Circling the Sun (16 page)

“Don’t bother,” I told him. “I’ll ride him myself.”

It didn’t take me five minutes to borrow trousers and change. When I came out of the house, a number of people had gathered on the lawn, and though Berkeley laughed to see me in his clothes, I knew they fitted me well and that I didn’t have to feel embarrassed about riding in front of this well-born crowd. Being on horseback was as natural as walking for me—perhaps more so.

I nudged Soldier away from the onlookers, and soon forgot everything else. Behind Berkeley’s paddock, a dirt lane led past a few tin-roofed farm buildings and down a slope to a small clearing with bits of scrub. I rode over and eased Soldier into an extended trot. His back was wide and his sides were as rounded and easy as a comfortable chintz-covered chair. It wasn’t clear that he could really run, but Berkeley had insisted on it, so I nudged him faster. Instantly, his hind and forelegs quickened. In a canter, his stride was fluid and powerful, and his neck relaxed. I’d forgotten how much fun it could be to ride a new animal—to feel power climbing up into my hands from the leather reins and into my legs through Soldier’s body. I urged him even faster and he stretched from his centre, his muscles in balance, beginning to fly.

Then, quick as a string breaking, he froze. Midstride, his forelegs plunged down stiffly, and I swung forward over his withers like a cracked whip. Before I could recover, he reared and twisted sideways, whinnying with a sharp cry. I was in the air. Thrown hard on my side, my teeth jarred against my tongue. I tasted blood as my hip exploded with pain. Beside me, Soldier squealed and reared again. I flinched, knowing he could crush me, but a moment later, he bolted cleanly away. Only then did I see the snake.

About fifteen feet from where I lay, it was coiled over itself like fat black ribbon, and it was locked on me. When I startled, the top part of its long body shot up elastically, with dizzying speed. Its pale-striped neck widened into a kind of cape. It was a cobra, I knew. We didn’t have them in Njoro, and I had never seen this type exactly, with zebra-like colouring and an arrow-shaped head, but my father had told me many types of cobra could stretch their body length in a single strike. Some could spit venom, too, but most snakes didn’t want a confrontation.

A twisted piece of mahogany lay only a few inches from my hand. I would try to reach for it and brandish the stick out in front of me to block a strike, if one came. I readied myself, watching the movement of its head. The hard, glassy eyes were like small black beads. Hovering, the snake trained on me, too, its pale tongue darting and tasting the air. I steadied my breathing and, as slowly as I could manage, sent my hand out towards the stick.

“Don’t move,” I heard suddenly from behind me. There’d been no footsteps, at least not that I could hear, but the cobra reared up even higher. Half its body flared from the ground, its belly glazed with yellowish slashes. Its hood breathed open. This was the only warning as it whipped forward. I pinched my eyes shut, my arms flying over my head as I scrabbled backwards. At the same moment, a shot rang out. The charge hit so close I felt it vibrate through my skull. My ears rang. Even before the explosive sound had cleared the air, Denys strode forward and shot again. Both shots landed, the second one catching the snake in the neck so that it jumped sideways. Bits of flesh spat into the dust with bright splashes of its blood. When it was still, he turned to me coolly. “Are you all right?”

“I think so.” When I stood, pain erupted through my side and along my hip. My knee was throbbing and didn’t want to take my weight.

“That type doesn’t shrink from trouble, you know. It’s good you didn’t do anything stupid.”

“How did you even find me?”

“I saw the horse come back alone and thought, ‘I’ll bet she doesn’t fall for no reason.’ After that, I just followed the dust.”

He was so calm, so matter-of-fact. “You sound as if you do this sort of thing every day.”

“Not every day.” He smiled crookedly. “Shall we go back?”

Though I probably could have managed on my own, Denys told me I should lean on him. Against the side of his body, I smelled his warm cotton shirt and his skin—and felt how solid and sound he was. And he’d been so clearheaded when he took aim. He hadn’t thought about anything else, only acted. It wasn’t often I’d seen that level of self-possession in a man.

We came to the house all too soon. Berkeley rushed out, mortified and alarmed, while D knitted his eyebrows together paternally. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, risking my best trainer?” he shot at Berkeley.

“I’m fine,” I told them both. “There was hardly anything to it at all.”

Denys downplayed the moment, too—almost as if we had agreed on it without speaking. He said nothing of his own bravery and behaved as if the whole ordeal were commonplace. That impressed me, and how for the rest of that day we didn’t mention what had happened again. But the memory lent a palpable charge to the hours, as if there were an invisible length of string or wire between us. We talked of other things, how much he still thought about his years at Eton, how he’d found Kenya by chance in 1910, meaning to settle in South Africa instead.

“What was it that drew you?” I asked him.

“About Kenya? Nearly everything. I think I’d always been looking for an escape route.”

“Escape from what?”

“I don’t know. Any tight-fitting definition of what a life should be, I suppose. Or what I should be in it.”

I smiled. “
Should
isn’t a word that suits you, is it?”

“Worked that one out already, did you?”

“It’s never been one of my favourite words either.” Our eyes met for a moment, and I felt a spark of perfect understanding. Then Berkeley sailed up, and the two friends started talking about the war. How they’d enlisted in a scouting party near the border of German East Africa and Kilimanjaro.

“We weren’t very glorious, I’m afraid,” Denys said, sketching it in for me. “Most of our casualties came from tsetse fly and bush-rat stew.”

It was almost a kind of dance, how funny and clever these two were together—lighter than air. Before long we were all a little drunk from the champagne we’d been swilling, and it had got quite late. “Let’s take a few bottles over to Mbogani,” Denys said suddenly to Berkeley. “The baroness is on her own tonight.”

Baroness?
The word jangled. Cockie Birkbeck had used it in the Norfolk the day she’d told me about Blix’s situation and his wife.

“I can’t leave my own party,” Berkeley said. “It’s too late anyway, and you’re in no state to drive.”

“I
have
a mother, thank you very much.” Denys turned his back on Berkeley and fixed on me. “Want to go for a ride into the country, Beryl?”

Berkeley shook his head, warning me off. I stood there for a moment, wondering how serious Denys was, and whether they were in fact speaking of Blix’s wife. But before I could begin to sort it out or say a word, Denys strode over to the bar, wrestled three bottles of champagne into his arms, and was on his way out of the door. Berkeley laughed. I was dumbstruck.

“Good night,” Denys sang back over his shoulder before passing out of sight.

“Shall we have one more nip and turn in?” Berkeley asked.

I still hadn’t caught up. “What just happened?”

“Merely Denys being Denys,” he said mysteriously, and reached for my hand.

D
and I stayed over at Berkeley’s that night—camping out on thick rafts of Somali-made quilts with a handful of other tipsy guests. Every time I rolled over, I felt the sore place on my hip, and Denys’s image flickered up like a new ghost. But when it was time to leave the next day, he still hadn’t returned. Somehow that made me even more curious about him. The moment with the cobra might have worked to cement us in a strange way, or maybe Denys was just nicer to look at and more confident than almost any man I’d ever met. Either way, I was already thinking of how good it would be to see him again.

“You’ll let Denys know I said goodbye?” I asked Berkeley as D went off to fetch the wagon for us.

“Hmm?” He gave me a curious look. “Please tell me you haven’t fallen for Finch Hatton, too, darling.”

“Don’t be silly.” I felt myself flush. “I like him, that’s all.”

“Is that so?” He stroked his moustache. “I’ve never known a woman who could resist him. They fall for him by the dozens, but he never seems to fall for anyone.”

“No one?”

He shrugged. “Desperately sorry about the business with the horse, by the way. You won’t hold it against me, I hope.”

“Of course not. I’d buy him if I could, but Jock holds the purse strings and I’m trying to be done with all that. With marriage, I mean. I haven’t quite known how to talk about it.”

“I’ve been wondering what’s going on between the two of you, what with your working for D and all.” His voice was kind, not judgemental, as I had feared.

“It’s not so common for women in the colony to stray far from their duties, I suppose.”

He shook his head. “Send word if you need anything. Or whistle,” he added, smiling.

“I will,” I assured him. And then D roared up with the wagon, and we were away.

Ringleader’s training was coming along bit by bit. He had the right breeding to win and the right nerves, too. If only his legs would heal properly. I continued to exercise him along the mud-soft shoreline of Elmenteita, liking the time to myself as well. Even with the flamingos it was far less chaotic there than at the ranch. I always felt myself grow calmer as I connected to Ringleader’s movements, his stride, and also to the rich landscape around us. The lake formed a shallow basin that opened up to green savannah in every direction. Low and knobby hill formations sprang up here and there, and the swooping lines of the mountain called the Sleeping Warrior. Its reflection was often painted perfectly on the flat surface of the lake and studded with flamingos at rest like a fan of bright jewels. It was beautiful country, and though none of it moved me as much as Njoro did, Soysambu was beginning to grow on me, and even to feel like a place where I could happily stay.

One day after I had run Ringleader to the edge of his gallop, encouraged by his growing strength and confidence, I saw a car coming overland from a few miles away, pointing as straight at Soysambu as the crow flies. I didn’t know who might be bold enough to leave the main road. It had rained on and off for several days, and the tyres were kicking up pellets of mud, sending a large group of eland zigzagging off over the bush. When the vehicle drew nearer, I recognized Denys.

His machine was built like a rhinoceros, with heavy mud-painted tyres. I tethered Ringleader so he wouldn’t startle and went on foot to meet him as he came round the lake. The ground around the shore had gone boggy, and as his car idled, the tyres sank slowly into the muck. Denys didn’t seem remotely concerned.

“The road not fine enough for you today?” I asked him.

“You never know who you’ll run into this way.” He cut the motor and pushed off his hat, squinting up at me. “I saw you flying along the shore when I came up over the rise. I didn’t know it was you, but it was beautiful to watch. Thrilling, actually.”

“My horse is really starting to come along. I felt something new in him today. Maybe that’s what you saw.” Free of his helmet, Denys’s sparse brown curls were matted with sweat. Small flecks of mud had spattered along his forehead and cheekbones, and I felt an inexplicable urge to brush them off with my fingertips. Instead, I asked him where he was going.

“D’s sounded the alarm for one of his meetings. Apparently Coryndon has done something unforgiveable, as the committee sees it. D’s all set to tie him up and throw him in a cupboard.”

“Kidnapping the governor is at least as reasonable as all of D’s other ideas.”

“I try to stay out of it mostly. But today was such a nice day for a drive.”

“Mud and all?”

“The mud especially.” His hazel eyes sparked, catching the light for a moment before he resettled his hat, preparing to leave.

“Perhaps I’ll see you in town some time,” I told him.

“I’m not often there any more. I’ve recently moved out to Ngong, to stay with my good friend Karen Blixen.”

Surely he meant Blix’s wife, the mysterious baroness. “Is that right?”

“She’s wonderful. Danish. Runs a coffee farm all on her own while Blix is off stalking his rhino. I don’t know how she pulls it off, but she does.” His voice chimed with obvious admiration. “I imagine you’ve met Blix. There aren’t many pretty women who escape him.”

“Yes.” I smiled. “That was my take on him, too.” It was hard to know what Denys was actually saying about the baroness. Was he living with her, as if they were husband and wife? Or were they merely close companions, as he and Berkeley were? There was no way to ask directly, of course.

“The farm is so much nicer than town,” he went on, “and the air is champagne. It’s the altitude, I think.”

“Sounds like something Berkeley would say,” I remarked.

“I suppose it does.” He smiled again. “Come and visit us some time. We love to have company…and Karen has a small house sitting empty on her property just now. You could stay as long as you like. Come with a story, though,” he said, cranking the engine. “It’s one of our requirements.”

“A story? I’ll have to drum one up then.”

“Do that,” he said before he roared away.