by Carl Hancock
He had plenty of company. Every few yards he was greeted with cheerful jambos from workers on their way to Oserian, Homegrown or Londiani. His right hand was almost permanently raised in returning their greeting. His spirits were on the up.
He stopped for a few moments close to the fence of Sanctuary Farm. A family of giraffe was loping gracefully among a scattering of flat-topped acacia. He knew them well and he was on the lookout for the baby who had been born two weeks before. He was pleased when he spotted the new arrival already on his way to where he stood. Mama did not approve and she was soon nuzzling him away in the direction of the lake.
The possibility of taking part in the creation of a baby of his own crossed his mind. No, Lucy would have been too clever to have allowed that to start. That would not have made it any better. Fornication, that was the word Rebecca used, his mother, too. If only he did not have such a weakness for the Tuskers and the White-caps.
He rode on and was soon past the last of the workers’ villages. The rays of the sun were catching the slopes of old Longonot in a slanting light. Even from so far away the jagged corrugations were sharply outlined. Aeons ago they had been the channels for the lava flows that brought the rich minerals to the plains of Naivasha, the soils that were the source of all the beautiful produce of Londiani.
When he returned to Big House, breakfast was still happening. Lucy was alone, standing by the coffee maker, stirring a cup she had just poured. As he crossed towards the sideboard where the remains of the buffet were laid out, he smiled towards her.
‘Pour one for me, Luce. No milk, thanks.’
As he took the cup, he went on, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. Did you enjoy it?
He nodded. ‘Just as much as the first time. Only twice. Both times with you.’
‘Do I get a medal? Sorry.’ Her tone lost its sharp edge. ‘Why the solemn looks? It was wonderful. And it’s no big deal. There was shagging going on all over the place. I’m sure you noticed. I was propositioned half a dozen times myself.’
He hesitated and smiled wryly, looking down into his coffee. ‘It’s a sort of tradition out here.’
‘But you’ve got your Rebecca. You’re supposed to be waiting for her. I don’t want to sound too catty, but this is not the dark ages. Normal people, it’s so old-fashioned …’
‘Yes. Old-fashioned but … it’s … she’s right.’ He paused. ‘I feel like an absolute prick talking like this.’
‘Prick? Unfortunate choice of word in the circumstances, perhaps.’
Lucy moved to the table and sat down No need for any more words, everything understood. Her body language was clear. Let’s pass on.
The day was warm, slow and lazy. The three brothers and Lucy spent the late morning floating quietly in the cool waters of the lake, well away from the creative bustle of the kitchen. Lucy had not caught sight of the wild tigress all day, in fact not since those few seconds in the early hours when she had glanced to her right and seen a dark shape bent over in the dry verge, rocking back and forth like someone with a bad pain in the stomach. In the light of day in those clear waters she vividly recalled some of the wild thoughts that the sight had triggered, how she was enjoying the feel of the damp of Tom’s sweat, the thrill of fear at the prospect of having to fight off this crazed house girl sometime later in the night, the pure, almost holy sense of compassion that welled up deep inside her, and an awareness of her own great filth. Irrational rubbish mostly. God, this Africa, it does things to you.
* * *
Two vehicles travelled from Londiani to the carol service. They stuck close together. Tom was at Bertie’s side while Lucy sat in the back looking after little Ewan. Bertie had a pistol in the glove box and a loaded rifle leaning against Tom’s leg. He had brought the rifle because he had Ewan on board. The road surface on the stretch between Naivasha and Nakuru was deteriorating by the week and there were usually a few villains about on Christmas Eve, doped up on some local brew. After dark the country was theirs. David Olsen and his wife had recently had a close call on a part of the road they would be using. After turning off the A104 for Gilgil town, David slowed for a tank-trap of a pothole. He was startled when a short, heavy length of wood smashed down on his arm as it rested on the sill of his open window. The attackers had sprinted from behind a clump of bush close to the road. Next thing the windscreen was shattered and bullets were fired. The shots missed both petrol tank and tyres. David bounced his four-wheel drive into and out of the hole and drove like a wild man into the relative safety of the town.
Bertie had asked Alex to lead the way. ‘I’ll have a better shot from behind you. And watch out if the zebras are down.’
There was a big herd in and around the Gilgil area. They had fat juicy bottoms, but their meat did not suit local tastes. Lucky for the zebras, else they would have long passed into history. No nyama choma except for the goats and the cattle who were carefully protected by their herdsmen and boys. By this time of the late afternoon the last of these herds were being driven home to their manyattas.
Tom loved returning to Pembroke.
‘Lucy, I don’t know a single kid who was happy to leave this place. In my first term at Oundle I cried myself to sleep most nights, homesick for Pembroke, not Londiani.’ He managed to keep back his party cliche. ‘If ever I have kids of my own …’
He took her off on the tour. There was not a lot of distance to cover, but every room, every pathway held memories.
‘You can’t see them, but there are so many things going on in this place. Long ago things …’ He sighed and smiled. ‘Why, oh why do we have to grow up?’
There were almost a hundred people gathered outside the stone chapel. It had been his first port of call on the tour.
‘Not a lot of kids get to build their own school chapel. It was old Chris Hazard’s idea back in the fifties. Kept the boys’ minds off the troubles. Mau Mau, ever heard of them?’
‘Matter of fact I have, sort of …’
‘A lot of these people were around these parts in those days. My father was a baby … Rafaella’ s got some great stories.’
It was close to six, time to be going in. Tom was leading Lucy around the last corner to the Prefects’ Lawn. The excited animation of the conversation of those milling there tailed off rapidly into silence. Tom soon saw the cause. One, two, three large, black Mercedes saloons were edging their way through the part of the crowd who had spilled off the lawn on to the roadway. Out stepped the whole Rubai family. Tom could not see the boss man but could not mistake his chuckling voice.
‘Merry Christmas to everyone. Not too early for that surely! We are on our way up to the farm for the festive season. We were at home waiting for the cars to be brought ‘round when Julius remembered. He used to bring notices home from school about these carol services. Sally always wanted to come. But you know how it is. Well, today … here we are. Took a chance on the time … And we’ve made it.’
Terry Coulson and the headmaster were the first with the welcoming handshakes. Only much later did the locals find out that, as he exchanged greetings with Bill Foster, Abel Rubai had slapped an envelope into his hand, a hundred thousand shillings, ‘For chapel funds. Happy Christmas, the Rubai family.’
On school days it was a squeeze to pack the hundred and seventy Pembroke people into the chapel. On his arrival three years before, Leo Franciscus, the choirmaster, had introduced what he called the collegiate style of seating. This meant that the shiny brown chapel chairs were arranged lengthways along the nave. ‘You’ll get more in that way.’
Many of those present had not blessed Leo for this change. Instead of looking directly towards the altar, with a view of the rows of backs in front of them, they now had to sit and contemplate the faces of half the congregation. For most of them this hour long mixture of readings and carols amounted to their total annual religious observance. The service marked the official start of the festive season.
The solemn expressions faced eac
h other and the minds wandered wherever they were taken by the words and music. Holy thoughts mingled comfortably with observations, kind and unkind, about their fellow worshippers. Mostly the spirit of the season triumphed and young and old were able to look across the way and be content, even pleased to have as company for their time on the planet those well-dressed, well-scrubbed men and that assortment of feminine beauty, young and old whom they loved and needed.
Scores of candles, calm, white tongues of flame, glowed in the wells of the windows in the proper Christmas way. Grunts of approval greeted the reading of seven year old Emma Rogers, the flute solo of fourteen year old Daphne Brennan. The annual highlight came late on. Bertie, Alex and Laurie Buckle rendered ‘The Three Kings’ with beaming, tanned faces and straining vocal chords.
This was followed by Terry’s inspired late change of program. It was Terry who had been arranging these chapel services for as long as anyone could remember. He had whispered briefly to Tom and then slid down by the Rubai family with a card in his hand.
Maura was surprised that the sixth reader was not her eldest son but the son and heir of the Rubais.
Sally Rubai closed her eyes, blissfully happy as her boy’s baritone voice charmed the congregation almost against their will with his reading of the story of the shepherds and the angel voices. Terry was pleased that his quick thinking had helped to head off the potentially frosty reception that Mr Abel might have received after the service. The man was disliked by most of those sitting in that chapel. Bill Foster’s eyes opened wide with delight as he glanced at the contents of the Rubai envelope and saw the wad of thousand shilling notes.
The last word, as usual, was from Terry, delivered from the door of the chapel as the congregation rose to leave. ‘Remember, you’re all very welcome down at the house. Give us ten minutes to put the kettle on.’
All the same, he was not unhappy that Abel and Sally pleaded miles to travel to excuse themselves from that gathering.
There was an unexpected delay to the departure of the three shiny black Mercedes. Unfinished business. Most of those enjoying a companionable chat in the gathering darkness outside the chapel never heard anything like the full story. And why should they? It would have spoiled the whole occasion.
On the rough pathway that linked the main school to the playing fields two smartly dressed young men were fighting. They were two strong young men. The smaller spent his daily life on the farm, much of his day taken up with hard physical labour. The taller, more rangy fighter kept himself fit in gyms in half a dozen cities from Nairobi to San Francisco. Tom pulled back and bullocked into Julius’s side, pitching him into a clump of bushes. ‘You think you can get away with that? Well, I’m not as sensible as her father.’
Julius was quick to recover and rushed at Tom, low and with his arms as if to make a rugby tackle.
‘McCall, it’s time for me to put you in your place for once and for all!’ He flung himself in hard and the pair of them went careering down the stony path to the railway line.
Everything was going in — fists, feet, knees, elbows. Their fury masked their pain. They punched their way over the track and down to the playing fields themselves.
‘You bastard! You and your stolen money!’
‘Careful, white boy. You still enjoy breathing?’
‘You and your black dick …!’
‘McCall, someone’s got to stop you ruining that girl. I’ll enjoy the privilege.’
More rolling, thumping and kneeing. Julius could feel his opponent weakening. Soon he had Tom face down. Julius pressed his knee into the small of his back and had a tight hold on his arms. He was breathing heavily.
‘I’m just deciding which arm I’ll break first. Won’t be such a pretty boy then.’
Tom’s body sagged, exhausted, beaten. One second, less, and the grip on one arm was relaxed. He tore it loose and rolled. Strong arms grabbed and separated them. Abraham, a night askari, had seen the fight, raced up to the chapel and brought help, rescue, interference. Sister Jane had been at the service and soon had the wounded pair in separate rooms at the sanatorium.
There were dust stains, torn clothes, but no serious treatment was needed. Tom had more blood on his face and shirt, but he was a wicked nose-bleeder. It was still down in his school records. The bruising and swellings would heal quickly in such young, fit men. She noticed that Julius held himself stiffly as he breathed. She queried to herself about possible rib damage.
‘Try to get an X-ray sometime for him, Mrs Rubai. Ribs. I don’t think there’s a problem but just in case. I know it’s difficult over Christmas …’
‘Oh, Abel will see to it, I’m sure.’
It was full darkness now. The school was almost clear of cars. Abel sat in the front of the lead car of his trio, his eyes half closed. He found himself beginning to brood on a subject that was becoming more and more distasteful to him, the direction that his eldest child was taking in his life. He was not too happy when Sally insisted that Julius sat in the back seat with her on their journey north. The powerful burr of the Mercedes’ engines fostered Abel’s brooding. But, as the miles passed, although still not well-disposed to Julius and his dissolute ways, his focus became more and more set on a dislike for Master Thomas McCall that was rapidly developing into a bitter hatred.
Tom refused the offer of a change of clothes and insisted that he was up to a visit to the Coulson house, a large property set among trees not far from the village of Langa Langa. He was still in the afterglow of an adrenalin surge, exhausted but relaxed and smiling through thick lips and a swollen cheek. He loved this house second only to Londiani. In his Pembroke days Mary had always welcomed him down in those brief hours when he was allowed out.
The wine was flowing freely, the mince pies were disappearing by the trayful when Mary manufactured a rendezvous with Tom in a small side room. Mary was an unusual lady. Strikingly good-looking and blonde-haired, she stirred up a wide range of different emotions in the community for many miles around. There was a lot of envy, especially in some Europeans of long standing in Kenya. Some called her, not wholly in jest, the White Witch of Gilgil. She was amazingly well read in what the casual observer might have called New Age lore. Her supporters, her devotees, saw her as a healer of mind, body and soul. Whatever their personal feelings, it was interesting to see how many individuals or families contacted her first when they ran into big trouble. When they came, Mary always invited them to talk. To talk, that was the way she worked. While at Pembroke, Tom had taken his little boy problems to her. She always sent him away feeling happier, more at ease with his world. And he would have found it impossible to lie to those discerning but compassionate blue eyes.
So, now, Mary was ready to listen and listen. But the meeting was brief, by mutual agreement. The hearts, the vibrations were clear on this. But for both of them the coming together was important. For Tom it was an assurance that strong arms were holding him, for Mary an assurance that Tom could cope, that he needed more time to work on directions, plans and hurts. They set a date in January for what they called a session, a meditation, a breathing. She would know when the time came. They rejoined the party.
The chatter, the laughter, the music were very European on that Christmas Eve in that tiny circle of light in the middle of that huge, dark land mass that was Africa.
Things were quieter on the wide, newly built veranda, under the stars and facing west. It was far too late for any golden sunsets, but at the far edges of the horizon where the Mau Escarpment wall of the Rift met the sky, smoky, orange pockets glowed. The plains between opened massively, dotted with sparks of light from the outlying shambas.
On the return journey to Londiani Tom sat with Bertie’s rifle across his knees and the pistol handily placed in the glove box. Bertie drove too close to Alex’s tail. For the whole twenty miles, his eyes were in constant motion, willing some bunch of desperadoes to try something. The usual trick was to block the road with big rocks or loaded oil drums.
After the bumps of the toll station, Bertie began to build up the revs. Tom made a show of clicking on his safety belt. Bertie ignored this plea to slow down. The road began to descend gently and soon, on both sides, yellow fever trees crowded right down to the tarmac. The surface of the tarmac itself was uneven and the potholes had multiplied and spread during the short rains. In darkness a good driver, concentrating hard on the road ahead, had enough trouble keeping a good line and avoiding a dangerous bounce. Bertie’s eyes were constantly sweeping from side to side, peering into the mass of slender trunks on watch for unusual movement.
Lucy found it difficult to keep Ewan still and relaxed. Twice they lurched onto the rough, dirt verge, but there was no slowing down until he got ready to turn off the A104 where they came within sight of the safety of the lights of Naivasha town. Tom relaxed, relieved that they were close to home. After twenty minutes in one fixed position his body had stiffened. The aches and bruises were ripening fast.
There was a lot of activity on the town streets, especially around the noisy, well-lit bars. Tom closed the glove box and pushed Bertie’s rifle under his seat. La Belle Inn was heaving, mostly with tourists determined to revel in the raw, exotic Christmas Eve experience on offer in the ramshackle, straggling, messy town. On the roadsides scores of ten and twelve wheelers had turned off for a stopover. Naivasha was a very popular resting place for drivers whose lives were spent flogging their juggernauts from the coast to Uganda and Ruanda. A lot of them would stay in the town for two nights, giving themselves a double chance of catching a dose for Christmas. Meeting Mr Slim was a hazard for these hardworking men just as much as having their trucks get a puncture or a breakdown on the great East African Highway.