by Carl Hancock
Girl with the Golden Voice
Book One of the African Trilogy
Carl Hancock
Carl Hancock was born in Aberdare, then a mining valley town in South Wales. After seven years in the local grammar school, he moved on to university where he studied for degrees in classics and in English and became a teacher.
His career took him to secondary schools in Britain, Cyprus and Malta. Latterly, he enjoyed six years in Pembroke House, a preparatory school up-country in the Kenya part of the Great Rift Valley, sometimes known as the White Highlands.
He has two grown-up children and currently lives on a small farm in the Adelaide Hills.
Published in Australia by Sid Harta Publishers Pty Ltd,
ABN: 46 119 415 842
23 Stirling Crescent, Glen Waverley, Victoria
3150 Australia
Telephone: +61 3 9560 9920, Facsimile: +61 3 9545 1742
E-mail: [email protected]
First published in Australia July 2011
This edition published July 2011
Copyright © Carl Hancock 2011
Cover design, typesetting: Chameleon Print Design
The right of Carl Hancock to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to that of people living or dead are purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Hancock, Carl
Girl With The Golden Voice — African Trilogy Book One
ISBN: 978-1-921829-30-7
Digital edition published by
Port Campbell Press
www.portcampbellpress.com.au
ISBN: 9781742980935 (ePub)
Conversion by Winking Billy
Glossary
Swahili English
asante thank you
askari
guard
ayah
nanny
bhang
local drug
bwana
master, boss
dawa medicine
duka
shop
fundi expert
Hakuna matata
no worries
jambo!
hello!
jua kali
improvised
kali
nasty
karibu
welcome
kikoi
long, wide strip of colourful cloth
used as a wraparound
kwaheri
goodbye
manyatta
enclosure for cattle etc.
matumba
market
mzee
old man
toto child
wananchi
ordinary people
Fedha! Sasa!
Money! Quick!
To those special young people who, for a time, shared their schooldays with me in Pembroke House, the little school set in its own piece of paradise high in the Kenya hills.
Chapter One
ondiani. On warm summer evenings, Luka and Erik liked to rest on a bench outside the sitting room window. The bank of greenery behind them made sure that they were invisible to those inside. Toward the end of that December day, there was such a stillness in the air that they could hear, undetected, all the talk of the boss family and their guests.
The Europeans always planted profusely around their Kenya homes so there were many fragrances to enjoy. Truly, being an askari on the McCall farm was no hard job. In the warmth of the evening the grey overcoats and woolly hats were no burden to these two lean-bodied brothers. They were Naivasha men born and bred. They knew all about the cool breezes that would come to them off the lake in the last hours of darkness.
The McCalls had only one guest for supper on that Friday evening and the family hardly thought of Bertie Briggs as a guest. He was over from his place next door almost every evening, had been for the past two years, since the day Anna had left him and broken his heart.
Bertie had long acknowledged that there was no perma nent cure for his pain. Thank God for the McCalls and the consolations of the bottle. And little Ewan was growing into the beginnings of boyhood and reminding him more and more of Anna.
‘Bloody Africans!’ How many times had Luka and Erik heard these words from the mouth of Bwana Briggs! The brothers struggled to keep back their laughter. This bwana was a good man. Everyone around the lake knew that. He treated his families well, spent a lot of money on them. Thank God, there were not many left of the old-time bwanas, bosses who wanted to go back to the far-off days before Uhuru, before the murdering times of Mau Mau.
Bertie remembered those before times, but only just. He and Alex McCall had been like blood brothers back then. They shared their schooldays, boarders up in Pembroke House in Gilgil. It was at the time when the pangas were at work, slashing throats in the Kikuyu forests. Old Christopher Hazard had kept his boys’ minds off the troubles, planning and building the Christina Chapel.
All their lives, their homes had never been more than a mile apart. So, for the umpteenth time, they had eaten at the same table, that night vegetables from the garden and talapia caught that morning in the waters of Lake Victoria. After half a bottle of Australian chardonnay, Bertie was on good form.
Strangers were struck by what they saw as his deeply pessimistic outlook on life, black clouds everywhere. The McCalls knew better. Bertie was fired and driven by a passionate love for his homeland. He resented the view that he, of white European stock, could never be considered to be a proper Kenyan. Street boys in Nairobi, not knowing him from a tourist, lost the chance of a twenty shilling handout by calling out, ‘Hey, mzungo, my friend, give me monay!’
Mzungo, stranger, how could they know? Next to his family, his proudest achievement was his part in the book on the wild flowers of East Africa, his words and Maura McCall’s handpainted illustrations. And, to go with the obligatory Swahili, he could speak half a dozen tribal dialects. He had strong feelings about the tribes themselves. It annoyed him that the Maasai were singled out by foreigners as being special.
‘Bloody warriors! Tourist warriors, all spears and red shawls! A bunch of devious, cowardly crooks. Shake a stick at them and they’ll take off for the hills! Won’t stop till they’re on the other side of Eburu!’
His favourites were the Somalis of the north-eastern arid lands. ‘Brains. Brightest people on the continent. One Somali’s worth twenty Maasai. Good-looking women, too.’
He sipped his drink and went on. ‘Tell the truth, most of these natives are bloody useless, always on the make, palms out. Don’t trust ‘em if you know what’s good for you!’
Bertie cleared his throat. Maura looked across at Alex and smiled. They knew what was coming.
‘It’s just like old Ray says. If you see a Kikuyu sitting on a rock deep in thought, watch out! He’s working on how he can do some poor bloody mzungo!’
Luka and Erik bit hard on their fists, fighting back the knots of laughter. They had heard this one so many times.
‘Bullshit, Bertie!’ Tom, the eldest of the three McCall boys, was in a good humour himself and in the mood for a skirmish.
Rafaella was in with a quick reprimand for her grandson. ‘That’s a disgusting word, Thomas. And we haven’t finished our coffee yet.’
‘Sorry, Rafaella,’ said a chasten
ed Bertie.
‘But …’
‘It’s my fault, Tom. I get carried away sometimes.’
‘All right, Bertie, but the fact is that you love these people more than anyone I know.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘Look what you spend on them!’
‘Doesn’t stop me getting angry with them. Ruining this country. Having the cheek to call it their country in the first place. Breeding like rabbits. No proper education. No proper hospitals. Chopping down the forests. Sell their grandmother for a shilling.’
In the ensuing silence, Alex rose to go to the drinks cabinet. There was still a slight limp in his walk, a legacy of the kick from his beloved Banjo one Christmas morning when he was a boy. On his way, he put his hand on Tom’s head and pressed gently, a gesture he had not made since Tom’s own Pembroke days.
Tom began again, quietly. ‘You sound like a politician.’
‘For God’s sake. Oh, sorry, Raf. Blasphemy and all that. But, Tom, don’t tar me with that brush. You know how frustrating it is to watch your country go down the drain, not being able to do a damn thing about it.’
‘Bertie Briggs neo-colonialist.’
‘Yeah, and for colonialist, read racist, I suppose. You know as well as I do that there’s no one more racist that an African on his way up.’
Alex turned back from the heavy mahogany table that served as the family bar. ‘Time for a change of tipple, I think. Ladies, what can I get you? And don’t worry, Bertie. There’s that Chivas Regal we’ve got to finish. Two big slugs each, I’d guess. Tom, you can get your own Tusker from the fridge. Time you trained that dog.’
Bertie smiled, shamefaced. ‘ Great, Alex! You always know how to find the kindest way of shutting me up.’
Maura flashed the vivacious Scottish smile that drew Alex to her on their first day of their course at Wye College. She had been afraid that Bertie was about to enter another bad patch. He had been clear of them for weeks, but the time of year was coming around again. She would have to keep an eye on him. On Rafaella too. It was nearly two years for both of them.
Drinks replenished, Alex sat back into his armchair. In the ensuing silence, there was a lot of gazing into the mound of embers still glowing in the stone fireplace. Even on warm evenings they had a fire when Bertie was over. He loved it for the focus it brought him.
‘Are you people getting fed up with me? I seem to be over here half my life. And the fire, I know you light it for me.’
‘Listen to me, Mr Bertie Briggs. You stop coming here and I’ll get Alex to sell up and buy that coffee plantation in Thika. You’re too precious to us, you and Ewan, as you well know. Being a weak woman I can say things like that without risking you throwing things at me. So there! That’s settled!’
None of the other four was ready to respond to the unexpected rise in the temperature of tenderness in the room.
Tom pulled at the folds of flesh on the rump of Prince, the indoor dog. The old black ridgeback slapped his tail on the floor in appreciation.
Angela put her face around the door from the kitchen. ‘Madam, we are finished. Everything has been put away.’
Maura surprised Alex by hurrying across the room to grasp her maid’s hands.
‘Asante, Angela. See you in the morning. Remember, Miss Lucy comes tomorrow. It’s her first time. We’ll make it special for her.’
‘Yes, it will be good.’
Angela smiled and nodded to the company in farewell.
‘Kwaheri.’ She was halfway to the back door when the last of the goodbyes reached her ears.
Mention of Lucy jogged Rafaella’s memory. ‘Bertie, I need a lift into Nakuru in the morning. I’ve got Christmas presents to pick up at Kapi’s. Tom’s off to Wilson to pick up the English woman.’
‘Wooman!’ Tom mimicked his grandmother’s long ‘o’. ‘And what’s this “pick up”? You’re sounding more like a Kikuyu every day. But just hang on until after lunch and I’ll take you. Give you an Engleesh lesson on the way.’
‘I like my accent just like it is. You’re very lucky to have an Italian grandmother.’
Bertie was insistent. ‘I’ll take you. Just name a time. Shall we go on the Harley or the boring way?’
‘Boring will do fine. I don’t want to bring back the presents in pieces.’
‘Half nine do? We could have lunch at the club.’ His mind shifted back to Tom and his morning journey. ‘Mmn, I’d forgotten. It’ll be good to have a new, white female around. Watch out, Tom, the cowboys will soon get wind of her.’ Bertie chuckled in that gravelly way of his. He rose from his armchair to put on another log. Everything about him was neat and precise. He was slim and his black hair was brushed back and cropped severely. Every night he turned out for supper dressed for a night out in a London club. He took time to select his log and placed it just so, for a long slow burn. He turned and smiled at Tom. Rafaella noticed for the umpteenth time that the sadness never completely left those friendly blue eyes.
‘Bertie, you make Lucy sound like a warthog. And why do you people keep on implying there’s something between us? Look, we were on the same courses at Reading. I haven’t seen her for going on three years. She’s gone a bit nuts on anthropology lately and remembered her little Kenyan pal. That’s all there is to it.’
‘How old were you, Alex’?
‘What do you mean?’
‘When you and Maura, you know, got married?’
‘Bertie, you were best man!’
‘Oh yes. Sorry, Maura. That was the year the lake flooded up to the railway station. I was twenty-five. And you’re twenty-three, Tom.’
‘Twenty-four. Look, shut it, Bertie.’
‘Good-looking girl. Saw her picture somewhere.’
‘I showed you. It was in an English magazine. Her father was receiving an award. Doctor.’
‘Anthropology, eh? Bright as well. Coming to the right place. We must make her comfortable. Make sure she wants to come and live here.’
Outside on the bench Luka was silently mouthing a single word to his brother, slowly and with an exaggerated movement of his mouth.
‘Rebecca!’
These two shrewd students of the peculiar ways of white people had also heard about this Miss Lucy. There wasn’t much they didn’t know about what went on in the big houses along their stretch of the lake, even down to the number of pairs of shoes each member of a family had in their wardrobes. Just now, they could foresee big problems ahead for Bwana Tom and plenty of fun to help them pass the long hours of work.
Angela had passed them on her way home. She had given them an angry look as she went by. Yes, she was right. It was time to go for a stroll to check that everything around the place was in good order.
Back inside, Tom had given up the struggle with Bertie. But it wasn’t even easy to lose a battle with Bertie in his terrier mood. And Bertie had switched fronts. He was about to catch Tom off guard, baffle his best friend and intrigue the two women.
‘Hear about those two silly buggers in Karen last week? Oh, done it again. Sorry, Raf. Anyway, about your age, Tom. Won’t work. Never does.’
Tom tried to regroup his thoughts furiously. He soon decided that silence would be the best defence.
‘Going native the old man called it. Course, nowadays a lot of the city girls have a decent education. Jobs and all that. Good lookers. Daddy’s got money. We all know where that came from. Well, these two Karen lads have been speared good and proper. Hitched. In The Nation. Surprised you didn’t see it. I expect you did, Tom.’
Bertie chuckled and winked in Tom’s direction. Alex, happy to be quite lost, took another sip of his whisky and stared into the embers. Maura reached across to touch her husband’s arm. Rafaella shifted in her chair, wondering how far Bertie would continue with this line. Disapproval was in the air, but Bertie could not resist.
‘Well, you know, I was just wondering if we are going to get more of this kind of palaver. We’ve both seen it, Alex
. And it was going on long before our time. Bit more understandable in those days. A settler on his own, up country. Out all day. Bags of trouble on the farm. Perhaps there was a good-looking house girl around. Perhaps that was all right. I don’t know. No question of marriage then. Nowadays, well … We’ve still got to stick together out here. We all know that, even if we’re too liberal to admit it.’
Twenty minutes later the companions of the evening, seen and unseen, were together on the white gravel area in front of the house. Erik was vigorously polishing the red and silver parts of the Harley while Luka stood close by, on an edge of readiness to leap forward to render any assistance that might be required.
By the time the lazy throb of Bertie’s motor had faded into silence, the beige dust of his trail had settled. Erik and Luka were ambling home for their break and had almost reached the circle of rondavels. Their eyes were drawn to the red glow of the dying fire so that they did not notice another tall, slender shape pressed against the trunk of a jacaranda to their right. As they slid down on to the flat stones close to the warmth, that shape glided off in the direction of Big House.
Behind the house, the ground sloped gradually up to a low ridge. Take one of the half dozen paths to the top and be prepared to catch your breath. The eye and the imagination leap out into the dramatically vast, open panorama. Rebecca stood under one of the line of flat-topped acacia and looked out over the dark waters of the lake. She had been the first to arrive. On other nights when she had been waiting alone, the lap of the tiny waves on the margin twenty feet below had been pleasant company. The outline of the distant western wall of the Great Rift and all the hills between, the scattered diamond dust of countless stars against their dark violet setting, she had known and loved them all for as long as she could remember. Tonight they brought her no comfort. They did not help her to make sense of things. Tonight she was afraid, fighting off an attack of panic.