I Built No Schools in Kenya

by Kirsten Drysdale

  ‘Oh well, by all means, give it to him then! Better to have it go to good use.’

  This patina of impeccable manners between two women who hate each other baffles me. Perhaps they’ve patched things up on the phone? Is it just because they’re so English? I can’t figure it out. If it was my family, we’d be screaming and shouting and throwing things at each other. I’ve always felt open hostility is a healthier option than passive-aggressive antagonism. The unspoken tension makes me uncomfortable, so I excuse myself to my bedroom to catch up on some emails. God, I think. We’ve got to get through a week of these two in the house together. I’m interrupted moments later by Fiona bursting through the door.

  She dashes across the room to stand flat against the wall between the two windows that open onto the garden.

  ‘Is she out there?’ Fiona whispers to me, glancing out the window.

  I stand up from my desk to lean out for a better look.

  ‘No! Get down!’ she hisses. ‘Don’t let her see you – draw the curtains. See what you can hear.’

  Marguerite is in the garden on the phone. She’s pacing up and down the lawn, the dogs trotting along behind her, stopping now and then to scratch around in one of the freshly planted flowerbeds. Small plumes of smoke grey the sky in the distance; squirrels tickle the branches of an acacia tree just behind the back fence. I spot Patrick stalking through the fig trees, collecting pebbles for his slingshot and squinting as he scans the canopy for monkeys. I wonder what he goes home and tells his wife and kids about the mad family he works for – whether he thinks about the Smyths at all once he’s clocked off for the week.

  Marguerite is talking with one hand cupped around the mouthpiece and glancing back towards the house. Out there, she seems a much more devious figure than she seemed inside – like the person I’d first imagined her to be. Snatches of her conversation float through the window each time she turns to walk towards us.

  ‘She says I’m to sleep in the study! So as not to distract him in the night. Well, really – if she knew anything she’d know it’s the other way around! And he loves having me there beside him when …’

  ‘Who’s she talking to?’ I ask Fiona.

  ‘One of her horrid lawyer cousins, I imagine,’ she says. ‘There are a whole lot of them she’s always running off to visit.’

  Marguerite comes our way again.

  ‘… There’s another Australian girl here. “Kirsty” someone or other. I don’t know where I’m supposed to put them all! Or what sort of arrangement Fiona’s made for them to be paid …’

  Ummm … hold on. What’s this about not knowing how we’re meant to be paid? Shouldn’t they have figured all this stuff out before flying us over? Alice said it was all sorted. I look at Fiona for a response, for some sort of reassurance, but she’s intently focused on Marguerite.

  I hear my mother’s voice in my head: ‘Stop picking up stompies!’ This is one of the many sayings my parents brought with them from Zimbabwe. Stompies is an Afrikaans word for cigarette butts; to ‘pick up stompies’ – and smoke them, as the poor do – means to overhear only bits and pieces of a conversation and get the wrong idea of what is being discussed. When we were children, my parents invoked the phrase as a reprimand if we tried to eavesdrop. But here, it’s clear that Fiona expects me to pick up as many stompies as I can.

  Millicent pulls into the driveway in her old Datsun at the same time as Alice gets back from the Club with Walt. He climbs out of the Mazda and marches over to Millicent’s car. ‘Who are you?’ he demands. ‘Where is your driver?’

  We watch from the kitchen window as she winds down her window to talk to him, and Fiona races out to calm him down. Millicent isn’t actually needed today, but Fiona wanted her here for lunch. ‘It’s important that we all put on a united front for Marguerite when she gets back,’ she’d said. ‘To show her how things are going to be.’

  A flicker of irritation crosses Marguerite’s face when she sees how things are going to be. ‘Good lord, how many people does she think we need!?’ she mutters, before heading out to the driveway herself. ‘Hellooooo, Millie!’ she coos, arms stretched wide for a hug. ‘How maaahhhrvellous to see you! How is your dear old mum?’

  Before Alice and I go through to the dining room for lunch, I snatch a moment with her in our room. ‘Oi,’ I hiss. ‘Do you know anything about how we’re getting paid?’

  ‘Ummm, Fiona mentioned something about that. I was getting paid through the agency while I was in England, but I think here it will be through the family trust or something? I’m sure they’ll sort it out.’

  Awesome: she’s as vague about it all as I am. This is what happens when you’re brought up having things too easy – you just figure everything will fall into place, because it always has.

  We hear a bell ringing from the dining room. Oh Christ, the bell. Not the bell.

  ‘Yoo-hoooooo! Yooooo-hooooooo! Girls! Aussie girls! Lunch is on!’ Marguerite calls.

  We get to the dining room just as Khamisi proudly delivers the meal. ‘Roast. Beef.’ He announces, revealing a sumptuous lump of meat on a tray in the middle of the table, then points to the golden batter cakes and peas and carrots scattered around it. ‘Yorkshire. Puddings. Ve-ge-ta-bles.’

  ‘Well, I say, this all looks splendid! Thank you very much … What did you say your name was?’ Marguerite asks her new cook.

  ‘Khamisi, memsahib,’ he says, grinning.

  ‘Well very good, Kisumu!’ she says.

  ‘Khamisi,’ Fiona corrects her.

  ‘Yes, Khamisi!’ says Marguerite, as though that’s what she’d said the first time.

  ‘Okay, thank you, thank you. I hope you enjoy,’ Khamisi says, bowing as he backs out of the room.

  ‘Let’s tuck in, shall we!’ orders Walt impatiently from the head of the table, so we all pick up our polished silverware and begin to eat. Except for Millicent, who shuts her eyes and quietly says grace. Marguerite catches me elbowing Alice to point it out, and for a moment I worry she’ll scold us for being so rude. But instead, she winks and makes an elaborate sign of the cross before swigging a big sip of wine.

  After lunch, I learn how to spy. Walt and Marguerite take an afternoon ‘zizz’, and Fiona shows me and Alice how to use the baby monitor to listen in while they’re in their bedroom. ‘Millicent doesn’t need to know all this,’ Fiona says. So Millicent sits quietly in the living room, reading a magazine, while we have our clandestine meeting.

  Marguerite knows about the baby monitor – but doesn’t know that it has sound. Fiona wants us to make sure it stays that way. She says to make sure we have the receiver muted whenever Marguerite might see it, and insists that anything and everything we can intercept will be valuable. She’ll be going back to England in a few days’ time, leaving us to look after Walt; she wants us to report back with regular updates. No piece of intelligence is too trivial to matter, apparently. Not even the conversation we’re listening in on right now.

  Marguerite: ‘I saw Nancy and Ted in Dover; they send their regards.’

  Walt: ‘Oh how lovely.’

  Marguerite: ‘We had a marvellous round of golf. A full eighteen holes! Ooooh, I was tired that night. I won, though, of course. Now there’s an idea! Shall we go for some golf tomorrow?’

  Walt: ‘If the sun’s out that should be splendid. It’s years since I’ve been down to the course.’

  Marguerite: ‘Don’t be silly, darling – you went just this morning with Alice!’

  Walt: ‘Who?’

  Marguerite: ‘Alice! One of your young Australian fillies!’

  Walt: ‘Oh … we did, did we?’

  ‘You see!’ Fiona says. ‘You see what she’s like with him? Why does she try to make him remember things that he can’t?’

  Because she hasn’t come to terms with the fact that her husband’s mind is dis-integrating? Or am I missing something? I look at Alice for a clue as to what Fiona’s getting at. She shrugs back at me.

  On the mo
nitor, we watch Marguerite hunch over the side of the bed, taking her shoes off.

  Marguerite: ‘How we go about paying them is going to be a bit tricky. I don’t know what Fiona’s promised but you can be sure it will be coming out of our accounts.’

  Walt: ‘Oh dear – do we need to withdraw some money?’

  Walt starts feeling around for his wallet.

  Fiona throws her hands up. ‘And money! I’ve told her not to talk about money with him! It’s a trigger! He doesn’t need to be worried with those sorts of things.’

  Maybe Walt doesn’t need to be worried about the logistics of our pay, but I am.

  ‘How are we going to be paid, by the way?’ I ask Fiona, another question I should have asked before getting on the plane. I guess I figured rich people would have all that stuff worked out. I had a small reserve of savings to rely on, and a credit card for emergencies, but certainly not enough to see me through the months I’d be away.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll sort that all out later,’ Fiona says. ‘Just keep listening – she’s up to something. I just know it.’

  But all we see is Marguerite swinging her feet up onto the bed beside Walt, and the pair of them holding hands as they drift off to sleep. An old married couple lying beside each other, having an afternoon nap.

  6

  THE CLUB

  The next day, I have the most fitting possible introduction to the Club anyone could hope for: a Sunday lunch with two of its oldest life members, Marguerite and Walt.

  It’s Fiona’s idea. Over breakfast that morning, she tells Marguerite to arrange for me and Alice to be signed up as guest members and issued with our very own membership cards. ‘The girls need to be able to take Dad there at any time,’ she says. ‘And it’ll be a good place for them to go to unwind in their time off. They can join the gym. And swim in the pool.’ Millicent has gone home for the day to check on her mother, but she’s already a member.

  ‘Why yes, of course,’ says Marguerite, as though it’s already occurred to her – maybe it has. ‘I’ll get the forms and sort it out today.’

  ‘Forms?’ says Walt, suddenly looking up from his toast anxiously. ‘Do I need to fill in some forms?’

  Marguerite and Fiona both move to reassure him.

  ‘Nothing to worry about, dear – I’m just going to join these lovely girls of ours up to the Club,’ says Marguerite, patting his hand.

  ‘Here we are, Dad – how about we take your pills?’ says Fiona, distracting him from the other side of the table with his tablets and a glass of juice.

  Walt looks around at the four of us staring back at him. It’s touch-and-go for a moment. Does he know who any of us are, I wonder.

  He softens, breaks into a smile. ‘What hope does a man have with so many women telling him what to do!?’ He laughs, wagging his finger at us, then swallows his pills. Phew.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s weird how Marguerite is with Fiona?’ I say to Alice, as we get ready in our room. ‘I mean, Fiona is basically bossing her around in her own house, and she’s just copping it.’

  ‘Yeah, to her face,’ says Alice, ‘but she’s sneakier than you think – you haven’t seen it yet. Just wait.’ Alice screws her face up looking at my outfit. ‘Mm … you better not wear that.’

  I glance down at myself. ‘Really?’ Fiona has already warned us about the dress code at the Club: no bare arms, no exposed midriff, nothing too tight or short. I’m wearing a collared, button-up blouse and a knee-length denim skirt. I don’t see what the problem is. ‘This is pretty fucking tame. It’s the most boring shit I own.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s just –’

  ‘This is like, Country Road spring casual, circa 2002. It’s Grade Five teacher at St Francis. It’s private-school piano recital chic. I know what I’m doing. I’ve been to a Country Club before!’ I haven’t. ‘Look at you! You’re wearing Thai fisherman pants and a tunic.’

  ‘What’s wrong with my fisherman pants?’ says Alice.

  ‘I just don’t see why that outfit is okay and mine’s not!’

  ‘It’s the denim,’ Alice says. ‘They’ve got a real thing about it. No denim – it’s in the rules.’

  ‘Ah. Right. Posh cunts.’ I lean on my North Queensland drawl for effect, as I change into a navy-blue skirt.

  ‘Exactly,’ says Alice. ‘Posh cunts.’

  As we pass beneath the boom gate and pull into the driveway, I realise my membership card will be much more than a way to keep Walt entertained – it will be an all-access pass to a fully immersive time-travel adventure. The Club is a flashback shrouded in thick ficus trees. It’s a sprawling stone complex with white colonnades and a slate-shingled roof, home to hundred-year-old hospitality. Access is granted only to members, their guests, and pre-approved members of reciprocal clubs. No exceptions – sticky-beaking tourists are certainly not welcome.

  From the moment we enter the foyer, we’re surrounded by waiters in green blazers asking how ‘Bwana Smyth’ and ‘Memsahib Marguerite’ are.

  ‘Splendid!’ Marguerite beams, relishing the VIP treatment. ‘And how are you?’

  ‘Very well, thank you, madam,’ says Moses, the head butler. ‘We have missed you!’

  ‘Ah yes, well, we’ve missed you too,’ says Marguerite. ‘Haven’t we, darling?’ She elbows Walt.

  ‘Oh yes, yes indeed,’ he says, smiling and shaking Moses’ hand.

  We’re ushered through to the garden room. Walt nods and smiles at everyone we pass, as Fiona firmly guides him to a chair against the window. A waitress brings us a tray of drinks, carefully placing it on the table with Walt’s ‘special shandy’ in front of him.

  Alice knows the drill. ‘The staff are so great,’ she whispers to me. ‘They all know to make Walt’s on that alcohol-free beer. Fiona brought a crate of it in. They even think to put an empty bottle of Tusker beside it!’

  That’s not all. Fiona has also made sure the staff know to fill an empty bottle of red wine with Ribena for our table in the dining room, and to put two straws into Walt’s glass when we get a round of Club Pimm’s Specials (so that we know which one is alcohol-free), and to take the salt shakers off the table so that Fiona can replace them with dummy ones brought from home, and to make sure his decaf coffee comes in a separate plunger with a green handle.

  It’s all French-polished furniture and white wicker chairs, parquetry floors and uniformed waiters, pots of strong tea and stronger pink gins, lacy tiers of cake and cucumber sandwiches. The latest British newspapers and magazines are flown in from London, left to lounge in leather dust jackets by the fire. A squash court, a croquet lawn and a library are available for our leisure.

  Fiona grabs me and Alice just as we instinctively reach for our phones to digitally document the moment. ‘Girls, meant to tell you, they’re strict here – absolutely no mobile phones, no cameras. Use the computer room if you’ve got to take a call.’

  Marguerite wags her finger at us. ‘Naughty, naughty girls!’ she scolds, while responding to a text message under the table.

  So, modern technology is out – but old-fashioned decadence is in. Poolside gin and tonic? Let me bring you a cushion for your sun lounger, madam, and fresh towels are by the bar.

  The walls are lined with fading sepia photographs of hunting parties fresh back from safari; one of their kills, a scrappy old lion, sits defeated in a glass box at the end of the hallway. Marguerite tells me it’s taken more live rounds since it left the taxidermist than it did alive. ‘Cheap pot shots from drunk hooligans!’ she hoots, then leans forward with a stage whisper and knowing nod. ‘That’s why they had to put him in the case. For his own protection.’

  Walt, Alice and I all laugh at Marguerite’s dramatic flair. Fiona rolls her eyes.

  ‘Why don’t we go and get these guest member forms sorted out for the girls, Marguerite?’ says Fiona, getting back to business.

  ‘You stay here with Walt,’ Alice says to me. ‘I can sort yours if you like, Pig?’

  ‘Pig!
Did you just call her “Pig”!?’ shrieks Marguerite, bringing all the conversations in the room to a standstill. One of the waiters shoots us a dirty look, but even Fiona looks mildly amused this time – a smile cracks open on her face.

  I’m slightly embarrassed by the scene we’re creating, but in typical Alice style, she doesn’t seem to see what the big deal is. ‘Yeah … what? That’s her nickname,’ she says indignantly.

  (I picked it up from my hockey teammates when I was about thirteen, thanks to my healthy appetite. The name stuck – all the way through school and uni, and even into my professional life. Some people find it a bit confronting, but I like it. What can I say? I’m a fan of robust displays of affection.)

  ‘How horrid!’ Marguerite snorts. ‘What a beastly name!’

  ‘“Pig”, did you say?’ says Walt, baffled, and then suddenly he gets all sweetly gallant in my defence. ‘Someone called you a “pig”?’

  ‘It’s okay, Dad,’ says Fiona, settling him. ‘It’s a joke.’

  They’re all staring at me now, waiting for a response.

  ‘It’s okay – really, I don’t mind!’ I say. ‘Actually, I quite like it. All my friends call me “Pig”, or “Piggy”. Or “Piggus”.’

  ‘“Piggus”?’ says Walt.

  ‘Or “Piglet”,’ says Alice.

  ‘“Piglet” is much nicer,’ says Fiona.

  ‘Yes, I actually think “Piglet” is quite cute!’ says Alice.

  I notice a group of Kenyan women sitting at the next table are listening in on our debate, laughing. I smile and shrug back at them.

  It probably goes without saying that until the late sixties, the Club was for whites only. Whether that was primarily to ‘maintain standards’ or to protect reputations is debatable. The Club is notorious for the raucous shenanigans that have taken place within its walls – some so ripe they are ‘purposely avoided’ in the First Volume of its history, a heavy tome lovingly compiled by members and for sale at the reception desk. One story that is reliably reported is that of Prince Edward’s visit in 1928, when a guest was physically removed from the dining room: ‘There is a limit, even in Kenya, and when someone offers cocaine to the Heir of the Throne, something has to be done about it, particularly when it is between courses at the dinner table.’