Binstead's Safari

by Rachel Ingalls

  “No,” Stan said. “Impossible. In Africa?”

  “She’s American. He says she’s his secretary. Nicholas says—”

  “They’re roaring up and down the streets,” Ian said, “getting drunk in every decent bar and restaurant in town. It’s extraordinary the way people will behave in a country that isn’t their own. Extraordinary. Do they think no one sees, no one hears? The whole town is talking about them.”

  “I suppose they’re like people who quarrel in front of the servants and never think every word is going to be repeated to the neighbours.”

  “Simpler that that,” Stan said. “I bet they just don’t care.”

  Ian sighed. “We’ll get through it somehow.”

  Pippa folded up the letter. She said, “Still, I must say, I’m looking forward like mad to the fridges and showers and everything. It’s going to be like the Olympic Villages.”

  “We’ll have to call it Fun City,” Millie said.

  “We may be calling it all sorts of names before long,” Ian told her. “Pity things can’t stay as they are.”

  “We can keep on like this, can’t we?” Stan asked.

  “If they let us. We’ll have to see. It depends on the daily shoot.”

  Millie said, “I liked your friend, Alistair.”

  “Yes, Alistair’s lovely,” Pippa said. “We thought he was going to marry a nice girl named Dorcas who was out here two or three years ago. But nothing ever came of it. Just one of those things that didn’t happen.”

  “I got the feeling he was in love with this other doctor, Carrol.”

  “You thought that, too?”

  “And if—Eddie, if Eddie really wants to break with her, maybe the wheels will start to turn.”

  “That’s an idea.”

  “What’s this? Scheming and plotting?” Ian said. “My God, the women in this country are worse than the politicians. The complications they can cook up.”

  Pippa waved her hand at him. “Back to your paper,” she said. “This doesn’t concern you. Don’t you worry your pretty head.”

  Millie burst out laughing. Stan raised his eyes and looked at her, but she wouldn’t catch his glance.

  *

  In the middle of the night he woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.

  He lay with his eyes open, his arm across his forehead. And he wondered what good his research was doing, if it could be called that. He’d almost forgotten why he had come to Africa in the first place. He had been looking for a story that was being made into a fixed pattern, a standard and order against which to set the chaos of life. But life was for living, not to be studied.

  Love, he thought. We are taught to expect it. When it isn’t there, we fall apart. But in nature there is no love, only need. There is play, pleasure, even dreams. But love, as most people understand it: a cherishing of the mind and soul of another being—that’s an artificial emotion. Friendship is almost unknown in nature. Family ties prevail over such trivialities. Family ties depend on blood.

  *

  They moved camp the next week, staying for a few days at a site which was so much less comfortable than the one they’d left that for a while all of them felt dispirited. The ground was dry and stony, the whole land looked parched and ready for the rainy season. At the other camp, clear blue heavens and juicy foliage had housed them. They had gone north and now it was hotter, the sky seemed almost white most of the time. They breathed in dust when they moved.

  Ian took Stan to a village where one of the head elders was an old friend. They talked while Stan stood, then sat, silent. He had learned that, for some reason he couldn’t guess, he was not liked by many of the Africans he’d met outside the town. At first he had thought it crude and simple: because he was white, rich (compared to them) and foreign. But then he began to believe it was only because of the way he behaved. He was trying to learn all the rules now, being taught slowly and carefully how to act with people, just as he’d been led to an appreciation of how to adapt himself to the hunting conditions. There was no need to hurry or force the rate of his progress; everything would come at its own pace. Not like his real father: Speak up there, boy, what do you have to say for yourself? He wished there had been the time for Ian to teach him the languages, too. It both annoyed and amused him to see Millie so often deep in conversation with Robert and appearing to be communicating fairly easily, whereas all the courses in Swahili that he himself had gone through back home had proved pretty useless—everyone was speaking his own language and dialect.

  The old man chatted with Ian, first seriously and then with jokes and laughter. Later, Ian said that it was their usual catching-up talk and they covered all sorts of topics, private and public. Stan understood nothing of the words but felt moved by the sight of the two men and the sound and rhythm of their voices speaking so harmoniously. What good friends they were, he thought. He hadn’t had friends like that since high school. Real friends, not like Jack.

  At a point about halfway through the conversation, the old man turned to him and asked politely about the important things in his life: his country, his family. Stan liked the diplomatic way in which shock and pity were repressed as he admitted to having no children. He spoke about the hunting and declared that it was good to be able to learn with a teacher like Ian. That was the right thing to say. It pleased the old man. The talk went back out of English again.

  On their way home, Ian said that as far as his friend knew, there was no new political or religious movement in the vicinity, nor among other villages he visited or heard news from. “But….”

  “Yes?”

  “He said something about songs and dances. I expect it’s simply the same ones they’ve always had. He seemed to believe they were new. I don’t think it means much, to tell the truth. It may be someone’s distortion of—you see, nowadays it might even be that someone’s cousin in town saw a film on the box and described it with local additions. Adapted it. He told me a kind of ghost story that might be nothing more than that. How can you tell whether these things are really intended to be anything or to mean anything?”

  “That’s what we’re trained for. And that’s the kind of thing I’m looking for. What was this ghost story?”

  “A lion that lives among people and then goes back to the pride. But, surely you recognize that—it’s the story of Elsa the lioness, isn’t it?”

  “Did he say the lion was male or female?”

  “Male. But that might just have been a twist, to make it more interesting.”

  “Anything else? Only that one thing, or were there any stories surrounding this figure?”

  “He heard it from someone else. That was what he did say: the story doesn’t come from this part of the country. Well, we’ll go to the someone else and try to track it down. All right? Like working for the police.”

  “It’s like hunting,” Stan said, “but a different kind.”

  *

  He started to have bad dreams and there was no reason for it. All day long he was fine, except for the feeling that came over him every once in a while and which was so hard to explain but unmistakable as soon as it happened. It wasn’t like tiredness or a suspicion that things were wrong. It was more like an apprehension of horror somewhere, although nothing was to be seen and there was no object or event that could have given rise to it.

  One afternoon he took a nap and had a dream that he thought at the time was a good one: he dreamt that he was climbing into a large wicker basket like an enormous picnic hamper. A pretty girl and a young man got in with him. Above them, like the base of a giant rose, spread the swelling shape of a balloon. The man took out a pocket knife and cut a rope at the side. They started to go up. It was like being in an elevator. Then they began to travel horizontally. Stan looked down and saw the tops of trees speeding away from him. The balloon bobbed to left and right in a zigzag path, the air bounced lightly under them a few times, and the movement stopped. They were suspended. Everything was held in a state of abeyanc
e, and silent. Later on, when they drifted high over herds of animals, noises came up to them made very small by distance, yet clearly audible; but right at the beginning, he was impressed with the complete hush and a beauty of motion that seemed effortless, almost without impulse. He felt his heart lift. The young man wrote in a notebook, the girl hummed a song; he wore a striped sailor’s jersey, she had on a dress made out of some kind of sparkling material. They were both about the age of Stan’s college students. He began to feel very happy and the balloon started to rock gently, like a boat. The young man leaned back against the rigging and said, “This is the life, Stan,” and he answered, “This is the life.” The girl gave him a big magazine-cover smile, beautiful. She put out her hands and touched him. He woke up with a jump and laughed a little. He felt terrific. But later in the day he remembered how young the two had been—he was really old enough to be their father. And for a few minutes he was overcome by fury and remorse at the thought that he had never had the chance to do anything exciting with his life when he’d been young. Going up in balloons, fooling around with new adventures and experiences—he should have done all that long ago, and finished with it, and moved on.

  *

  When the next batch of letters arrived, there was another note from Nicholas, to say that the Whiteacres were finally on the road, with every last piece of the tremendous load of stores, machines and baggage. Their four friends were in the safari and it was like being in charge of troop movements.

  Pippa handed the letter to Ian when she’d finished with it. “Nick says so far they’ve been spending most of their time behind their binoculars, spying on lion servicing the pride. Except when the Whiteacres are trying to outshoot each other and coming close to blowing their heads off. It seems Jill’s had a bit of a setback, too.” She shook her head. “He always says less than he feels.”

  “He’ll be all right,” Ian told her.

  “How do you know?”

  “She’s the one who’s the problem.”

  Millie said, “It’s too bad she was in such an isolated place.”

  Ian agreed. “The worry,” he said. “The fear. And being alone there when Nick was off on safari. Thinking she had no protection for herself, and certainly wouldn’t be able to protect the kids.”

  “Was she really all alone?”

  “Of course not. Dozens of boys working round the house, on the farm.”

  “Oh, I see. No women to talk to, that kind of thing.”

  “That’s it. No community life. Her kind of community. One other person would have kept her on the rails. It was all right when old Mrs Hastings was still alive.”

  “Mad as a hatter,” Pippa said.

  “But not bad company. Frightfully funny, sometimes. All that makes a difference.”

  “But this is her home. She grew up here. It isn’t a case of some young wife in the foreign service who’s never seen a black face. I still think that last baby took something out of her.”

  “That could be. Not denying it. I don’t think it’s the only reason.”

  *

  This is crazy, he thought. I’m not even approaching it the right way. I’ve hardly taped anything except the sounds of the animals at night. I don’t know why I’m still pretending there’s a publication in it. It’s become something entirely different. I think I’m right on the track of it, and the next minute it slips through my hands and there’s nothing. I feel the way I used to when I was a child, obsessed by questions of why we die and where we go afterwards and is there a God, is there a limit to the universe and if so, what’s beyond that: if I could only solve the mystery, everything would be perfect.

  “The mystery is about yourself, Stan,” Jack had said in London. “It’s always about yourself.”

  And when he woke up in the middle of the night, he seemed to hear an echo saying, “What are you scared of? Afraid you’ll like it?”

  *

  They changed their campsite again, this time finding a lush spot near trees and not far from a small stream. There were large numbers of animals in the vicinity because of the water; they would even wander into camp. And there was a wide range of good views to paint.

  On the third day after their arrival, Millie and Pippa saw a green-and-white checked balloon riding low in the sky and coming slowly towards them. They left their paints and ran to meet it. Robert and his friend Odinga went after them, shouting and whipping their arms in the air.

  They reached the road and waved. The balloon drifted along as lazily as a leaf on a slow-moving current. One of the men in it gave them a friendly sweep of his arm, the other had a telescope to his eye and wasn’t looking in their direction.

  “It’s the London team,” Pippa said. “One of them is English and the other’s a New Zealander, I think.” Millie stepped forward to begin making her way through the long grass of the field beyond the road.

  “Don’t go out there,” Pippa said sharply. “Anything could be out there.”

  Millie stopped. “It’s just a field,” she said.

  “It’s just a field where at least twenty lion could be snoozing with their cubs, or leopard, or anything. Even a warthog can turn nasty.”

  Millie continued to look sceptical.

  “And the ticks,” Pippa added, “and those ants, I told you about them, the sort that leave their heads under one’s skin—”

  “All right, you’ve convinced me.”

  They went back to their paintings. Millie said it was a shame the balloon hadn’t landed. It would have been fun.

  “More fun to go up in it,” Pippa told her. “But Ian’s right; they’ve their work to do. They can’t be giving us rides all the time, more’s the pity.”

  “You know them?”

  “I met them once, but only to shake hands. They were in a tearing hurry to start off on one of their trips. The other balloon is the one I went up in.”

  “Not the group-sex love-nest?”

  “No, no. Good heavens. The pink-and-white one you saw with Ian the first day out. That’s an official one. The government department. It’s the one surveying this territory now. There’s another one somewhere. We know Archie and Colin best.”

  “I’m very intrigued by the skyborne eternal triangle.”

  “Oh my dear, so am I. I’ll tell you if I see them.”

  “What colour is their balloon?”

  “I’m trying to remember. No, it’s gone. I do hate forgetting things. It’s happening more and more.”

  They talked while they worked on their pictures; Pippa about her grandchildren and about the past, when her own children were small and Ian was working for Odell. Millie spoke, when asked, about her family. She thought of them suddenly at a great distance not just of miles but of time. She caught herself thinking about them sometimes as if they had died long ago. The idea struck her as disconcerting, rather than sad.

  *

  Stan started three different letters to Jack and tore them up.

  The fertility rites of a primitive religion were one thing. And deliberately staged erotic games from the big city were another. Of course they were. And of course it had been different, without a doubt; especially at the end. But none of that mattered. Forget all that—that was one of Jack’s favourite sayings and he was right. What was important was that he and Millie should be able to draw a line across their lives together and move away from the unhappy past.

  He went on a two-day hunt with Ian and came back in a good mood. They cleaned up, had a drink and joined Pippa and Millie for the evening meal.

  They talked about the game and about how well conservation methods had succeeded in certain areas but not in others; poaching, disease, the amount of rainfall, were all important factors. Ian had a lot to say on the topic of illegal hunting. And Pippa told a long story which didn’t follow from the rest of the conversation: about the famous Curse of the Pharaohs, which might really have been a virus similar to one found on the walls of caves in South Africa, or so she had been informed by a friend
of hers back in town. The friend had read it somewhere.

  “Rubbish,” Ian said.

  “No, she was very good on the details. I forget how it worked. The virus is carried by bats.”

  “I thought they all just died normally,” Millie said. “More or less. Pneumonia and things.”

  “That was the bat virus. It took different forms.”

  Ian threw up his hands. Stan had no fixed opinions about ancient Egypt. He thought that when they were alone later, he would tell Millie he’d missed her while he was away.

  Ian said, “Come on. It’s time for us to go hang upside-down.”

  Pippa yawned and Millie stood up. Stan put down the empty glass he’d been holding. They all said goodnight. On the way to the tent, Millie said she felt that they had known the Fosters for a long time. And Stan, not meaning to put it the wrong way around, said, “Did you miss me?”

  She hadn’t. She said, “We didn’t have the time to miss anybody, either of us. You saw all the paintings we did.”

  “I missed you.”

  They went inside the tent. He said they’d probably be moving camp again in two days, and after that the next stop would be the Whiteacres.

  “Then,” he told her, “we go on to the real country.”

  “This isn’t real?”

  “This isn’t connected with my work.”

  “Of course. That’s the yardstick reality is measured by.”

  He started to laugh and felt uncertain. Now that it was important to him to know, he’d lost the ability to tell what she was feeling. He used to know and not care. Perhaps she was deriding him.

  Her lips shaped a non-committal smile, her eyes looked nowhere in particular, and not at him.

  She was only teasing. She was fond of him again now, but she often found him very silly. And amusing. He no longer got on her nerves. Nothing did any more. And she would be leaving him soon.

  “Ian is afraid of illness,” she said. “Especially afraid of women becoming ill. It’s odd for a man whose life is so concerned with violence and death.”

  “Maybe that’s why.”