Circling the Sun

by Paula McLain

  “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 smil
ed 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.

  A few weeks later, D called me in from the paddock and handed over a telegram addressed to me. I assumed it was a rare bit of news from my father—or perhaps some sort of demand from Jock—but the envelope had a smeared return address from London. Turning away from D, I broke the sticky seal with a sharp twinge of dread. DEAR BERYL—I read—HARRY HAS DIED AND THE BOYS AND I WILL RETURN TO THE COLONY STOP WOULD YOU PLEASE LOOK FOR LODGINGS?—WE DON’T KNOW ANYONE AND MONEY IS DEAR STOP MOTHER.

  Mother? That word alone felt like a slap. I’d pushed her memory away long ago, as far as I could, but it lurched dizzily to life now. My eyes raced over the few sentences again. My throat was as dry as dust.

  “Everything all right?” D asked.

  “Clara’s returning to Kenya,” I said numbly.

  “Good grief. I thought she’d vanished for good.”

  “Apparently not.” I handed him the flimsy paper, as if it would explain anything. “Who’s Harry?”

  “Harry?” He was quiet for a moment, reading, and then he sighed heavily and raked his hands through his hair. “Let’s have a nip of brandy, shall we?”

  It wasn’t easy to drag the whole story out of D, but the drink worked to pry him open a little, and me as well. After an hour I had the gist of it. Harry Kirkpatrick was a captain my mother had met in her second year in Kenya, at a dance in Nairobi after a race meeting. Their involvement was meant to be a secret, but those kinds were hard to keep. By the time she left for London with him, Dickie in tow, the scandal had blazed through the colony.

  “Obviously she married him at some point,” D said, “though I can’t say when. We fell completely out of touch.”

  “Why didn’t anyone tell me the truth?”

  D cupped his brandy glass, thinking, and then said, “It might have been a mistake. Who’s to say? Everyone wanted to protect you from the worst of it. Florence was the loudest of all. She insisted it would only make everything worse.”

  I thought of the day I’d pored over the map of England in Lady D’s atlas, and her saying she could tell me things about my mother if I wanted to know. Had she planned to invent a tale, a doctored version of the truth? Or had she begun to feel it was time I understood what had really happened? It was impossible to do more than guess now.

  “So the whole story about how hard things were for Clara, that was just rubbish?”

  “Your mother was terribly unhappy, Beryl. Green Hills was in shambles then. It took every drop of energy Clutt could give it. I think that’s why she latched on to Kirkpatrick. Perhaps she saw him as her only way out.”

  “But she had responsibilities,” I spat. “She should have been thinking of us, too.” Me, I meant—for Dickie had been fine, he’d been chosen. “What was this Harry like anyway?”

  “Handsome, as I remember, and very attentive to her. She was a beautiful woman, you know.”

  “Was she?” My father had managed to hide or throw out every likeness, every last reminder—particularly once Emma came along. He had rooted Clara out of our lives so well she might never have been there at all, and I saw why. She’d gone off with another man, hurting and embarrassing him, very much as I had done with Jock; but for us there were no children to think of. “Why couldn’t he have told me the truth?”

  “Your father did what he thought was best. Sometimes it’s difficult to know what that is.”

  I swallowed back rising tears, hating the fact that my mother could make me cry—that she still could, after all these years. But my feelings wouldn’t be tamped down. They flooded over me, so far past my control that I had to wonder if I’d only imagined surviving Clara’s leaving when I was a girl. What if the strength and invincibility I’d felt then—feats of daring, leopard hunts, and rides over the savannah on Pegasus, my ears roaring with speed and sharp freedom—were only the thinnest layer of straw over a gaping hole? Either way, I felt bottomless now. “Am I really supposed to be nice and to show her around? As if nothing whatever has happened?”

  “Oh, Beryl, I don’t know what to tell you. She has her faults like the rest of us, I suppose.” He came over and clamped my shoulders with work-reddened hands. “You’ll do what’s right for you.”

  —

  If D felt certain that I’d make my way towards clarity, I had my doubts. Clara’s telegram continued to sting, wrenching me back through time. It was so strange to be learning only now why she had left the colony, the crux of the story buried for decades. And though it didn’t surprise me that my father had hidden the truth and his feelings and forged ahead with life on the farm, I couldn’t stop wishing he had told me. She’d left me, too, after all. Her going had changed everything, and now she was returning? It didn’t make sense. Why would she think she could find her feet in Kenya, a place she couldn’t get away from quickly enough? And how had she summoned the nerve to ask for my help? How was any of this my responsibility?

  Angry and baffled, I was more than tempted to tell Clara to find her own way around—but she wasn’t the only one I had to consider. She hadn’t mentioned Dickie in her cable, though her casual reference to “the boys” meant she and the captain had had children together. Now those boys were fatherless and about to be dragged into an utterly foreign world. What would they think about that?

  As I struggled with Clara’s plea, Denys suddenly came to mind. He had mentioned the baroness’s land and empty house less than a week ago. He’d meant it for me, for a friendly visit, but I couldn’t help but be struck by the opportunity, and by the perfect sense of timing. Though I still hadn’t entirely sorted out that I wanted to help Clara, her need and this solution seemed mysteriously matched up and sorted out already, as if the whole situation had been on its way for years and years. As if we were all being drawn together by unseen hands. It nearly felt inevitable.

  I told Boy and D that I would be away for a few days, and went to saddle Pegasus, feeling better than I had in some while. I still didn’t have the slightest idea of what it would mean to have Clara back in the colony and in my life, but I was on my way to see Denys again, and perhaps tell him a story. It was a warm afternoon, I was on a strong and beautiful horse, and I had a plan.

  Karen Blixen’s farm lay twelve miles west of Nairobi, along a rutted road that climbed steadily. The altitude was thousands of feet higher than Delamere’s or Jock’s, and the climbing forest cut sharp ridges into the pale sky. A long valley swung to one side of the road, strung through with carpets of orange lilies, the kind that grew up wild everywhere after it rained. The air was sweet with them, and also the white-flowering coffee plants, which smelled like jasmine. Everything seemed to sparkle, just like champagne. Denys had been right about that.

  Though I was fairly sure the baroness would at least consider letting the house to my mother—it was sitting empty, after all—I felt a twinge or two about coming unannounced. Settlers were spread out so widely in Kenya that visitors were generally welcomed however and whenever they popped up. But I didn’t know if Denys had yet mentioned me to her, or what their relationship was exactly. My curiosity had been simmering about them both, and I felt a sense of anticipation—of being on the verge of something interesting.

  The substantial bungalow was built of grey stone with a pitched and tiled roof, and sturdy-looking gables. A long porch swept all the way around the house, as did a wide, groomed lawn. Two large deerhounds sunned in the grass as I rode up, blue-grey and whiskered, with lovely pointed muzzles. They didn’t bark or seem troubled by me, so I dismounted and let them have my hands to smell.

  I looked up as a woman came out of the house. She wore a simple white housedress and was slenderly built, with very fa
ir skin and dark hair. Her face was most striking for its angles, and for her eyes, deep set under feathery brows. Her gaze and her sharp fine nose gave her the look of a pretty hawk. I felt myself squirm, suddenly embarrassed.

  “I’m sorry, I should have wired you,” I said, giving her my name. “Is Denys around?”

  “He’s out on safari, actually. I don’t expect him for at least a month.”

  A month? But before I could feel deflated or more awkward about where to begin, she went on to say that Denys had spoken of me, and that she’d been keen for some company. “I haven’t spoken to anyone but the dogs for days, it seems.” She smiled and her features softened. “I’ve just got some new records for my phonograph, too. Do you like music?”

  “I do, though I’m not very educated about it.”

  “I’m trying to learn more myself. My friends tell me my taste is too old-fashioned.” She pulled a small face and sighed. “Let’s see to your horse then.”

  —

  Karen’s house reminded me of my childhood visits to Lady D at Equator Ranch. It was the quality of her things, the civility in the smallest details. Inside the broad front door, richly coloured carpets ran over the mahogany parquet, connecting the rooms and warming them. There were silky wood tables, plump chintz-covered sofas and overstuffed chairs, thick draperies at every window, flowers in vases and flowers in bowls. She had shelves and shelves of finely bound books. As I looked at them, I felt very aware of my spotty education. I ran my hand along a row of their spines. My fingertips came away with no dust. “Have you really read them all?” I asked.

  “Of course. They’ve saved my life many times over. Nights can drip like molasses here, especially when good friends have gone away.”