The Beautiful Mother

by Katherine Scholes

  ‘I’m sure you’ll manage without me,’ Essie responded. There was a sarcastic edge to her voice, but Diana showed no sign that she’d noticed. She stepped closer. Essie forced a fleeting smile and then pretended to be occupied with Mara. She didn’t want to receive the kiss she could see coming – she recoiled from the thought of it – but neither did she want to provoke conflict by refusing. At the back of her mind was the idea that if she behaved like a jealous wife, it would only become more certain that she’d been betrayed. The ploy with Mara worked. From the corner of her eye she saw Diana turn back and climb into the Land Rover. Essie watched her slide into the middle of the front seat, leaving space for Ian to join her.

  The next moment, Essie felt a hand on her shoulder. Ian was standing beside her. She breathed in the smell of his shaving soap. The familiar perfume caused a dull pain to stir inside her.

  ‘Goodbye, Essie,’ Ian said. ‘I’ll keep in touch.’

  Essie nodded. They’d already arranged for regular radio schedules during the time he was away. How many weeks that would be was unclear; it depended how long it took for all the meetings to occur.

  A brief embrace followed, hampered by the presence of the baby. Ian gave Essie a hurried kiss, his lips brushing hers, dry and hard. Then he turned away.

  As she watched him leave Essie was torn by conflicting emotions. She was the one who’d decided to remain here – yet now she felt abandoned, once again. The thought of Ian boarding the plane with Diana, the two of them flying away on their own, made her stomach churn. Ian was right: Essie had pushed them together. Yet if she had the chance to reconsider, she knew she wouldn’t change the choices she’d made.

  As Ian settled himself beside Diana, he looked around to Essie, giving her a final wave. She stepped forward – suddenly wanting to feel a sense of connection with him in this last moment before he was gone. She almost ran up to him, seeking another kiss. But she could see in his eyes that his focus had already shifted from her and their home. In his mind, he was airborne already, and speeding away to another place.

  Essie waited for Daudi to drive off, then walked back towards the main part of the camp. She wondered if Julia was now in the Dining Tent. When she pictured her sitting there, gazing into a cold cup of tea, her heart sank. She’d been expecting a time of solitude, once the plane flew away. Her step slowed. On top of the turmoil of seeing Ian and Diana depart she simply couldn’t face dealing with Julia’s distress.

  Veering off the path that led to the Dining Tent, she aimed instead for the nursery. In the shady interior, the air tinged with the smell of milk, baby powder and nappy cream, she picked out a couple of toys and a blanket. She took them to a spot at the edge of the camp, where she sat cross-legged under a thorn tree. There was a view down to the plains, but the landing strip was hidden. Essie imagined the scene – Kefa unloading the suitcases; the pilot stowing them in the hold; the passengers taking a last stretch of their legs and casting final looks back up at the camp . . .

  Essie focused her thoughts on the baby. She watched as Mara grabbed her favourite toy – the plush elephant – and began chewing on the trunk. Perhaps another tooth was coming through. Mara devoted herself intently to this task for a few minutes, then decided it was time for a new occupation. She started playing with Essie’s shoelaces. Next, her attention was caught by a pattern of shadows cast onto the blanket. Mara’s eyes were wide with interest. Essie never tired of watching how the baby – still so young – constantly absorbed the details of the world around her, storing up every little thing that she learned.

  All the while, Essie listened for the sound of the plane. It seemed to take a long time, but finally she heard the propellers kicking into action. Then came the whine of the engine, building into a roar. Moments later the plane could be seen: a moving shape climbing in a slow arc against the sky. Essie followed it with her eyes as it grew smaller and smaller, then finally vanished from view.

  The smell of raw onion permeated the air of the kitchen hut. Essie glanced at a chopping board where thick slices of the vegetable lay beside a mound of sweet potato peelings. She wondered where Baraka was – it was unusual for him to leave the kitchen with food preparations in progress. After taking a bottle of formula from the fridge she set off for the workers’ camp. She planned to visit Simon again. She told herself she should talk to him some more about finding a new job. But the truth was, she just wanted his company.

  As she was walking, something drew her gaze in the direction of the korongos that rose up behind the camp. On the slopes were odd splashes of bright colour amid the natural tones of grey and ochre. She must have noticed them almost unconsciously, at the edge of her vision. Red. Orange. Purple. There were at least two dozen of them. It took a few moments for Essie to realise what she was looking at: Maasai men, draped in their shukas. They were moving slowly but steadily away from Magadi Camp. Frowning, Essie quickened her pace.

  When she reached the staff quarters she picked up an air of unease. The place was too quiet. There were not enough people around. Simon was standing outside his tent, looking across to the hillside. As Essie neared him she called ahead.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  Simon spoke without shifting his gaze. ‘They are leaving.’

  Essie shook her head, struggling to absorb his meaning.

  ‘News was passed around the camp,’ Simon added as she came to stand next to him. ‘Someone heard Bwana Lawrence say that all the bones were going to be removed from the cave. Then they would be packed into boxes and taken away to another country. It made the Maasai very angry. They refuse to stay here any longer.’

  ‘But that’s not what’s going to happen,’ Essie exclaimed. ‘They have to come back!’ She began striding towards the gullies, with Simon coming behind her.

  Soon, more of the landscape was visible. At the base of the nearest hill, Essie could see the Maasai workers clearly. She handed Mara to Simon so she could pursue them more quickly.

  But after a few steps, she came to a halt. In her mind she ran back over all that Ian had said and done since he’d heard about the erectus – and how their conversation about a carefully controlled in situ procedure seemed to have been forgotten. There was a ring of truth about the story Simon had reported.

  She gazed helplessly at the departing men. Then she turned to Simon. ‘Are all the Maasai going?’ She estimated that would represent at least a third of the workforce.

  Simon nodded. ‘They have to.’

  Essie tried to form a timeline in her head – working out when the exodus might have begun. ‘Did they wait until Ian was gone?’

  ‘No. They are not thinking about him,’ Simon stated. ‘The first of them left at dawn.’

  ‘Why didn’t they say something?’ Essie murmured. But then, she asked herself – why would they? Nothing Ian could have said in response would have made any difference. He’d lost their trust.

  A thought came to her. ‘Baraka . . .’

  ‘He has gone, too,’ Simon confirmed. ‘But he will be living at the manyatta. We will see him again.’

  ‘Did he say goodbye to Mrs Lawrence?’

  Simon shook his head. ‘I said I would explain everything in his place.’

  ‘Baraka has worked for the Lawrences nearly all his life!’ Essie said wonderingly.

  ‘It was a hard decision for him,’ Simon said.

  Essie remembered the unfinished tasks in the kitchen. Perhaps the old man knew that if he didn’t act straightaway he would not be able to do what he believed was right. She watched the hillside in silence, imagining the depth of feeling that had spurred each one of these men to make such a huge change in their lives. Their decision would affect not just themselves, but the extended families that relied on their incomes. If anyone was having second thoughts, though, it didn’t show. Magadi Camp had been home to most of these Maasai for years. Yet not a single person paused to look back.

  ‘They don’t want to turn their faces towards the volcano,’ S
imon commented, as if sharing the same thought. ‘They are too ashamed.’

  Essie watched the tall figures, cloaked in their red-and-purple blankets, as they climbed up the slopes of the korongos. When the land flattened out, they moved more quickly – settling into the steady, loping gait that would carry them on effortlessly over vast tracts of land, with barely a need for rest.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Two weeks later

  A tiny bubble of glue oozed from between two fragments of fossilised bone. Essie scraped it away with a toothpick before wiping off the last traces with a cotton bud. Then she picked up a pair of tweezers ready to select the next piece of the Sivatherium skull. She’d barely begun scanning the specimen tray, however, when her attention drifted down to where Mara was lying on the floor nearby. A small Persian rug had been rolled out for her there. Her white smock stood out against the tapestry of vibrant colours. She was resting on her belly; Essie had removed her nappy so she could kick freely. The baby was ignoring the tow-along wooden duck that had been brought from the nursery and was instead plucking bits of crimson fluff from the rug. Essie watched the way the baby used her thumb and pointer finger to grasp the woollen fibres. The manoeuvre was so delicate and precise; it seemed a momentous achievement.

  Focusing again on her work, Essie located the piece she wanted and began scraping off a residue of sandstone. Behind the rhythmic scratching of the dental pick, she could hear the sound of cards being dealt out and then turned over one by one. It was Julia, playing a round of Patience on a table set up in the entrance to the Work Hut. Her chair was placed so she could pick up the wind that eased the stifling heat, without being blasted with airborne dust. She’d dragged her suitcase – still unpacked – over from the Dining Tent, placing it at her side where it served as a table on which to rest her ashtray, cups and glasses. For the last few days she had been playing card games obsessively – almost as if it was important work, and not just a waste of time.

  The change had occurred without warning. Essie had been trying to draw Julia back to her work – setting an example by continuing with the assembly of the Sivatherium. It seemed the best hope of easing her torment. But Julia had shown no interest. Then, one morning, she had suddenly removed Robbie’s shoe and the lock of hair from her table, adding them to a tray stacked on a shelf. Essie had watched on, hoping it was a sign that her strategy had worked. But instead of getting out her tools and notebooks, Julia had located the pack of playing cards. It was then that she’d begun the endless rounds of Patience, occasionally interspersed with other games in which Kefa or Daudi were required to take part. The activities seemed mechanical for Julia, rather than enjoyable. She expressed no satisfaction when she won or dismay if she lost. It was as if she was filling a void with pointless action, being no longer able to find meaning in doing anything else. It wasn’t the development Essie had hoped for – but it seemed better than her just sitting around staring into space. And somehow the simple act of card playing had prompted Julia to begin talking again. There were no actual conversations, just short comments or queries – but it was a start.

  Simon was spending his days here in the Work Hut as well. Instead of assisting Essie, however, he was studying the Field Guide to the Birds and Animals of East Africa. He had to concentrate hard, lips moving as he absorbed the dense text. Now and then he’d frown and shake his head. There were inaccuracies in the text, he claimed, and gaps in the knowledge. Some of the illustrations looked wrong. He marked the errors with a pencil. He was determined to learn all the false information, so he’d be able to pass any tests he might be set when applying for a job. Essie wanted to tell him this wasn’t necessary – the knowledge of the Hadza, honed over millennia, surely carried greater authority than the observations of a foreign ornithologist. But when it came to the preconceptions of potential employers, Essie wasn’t certain that she was right.

  Whenever she looked up and saw Simon poring over the field guide, she felt struck afresh by the knowledge that he was preparing for a new life. Soon, he’d be leaving, like the Maasai had done. She might never see him again. There was a sense of unreality about this fact, as there was with many other things at the camp. So much had happened in the small world of Magadi, so quickly.

  Over the time that had elapsed since the mass departure of staff, the subdued mood in the camp had gradually lifted. In its place, the optimism of the remaining workers – many of whom weren’t so concerned with the beliefs of the Maasai – broke through. They talked constantly about the future employment prospects for themselves and their relatives. Though there were now lots of empty tents in the staff quarters, daily life seemed set to return to normal. Essie had consulted Ian’s foreman about what work could be done in the korongos. But with the Bwana absent, and such big changes looming on the horizon, he could not see the point of continuing the usual tasks. A feeling of hiatus set in. It was as if a holiday had been declared. There was noisy drumming and dancing every night; during the day, music from transistor radios blared out. Essie listened to it all from the Lawrences’ end of the camp. She told herself the Africans were making the most of the chance to relax. But there was something extreme about the constant celebration, as if the workers were trying to fill a void with sound and movement – a whole community of people whistling in the dark.

  Essie turned to the Sivatherium project as a distraction from her unease about the situation. Now, as she removed the remnants of sandstone, she tried to give the task her full attention. It was not very long, though, before her gaze shifted away from the skull again. Over on Ian’s table she could see the neat stack of his notebooks; his bush coat was hanging over the back of the chair – there were reminders of him everywhere. Essie couldn’t help wondering where her husband was, right now; what he was doing – and who he was with. She pictured him in university quadrangles, television studios, taxis, hotel rooms . . . Her fingers tightened their grip on the dental pick; she found herself scraping so hard that a fragment of fossil sheared away.

  ‘Damn.’ She swore under her breath.

  The slap of cards on the tabletop suddenly stopped. ‘Don’t you hate that sound?’ Julia asked.

  ‘What sound?’ Essie looked up.

  ‘Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.’ Julia gestured at the tool in Essie’s hand. ‘For God’s sake. It just goes on and on.’

  Essie stared at her in confusion. Removing sediment like this was something the Lawrences spent a lot of their time doing, whether they were in the field – often lying on hard earth, in the hot sun, painstakingly exposing a fossil – or at work back here at the camp, cleaning what had been harvested.

  ‘I’ve always hated it,’ Julia added. ‘It gets on my nerves. Like fingernails scratching on a blackboard.’

  Essie eyed the tool in her hand. Now that she thought of it, she understood what Julia meant. When you paid attention to the sound, it was harsh and irritating.

  ‘Anyway, I’m finished with all that,’ Julia said.

  She spoke firmly, as if announcing a decision. Essie’s lips parted. She couldn’t imagine what the comment might actually mean.

  Julia turned over another card. ‘Red Queen,’ she stated. After placing it down she sat back, rolling her shoulders as if to release stress. ‘I could do with a cup of tea. Where’s Kefa got to?’ She peered around the space and the area outside, looking anxious. ‘He hasn’t disappeared now as well?’

  Essie shook her head. ‘He’s getting something from the storeroom.’ She put down her work. ‘I’ll make the tea,’ she offered. She didn’t want Julia to have to dwell on the fact that even though Kefa was still around to deliver the tea tray, the cook was gone. Whenever Essie thought about Baraka, she felt a wave of dismay. But she knew the feeling of loss would be much more intense for Julia; he had been part of her world for such a long time.

  She pushed back her chair, intending to collect Mara and hand her to Simon before going to the kitchen. As she stood up she saw that Tommy was approaching the baby. His head wa
s lowered; there was a look of intent in his eyes. The gazelle had never shown any aggression towards Mara – though he’d occasionally appeared offended by the sight of her being bottle-fed, as if he remembered that this had once been his prerogative. However, now that his horns were emerging, he was experimenting with new ways to assert himself. He’d caused an upset in the Dining Tent recently by chewing at the corner of the tablecloth. When he was chased away he didn’t let go until several items of crockery had toppled behind him.

  Essie watched Tommy warily. The baby was already reaching one arm eagerly towards him. Separating the two of them now would indicate to Mara that the animal was suddenly to be considered dangerous – which would make no sense to her. It would be much better to let the interaction play out, just as long as Mara was safe.

  As the gazelle came within reach, the baby dropped her collection of carpet fluff and grasped his front leg. Tommy stood motionless, snorting softly. While Essie was hovering uncertainly, trying to read his mood, Julia appeared at the animal’s side. She squatted next to him, putting her hand on his collar, stroking his neck. Essie frowned in surprise. She couldn’t think what had prompted Julia to take an interest in the gazelle – she’d never approved of his presence at Magadi. But then Essie remembered it was because of Tommy that Robbie’s body had been found; the two must have become linked in Julia’s mind.

  ‘Be careful now,’ Julia was murmuring. ‘There’s a good boy.’

  Essie could hardly believe it was her mother-in-law speaking – her manner was so gentle. Tommy sat down beside Mara, folding his legs under his body. He nuzzled her face with his quivering nose. Mara giggled with delight. She focused her attention on one of Tommy’s hooves that was protruding from underneath him. Essie watched her exploring it with her fingers, feeling every detail of the shape like a blind person. Tommy remained perfectly still. Essie waited until Mara had finished her investigation, then she picked her up.