A Spear of Summer Grass

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  “How?”

  “It isn’t the pleasure you’re after. It’s the oblivion.”

  She was right. She did understand me better. It was indeed the oblivion that I craved, that moment of swimming in the sea that is the wide-open pupil of God’s eye, where nothing exists but nothingness.

  She went on. “I cleaned myself up and left him and I knew that would be the last time I ever did that. I thought I wanted it, that loss of control, that complete euphoria. But I was wrong. The feeling of things building up was quite pleasant. I shouldn’t have minded if that were all. But then it kept going, it kept pushing and urging, and it took on a life of its own. It frightened me, that feeling. I would have done anything it demanded. I would have killed in that moment, I think. I would have thrown myself into a fire or drowned myself to finish it. I would have clawed the flesh off my own bones to be rid of it, to have that moment of completion. It was frightful. Honestly, Delilah, I don’t know how you do it.”

  She lit a cigarette then with a deft gesture.

  “You’re taking on all my bad habits.”

  “Just this one. But you can have men, at least the ones that want something back. I haven’t the stomach for it.”

  She blew out a ragged little smoke ring that dissolved into the air. “Remind me to teach you how to do that properly.”

  She smiled then and it was through her tears. She stubbed out the cigarette. “I’m marrying Lawrence this week. Then we’re leaving for Uganda. The inspector isn’t happy, but he has no grounds to ask us to stay. I won’t be here to see this finished.”

  “I understand, Dodo. You’ve served your time. Godspeed.”

  She rose and brushed the ash off her skirts. “I always knew it would end in tears between us.”

  “I’m not crying.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  And so Dora left me. She had been my cousin, my companion, my chaperone, and I had become accustomed to her. Perhaps too much so. She had been my shadow, but shadows are insubstantial things, without depth or illumination, and Dora deserved better. I hoped she would be happy with Lawrence. Hoped it, but doubted it just the same. I heard through others that Evelyn was none too happy about Lawrence marrying and was devastated to leave her school. But Evelyn, like so many poor relations—like Dora, in fact—was at the mercy of her betters. She packed her bags and tagged along, the eternal third wheel. I hoped Kit had bedded her, too. God knew she’d have little enough to look back on with fondness at the end of her life if she kept on the way she was going.

  I wrote letters to Dora and to Mossy and dozens of others, but there seemed little point in sending them. I tore them up instead and started a diary of sorts, writing down everything that had happened since that grey day in Paris when they had persuaded me to come to Africa. I didn’t blame them. I was a problem to be solved, and Africa seemed as good a solution as any. I had been swept under the carpet, tidied up like any other unpleasantness. And then I had to ruin it all by getting involved with a man who went and got himself murdered. The irony almost choked me.

  So I read books I couldn’t remember and wrote letters I didn’t send, and taught the guards how to play poker. My grandfather had learned in the Civil War and taught it to me. We’d always played for cash, and he never cared if he cleaned me out of every penny of my pocket money.

  Apparently, the press had gotten hold of the story in all its lurid detail and I had admirers. They flooded the place with gifts, including jewellery and liquor and proposals of marriage. They sent me Swiss linen handkerchiefs and Belgian lace collars, leather-bound books and boxes of marzipan fruits. I gave it all away. The other inmates had never owned such luxuries, and God knew I had little enough use for them.

  But the result of my largesse was that I learned things. They paid me back in the only currency at their disposal—information. Every one of those girls knew someone or was related to someone who worked in a white household. I discovered the cannabis Gates had been growing at Fairlight had been a highly profitable operation for him and that he had sold to white settlers. I learned that Bianca’s cocaine was smuggled into the country in boxes of Spanish talcum that went straight to Government House in diplomatic pouches. And I learned that some of the white settlers were stockpiling weapons. Opinion was running hot against the powers in London that had squashed the idea of independence for Kenya. Many believed an armed rebellion was only a matter of time, and that certainty had caused most of them to secure caches of arms, ammunition and food to withstand the siege.

  I learned, too, about the smaller dramas that had been playing out around me. I learned that people with daughters under seventeen gave Bunny Stevenson a wide berth, that Anthony Wickenden had moved off the ranch to live with a Masai woman who had given him the clap, and that Gervase had invested all of his money in a herd of Highland sheep that had fallen down dead in the heat. I also found out that the gallery owner in Nairobi had announced a posthumous showing of Kit’s work once my trial was over.

  “Bastard thinks I’m guilty,” I muttered. I slipped the girl who told me that a box of violet creams from Charbonnel et Walker. I was still pondering the implications of an armed revolt when they removed me from my cell to meet with Quentin.

  “You look like hell.” It wasn’t the nicest thing to have blurted out upon seeing him but it was true. His trousers were soaked to the knee and his hair was gleaming with raindrops.

  He smiled ruefully. “Who knew it rained in Africa? And I wish I could say the same of you, my darling girl. You ought to at least have lost a little of your sleekness in prison.”

  I patted my hair. “A girl has to have standards.” His smile faltered a little and I put up a hand. “Don’t. Anything but pity, Quentin. You know I can’t bear that.”

  He reached into his pocket. “I’ve brought a letter from your mother.”

  He held it out, but I hesitated. “I’m surprised the paper isn’t smouldering.”

  Quentin smiled in spite of himself. “You might be surprised. You always did say Mossy came through best in a crisis.”

  If she’d written to tell me off it would have been easier. But I suddenly couldn’t bear the thought that she might understand, might be on my side. I put the letter away to read when I was alone and looked up at Quentin. He sighed.

  “Jesus, Delilah,” he said, subsiding heavily into a chair. “How did it come to this?”

  “How does it ever? Wrong place, wrong man.”

  “You have a knack for that,” he acknowledged. He leaned forward, and I could smell the familiar scent of his body, his cologne, the hair oil he used. “I have to ask. Did you do it?”

  “I thought lawyers never wanted to know the truth.”

  “I am a solicitor.”

  I shrugged. “I never knew the difference.”

  “The difference is that I intend to make sure you get out. Now, tell me the truth.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and looked him squarely in the eye. “No. I did not shoot Kit Parrymore. Happy?”

  “Not entirely. You could be lying.”

  “To you, darling? Never.” I bared my teeth in a smile.

  “Delilah, you do understand this is serious? Murder is a hanging offense.”

  I gave him the same response I’d given Dora. “Only if you’re convicted.”

  “Dammit, Delilah!” He thrust both hands into his hair, disrupting his careful combing.

  “I’m sorry, Quentin. Yes, I understand this is serious, but I didn’t do anything except lie to the police, and they deserved it.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. What did you lie about and why?”

  “I may have indicated that I killed Kit.”

  He blanched. “You confessed? To murder?”

  “Well, yes. It put them in a rather difficult situation, you see, because I wouldn’t make
any further statements without my attorney. Now, they could have found one for me here in Nairobi, but all I had to do was wave my American passport and invoke the name of my senator uncle and they were happy to wait for you to arrive to question me further.”

  “You mean you haven’t been charged?”

  “No.”

  “Good God. And they’ve kept you in prison the entire time?”

  “I think they said I was ‘helping police with their inquiries.’ Makes me sound quite eager, doesn’t it?” He rubbed his face, and there were shadows under his eyes and around his mouth. “Poor Quentin. How long is it since you slept?”

  “Days. I can’t remember. I think I may have dozed on that god-awful train from Mombasa, but some fellow kept telling the most frightful stories of lions eating the railway workers.”

  “The lions of Tsavo. You ought to have listened. It’s a fascinating tale.” I thought back to the day I had tortured Dora with it. It seemed a lifetime ago.

  “Be that as it may, I would rather keep to the matter at hand. The police inspector will be wanting a formal statement from you, and I would advise you to answer as fully as you can without revealing anything that might be prejudicial to your case.”

  “I don’t even know what that means. Why don’t I just tell the truth and we’ll see where we are when we’re finished?”

  “It might be at the end of a hangman’s noose,” he replied brutally. “If you don’t know if you ought to answer something or not, look at me. I will guide you.”

  “Fine.”

  “Are you ready?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  * * *

  It lasted seven hours with short breaks for lunch and tea. By the time we were done, the inspector lectured me thoroughly on the venality of making false statements and Quentin lectured him thoroughly about due process. It was a very thorough experience for everyone, and when it was finished, I was free to go. Inspector Gilchrist had arranged for me to leave from the back of the prison and he personally escorted us to the door. He opened it and I saw that the rains were still coming down in a soft grey curtain. Gilchrist turned to Quentin.

  “Mr. Harkness, perhaps you will be good enough to make certain the car has arrived. I wouldn’t like Miss Drummond to stand around outside and attract the attention of the press. No need to give the reporters anything else to write about,” Gilchrist said, his lips twitching like a rabbit’s. Quentin hurried out the back door leaving us alone for just a moment.

  “Thank you,” I said, tipping my head and smiling sweetly.

  “Don’t bother,” he growled. “I ought to charge you with making false statements and hindering my investigation. You’ve cost me nearly three weeks.”

  “No, I didn’t. I’ve had time to work it out, Inspector. You knew the first day you had me here that I didn’t do it. And you knew Gideon didn’t do it either. You wanted me in custody because as long as I was being held somewhere, you could claim to be doing your best to bring Kit’s murderer to justice and you could keep Government House happy. And all the while, you gave an innocent man a chance to get to freedom.”

  His jaw hardened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do.” The inspector wasn’t tall. I didn’t have to stand on tiptoe to kiss him. I pressed my lips to his and moved back just as he lifted his arms. “Thank you.”

  He reached into his pocket. “I believe this belongs to you.”

  He held out a Masai bracelet, blue and white, with a thin line of distinct green beads. I would still look in my jewel box when I went back to Fairlight, but it would be a formality. This was the one Moses had given me, the bracelet that had led Gilchrist to Gideon in the first place. The slight kink where I had stepped on it getting out of Ryder’s truck was unmistakable.

  I hesitated. “What makes you think that is mine?”

  “Routine investigation. It does uncover most things eventually. You know, we’d have saved a great deal of time and trouble if you had just admitted that you lost it at Parrymore’s during one of your trysts.” But the inspector was wrong. I hadn’t seen it since the night I had been with Ryder, the night I had tucked it into my jewel box for safekeeping. Gilchrist wasn’t the only one to get it wrong, I realised as I took it from him. Gideon must have thought I had dropped it, too. He would have known it wasn’t his, but he would not put me in danger by telling anyone it was mine. He had protected me with his silence.

  I slipped it into my pocket and assumed a nonchalant smile.

  “I wasn’t sure you had mine. For all I knew it might have been safely back at Fairlight sitting in my jewel box. Besides, I thought it might be more fun to spring it on you in court if you ever managed to get your hands on Gideon.”

  His expression was earnest. “He can’t come back, you know. I’ve spent the past weeks persuading Government House that he’s out of reach. If they so much as catch a rumour that he’s back, they’ll force me to take him in. I won’t have a choice, and he will hang.”

  “I understand. Tell me one thing. How did you know he was innocent?”

  “Because I know who did it. And that’s all you will get from me.”

  He was as good as his word. He refused to tell me anything else, and when he handed me over to Quentin, he seemed happy to be rid of me. But I looked back once and I saw him standing alone, his eyes closed, his face pale, his hands clenched at his sides.

  “That man looks anguished,” Quentin said, smiling slightly. “You must have been hard on him.”

  “You have no idea.”

  23

  Quentin and I retired to the Norfolk where he had checked us in under assumed names. Bathing arrangements had been almost nonexistent at the prison. It was heaven to scrub myself completely clean and I spent two hours in the bathtub, filling it over and over again until my skin was wrinkled as a raisin’s and I smelled like lilies. Quentin was waiting in my room when I emerged.

  “Feeling better?”

  “Immensely. Is that dinner?”

  “It is. I’ve ordered your favourites and three bottles of champagne.”

  “That’s a start,” I told him.

  It was hours before we finished and when we did the table was littered with soiled dishes and ashes and the dregs of our champagne. We put out our cigarettes in the butter and danced in our bare feet until the manager came to complain. I poured him a glass of champagne and sent him off with a smile. Cables arrived and flowers, too, enormous bunches of them that filled the room with a thick perfume.

  “It appears my incognita has been violated. And it smells like a funeral home in here,” I told Quentin, peering at him through the bottom of a champagne bottle.

  “Better than a wedding chapel,” he retorted.

  I laughed aloud. “Poor Quentin. Marriage hasn’t treated you very kindly.”

  “Cornelia’s pregnant. Again.”

  I waved my cigarette. “I should have a talk with that girl. Introduce her to the diaphragm.”

  “I wish you would,” he said.

  “Oh, God, Quentin. Don’t be morose. You’ve money enough to take care of your brood, and I rather doubt you are even that bothered with them.”

  “I don’t mind about me. I mind because of what it does to Cornelia. She changed when we had the twins. No conversation but nappies, no interests but gripe water and teething biscuits. It’s only going to get worse with another baby. I married a lovely girl and ended up with my own grandmother.” He nodded to me. “That’s not the smallest of your attractions, you know. You talk about things. You go places. And you’re always lovely and slim and firm.”

  “Careful, old boy. You’re leering now.”

  “Your robe has come open,” he informed me.

  “So it has.” I didn’t bother to adjust it. Quentin had s
een it all before. He leaned close.

  “What about it, my beauty? A bit of something warm to remember you by before I go back to cold Cornelia?”

  I removed his hands from my body and placed them gently in his own lap. “This is all the something warm you’ll be getting tonight. I’m very grateful to you, Quentin. But if you want payment for services rendered, you’ll have to send me a bill.”

  His expression was one of frank astonishment. Then he laughed, a great hearty belly laugh that ended with him wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “My God. It’s finally happened. You’ve fallen in love, haven’t you?”

  “No. I wouldn’t know how. But I do know that my life is quite complicated enough just now without throwing yet another man into the mix.”

  He blinked. “Just how many men are we talking about?”

  “Does it really matter? You know I’ve always been good at juggling.”

  “I don’t know,” he said coolly. “Sounds to me as if you’re losing your touch.”

  He rose and I handed him his shoes. “Don’t be sore, Quentin. I have to figure some things out and I can only do that with a clear head. If I sleep with you now, I’ll only confuse myself more. You always were so good at making me forget everyone else.”

  That little piece of flattery did the trick. He gave me a contrite look and dropped a kiss to my cheek. “Darling Delilah. I was being a brute. Forgive me. I hope you manage to get it all sorted.”

  “So do I. Will you come to Fairlight?”

  “Can’t, I’m afraid. I have to hurry back to England. I left things rather in a muddle when I dashed off to take care of you.”

  I put my hand to his cheek. “Dearest Quentin. How good you are to me.”

  “But not quite good enough,” he said ruefully. He kissed me again and then he was gone.

  That night, alone in my bed, I finally opened Mossy’s letter. I read it over quickly, then twice more, savouring each word. She had a child’s handwriting, loose and loopy, filling the pages with a hasty scribble of violet ink. She wrote that Granny Miette was holding a conjuring and had assured her I would be protected. Mossy related this in stilted words, and I could just picture the tight expression on her face. She claimed not to approve of such goings-on, saying they were backward and silly, but I had known her to ask for a bottle of Follow Me Water when she wanted to turn a man’s head or a pinch of goofer dust to sprinkle in the footsteps of a rival. She went on to say that Granny had made a special trip into New Orleans to light a candle to Our Lady of Prompt Succour. I smiled when I read that and crossed myself quickly. “God bless you, Granny,” I murmured. The Colonel hadn’t taken matters quite so well. He’d cut me off for good, Mossy said. No more tidy allowances coming from the profits of the sugar plantation, and if I ever wanted to come back to Reveille to see Granny, I’d have to do it when he was elsewhere. I muttered a swearword or two as I turned the page. The rest of the letter was just random news of people we knew—who got married, who was getting divorced and who was the cause of it. It was Mossy’s way of telling me that life went on and that this, too, would pass. She carried on in that vein until the last page.