason why Ndekei killed Richard, operated both ways. In one sense, it made Ndekei more guilty, doubly culpable. He had his own, personal private reason for killing Richard but was hiding behind tribal customs. But if that were true, the Maasai didn’t deserve the chance to threaten the gorge, Ndekei’s deception mustn’t be allowed to succeed. Yes, he would go free, both his crimes—murder and deception—would go unpunished, but justice, in the wider sense, would be done.

  The main thing was the gorge. She must learn to think politically, prioritize, compromise. She twisted and turned on the bed. The bedclothes clung to her damp skin. Maybe she could persuade Eleanor to honor Richard Sutton Junior’s memory much as his father planned. She hadn’t pressed enough for the new species to be named in his honor. They’d announced the new name in the press conference, yes. But they hadn’t gone into print yet. Maybe if she suggested it now, did a deal with Eleanor …

  At four o’clock she changed her mind again. Of course she would give evidence.

  Several more times that morning she changed her mind. The rain abated, the dawn came, the sun edged over the rooftops and flagpoles. She saw it all.

  11

  FEVER

  “I’ve said this before: there’s good news and bad news.” Eleanor sat in her usual place at dinner. It had been two weeks since the headlines about the press conference, and the associated accounts of the upcoming trial. They were now all back in the gorge, digging, and trying to ignore the fuss that was building up in Nairobi.

  Eleanor coughed and said softly, “I spoke at length on the radio-telephone with Harold Heath—in case you don’t know, he’s the editor of Nature. He has of course seen the reports of the press conference and is as horrified by the murder of Richard as he is intrigued and impressed by what he knows of our discoveries.” Her hands closed over her spectacles on the table in front of her. “I couldn’t resist telling him about Jonas’s latest find, that we may have mankind’s oldest pregnancy to report. I think he was almost as excited as I was. He is therefore willing, on this occasion, to overlook the problematic protocol issues, as he put it, and is prepared to publish our reports as usual.”

  The new discovery was three days old. Jonas had discovered an ancient pelvis—at the same two million level—with an associated minuscule skull, which he was convinced was embryonic.

  Eleanor smiled as she looked around the table but then grew serious. “Now, Natalie, the bad news is that there’s another attack on you in the Nairobi press, I am afraid. I haven’t seen it, but I was told about it by Maxwell Sandys when I spoke to him earlier, again on the radio-telephone.”

  Natalie couldn’t speak. She felt sick.

  “What are they saying now?” said Jack. “Anything new?”

  “Well there is something new, yes, something new to me anyway, and it’s distressing.” She paused and looked at Natalie with concern. “They are saying that Natalie and Richard were lovers, and so were Natalie and Russell, and that Richard was killed because of sexual jealousy, and they imply—but can’t say outright—that she has … if not made up her evidence, then embellished it for personal reasons, that there is a racist element in the fact that she is giving evidence at all. Ndekei, they are saying, has been set up.”r />
  “How can they get away with all that?” said Jonas. “Isn’t that against the laws of libel, and contempt of court?”

  “Theoretically, yes,” said Jack, leaning forward. “The law here is based on British law. But… with independence in the offing, everything is in flux and the rules are being relaxed all over the shop. Not that that’s much comfort to Natalie.”

  “What also bothers me,” said Eleanor, “is how they are finding out things about camp life. Who is leaking all these details? Do we have a traitor—a Judas—among us?”

  Silence around the table.

  Then Eleanor said, “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you, Natalie, but I thought it better to tell you what is happening in Nairobi, what is being said, rather than have you ambushed later on, nearer the time of the trial. You’re a strong person, I’m sure you can cope.”

  In fact, Natalie was close to tears. Not for the first time, she told herself that this was not what she had come to Africa for. She was not a racist. Or promiscuous. Given what Kees had told her about Richard, the idea of an affair with him was laughable. The press were worse than snakes. More politics.

  Dinner was breaking up, there was talk of music.

  “Do you want to choose tonight?” said Jack, who could see how upset Natalie was.

  She shook her head, finished her water, and got up. She smiled at Jack, at Eleanor, and at Christopher. Then, without saying a word, she walked past the campfire towards her tent.

  She untied the tapes that closed the main flaps. She lit a cigarette. In the darkness, she heard voices. Were they coming from the gorge? Were the Maasai there even now, and if so what were they doing at this hour? The Maasai had been taking more and more interest in the gorge recently, as they all knew, but what could they be doing in the darkness?

  “Is this a good time or a bad time?”

  Jack stood over her. She hadn’t heard him approach, but then all manner of things were going on inside her.