A Pride of Lions

by Isobel Chace

  Karibu blew down her trunk and set off at a great pace round the house. The African shrugged and went off himself, muttering imprecations into the night that was rapidly closing in around us. When he had gone, I plucked up my courage and went into Hugo’s house. Karibu was plucking at his banana trees in his garden just beyond the verandah, but I hadn’t got the heart to stop her. Her method was simple. She stripped the hands of green bananas off the tree, knocked it flat, and then ate the lot, leaving only the bananas behind.

  Katundi had left everything ready for me in the kitchen. I found an apron hanging behind the door and tied it carefully round my waist, while I considered what I was going to cook. I settled for a local dish called Sukumu Wiki, consisting of

  saffron rice, minced meat, and sukumu leaves, which taste much like spinach and are the same dark green in colour. It had the other advantage that it was easy to cook. By the time all the pans were steaming, a quite appetising smell was coming from the food, the first signal of success to any cook.

  Although I had been expecting Hugo, I was quite unprepared for him when I heard him walk into the sitting room. I came to the door of the kitchen, unsure of my welcome. It was a long time since I had felt so shy of anyone, but, I reasoned to myself, if I was going to spend the rest of my life with him, the sooner I got over it the better.

  “Hullo,” he said. He was smiling, a little surprised.

  “Hullo.”

  He raised his eyebrows, making me blush. “Where’s Katundi?” he asked.

  “I—I sent him home,” I said in a rush.

  He sniffed the air appreciatively and I began to feel better. “And did you also tell Karibu she could demolish my garden?” he asked conversationally.

  Not exactly, I managed. “We couldn’t persuade her to go into her stall.”

  He gave me a look which I couldn’t fathom. “I suppose she knew you had come to dinner,” he suggested innocently.

  “She knew I was here, yes,” I said.

  “And why?”

  My courage disappeared with the suddenness of a pricked balloon. “S-something is boiling over!” I exclaimed, and bolted into the kitchen.

  He came after me and leaned nonchalantly against the wall by the doorway. The silence was quite unbearable, made more so because it was obvious that nothing was boiling over, or showing any sign of doing so.

  “I didn’t know you could cook,” Hugo said finally.

  “I don’t often,” I admitted.

  “But you are tonight?”

  I busied myself with testing the rice to see if it were cooked. “Yes,” I said.

  “May one ask why?”

  I gave him a harassed look. This was proving much more difficult than I had anticipated in my own mind.

  “Are they bringing the lions back?” I countered, sounding unexpectedly aggressive.

  “Thanks to Duncan Njugi,” he said wryly.

  I was immediately interested. “Was he furious?” I asked.

  “He wasn’t very pleased. But there was nothing to be done. He could hardly blame Karibu for saving your life, could he?”

  “No,” I agreed doubtfully. “Katundi says that the Mzee came to die,” I added with difficulty.

  His expression was surprisingly kind. “Did he? He chose a gentle executioner.”

  “Karibu?”

  “I don’t think he realised that Karibu was there,” he said.

  I stared at him. "Me? But I would never have killed him! He would have killed me! There was nothing I could do about it. I wouldn’t even have struggled.”

  He laughed. “All he knew was that it was you who knocked him unconscious the last time he tangled with you,” he suggested.

  “But was he clever enough for that?”

  “I think perhaps he was,” he said.

  “Oh,” I said inadequately. I thought that he had been right all the time. He had refused to be sentimental about the lion, but he had given him the respect due to any living creature, and a little more, because this had been a lion in a million.

  “Well?” he said at last.

  “Well what?”

  “Are you going to tell me why you’re here, cooking dinner, instead of eating with the others at the camp?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  He waited patiently for a long moment while I tried to bring order to the chaotic emotions that surged within me.

  “You see—” I said, “even Duncan Njugi said it was a good idea to bring some of the old customs up to date.”

  There was another long, expectant silence.

  “It was something Katundi suggested, a long time ago,” I went on desperately.

  The silence dragged on.

  I turned and faced him. “And you said that if I wanted you to kiss me again, I—I should have to ask you.” I swallowed hard. “I’m asking now,” I said in a rush.

  His face softened dramatically. “Oh, my darling Clare! You didn’t have to do that!”

  I took a faltering step towards him. “Didn’t I? I think I did. I couldn’t go on being at odds with you!”

  “Couldn’t you?” He looked as though I had handed him something precious and that he couldn’t believe his luck. “What about Martin Freeman?”

  “Nothing about him. I don’t care if I never see him again!” I stamped my foot, suddenly angry. “He never did matter—only to you!”

  He took my hands in his, spending a long time just looking at me. I could feel my heart thumping within me, for I thought that even then he might reject me. But he did not. He took me into his arms and kissed me slowly and thoroughly, on my mouth, my cheeks, and my amber-coloured eyes.

  “Is that better?” he asked in my ear.

  “Much better!” I agreed.

  “Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me what Duncan Njugi had to do with all this?” he suggested lovingly, kissing me all over again.

  I blushed. “I think we’d better eat first,” I said.

  “I’m not hungry!” he retorted.

  “Well, I am!”

  He let me go very reluctantly. He was much handier in the kitchen than I was. He drained the rice and served it neatly on two plates, while I was still struggling with the sukumu leaves and the meat. In the end he took the pans away from me and dealt with them with the same casual air that he did everything else.

  When the meal was set on the table, my hunger had gone. I played with a few grains of rice and meat, watching Hugo as he finished up his plateful with gusto, despite his claim not to be hungry.

  “Very good!” he complimented me. “Though Katundi could probably have done as well!” His eyes rested curiously on my face.

  “That isn’t the point!” I said.

  He grinned. He was enjoying himself. “What is the point?” he asked me.

  “You know what it means when a woman cooks a man’s food for him,” I accused him flatly.

  His grin grew broader. “Of course,” he admitted. “But I don’t quite see what it has to do with Duncan Njugi—or Katundi either.”

  “N-no,” I agreed, and fidgeted with my knife and fork, seeking for inspiration. “I don’t think I want to explain,” I said at last.

  “You disappoint me!” he said agreeably.

  I gave him an awful look. “Anyway, you know perfectly well!” I accused him in goaded tones.

  “I might hazard a guess,” he conceded, “but as I can hardly imagine that you don’t expect any man to ask you to marry you, I confess I am rather baffled about that.”

  “But I don’t want any man to ask me!” I complained.

  “Then—?”

  “I couldn’t think of anything else to do,” I admitted. “And I don’t think you’re being at all kind! You could do some explaining yourself! ”

  He chuckled. “I love it when you get cross,” he told me. “I love the way your eyes change colour!”

  “Do they?” I exclaimed, much interested.

  “They do. Are you going to finish that rice?”

  I
shook my head. “I wasn’t hungry after all,” I said. He rose from the table and went and sat on one of the deep leather chairs that looked out across the verandah. He patted the arm of the chair invitingly, his eyes smiling up at me.

  “Darling,” he said in an amused voice, “don’t you know that we don’t practise Kuheera or anything like it in our tribe?”

  I sat down on the arm of the chair with dignity.

  “I thought you’d understand what I meant,” I said hoarsely.

  “Anyway, it isn’t at all the same!”

  He shouted with laughter, while the colour slowly travelled up into my cheeks.

  “Not at all the same!” he agreed dryly. He pulled me down on to his knee and held me captive, amused by my confusion. “How far did you intend to go?”

  “I didn’t intend anything!” I assured him. “I thought that if I— if I sent Katundi home and cooked your dinner, you wouldn’t ask anything else. I don’t see why you have to go on about it!”

  He kissed me on the nose. “I can’t resist it! My love, did Duncan really suggest that you should do such a thing?”

  “He was very nice to me. He knew I was in love with you and— and he thought you might be with me too—”

  “I should have thought that was obvious!”

  “Well, it wasn’t! I wouldn’t let myself even think about it But everyone knew how I felt. It’s a humiliating thought, but it seemed to me that the whole world knew!” I wailed.

  “Darling,” he said warmly. He kissed me again until I didn’t care what anyone thought about anything. “It was only because they’re interested in you,” he said. “If they hadn’t liked you, they wouldn’t have bothered.”

  “That’s what you think!” I said comfortably.

  He chuckled. “Clare deJong, are you going to marry me?”

  I nodded, unable to answer. It was a dream come true and I had never been happier in my whole life.

  The amusement in Hugo’s face died. If I had ever doubted how he felt about me, I would have known in that moment. “Soon?” he pressed me.

  ‘Yes,” I said. “Very soon.”

  Hugo was very gentle with me. It is, after all, a traumatic experience for any girl, declaring one’s love to a man, without any assurance that this is what he wants. Apparently he understood this, for he more than made up for it in the minutes that followed.

  “Actually,” I told him when I could, “I have it on the very best authority that you have absolutely no choice in the matter!”

  He sighed. “Katundi again?”

  I nodded, smiling. ‘Your ancestors picked me out for you a long time ago,” I teased him.

  “And you believe that?” he mocked me.

  I kissed him on the chin. “Why not? We, too, are African born and bred!”

  He dumped me off his knee and back on to the arm of the chair. “I refuse to have my own words quoted back at me!” He stood up, pulling me after him towards the verandah.

  “Hugo, you do indeed want to marry me?” I asked him.

  He turned and smiled at me. “I do indeed want to marry you!” he agreed.

  I sighed with relief. “Because I couldn’t leave Tsavo now,” I confided. I pointed out into the garden. “I couldn’t not have that at my doorstep every day now that I know what it’s like!”

  He chuckled. “What about me?”

  My heart stopped within me. “You, my dear, are the sun and the stars, both night and day, to me. Everything!”

  He looked at me for a long time. ‘You’re very generous to me,” he said at last.

  “But I want you to know!” I insisted. “Tsavo is only your shadow to me. Surely you know that!”

  “I’m beginning to,” he said.

  We stood side by side, looking out across the moonlit plains. The sounds of the night were very busy that evening and we were beyond the need to talk. It was more than enough that we were close to one another and very much in love. Then suddenly Hugo stiffened beside me.

  “Just look at that elephant!” he said in scandalised tones.

  I hardly had to look, for at that moment Karibu got scent of our presence and ran straight up the nearest flower bed towards us.

  “Her feet!” Hugo moaned.

  I laughed heartlessly. There was something very funny about Karibu’s unerring instinct for destruction. There was scarcely a rose-bush left.

  “Perhaps we could entice her into her stall,” I suggested. “She’ll be more amenable when she realises that I’m not going to leave her.”

  Hugo grinned. “You can hardly spend the night in her stall with her!” he grunted.

  “No, but she’ll know I’m with you,” I said innocently.

  His eyebrows shot up. “Indeed? You’ll spend the night in your own tent!”

  “Yes, now, but after we’re married I’ll live here,” I argued. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t tell her that!”

  He blinked. “You don’t? Well, my darling, if you can get anything through her thick head—”

  “You’re talking about a friend of mine!” I interrupted him.

  He gave in gracefully. “Okay,” he said, “on your head be it!”

  I leaned over the wall of the verandah, whistling gently. Karibu flapped her ears and came running up to me, rumbling joyfully. Her trunk investigated the bandages on my arm, blowing breathily down my arm. I held Hugo’s hand firmly in my own and, with my other hand, placed her trunk on the top of our joined hands.

  ‘You’re pleased, aren’t you?” I said anxiously.

  But Karibu was far from pleased. Her ears stood out in the most threatening manner and she shook her head to and fro in anger. Finally she turned her back on us and walked back down the garden, snatching at the roses as she went.

  “I can’t understand it!” I said faintly.

  Hugo grinned. “She’s jealous!” he teased me.

  “Nonsense!” I said with decision. “I’ll go and talk to her by myself.”

  I hopped over the wall and stood in the clear moonlight, calling Karibu to come back. She was far too put out to heed me. She turned her head, to make sure I was watching, and then, with deliberate malice, she hauled up another young banana tree and set about the long leaves that she liked so

  much.

  “Karibu,” I whispered to her. “Karibu, you wouldn’t like me to go away altogether, would you?”

  I could have sworn she understood me. She rumbled faintly, still munching, but she did not go any farther away.

  “And look at the mess you’ve made!” I scolded her. “It would be no more than you deserve if Hugo were to turn you out to fend for yourself! You’re supposed to be a wild elephant! Did you know that?”

  “She knows I wouldn’t do that,” Hugo interrupted me. “After this morning, she can do as she likes!”

  I turned my head and smiled at him. “It’s been quite a day for all of us,” I admitted.

  “A happy day?” he asked.

  I nodded, a little surprised that it should have been so. “Very happy!” I agreed.

  “Then leave the poor beast to do her worst!”

  “Certainly not!” I retorted. “We’ll never have a garden at all!” I ran down the path, tearing my legs on the fallen rose-bushes. “Karibu, that’s enough! You’re going straight into your stable!” I pulled on her ear, leading her away, round the house, towards her own specially built hut. The elephant paused, but then she came happily enough, trotting along beside me and reaching out with her trunk for a mouthful of this and that as we went past.

  She was quite pleased to see her stall. She knew that a vast pile of her favourite foods had been cut and stacked ready for her, to keep her going through the long night, for even though she was not yet fully grown, she already had to eat most of the day and night to keep her vast bulk going.

  I went in with her, enticing her to follow me with the offer of a handful of acacia leaves. When she was right inside and exploring the pile of food for the most succulent pieces, I shut the l
ower part of the stable door. She looked up immediately, but, seeing that I was still there, she went back to her food. I slipped out of the door, still talking to her, to find Hugo waiting, for me.

  Karibu’s ears flapped and she came immediately to the door, entwining her trunk around my neck.

  “I’m surprised Katundi doesn’t think you a witch, Elephant’s Child!” he remarked. He put his arms round me and I reached up eagerly for his kiss.

  “Karibu,” I muttered, “go away!”

  “Yes, do!” Hugo added his plea to mine, but she only blew in his face, rumbling affectionately all the while. “Dammit!” Hugo exclaimed, exasperated. “I will not share my kisses with an elephant!”

  I giggled and pulled affectionately on Karibu’s ear. “It looks as though you may have to,” I said.

  “That’s what you think!” He gave the elephant a shove and closed the top of the stable door with calm deliberation. Then he took me back in his arms, his hands flat against the small of my back.

  “And now, Clare deJong,” he said fiercely. “Now I’m going to kiss you and you can like it—”

  “I’ll love it!” I assured him gladly.