Circling the Sun

by Paula McLain

  I backpedalled. “I’m only afraid of how things will change.”

  “They will, of course. We’re talking about a child, Beryl. Some dear small boy or girl who will look to us for everything.”

  His voice had taken on an intensity that sent me spinning. He didn’t seem to understand that the very idea of throwing off the life I knew best for any other terrified me. There were women who never thought twice about giving themselves over to domestic life, the needs of their husbands and children. Some actually craved that role, but I’d never seen more than a hint of this sort of home life. Could I even do it?

  “You’ll learn to be a good mother,” he said after I’d been silent for a long time. “People can learn all sorts of things.”

  “I hope you’re right.” I closed my eyes and lay my hand on his chest, feeling along the slick buttons of his shirt and the perfect piped edge of the cotton, the hem made so carefully and so well it wouldn’t, couldn’t, ever unravel.

  The whole world would read about the royal visit—how the train station in Nairobi was festooned with roses and painted welcome banners. Hundreds of flapping flags. Thousands of people from every possible race in peacock-hued ceremonial robes and headdresses, fezzes and toques and velvet slippers. Our new governor, Sir Edward Grigg, bellowed his speech into a megaphone before the two young princes were whisked away to Government House on the hill, for the first of many grand fêtes and supper parties and sweeping, exclusive balls.

  For a month, every white woman within a hundred miles had been practising her curtsy and wringing her hands over what to wear. It was a lottery of entitlement—all the honourables and baronets, and first or third earls of where-have-you rolled out in their finest form. I was four months pregnant and too distracted to be concerned about any of it—and I also wasn’t nearly ready to share my news with others. To buy time, I’d begun to wear loose blouses and forgiving skirts—me, who was never out of slacks. I saw it as my only solution, along with hiding out as much as possible, but Mansfield was insisting we be present for everything. “Let’s just tell people, darling. They’ll all know soon enough anyway.”

  “I know…but it just seems so personal.”

  “What?” His forehead wrinkled. “It’s happy news, silly.”

  “Can’t you go to the parties alone? I don’t feel like myself.”

  “You can’t honestly think of begging off. It’s an honour to be invited, Beryl.”

  “You’re sounding like Karen.”

  “Am I?” He gave me a strange look. “I suppose that must mean you sound like Finch Hatton.”

  “What?” I met his eyes. “What are you suggesting?”

  “Nothing,” he said coolly, and strode away.

  In the end, I went along to keep the peace. For the first elaborate dinner, Prince Henry was seated to my left. Down the far end sat Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, dashing heir to the monarchy. Informally he was called David, and his brother Henry, Duke of Gloucester, was Harry, and both were keen to be shown a good time.

  “I saw you riding to hounds in Leicestershire last year,” Harry said to me over bowls of chilled lemon soup. He meant during our stay in Swiftsden with Mansfield’s mother—though there hadn’t been a formal introduction. He was taller and darker than his brother David, and only slightly less handsome. “You look marvellous on a horse, particularly in slacks. I think all women should wear slacks.”

  “Coco Chanel might be interested to hear you say it,” the very done-up Lady Grigg chimed in from Harry’s elbow, trying to insert herself. Harry ignored her.

  “You nearly caused a riot that day at Melton,” he said. “That was my favourite part.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, it seems high Leicestershire had never seen a woman astride a horse instead of side saddle.”

  “So refreshing to see the old birds get a shock. But they stopped talking as soon as they saw you take the fences so boldly. A beautiful woman with a good seat is her own argument.”

  I thanked him, laughing, while Lady Grigg craned our way again. She was the dignified wife of our governor, and yet there, with Prince Harry, she was transfixed by every word we were saying. I had the feeling she thought he was flirting with me. It was possible he was.

  “Maybe you could break away before the safari and see our horses up in Elburgon,” I suggested. “We have the best bloodstock around.”

  “Sounds wonderful.” He smiled easily beneath his clipped dark brown moustache. He had grey eyes, and they looked at me clearly. “If it were up to me we wouldn’t hunt at all. David’s the one who wants to bag a lion. I’d rather ride to the top of the highest hill I can find and see everything, in every direction.”

  “Then do it,” I said. “Who’d stop you?”

  “You’d think that, wouldn’t you? But I don’t run the show here. I’m not much more than window dressing, really.”

  “You’re a prince.”

  “I’m down the line.” He smiled. “It’s fine by me, really. Poor David’s got his head in the noose.”

  “Well, even if you don’t care for hunting, you’ve found the right fellow to take you out.”

  “Finch Hatton. Yes. He seems a splendid fellow.”

  “He’s the very best there is.” I glanced down to where Denys sat near Prince David, both of them flanked by admirers. Karen hadn’t been invited, as she’d suspected. There would be hell to pay for Denys when he finally returned to Mbogani, though who knew when that would be. He’d been so preoccupied by safari preparations that I hadn’t seen him, even briefly, in months.

  In some respects, Denys and I were both in a period of suspension. There was no way this safari wouldn’t change his life. The time and privacy he craved would be swallowed up by his new notoriety, and I knew some part of him dreaded it: the purest part, which only wanted to live simply, by his own code. How I understood that. Within a very short time, my belly would grow unmistakably round and my breasts tighten and swell. My body would transform first, and then everything else would follow. I still cared for Mansfield, but I also felt as if I’d boarded a train meant for one place that was now irrevocably going somewhere else entirely. The whole situation made me feel desperate.

  With a stirring of passionate violins, the string quartet began to play Schubert. “Tell me, do you dance, Harry?” I asked him.

  “Like a fool.”

  “Wonderful,” I said. “Save one for me.”

  —

  The next week, David and Harry came up to Melela as I’d suggested and raced on our exercise track. It wasn’t much as races went. David was compact and athletic looking, but he wasn’t a very able rider. He sat Cambrian and Harry sat Clemency, and for five furlongs the brothers were neck and neck while an entire entourage cheered them on. Cambrian was the much better racer; he was undefeated, in fact, until that day.

  “You’re nice not to say how bloody awful I am,” David said as we walked back to the paddock, his blue eyes full of charisma. All along the fence, eligible women strained in a pose, ready to kill or drop their knickers for a whiff of his attention.

  “You were lovely.” I laughed. “Well, the stallion was, in any case.”

  “Who’s this fellow?” he asked when we came near Messenger Boy. “Now there’s a fine animal.”

  “He’s had a bit of a chequered history, but he’s starting to come round. Would you like to see him run?”

  “I’ll say.”

  I had one of the grooms ready Messenger Boy for me—thinking not just that he would make a magnificent impression on the prince, but also that it was a fitting opportunity to show Mansfield that I meant to keep handling our animals as before. It was probably obstinate of me, but I imagined I could easily explain how David had insisted on seeing Messenger Boy to his fullest advantage.

  When that day was over, though, and the last vestiges of the entourage had trickled away, Mansfield let me know how unhappy I’d made him. “You’re deliberately trying to put this child at
risk, Beryl, and embarrassing me besides. They’re famous playboys, both of them, and no one could have missed your flirtation.”

  “Don’t be silly. I was only being friendly, and everyone knows I’m married.”

  “Marriage hasn’t exactly kept you out of trouble before.”

  I felt slapped. “If you’re angry about the horse, say that. Don’t try to rub my nose in the past.”

  “You are being wilful about the riding, no doubt—but you also seem to have no idea of how you’re prompting gossip.”

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  “My mother reads every word of the society columns, Beryl. I would die if even a whisper of scandal made its way home. You know how difficult she is.”

  “Then why bow and scrape to mollify her?”

  “Why deliberately fuel gossip and speculation?” He bit down hard on his lower lip, as he often did when he was angry. “I think we should go back to England until the baby is born,” he went on. “It’s a much safer place to be for many reasons.”

  “Why travel so far?” I bristled. “What would I do there?”

  “Take care of yourself, for a start. Be my wife.”

  “Are you doubting that I love you on top of everything else?”

  “You do care, I think…as much as you can. But sometimes I wonder if you’re still waiting for Finch Hatton.”

  “Denys? Why are you saying all of this now?”

  “I don’t know. It almost seems as if we’ve been playing a kind of game lately.” He looked at me closely. “Have we, Beryl?”

  “Of course not,” I said firmly. But later, as I tried to sleep, I felt a surge of guilt and awareness. I wasn’t trying to toy with Mansfield exactly, but I had been flirting with the princes. In a way, I couldn’t help myself. It felt marvellous to smile and make Harry smile, too, or to walk off in a particular way and know that David’s eyes were on me. It was childish, and also futile, but for those moments, I could believe I was free-spirited and alluring again, as if I still had some measure of control in the world.

  How had Mansfield and I come to a standoff so quickly? I wondered. We’d started off well, committed to being staunch allies and friends. It hadn’t been perfect, but now this pregnancy was pressing us into separate corners. I had absolutely no desire to go to England to placate him, but what was the alternative? If things fell apart between us now, I’d be alone with a child to care for. I could also possibly lose the farm…and that seemed out of the question. Like it or not, I would have to bend.

  The safari was set to depart, and Karen was throwing a royal dinner Denys had helped her secure—no doubt a peacekeeping concession. She couldn’t go to Government House because of social protocol, but the princes could very well come to her. She made it worth their while, too, serving an incomparable meal with so many courses and small delicacies I quickly lost count. There was ham poached in champagne with tiny jewel-like strawberries and tart, plump pomegranate seeds, a mushroom croustade with truffles and cream. When Karen’s cook, Kamante, came in bearing the dessert, a fat and perfectly browned rum baba, I thought he might float away with pride.

  I watched Karen closely, too, certain she must be feeling this evening as one of her finest moments, but under the powder and jet-black kohl, her eyes were lined and exhausted looking. The safari plan had evolved, and Blix was now going along, too, as Denys’s right-hand man. One safari had turned into several, beginning with a foray into Uganda, with other later trips into Tanganyika—and Cockie had been invited to go along as Blix’s wife, and also safari hostess, making sure the water was hot for baths at the end of the day, and that Dr. Turvy had wired in prescriptions for plenty of gin. Karen was left in the lurch, and she was livid about it, I soon learned.

  The culmination of the evening was a Kikuyu ngoma, the largest of these I had ever seen. Several thousand dancers gathered from tribes all over the area, their chiefs joining forces to give the princes a picture they’d never forget. The central bonfire licked up at the sky. Several smaller blazes encircled it, like brilliant spokes around a gleaming hub. The drum music rose and fell in great rippling crescendos, while male and female dancers flung themselves rhythmically in moves too ancient and complex ever to chart.

  I watched it all remembering the ngomas of my childhood, when Kibii and I would sneak out together until dawn, transfixed and also confused by the sensual responses the dancers awoke in us, feelings we didn’t yet have names for. I had changed many times since those days, my skin shed again and again. I would still know Lakwet if she crept out of the shadows to stand in the firelight, but would she recognize me?

  On her veranda, Karen had hung two blazing beacons, ships’ lanterns that she’d once brought back from Denmark for Berkeley, and which had been returned to her after his death. Watching the ngoma a distance away, Denys stood under one of these, his weight on one foot and his other foot cocked, his shoulder resting on a blue fieldstone pillar. Mansfield stood near the other—the two of them arranged as symmetrically as doorways into two different worlds. I couldn’t help but be struck by the thought that fate might have lined things up differently. In some other time, or on another plane, Denys might have been my husband, and this child been his child. I’d have felt differently about everything then, happy and excited about the future instead of worried and sad. But here and now, the die was cast. Even, God help me, if some hidden part of me was still waiting for Denys to love me, to turn from Karen and claim me for his own, what did that matter? It wasn’t to be.

  I looked away from both men and back towards the fire, where the flames rose, copper and gold, blaze blue and white, the sparks thrown up and raining down again like the ashes of fallen stars.

  —

  A few days later, I found myself rapping at the door of Ruta and Kimaru’s hut, after the day’s work was done. Their kitchen smelled of spices and stewed meat. Asis was now four years old, with his father’s high square forehead and his confidence, too. He liked to stand on the beaten-earth floor by the table and leap as high into the air as he possibly could, looking so like Kibii it could stop my heart.

  “He will be an excellent moran, don’t you think?” Kimaru asked.

  “He’ll be perfect,” I agreed, and then finally confessed to Ruta that I would soon have a child, too.

  “Yes, Beru,” he said lightly. Of course he already knew. It had been ridiculous of me to think he hadn’t. “And our sons will play together as we did, will they not?”

  “They will,” I agreed. “Maybe they’ll even hunt. We both remember how…I do.”

  “A moran never forgets,” he replied.

  “You’re my family, Ruta. You and Asis and Kimaru, too. I hope you know that.”

  He nodded, his eyes rich and black. I had the feeling that if I looked deeply enough into them I would see all the years of our childhood played out one marvellous day at a time. And in that moment, I felt the faintest stirrings of hope about this baby. None of it would be easy, but if Ruta was here to remind me of who I really was, it might be all right. I would still have to weather England and Mansfield’s mother without him—but come the summer we’d bring the baby home. Melela would be my son’s Green Hills. If I thought of it that way, the future wasn’t nearly so terrifying.

  “What does your father say?” Ruta asked.

  “He doesn’t know yet.”

  “Ah,” he said, and then repeated a Swahili phrase he’d challenged me with years before, “A new thing is good, though it be a sore place.”

  “So I’ve heard,” I said, and left him to his dinner.

  Confinement is one of those funny old-fashioned words that say so much more than they mean to. I had mine in Swiftsden with Mansfield’s mother, who made everything easy for me in one way, and a personalized piece of hell in another. I slept in a beautiful room and had a lady’s maid, and didn’t lift a finger, even to pour my own tea. It was obvious she meant to lavish this child with everything befitting a Markham. I wasn’t really a Markham myself, and she m
ade that expressly clear, all without saying a word.

  I sailed from Mombasa alone, leaving Ruta and my father in charge of the horses. Mansfield joined me in January, and was there for the birth, on 25 February 1929, a day so bitterly cold the pipes clanged and threatened to burst in the nursing home in Eaton Square. The windows to the street had glazed over, blanketing out the world, and I found myself fixing on that opaque smear as I bore down. I had been given laughing gas and some sort of sedative. Both made me shake and believe I might snap into pieces. Clutching, strangling pains came in rhythms I had no control over. My knees shook. My hands quivered on the damp sheets.

  Hours later, with a final sickening push, Gervase fell out of my body. I craned to see him, and won only the briefest glimpse of his puckered face, the tiny chest slick with blood, before the doctors took him away. I was still lurching in the grip of the drugs. I had no idea what was happening and could only lie there, prodded by the nurses to hold still.

  No one was telling me anything—not why they’d taken my baby or if he was even alive. I struggled with the nurses, and then slapped one, and finally they sedated me. When I came to, Mansfield was in my room looking waxen and drawn. The baby wasn’t right, he began to explain. He was dangerously small and he was missing things that should be there. The anus hadn’t ever formed, nor the rectum.

  “What?” I still felt thick and sedated. “How?”

  “The doctors say it happens sometimes.” He’d been biting at his lip again. I could see a pale lilac-coloured bruise blooming. “But what if the riding did it, Beryl?”

  “Could it have? Is that what you think?”

  “Mother’s sure it couldn’t have helped things.”

  “Oh.” His words thudded at the back of my skull. “What can they do for him?”

  “There’s surgery. If he’s strong enough, there might be several, actually. But he’s not strong now. He’s so small. His breathing isn’t good. They’re saying we should prepare for the worst.”