All eyes turned to her.
“I’m in two minds about it myself, because it’s unscientific … but … well, Jack, you tell Henry—”
Jack drank some water. “My mother is right. We’ve had, we are having, a very successful season, and it’s not over yet.” He outlined his plan for a press conference, to publicize what they had unearthed and how it would counter the threat by the Maasai to reoccupy the gorge.
Radcliffe listened intently. When Jack had finished, he said, “When is Ndekei’s trial scheduled for?”
“Early to mid-February,” Eleanor replied.
“So your press conference would have to be before that.”
“Yes, of course,”
“Today is the twenty-first of November. You wouldn’t have time to publish your results, and your inferences, your interpretations, before the conference?”
“No!” snapped Eleanor. “That’s what I meant when I said it was unscientific. We would be acting like journalists!”
“But it might break the logjam,” said Jack, equably but forcefully.
“How, exactly?” queried Radcliffe.
“We would be facing the authorities—black Kenyans and white Kenyans—with what kind of country they are, or want to be. Do they cling to their old customs or … or look forward? The Second World War is long over, colonialism is coming to an end, the empire is being dismantled, air travel is growing, more and more people will have holidays abroad—why not Africa? Why not Kenya? Why not the gorge? The gorge is where mankind began, all of mankind. The gorge shows we are all one people. In some ways it’s the most precious location in the entire world—who would want to destroy it? The Maasai would have the whole world against them.”
Radcliffe nodded. “But what could the authorities do? Have troops occupy the gorge? I hardly think—”
“No! No! Nothing like that.” Jack was almost shouting. “But Chief Marongo has political ambitions. With a man like that there’s always the chance of a deal.”
Radcliffe wiped his lips with his napkin. “Eleanor, what do you think?”
“I don’t know what I think, that’s why I haven’t brought it up before. Jack first mentioned his idea a little while ago and I tried to put it out of my mind. It’s not science, the editors of Nature and Science and Antiquity would hate it, and might not publish our findings anymore. It’s … it’s show business! We’d be a laughingstock.” Her fingers grappled with her spectacles.
Radcliffe rubbed his eyes. “I’m not sure the foundation would be in favor. I don’t think we’d object to a press conference in itself, not if you timed it to coincide with publication in either Nature or Science or Antiquity. In fact, we’d approve. But if you went ahead before publishing and were then criticized, or shown to have got something wrong, and if the professional journals did turn against you, because you’d gone the show-business route, as you call it, I don’t think that would go down well—”
Jack slapped the table. “It’s exactly what my father would have done, in the circumstances.”
Radcliffe looked bemused. He wasn’t often spoken to like this, not in remote parts of the world where the foundation’s funding was the sole means of support. He looked across to Eleanor but Jack didn’t give him a chance to speak.
“This is a crisis, Henry. The usual rules don’t apply. We have a knee joint, a jaw, with teeth, and some skull bones, all from the first form of humanity that walked upright. These fossils exist whether they are reported in Nature or not. Together, they rewrite early history. Think what else we might find here.”
He slapped the table again.
“We also have a wall, mankind’s first construction. That’s a whole sensation in itself. Hardly the beginnings of high culture, but the beginnings of something and maybe something more important. If my father were alive, he’d grasp the dilemma instinctively. He never minded what my mother dismisses as the show-business side. A little show business—make that a lot of show business—has often been necessary in the past, to raise funds and attract attention to what we are doing here.”
He took a deep breath. “In my view it’s necessary now. If the future of the gorge is more important than Richard Sutton, then it’s more important than the niceties of where we publish our articles.”
“Yes, but—”
“I haven’t finished!” hissed Jack.
He pointed at Natalie.
“Two of the discoveries were made by Natalie here. It’s her first season in the gorge but obviously she has the eye. And she, of course, is the one who saw Mutevu Ndekei sneaking through the night on his way to …” he tailed off. “We owe it to her to … she’s been put in an impossible position and if we … if we take the fight to the authorities, broaden the context, it lifts some of the pressure off her.”
Another long silence followed. The only sound came from Naiva moving around, lifting plates, placing the fruit bowl on the table, refilling water glasses from the jug.
At length, Eleanor said quietly to the table in general, “Shall we take a breather, cool down, reconsider?”
Radcliffe shook his head. “I don’t need to. I can tell you what the foundation’s position will be right now. I understand Jack’s argument, and I can even see that what he proposes might make sense tactically in the circumstances. I also agree that Jock would have been up for a fight, ready to make a spectacle of the whole business.”
He drank some water. No one else spoke; he had the floor.
“But Jock’s been dead for however long it is—five, six years—and the world has moved on. Kenya is about to get independence and the new government, whoever it is, will no doubt want to make its mark. So who can possibly predict how they will respond to what you throw at them? I don’t know and you don’t know either.” He took a deep breath. “So I have to tell you that any departure—on your part—from regular scientific procedures will incur the censure of the foundation and the immediate cessation of all funds. In other words, and to make everything absolutely plain, if you go ahead with this press conference before you publish formally, in one of the foundation’s approved journals, the next tranche of your money, due on February 1, will be forfeited.”
He drank more water. He gulped at it as if it were something stronger. “Would you like to take a breather now, and reconsider that?”
• • •
Somewhere, a long way overhead, an airplane droned across the black sky. Natalie looked for its identification lights but could see only fathomless numbers of stars.
What a roller coaster dinner had been. No one had wanted a return to the fight at lunchtime so the conversation had been confined to science—to the discoveries they had made and what the implications were. And Eleanor had taken the lead in suggesting they have coffee next to the fire, listening to Jack’s records. So far, so good.
But then Jack and Christopher had started arguing over where else, in the Rift Valley, was the best place to dig if Kihara was taken away from them. Radcliffe’s advice had been sought—his foundation supported other excavations and he visited those sites—but that raised the question of funding and in no time the arguments of lunchtime were reheated.
Natalie had left in the middle.
She had never thought much about funding and mention of the February deadline at lunch had alarmed her. So much was happening so quickly. At least Radcliffe had been crystal clear in what he had said, however unpalatable his message was. How different from what Kees had told her. He didn’t know its significance but it had … well, it hadn’t so much alarmed her as perplexed her and that was just as bad. Had Richard been homosexual? Had he been in the storeroom with Ndekei for some bicarbonate of soda, or for some other reason? What was she thinking? That there was some sort of relationship—a sexual relationship—between Richard and Mutevu? And, if there was, did it have something to do with Richard’s murder? And if it did, how did that change her understanding of the upcoming trial? Had Mutevu killed Richard for personal reasons and was he now hiding behind
Maasai traditions? If so, then she had all the more reason to give evidence.
But how could she ever be certain that Richard was homosexual? Who could she ask? Kees had sworn her to secrecy over his own situation.
“I’ll swap you another free flying lesson for a shot of whiskey. I badly need a drink after the day we’ve had.” Jack slumped into the spare seat.
She had the small cap in front of her.
“Take it all,” she said, moving it across the table. “You earned it.”
He sipped some whiskey and looked up at the stars.
She watched the muscles in his throat as he swallowed. Tonight he looked more like Montgomery Clift than ever. “Will your mother come round, do you think?”
He shrugged. “I really have no idea. In any case, it’s not so much if she comes round, as when.”
“Oh? Why?”
He broke off a piece of chocolate and handed it to her. “We can’t just hold a press conference any old time, in any old place. It takes time to arrange and it will have to be in London or New York.”
“What!”
“Sure, the big British and American newspapers aren’t going to send reporters all the way to Nairobi for a press conference. We have to go to them. All that takes time and money to arrange and we have to prepare what we are going to say.”
Natalie listened in silence. It hadn’t occurred to her that the press conference would have to be in London or New York, but she could see it made sense both practically and politically and the thought filled her with gloom. It would take time to organize, and be costly. Then another gloomy thought occurred to her. “If you hold the press conference in London or New York won’t you only succeed in putting up the backs of all the Kenyan politicians who are in a position to help you? Won’t they see it as—what’s it called—cultural colonialism?”
He grunted. “Maybe they will, but if we can get our achievements, and our dilemma, into the London and American papers they can exert much more pressure than the local rags here. We’re in a fight and we need to use the biggest weapons available to us.”
He reached across the table and pushed the whiskey towards her. “Look,” he said softly, “I think we should take matters into our own hands.”
“What do you mean?”
“It will save time. You write up your findings on the jaw and teeth, and what you think they mean. Arnold Pryce can help you on diet. I’ll do the skull, since I’m more experienced in that department than you. Russell’s already done the knee joint. Kees can do his hand-ax analysis. We’ll get a set of papers all ready to send to Nature, technical stuff, but we’ll also collaborate on an interpretive paper. That will become the basis of any press release. That way, if and when my mother does come round, we can be ready to move immediately. What do you say?”
“Won’t she see it as us going behind her back?”
“No, it’s not as if we are planning to publish anything without telling her. This is just preparation. If she finds out, it may help her make up her mind—in our favor.”
“Our?”
He grinned.
“Don’t get me wrong, I still have that dreadful view, that the gorge is more important than Richard Sutton. I know that offends you. But in my judgment Marongo’s political ambitions are his weak point and the best chance we all have is to exploit that. Which makes you and me temporary allies.”
“Temporary?”
“For the duration of the fight, certainly.” He got to his feet and stood over her. “After that …”
He bent down and kissed the hair on her head.
• • •
Dear Natalie,
I still haven’t heard from you. What am I to conclude from that? That you are too busy to write? That you have already forgotten the intimacies we shared? That you have so gone over to the other side that you now cannot be bothered to keep me in touch with what is rightfully mine?
Let me ask you this, Natalie: do you really want to make an enemy of me? Paleontology is a small world, a small world in which I am not without friends, without allies, in which I am not a bit player, even if I say so myself. Remember that the future of the discipline is here, in America, this is where the funds are and therefore this is where the action will be. Do you really not understand that? Is it too much for me to ask you to write?
Remember that Richard Sutton Senior used to fund the digs that his son was a participant in. So beware: he knows the score and he knows how to make things happen. If he decides to continue his interest, as a memorial to his son, you might be part of that, but not if you continue to act as you are acting—or, rather, not acting.
Please write soon, or I shall conclude the worst.
Fondly, for the moment,
Russell
Natalie put the letter on her table. Radcliffe had brought some post and Eleanor had given it to her at dinner.
Oh dear. Russell, hunkered down in California, miles from the action, as he no doubt thought of it, was growing increasingly bitter. Her letter must have crossed with his—it clearly hadn’t reached him yet. And when it did, would it help?
She stared into the darkness, listening to the theater of the night. Had she mishandled Russell? Was that question fair to her? His “stampede” mode had got the better of him. Did he know any better? Could he behave any differently? She doubted it. That was the mode that had brought this whole mess into being in the first place.
But, another thought struck her: if Kees was right about Richard, and Richard hadn’t been killed because of the break-in at the burial ground, Russell had been wronged. What a mess.
She allowed her thoughts into areas she wasn’t sure she wanted them to go. Lately, Natalie’s thoughts, some of them, had developed an energy—and a direction—all their own. She knew why, even as she was reluctant to acknowledge it.
Months ago, years, Dominic had awakened her sexual side. She had been lucky. He was an experienced man, even an expert, if such a word applied in such a context. When the affair had ended, she had resumed the existence she had had before Dominic: celibacy. She hadn’t expected anything different.
But then, totally surprisingly, amid the danger and panic and smells and shadows of the wildebeest catastrophe, Jack Deacon had rescued her and, in the process, wrapped his hands around her breasts.
And … she could admit it now, at this distance, she had enjoyed the sensation. More accurately, she had enjoyed the thrill. More accurately still, she enjoyed the memory of the thrill, for if she were truly honest the memory was more potent than the original sensation, which had been alloyed with fear. Was that normal? Was she normal? Dare she admit any of this to herself? Dare she admit that, after however many months it had been since Dominic’s abrupt and humiliating departure, her body—if not yet her mind—was giving notice that what had once been awakened could never again be entirely dead, totally inert? That there was something inside her that brought to mind a word, a feeling that she was half ashamed of, half embarrassed by, that didn’t fit the sort of person she thought she was, that she wanted to be. That feeling, that word, was craving.
Natalie was embarrassed by these thoughts, yes, but she was now beginning to realize that they were too … too recurrent to dismiss. When Jack had put his hands on her breasts, he may or may not have had thoughts other than of her immediate safety in mind, but whatever his intention, or lack of it, something had been triggered—rekindled, reignited, rescued—in Natalie. It made her uneasy to feel this way, but that she felt as she did there was no denying.
Did that mean her body had got over Dominic before her mind had? Was that how these things worked?
An image of the black-maned lions of Ngorongoro came into her head, and their rapid copulating. So far as she knew, animals didn’t have the kind of problem she was preoccupied with, they were too busy surviving.
Her thoughts went back to Kees. He was busy surviving. How terrible to be locked away in a world that couldn’t be acknowledged. Not for the first time, she told herself
that her isolation would end with the trial, but would he ever be liberated?
In the distance an elephant trumpeted. She loved that sound, it was so joyous, and she waited to see if any other elephants answered. But none did.
• • •
Natalie sat brushing her hair. Although she was normally obsessive about her hair brushing, this morning it had a different aim. It was what the ethologists would call “displacement activity” or “avoidance behavior.” She knew, from things she had overheard the previous day, that Radcliffe was leaving after breakfast and the blunt truth was, she didn’t want to see him again before he left. She knew it was weak of her, that the arguments wouldn’t leave with him but, even with Jack’s brainwave about the press conference, she felt badly outnumbered as it was, without Radcliffe adding to the arithmetic. With the others on the dig, she could lose herself in work—and they let her. Radcliffe, on the other hand, was a standing reproach, an implied threat, and a symbol of the consequences of her giving evidence. She brushed away.
A cup of coffee wouldn’t have gone amiss but there was no sign of Mgina.
Suddenly, she heard a plane. She went out and looked up. The sun was as fierce as ever and the plane was coming out of the sun, which beat down on her face, hurting her eyes. Who was it now? Radcliffe’s plane had overnighted with him, so their little airstrip was going to be choked.
The plane came closer, lost height, and then buzzed the camp. It was a white and blue twin-engined six-seater and it climbed away in preparation for the circuit it must make before approaching the strip. Was it someone to do with the trial? God, she hoped not. She returned to her hair brushing.
For half an hour, she fiddled with her clothes and her tent, rearranging this, refolding that, airing something else. She tried to convince herself it all needed doing, but she knew she was just killing time. It was still not seven o’clock when she heard one of the Land Rovers start up. She looked over to the trees, where the vehicles were kept in shade. One of the odd-job men was driving out of the camp with an empty vehicle. So this was not Radcliffe leaving but someone else being picked up from the airstrip.
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