Girl with the Golden Voice

by Carl Hancock

  In twelve hours that woman would be here in Londiani. This Lucy’s arrival threatened to turn her own world upside down. She and Tom had been meeting for a year and more, mostly after dark. Their love had grown in secret. They had been happy enough just to talk, make plans and promises for the time when they could come out into the open. Out of fear they had played for safety. But now Rebecca felt a mounting terror that she was about to lose him. It had been comfortable to wait, to put off the day of reckoning, to hide from the hostility that would hit them from all sides. She was about to pay for her lack of courage. She knew it. In her fevered state, by a cruel alchemy, every positive was turning to a dark negative.

  Why isn’t he here? She needed to be told that it was possible for a rich white farmer’s son to marry a black house girl, that this mzungo woman was just another guest who would visit the parks and do the other tourist things and then return home. But she and Tom had been friends for years. Why was she coming out just at this moment? Tom would be her host. During the little time he had away from work on the farm he would have to look after this blonde thing from the north. Oh, yes, she had seen the picture in the English magazine that Mrs McCall had given her mother to look at.

  At last, there was the sound of footsteps coming up the path from the laundry garden. Rebecca swung ‘round to face him. When they were close, they stood off for a moment searching for each other’s eyes. Their embrace was fierce to the point of pain. Muscles and sinews strained. Hands and arms moved fast to pull tighter and tighter. Buttocks and shoulders were caressed with frantic passion. There was no climax where flesh entered flesh. That restraint was well understood between them.

  They slid to the ground. It was cold, dusty but dry. They sat facing each other, hip to hip. She did not hesitate.

  ‘Is this to be the last time, Thomas?’

  ”Becca, don’t be so dramatic, for goodness sake!’

  ‘But she’ll be here tomorrow. You won’t have the freedom.’

  ‘I’m not a prisoner. And Lucy’s just a friend. Hardly even that now, perhaps.’

  ‘Lucy! I don’t like to hear that word.’

  ‘What are you afraid of?’

  ‘You’ll be together so much. You’ll get used to each other!’

  Tom closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘You don’t trust me!’

  ‘I do! I do!’ She struck him on the chest to make him see. ‘Thomas, Thomas, you’ll start to look at things the way the others do.’

  ‘What others? Nobody can make —’

  ‘Don’t laugh at me. Don’t pretend.’

  ‘Pretend?’

  She rose to a kneeling position and pushed him onto his back. Looking down into his face, she began again. The passion was gone for a moment.

  ‘The easy part is over. Mama suspects. You should see the look she gives me sometimes, mostly on our way home from Big House. The girls giggle a lot. Papa, he knows nothing. Please God, not yet!’

  Tom stared up into the sky, tight-lipped. He was not enjoying this. Rebecca knew it, but she went on.

  ‘The dangerous people are going to have to know soon. You will have to be braver than me.’

  ‘God, Rebecca, you’re so beautiful …’

  ‘No, Tom, not now. I’m the poor girl. I’m the black servant. A lot of cruel things will be said. Perhaps these strong people will dismiss me, send me down to the family at the coast.’

  ‘But you’re not a prisoner either.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And this servant … that’s just for … till we’re … Look, you’re the most beautiful woman in the world. You sing like an angel. No one’s going to take you away from me.’

  ‘You mean it. Thomas? Sometimes I think it would have been better not to have gone to Santa Maria.’

  ‘Don’t tell Rafaella that. It would break her heart.’

  ‘Thomas, your grandparents were so good to me. I’ll never forget. Perhaps those five years in Nairobi made me believe I could be good enough.’

  ‘Good enough for what?’

  ‘Good enough for you, stupid. Good enough to be your wife.’

  ‘You mean that back then … good God!’

  ‘Since I was twelve. Didn’t you notice? That’s why I worked hard. It was my chance to show that I could be as good as any white girl. And they paid for my singing lessons.’

  ‘Singing lessons? Bloody hell, Rebecca. I feel such a … shit. You shouldn’t have done all that.’

  ‘I enjoyed it, all of it. And that’s how I got to meet Mary and her father. The concerts. We became famous for a day. That concert in State House.’

  Those terrible days of two Decembers before came back vividly to Tom’s mind. Anna’s funeral on the seventeenth and his grandfather’s, Don’s, on Christmas Eve. Rebecca had sung some of Toni Wajiru’s songs. Back then, the pain and longing in her voice had bewildered him. He was afraid of being moved like that again.

  ‘And that was why you didn’t go to Australia?’

  ‘Oh, the scholarship …? No, that wouldn’t have worked.’

  She forced a smile and was silent. Then, in a single, graceful movement, she rose and turned to look out over the lake.

  Tom was caught off guard. Rebecca’s simple movement had unlocked uncomfortable thoughts. A deeper reality was breaking in on him. All those safe, secret meetings, the sweet intimacy, the long conversations, always bubbling with hope. These were the easy part. Rebecca was right about that. His natural apathy would not work for much longer. He was used to things turning out well with minimal effort on his part.

  He could not contemplate life without her, but he knew that when they decided to come out into the open, there would be immediate and massive opposition. The fears and preju dices on both sides would surface in the advice, warnings and threats that would bombard them - all for their own good.

  Only Rebecca could get him through all this stuff. She was the strong one, the clear-sighted one. In the few seconds it took him to roll over and rise to his feet, a chilling fear surged through him with electric speed. He would not be able to hack it. Somewhere down the line he would give in and settle for a life of grey mediocrity.

  The starlight caught them in a solemn pose, looking out over the lake. They could have been standing in front of a priest exchanging their vows. She had her eyes lifted to a gleam of brightness on the distant escarpment. He was staring down into the water and drawing a deep breath. He touched her back lightly and they started down a steep diagonal path towards the lake.

  Arms linked, they walked on the soft ground, inches from where the wavelets were slapping down on the black sand of the shoreline. Soon they were crossing the narrow neck of land that connected with Crescent Island, not a proper island but a broad peninsula which was the paradise home for hundreds of bush creatures large and small.

  Tom was a full two centimetres taller than Rebecca. She knew that he was glad about that. She restrained her stride to match his shorter, muscular roll. Her arm could feel the hard flesh around his back and ribs. He let his arm rest in the curve between her breast and her hip, enjoying the rise and fall of her round, tight buttocks.

  Words had become superfluous. The sharp awareness of the threat hanging over their happiness made the time extra precious.

  They stumbled on a large family of zebra. The creatures rose as one and galloped off to safety along some well-worn trail. In their wake the air was heavy with the acrid scent and taste of yet more dust. Tom smiled after them.

  ‘They’d miss us.’

  ‘Why are Europeans so sentimental about animals?’

  ‘Except that we’d still be coming, only at normal hours. And we’ll be bringing our kids to meet their kids.’

  Not for the first time Rebecca fought down a delicious pull in her loins. She was allowing herself to think of the ecstasy there must be in the making of babies.

  On the open plain they were able to see the animal shapes more easily and steer ‘round them. Soon they were standing on the southern tip
of the island. On three sides of them the lake waters swelled, grey and mysterious. Peace, until Rebecca suddenly remembered.

  ‘Thomas, you need to be asleep. You must hurry!’

  ‘I don’t feel tired.’

  ‘The aeroplane. You must be wide awake!’

  Tom sighed. ‘All right,’ and more cheerfully, ‘You know, I’m going to enjoy having you mothering me.’

  ‘Not mothering, Thomas, wifing.’

  ‘And making up new words.’

  The walk home was much more direct. They parted on the ridge, as usual. It was not worth the risk of coming face to face with Erik or Luka. Tom knew well enough that the askaris on night patrol spent a lot of their time in some well-hidden, cosy nook, but neither of them wanted to take the risk. Their embrace was emotional but brief.

  Tom climbed to his bedroom, watched from the top of the stairs by Prince. When Rebecca slid under her sheet, her sister, Martha, stirred and turned but did not waken.

  Through the open door of her bedroom, Angela had seen her eldest daughter return to the rondavel. A single second of outside light had illuminated Rebecca’s face as she crossed the threshold. The girl seemed to be in a trance. Angela lifted herself on to her elbow to meditate on what she had just fleetingly witnessed. Cold nausea took up instant residence in her gut. It was the pain of foresight, a terror that misery, perhaps tragedy, was waiting along the way for her firstborn, and she herself with no power to help her beautiful child to turn aside from this path to disaster.

  Chapter Two

  ebecca dried her hands on her kikoi as she hurried up the path. The washing would have to wait. She had heard the sound of the engine. Tom was bringing the aeroplane in across the lake. She must be up by the acacia before the wheels touched down on the earth of Crescent Island. Five hours before, standing under that same tree, she had watched the small, white craft rise into the sky and turn south. Wilson Airport was less than half an hour away. Thanks be to God he was almost safe home.

  The sun was high now in the blue of the late morning and a breeze blew off the Aberdares. As usual, it was a perfect day for drying the washing of Big House. Her energy level was high even though the night had been almost unbearable. Her sleep had been no more than fitful bouts of dozing. Many a time she had longed to slide from her bed and go out into the chill air of the dark hours. That would have meant confrontation with Mama, always a light sleeper. She was not ready for the stories she would have to make up, stories to cover her truth. Better to be a prisoner in that room where her sisters slept softly and at peace.

  So she had twisted and turned and put up with the battering which the poisoned arrows of her thoughts inflicted on her. She was defenceless.

  Lucy. How many hundreds of times did she visualise that face? Rebecca had seen a single photograph in Mrs McCall’s English magazine.

  ‘Ah, see this one, Rebecca. Memsahib says that she is a friend of Mister Tom. They were in university together.’

  And now that thick, creamy hair, the blue eyes, the square-shouldered body would be here in Naivasha to threaten her hopes and joy. Soon she would be looking on the real, live flesh of this woman.

  She was white! She was white! She was white! Without effort she was an insider with Tom’s family and friends. She would be instantly welcome at homes and clubs up and down the country. She was Tom’s guest, his responsibility. He would have to spend time with her.

  She, the house girl, loved Tom, the young master of the house. Tom loved her. But she couldn’t tell anyone about her feelings. If Tom returned from Wilson with that woman on his arm and chose never to give another glance to the black house girl, who would care? Who would know?

  She had arrived in Big House long before dawn. When she heard Tom’s footsteps on the stairs, she ran off. When she had watched the plane out of sight, she went to look for work, something that would demand hard physical effort.

  Still the pictures did not go away. Time and again Rebecca saw that haughty English woman pushing her trolley into the arrivals lounge of Jomo Kenyatta. Those confident eyes were looking ‘round for Tom and he was smiling his welcome to Nairobi. She could feel the soft touch of the blonde hair as he pulled her towards him for a kiss of greeting.

  She forced herself to watch the scene play over and over with its subtle variations. Panic soon shifted to moments of sheer terror. She was about to lose him. She had lost him. Full stop!

  Overcome by a rush of exhaustion, she flopped into an armchair. The terror had scorched her mind, leaving it burned out, empty. She sat with head down, eyes shut. She had bottomed out. Deep inside all emotion was numbed and there was a kind of peace.

  Eventually little shoots of guilt reminded her of her work. Her physical energy began a new surge and with it came unexpected glimmerings of hope. She reminded herself that she, too, had input into this situation. She had a choice. She could do nothing and trust that in some unlikely way events would work out for her. No, that would not suit her. It would be a dangerous waste of time and boring, too. Better to act, do something, scratch the minx’s eyes out, anything. She would come up with the details later.

  The wheels of the white craft reached down for its home strip. Waterbuck and wildebeeste lumbered from its path. Within a minute Tom had brought her down, buzzed her along the dusty runway and shut down in the glade close to the shed that was out of Rebecca’s view. The morning air reclaimed its silence. As she began her slow wander back to work, a single burst of female laughter came wafting towards her from the island.

  Normally mother and daughter enjoyed the companionship of their time together in the laundry garden. It was pleasant, creative work in a beautiful setting. A huge grassy area at the back of the house had been set aside for the job. It caught the sun until late afternoon, perfect for drying. The slope was mown regularly right up to the borders of bougainvillea, flame and banana. A cei-apple hedge, heavy with little, yellow fruits, masked the house from where the two women stood on rough stone slabs set in front of deep stainless steel troughs.

  There was an abundance of hot water available close by. They drew it in buckets from a tap fixed to a long, hump-backed, brick furnace heated at the open end by handfuls of wood. It had been built on the jua kali principles of engineering by Tim Hutchinson, a Kericho tea-planter. He had based it on what he had seen in the boilers of old steam locomotives, close set lines of copper piping. It was fast and efficient.

  The suds bubbled up under the crash of heavy pails of water. Angela and Rebecca plunged their arms deep to work the clothes backwards and forwards in rhythmic movements.

  In no time the drying lines were transformed into billowing sails of colour puffed up by the breeze.

  ‘They’re coming!’

  The new guest was on the full tour of the house straight away. Angela had been expecting this and was ready. Rebecca was lost in a daydream.

  ‘Who, Mama?’

  For the second time she heard that new laughter. For the second time she left her post without a word. She hurried off, making sure that she was moving away from the direction of the sound of the voices. She wasn’t ready for a direct confrontation.

  The door to the lower sitting room was open. She burst in noisily, mumbling to herself.

  ‘Child, what are you chattering about?’

  Rebecca realised her mistake too late. She had come into the darkened room where Rafaella was having her quiet time.

  Rafaella and Rebecca shared a special bond. In the days when she was mistress of Londiani, Rafaella had known all her people, especially those in the rondavel village. She saved them money by bulk buying necessities like flour and sugar from Gilani wholesalers in Nakuru. She made sure that they received good medical attention. For over thirty years she and Don sponsored a local boy’s education in boarding schools in Nairobi. Only once did they regret a choice. That boy was clever, perhaps the cleverest of the lot, but he ended up in the town jail in Nyharuru, tripped up by his own financial trickery.

  Ten years be
fore, when it was time to pick a new boy, she and Don fell out. Rafaella was proposing the unthinkable.

  ‘What about Stephen Kamau’s eldest girl?’

  ‘Girl? Never, Raf. You know it wouldn’t work out.’

  ‘You know the one I mean? Rebecca. She sang at the wedding of Arabella and Joshua.’

  ‘Oh, for sure, I know the one. Pretty thing.’

  ‘Not pretty, dear. Beautiful, at eleven.’

  ‘And at the end of five years, where then?’

  ‘There’s not a boy to touch her for quickness. This one’s special, Don. Let’s take the risk.’

  Rebecca had gone to the city school, won their prizes, passed their examinations and won their hearts with her singing and then returned to the village.

  Rafaella never asked Rebecca why she turned down the chance to study in Australia. It troubled her that Don might have been right after all. What if they had helped to educate her out of her happiness? One day a self-assured and accomplished woman might suffer anger and frustration at the monotony of village life in Africa.

  Don had been dead six months. Her lover and friend had deserted her. The pain was as raw as ever. It was the middle of June and the long rains had just ended, leaving the meadow grass between the rondavels and Big House thick and rich. Rafaella was walking two of the dogs there as the twilight was closing into full darkness, her favourite time of day.

  In those days she didn’t travel far from Londiani. When she did, it was almost always to go a little further north, to the Coulson home, a large farmhouse in Gilgil, for a gathering of the witches. These strong, compassionate women had loved her through the agonies of denial, grief and anger. But nobody, nothing could shift that enduring, numbing sense of loss that made a mockery of so much of the joy that she and Don had shared. It was too private, too deep.

  But the girl! In the three-quarter darkness, the unmistakable voice, the rich soprano, enveloped her like an aura. Rafaella stopped to look across the line of trees. The tall Italian lady had aged well, hardly aged physically since her first days in Londiani. In the shadows you could see her silhouette. Her figure was slim with a narrow waist and her breasts full. She was vain about her appearance, felt guilty when she drew admiring glances from men of all ages. On a shallow mound at the far end the other silhouette stood, arms outstretched towards Longonot. The lyric was in a dialect that she did not recognise, the melody was poignant, powerful and defiant. The deep longing that reverberated from it took her by surprise, touched the essence of her grief and, on the instant, gave it new perspective. With no effort on her part, something inside her had shifted, a tension had been released. The sensation was exhilarating.