Mackenzie Ford

by The Clouds Beneath the Sun (v5)

  He shook his head. “I did nothing. You saved yourself. The way you leapt over that body of the man on the ground—it was like watching a wildebeest jump in the bush.” He swallowed some of his own whiskey. “I shouldn’t say this, given the circumstances, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so lithe, so beautiful.”

  • • •

  “Fifteen shillings? Fifteen? You must be joking. Eleven, I’ll give you eleven.” Jack slapped the money on the counter and pushed it towards the shop assistant.

  The assistant, a bent, wizened, nut-brown old woman with irregular teeth and a wicked grin, pushed the money back again. “Fifteen, master.”

  It was the following morning, just coming up to noon, and Natalie and Jack had spent the previous three hours shopping for supplies. After she had left Jack the evening before, after the excitement in the street and the whiskies in the bar, Natalie had returned to her room to find a book propped against her door. It was Music in Africa, the book Jack had referred to earlier. And there was a note attached to it: “In case you can’t sleep tonight.” He had left it there before he had had second thoughts about where Natalie might go walking.

  But she had lain in bed, wide awake, too restless to sleep and too disturbed to read, reliving her ordeal, recalling the smell of the sweet alcohol, sweat, and vomit in the street, rerunning her deposition in her head and trying to imagine the hostile questions she would receive in court.

  And revisiting Jack’s remarks about her lithe movements. It was a judicious remark, she thought. He knew she had been shaken by her ordeal. He was making her feel better about herself but not making too much of it. She liked that. She had found she was looking forward to spending the day with him tomorrow. It must have gone three before she had finally dropped off.

  They’d checked out of the Rhodes around nine, packed their bags into the boot of the car that Maxwell Sandys had lent Jack, and visited a variety of shops: a pharmacist, a vet, a garage, a bank, a liquor store where Natalie topped up on whiskey. They were now in a shop that sold radio-telephones and other technical gear, where Jack was negotiating to buy a spare battery for his mother’s radio.

  He took back the eleven shillings, carefully put the ten-shilling note into his wallet, and turned to Natalie. “Okay, let’s go. We’ll try that other shop, near the railway station.” He took from Natalie the bag she was holding and led the way out.

  “Thirteen shillings,” shouted the old crone after him.

  He stopped and turned. “Twelve and six.”

  The woman cackled. They had a deal.

  Natalie grinned and gasped at the same time. This was a side to Jack that she had not seen before and had never imagined existed. In each of the shops they had visited today he had haggled. And haggled successfully. To Natalie he was totally convincing when bluffing, though she reminded herself she might just be naive. He drove the traders down, but they drove him up. She was too inexperienced, really, to know if he got the best price. But she had enjoyed watching him.

  Outside the shop he put the bags in the car and shepherded Natalie in after them. It was as hot as ever, dust and flies milling around, the smells and the heat acting in concert.

  Jack got in the car alongside Mbante. “The Karibu Club,” he said. Turning back to Natalie, he said, “We’re all done. So, lunch first—then we can head for the airport.”

  Away from the center of town the streets grew quieter, wider. There were more children, many of them shoeless. Trees appeared, a school with a field, where children in uniform played in the sun. They reached a vast roundabout with a straggle of hibiscus. They passed by a stall selling flowers and cold drinks and reached a dual carriageway where the traffic thinned. Here there were billboards advertising the new airlines, Land Rovers, cream to straighten the hair.

  Mbante turned off the dual carriageway into a lane lined with eucalyptus trees. Behind the trees, Natalie glimpsed large houses set back behind English-style lawns and vast bushes, rhododendrons at a guess. After a few hundred yards, they turned off the lane into a drive with a hedge down one side and a close-cropped lawn on the other. This, as Natalie soon realized, was the edge of a golf course.

  “This is the Karibu Club,” said Jack softly. “Karibu means ‘Welcome.’”

  They rounded a bend and the drive stretched before them, leading to the main clubhouse, mainly white, with blue shutters and a roof of terracotta tiles. Beyond the clubhouse was a polo field where a couple of riders—white—were practicing, galloping their mounts and hitting balls towards some goalposts. Their sunglasses caught the sun. The contrast with downtown Nairobi was marked.

  Mbante pulled up in front of the main club entrance, an ebony-wood porch with a thatched roof. A black man in a green blazer came forward to open the car door.

  Natalie got out and smiled at the man. He reminded her vaguely of Ndekei. Jack hadn’t mentioned the case today, or her ordeal, or the book he’d left outside her room. Sensitive again.

  He led the way inside the club.

  Broad planks of dark shiny wood lined the floor of the large reception hall. There was a smell of polish and tobacco smoke. A tall man, also in a green blazer, beamed at Jack.

  “Welcome back, Dr. Deacon. How is your mother?”

  “She’s well, Bukawa, thank you. I’ll tell her you were asking. How are the children?”

  The receptionist grinned. “We’re all fine, sir. Thank you.”

  “Say a special hello to Samara, eh? She’s my favorite.”

  Another big grin, as the receptionist took out a form for Jack to sign, so that Natalie, as a visitor, could enter the club. “Fathers aren’t allowed favorites, Dr. Deacon. But she’ll be pleased you said hello.”

  Jack handed back the form, turning to Natalie. “Bukawa is a lucky man, he has four daughters.” He turned back. “I’m looking for Frank Villiers, Bukawa. Has he been in today?”

  The receptionist nodded. “Try the bar or the library. It’s too early for bridge.”

  “Thanks.” Jack turned. “This way, Natalie.”

  Their footsteps made a clatter on the boards as he led the way down a corridor. Off to one side was a small courtyard, with tubs of flowers and tables and chairs set out under umbrellas. It was all very English, she thought, or what she imagined Brighton might look like. When they came to the library the smell of tobacco smoke intensified. Jack peered his head round the door while Natalie waited in the corridor. He nodded to people he knew and exchanged a few words. But, evidently, Frank Villiers was not in the library.

  As Jack stepped back into the corridor, Natalie said, “I didn’t have you as the clubbable type.”

  “You’re right, I’m not.” He looked down at her. His hair flopped forward. “My father was a member and he proposed me before I was old enough to resist. In his day this is where a lot of work got done—the colonial government relaxed here when it was off duty. So this is where my father negotiated licenses to excavate, raised loans to help with his digs, and entertained the academics out from Britain or the U.S. I need to see this Villiers chap, that’s why we’re here.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see, come on.” He marched off again, further down the corridor, until it reached a corner to the left. At the right angle there was a large double door, wide open. The shiny wooden floor continued into the room beyond, which was dominated by two huge ceiling fans, one over the bar itself—a long, carved, mahogany counter, gleaming with polish—and the other near a large full-length window, which gave on to a terrace beyond which was the polo field. Natalie could make out about half a dozen people sitting at some tables. She heard the low buzz of conversation.

  Jack waved to the barman but made directly for the terrace. He stopped, half in and half out of the room, with Natalie at his shoulder. He nodded to one or two people, then grunted: “There’s Frank.”

  He moved towards a small, silver-haired man wearing a dark suit and striped tie, who was reading an English newspaper next to a glass of what looked l
ike gin.

  Villiers looked up as they approached. He nodded to Jack and put down his paper, but he didn’t smile.

  “Frank, good morning. I’m sorry to disturb you. This is Natalie Nelson.”

  The other man’s expression softened slightly in her direction.

  “Frank is clerk to the court here in Nairobi,” said Jack by way of explanation. “I’m hoping he will be able to tell us if a judge has been assigned yet to the Ndekei case.” He turned back to the other man. “Any news, Frank?”

  Villiers was sipping his gin. “Nothing certain, because the prosecution only applied for a date this morning. But if the trial is set for the week I expect, it will be John Tudor.”

  “No-o-o!” hissed Jack softly. “Please God, no.”

  “What’s wrong?” whispered Natalie.

  Jack looked very put out. “About three months ago, Tudor was the judge in the trial of a white security guard in a motor showroom who had killed a burglar, shot him as the man—one of three—tried to steal a vehicle. The burglars were only boys, but because the shooting took place in the course of a robbery, which no one denied, Tudor judged there was no case to answer, and the white security guard went free. He’s one of the most controversial figures in Kenya and exactly the kind of person we don’t want to try this case.” He stared down at Villiers. “What on earth possessed you to assign Tudor?”

  Villiers primly folded his newspaper. “Cases are assigned strictly by rotation, Jack. It was Tudor’s turn.” He got up. “I’m going in to lunch.” And he nodded to Natalie.

  They both watched him leave.

  “So Tudor’s bad news,” Natalie said, still in a whisper, as Villiers disappeared through the bar.

  “Terrible,” breathed Jack. “He’s been known to make racist comments from the bench. The governor even tried to have him recalled to London but Tudor has powerful friends in Whitehall and, I’m told, the palace itself.”

  He brushed the hair off his face. “Look, I’m afraid there’ll have to be a change of plan, I need to see Maxwell Sandys again.”

  “Why? What for? How can a judge be that important?”

  “Trust me.” Jack was hardly listening to her. Instead, as she could see from his abstracted expression, he was busy thinking. “Mbante will run you back to the hotel—think you can amuse yourself for the afternoon?”

  “Yes, of course, but—”

  “Good. Check us both in again. There’ll be no problem, the hotel isn’t busy. I’ll see you at dinner. Same time, same drinks, same table as last night, I should think. We’ll catch up then. I’m just going to tackle Villiers one more time, see what else I can worm out of him, then I’ll get a taxi to Max’s office. Can you remember the way back to reception?”

  “Of course—”

  But he had gone.

  • • •

  “What’s that French phrase that applies to us?” Jack held the chair for Natalie to sit in. They were about to begin dinner.

  “What do you mean?” Natalie sat down and put what was left of her pre-dinner whiskey on the table in front of her.

  “Déjà vu, that’s it. Same time, same restaurant, same table as last night, same drinks, you in the same dress and shoes, me in the same shirt and jacket.” He grinned as he sat down opposite her.

  “But not the same conversation. Come on now, you wouldn’t discuss it at the bar, you said we had to wait for dinner. What have you been doing all afternoon, why did we have to stay on, what’s the real problem with this Tudor man?”

  Jack sat back as their first courses were served, a chilled soup. They had ordered at the bar.

  “I hate saying this, Natalie, but John Tudor is a racist. There are quite a few whites like him left here in Kenya, who don’t think the Africans are up to modern life, who think tribal loyalties interfere with democracy, that tribes are the basis for corruption and backwardness and that the South African system—apartheid—is the right way forward. Most of the time, however, Tudor can’t do much damage, traveling the countryside and officiating at black-on-black crime.” Jack tried his soup. “What occurred to me, when I was talking to Frank Villiers, is that, contrary to what he said, Tudor was chosen deliberately for this trial, chosen because of his views, because he’s a vicious white supremacist.”

  “But why? Who chooses the judges, anyway?”

  “Normally, as Villiers told us, they are selected by rotation. But not always, not in big cases, not in sensitive cases, not in politically relevant cases.”

  “So who did you see this afternoon, and what did you find out?”

  He wiped his lips with his napkin. “Maxwell Sandys, as I said. He was busy, he is deputy attorney general after all. But I hung around outside his office for an hour and a half and, finally, he had a spare twenty minutes.”

  “And—?”

  Jack shook his head. “I’ve never known anything like it. Max is a very old friend of my mother. Some say they were more than friends, but I’ve never had the guts to ask and she has never volunteered anything. He’s the godfather to my sister Beth and has always been very friendly to me—I sometimes stay with him when I overnight in Nairobi, that’s how well I know him. I had a drink with him last night, as you know, and he was affable enough.” Jack raised his glass to his lips, then lowered it again without drinking. “But today … today he was … not so much cold as distant … if I didn’t know better I’d say he was positively shifty. He wouldn’t meet my eye, kept drinking from a glass of water, as if his throat were dry, but—and this is what really bothered me—he wouldn’t discuss Tudor’s appointment at all, kept saying it was none of my business, that it was improper even for me to ask.”

  “Didn’t he have a point?”

  Jack sat back in his chair and let out a sigh. “If this were Britain, maybe. But it isn’t. For the moment, at any rate, it’s colonial Kenya and in Nairobi everyone who’s anyone knows everyone who’s anyone.”

  Natalie had finished her soup. “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying something’s going on, something secretive, something manipulative …” He wiped his lips with his napkin again. “Something political.”

  For a moment neither of them spoke.

  The waiter arrived and took away the soup plates.

  Natalie said, “What can be done? Is there anyone else you can see, anyone else whose advice you can ask?”

  Jack shook his head. “I told you—Nairobi is a small place. The judiciary are a small elite, responsible only to themselves and to London.”

  “You think London has a hand in this?”

  He bit his lip. “I don’t know. I can’t think why London should get involved, but nothing would surprise me.” He shook his head again. “I just don’t know, but I don’t like it.” Another pause, then he looked round. “Well, maybe I do know. They’ve met you now. That’s what this deposition business was partly about, not just to get your evidence down but to see what sort of a person you are, what sort of witness you will make. Now they’ve met you, they know you’re strong willed, very much not a racist, and determined to give evidence. That’s point one.” He gripped the stem of his water glass. “Point two is this: London doesn’t want this trial. The only way it won’t go ahead is if you withdraw your evidence. So … they select the most racist judge in the hope that you will be so appalled and disgusted that you will refuse to play your part.” He drank some water. “That’s what I think.

  “London doesn’t want this trial because the racial element may divert attention from the independence conference, may overshadow it. My mother doesn’t want the trial for the effect it will have on the gorge. And you … you are determined. It’s quite a scenario.”

  Natalie eyed Jack. He looked a bit flustered tonight. His hair was awry, his face was flushed, as he had angered himself in telling his story, his shirt looked as though it had been worn before, which was true enough. But it suited him, she thought. Jack wasn’t the city type, he wasn’t—what did the Americans call it?—clean-
cut, that was it. He was more rough-and-ready. The shadow on his chin looked as though he hadn’t shaved today. She didn’t mind.

  In angering himself, he had angered her. All she had done was sit in her chair in camp and watch the night. And now the British government, in London, wanted the trial scrapped because it might spoil a conference. Just thinking about it made the skin on her throat damp with sweat.

  Neither of them spoke for a moment. Then he added, “Here are the main courses, let’s change the subject.”

  They both sat back to allow the food to be served. He rubbed the scar above his eyebrow.

  “How did you get that mark you are scratching? What happened?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing romantic or heroic, I’m afraid. We had some orphaned lion cubs when we were children—orphaned cubs are more common than you might think. They were great fun to begin with, very cuddly, but they grew up quicker than we did, quicker than we thought, in fact. I was playing with one of them one day, one of the cubs we called Kili, when she suddenly went for me and her claws were out when she cuffed me round the head. There was a lot of blood, though I was lucky, really. She could have caught my eye. But we had to release them into the wild after that.”

  His beer was finished and he signaled to the waiter to bring more drinks. While they waited for the drinks to be brought, Jack talked and Natalie sat back and listened to him. She found she enjoyed just listening, where he was concerned. He talked about his sisters, his airplane, about KANU, in an unself-conscious way, with lots of gestures he seemed unaware of. He pushed back his hair when it flopped forward with the movement that she liked, his voice was easy on the ear—on her ear at any rate—and, all in all, he didn’t seem in any way impressed with himself. He made her forget the trial.

  But the evening had not started at all well. Whereas the previous night she had heard nothing from the international operator about the phone call to her father, this evening it had come through straight away. She had been nervous all over again as the housekeeper had answered.

  “Mrs. Bailey? It’s Natalie here, calling from Africa, from Nairobi in Kenya. How are you?”