Circling the Sun (15 page)

“Just one by my count, is that right?” he asked me, and then turned to Ben. “Unless you’ve had her, too.”

“Stop!” I yelled as Cockie’s face went deathly white. One of Jock’s knees buckled, and he tipped off the chair, tumbling to the floor. The mallet flew away from him, whipping over my left shoulder, and bouncing with a thudding clatter off the window casement. Thank goodness for instincts. I had ducked at precisely the right moment. Another few inches or portion of a second and the mallet would have cracked me on the head. Then we really would have had a story.

As Jock scrambled to find his feet again, Ben hurried to Cockie, and they made for the other room just as Barasa arrived.

“Please help bwana to bed,” I told him, and soon I could hear them in the other room, a thump of shoes and shuffling of bedclothes. When I found the Birkbecks, they told me they were heading back to town. I was mortified. “At least wait till morning,” I said. “It will be safer then.”

“We’re nothing if not intrepid,” Cockie said gently. She signalled to Ben to go and pack their things and when he’d gone said, “I don’t know what you’ve done, darling, but I can tell you there are things men don’t want to know. And with us here, too…I suppose he had to show you he was still in charge.”

“You don’t mean to say he was justified in acting that way?”

“No.” She sighed. But it seemed as if she was saying precisely that.

“I’m a disaster at marriage, and now at infidelity, too?”

She laughed soberly. “None of this is easy, I know. You’re so young, and everyone makes great lurching mistakes sometimes. You really will work it out one day. For now, though, you’ve got to eat humble pie.”

I walked them out, and after their Ford’s quavering headlamps had passed from sight, I was alone with the Southern stars. How had I got here, exactly? The shadowy Aberdares were the same as they had ever been and the forest sounds, too, and yet I wasn’t. I’d forgotten myself. I’d let one dodgy, fearful choice roll into another, somehow thinking that through this twisting and sticky route, I could still arrive at freedom.
Arap
Maina would have clucked and shaken his head to see me. Lady D would have gazed at me with those wise grey eyes of hers and said—what? That I had to eat humble pie? I didn’t think so. And what of my father? He had raised me to be strong and self-sufficient—and I wasn’t that now. Not by a long shot.

From somewhere nearby, a hyena whined, high and breathy, and another answered. The night pushed at me from all its edges. It seemed I could either walk into Jock’s house and close the door and continue with this nonsense, or I could plunge out into the dark with no map for what happened next. Jock could come after me in a full-blown rage for smearing his name. Friends and neighbours might slowly and subtly turn away or snub me for breaking rank, the way they had with Mrs. O. I might never see my horses again or might go completely broke trying to find my way without Jock’s support. I could fail in so many ways but, even so, there was no choice really.

When I went into the house again, I turned down all the lamps and padded to my room in the dark. Soundlessly, I packed my few things quickly and was on my way before midnight.

“
D
o you think Jock will come after me?” Boy asked when I recounted the whole story back at Soysambu. “Now that he knows about us?”

“Why would he? His whole argument has been about keeping up appearances and avoiding gossip. If anything, he’ll make my life harder or dig in more about the divorce.”

We were in my cottage after dark. It was a cool night, and as I warmed my hands against the chimney of the hurricane lantern, Boy’s face remained clouded over with his thoughts. He seemed unsettled and out of place, though he’d been in my room dozens of times. “And what about us?” he finally asked.

“What do you mean? We’ve had a few laughs, haven’t we? I don’t see why anything should change.”

“I only wondered.” He cleared his throat and pulled the Somali blanket more snugly around his shoulders. “There are women who’d be expecting a fellow to step up and get serious at some point.”

“Is that what you’re worried about? I can’t seem to get rid of the husband I’ve got, and anyway, what I’d really like to know is how it feels to be on my own. Not someone’s daughter or wife, I mean…but my own person.”

“Oh.” It seemed I’d surprised him. “There isn’t a lot of that kind of thinking around here.”

“Of course there is,” I told him, trying to draw a smile. “It’s just usually a man who’s doing it.”

Now that I wouldn’t have to keep up the ruse of weekend wife, I had more time and energy for my horses and was ready to give them my all. The St. Leger was an event for three-year-olds and Kenya’s most illustrious stakes race. D had a few promising contenders, but the best of the lot was Ringleader, a satin-black and high-stepping gelding. He was a real horse, and D was offering me a chance to train him. But he’d “got a leg,” as they say in horse speak. Before he’d come to Soysambu, he’d been overtrained, and his tendons had become sensitive, with a tendency to swell. With plenty of care and patience, though, he could still come back. He’d need soft, forgiving soil—so I took him down to the shore of Elmenteita and did all his galloping there along the moist edge while nearby herds of eland looked on curiously, and hordes of flamingos stirred over the lake’s surface and settled, squawking the same alarm over and over.

Late one afternoon, I was coming back from a training session there, my clothes and hair flecked with bits of dried mud, when I ran into Berkeley Cole again. It had been two years since my coming-out party, that night he and Denys Finch Hatton had recited poetry for me in blindingly white coats, both of them with manners like something out of a book about knights and gallantry. Now he’d driven over with a few other settlers to meet D about some recent political nonsense. I happened to find him out for a smoke, leaning against a length of fence railing as the last of the sun vanished behind him. His collar was loose and his auburn hair hatless and slightly windblown. It was almost as if someone had sketched him there.

“The last time we met you weren’t long out of pigtails,” he said after we’d recognized each other, “now you’re all over the papers. Your Jubaland was impressive.”

I felt myself squirm slightly under his praise. “I didn’t ever wear pigtails, actually. Couldn’t sit still long enough for them.”

He smiled. “It hasn’t seemed to hurt you much. And you’ve married?”

Not knowing quite how to describe my current state, I hedged. “In a manner of speaking.” In the several weeks since the terrible scene with the Birkbecks and the Arab door, I hadn’t heard a peep from Jock. I’d written to him making it plain that I wanted a divorce and wouldn’t back down, but he hadn’t answered me. Maybe that was all right, though. It was a relief simply to be in our separate corners.

“In a manner of speaking?” Berkeley’s mouth twisted in a way that was both wry and slightly paternal. But he didn’t press me further.

“What’s D getting you wrapped up in?” I gestured towards the house. From the booming of D’s voice, things sounded fairly volatile.

“I’m afraid to know all of it. Vigilance Committee guff.”

“Ah. Maybe you’d better run.”

D had formed the committee a few months before, part of a new effort to combat the old problem of just who had a right to Kenya, and why. White settlers had always been keen on self-rule, which amounted to something more like total domination of the territory. They saw Indians and Asians as outliers, to be fought off with sticks, if necessary. Africans were fine as long as they remained clear about their inferior state and didn’t want too much land. But recently the British government had issued the Devonshire White Paper, a series of declarations meant to beat back the white settlers’ greedy demands and restore something like order in the colony. We had a new governor, Sir Robert Coryndon, and he was taking the White Paper awfully seriously. Though he was as British as could be, from his starched collar to his gleaming oxfords, he was pro-Asian and pro-African, a loud and fearless champion for both groups, where the previous governor had been malleable and cheerful and benign. Because things had swung in the white settlers’ favour for so long, they could only be enraged now and think of how to fight back, even if that involved force. Not surprisingly, D was the fiercest among them.

“I’m actually relieved I’ve been out of the country for most of this past year,” Berkeley explained. Then he told me how he’d been in London seeing a slew of doctors for his heart.

“Oh no. What did they say?”

“Nothing good, I’m afraid. The damned thing’s been troubling me for years.”

“What will you do now?”

“Live until it gives me away, of course. And drink only the best champagne. There’s not time for anything else.” His face was delicate and sensitive-looking, like a well-bred cat’s. He also had rich brown eyes that seemed to want to laugh at the idea of sadness or self-pity. He flicked away his cigarette and cleared his throat. “I’m throwing myself a birthday party next week,” he said. “One of the many ways I’m whistling past the graveyard these days. I’ll bet you’re a grand whistler, aren’t you? Please come.”

Berkeley had settled on the lower slopes of Mount Kenya in Naro Moru. He’d built a broad stone bungalow right up against the curves of the mountain, so it seemed to belong there and nowhere else. There were paddocks full of well-fed sheep and a winding river surrounded by thorn trees and twisting yellow witch hazel. Kenya’s crags loomed over everything, looking deeply black up close, full shouldered and imposing and also perfect, somehow, exactly what Berkeley should have looking after him, I thought.

D came along to the party as well. When we motored up, a drove of automobiles crisscrossed the lawn and drive. Berkeley was out on the veranda in a smart white tailcoat, humming snatches of a tune I didn’t recognize. His colour was high and he seemed to be in the peak of health, though I guessed that, like his lovely suit, it was put on. It probably mattered a great deal to him to appear to be the perfect host and dazzlingly well, too, no matter how things really were or felt beneath the surface.

“Your river is gorgeous.” I leaned through a cloud of clean-smelling hair tonic to kiss his cheek. “It was gleaming with fish when we crossed it.”

“Glad you’re keen on the trout. I couldn’t get a proper goose for dinner.” He winked. “Now come get some champagne before Denys swills it all.”

Denys.
Though I’d only met him briefly on the street in Nairobi, for some reason my heart jumped at the sound of his name. We crossed the veranda and entered the main room of the house, which was full of people and the sound of laughter. And there he was in a languid slouch against the wall, hands in the pockets of his nice white trousers. He was as tall as I remembered, and just as lovely to look at.

“Beryl Purves,” Berkeley said, “you’ve met the honourable Denys Finch Hatton.”

I felt my face go warm as I reached for his hand. “Long ago.”

“Of course.” He smiled, the lines around his eyes deepening. But his tone was so light, it wasn’t clear if he remembered me at all, even vaguely. “Nice to see you.”

“Denys has been at home, in London, for far too long,” Berkeley said.

“What will you do now that you’re back in Kenya?”

“That’s an excellent question. I might do some land developing. Tich Miles thinks we can form a legitimate company.” He smiled as if
legitimate
were a pleasant surprise in this context. “And I’ve been dying to do some hunting.”

“Why not?” D broke in. “The world is clamouring for more great white hunters.”

“You should know.” Denys laughed at him. “You invented the term.”

“Yes, well, I never guessed who’d come galumphing over to Kenya hungry for trophies. Two or three times a month some rich banker shoots himself in the leg or offers himself up to a lion. It’s absurd.”

“Maybe that sort deserves what they get,” I said. “If they don’t have the slightest idea what they’re up against, I mean, or even what it means to kill an animal…”

“You’re probably right,” Denys agreed. “I’ve only hunted for myself so far. I’m not sure I’d have the patience for clients.”

“What’s wrong with farming?” Berkeley wanted to know. “It’s a good deal safer without bloody hyenas or what have you trying to nibble off your face in the middle of the night.”

“Safer,” Denys repeated. He had the look of a schoolboy, suddenly, ready for a prank. “Explain the fun in
that.
”

Denys seemed a few years younger than Berkeley, somewhere near thirty-five, I guessed, and just as well born. In my experience, these sorts of men usually launched into Africa lured by virgin territory, big game, or a sense of adventure. They were the sons of British aristocrats who’d been sent to the very best schools and given every advantage and freedom. They came to Kenya and used their birthright fortunes to buy up thousands of acres. Some were serious at putting down roots and making a life here, like Berkeley, while others were playboys who had grown bored in Sussex or Shropshire and were looking for a bit of trouble. I didn’t know which Denys was, but I liked looking at him. He had a wonderful face, a little pink from the sun, with a sharp strong nose, full lips, and heavily lidded hazel eyes. There was an ease and a confidence in him, too, that seemed to pull the room towards him, as if he were its anchor or axis.

After I had walked away, sipping at my drink and listening to bits of gossip here and there, a clutch of pretty women appeared to swoop down on him, most of them polished to a sheen. They wore nice frocks and stockings and jewels, and had hair that behaved. I could see they were all drawn to him—but that wasn’t exactly surprising. I was too.

“You should have a look at my new horse,” Berkeley said, stepping up to me with a fresh cocktail. “I think he’s Derby material.”

“Wonderful,” I agreed automatically, and before I knew it, we’d collected Denys and headed to the stable, where half a dozen horses were turned out in their loose boxes. The one we’d come to see was Soldier, a big and rangy dark bay with a white moon for a blaze. He wasn’t as proud-looking or fiery as the thoroughbreds my father had always loved, but I found him handsome in a rough way and was instantly intrigued. “He’s a half-breed, then?” I asked Berkeley as the three of us approached the stall.

“Part Somali pony, I think. Not highborn, but you can see he’s got spirit.”

Opening the gate, I moved towards Soldier the way I’d learned as a child, gently but firmly. My father had passed his touch with animals on to me—or maybe I’d been born with it. Soldier felt my authority and didn’t shy or even step back as I passed my hands over his back and rump and hocks. He was sound and strong.

From his place at the gate, I felt Denys watching me. The skin along the back of my neck prickled from the attention, but I didn’t look up.

“What do you think?” Berkeley asked.

“He’s got something,” I had to concede.

“What’s he worth to you?”

As broke as I was, I knew I shouldn’t even pretend to bargain, but it was in my blood. “Fifty quid?”

“I spent more than that on the champagne you’ve been drinking!” Though he and Denys both laughed, I could tell Berkeley loved to haggle, too. “You should see him run. Let me get one of the grooms to take him out for you.”