Mackenzie Ford

by The Clouds Beneath the Sun (v5)

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but nothing of what you have just said convinces me. I do recognize your arguments, of course I do. What Judge Tudor did was hateful, hateful. But I just don’t think a murder, the loss of a life, can be swept under the carpet—which is what you are suggesting, however many fine words you use to disguise it.”

  She unbuttoned one sleeve of her shirt and rolled it up her arm. “I could, if I wished, paint a very different picture. I could say that the people of Kenya will be so obsessed by the independence conference in London that they will pay no attention to this trial—”

  “You know that’s not true!” Sandys shouted.

  “No!” cried Eleanor at the same time.

  “But I have another argument that I’d like you to consider. One that you people outside the camp don’t know about.”

  That got Sandys’s attention.

  He looked at her without speaking.

  She couldn’t tell him what Kees had said about Richard Sutton’s sexuality. He, Kees, was sitting right across the table, unaware of the significance of what he had said. And it might not be true anyway. But she could tell Sandys about the threats made by Richard Sutton Senior while he was in her tent during his visit. She spoke about his promise to make her life a misery, to ruin her career, if she didn’t give evidence. She did her best to remember the exact words Sutton had used when he had threatened her.

  When she had finished, they all sat in silence for a while, their breathing the only sound.

  “Isn’t that all a bit… well, extreme?” Sandys said at length. “I mean, are you sure you are not reading too much into his words?”

  “Oh no!”

  To Natalie’s surprise, Eleanor spoke up for her. “Here I’m on Natalie’s side, Max. Richard Sutton Senior is a very unpleasant man. When I showed him round the gorge—this was early in his visit, and Natalie was not present—he made threats to me too. He said that if Natalie didn’t give evidence I would regret it, that his people in the construction business had the power to make our lives … ‘very difficult’ were the words he used.”

  “Melodramatic, I agree,” said Sandys. “But anything more than that?”

  “Why don’t you find out for us, Max?”

  All eyes turned to Eleanor.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re the deputy attorney general. The British government must have a legal counsel or a police liaison officer at its consulate in New York. Set them on the case. If Richard Sutton is as sinister as he makes out, it shouldn’t be too difficult to smoke out what pies he’s had fingers in. All it takes is a phone call from you, to set things in motion.”

  Max looked at Jeavons. Before he could say anything, Eleanor went on, “He won’t be expecting us to check him out. He probably thinks we are unworldly academics who don’t know the difference between a felony and a misdemeanor.”

  “Do you know the difference between a felony and a misdemeanor?” said Sandys with a smile.

  “I think so,” said Eleanor, smiling back. “What Ndekei did was a felony. So will you do it, Max? For me, for us?”

  “Ah!” thought Natalie. This was an interesting exchange. Eleanor clearly had some sway with Sandys, still, so maybe the rumors about an affair were true, after all. Watching them, it was as if they tried to keep their familiarity with each other out of sight, but it kept breaking through. They had a past together, Natalie was more certain of it now.

  “I’ll see what I can do, Eleanor, but how will it change things, how will it help?”

  “Oh, it will help all right, I can assure you. Just find out what you can and let me know, let us know, as soon as possible. Now, let’s have lunch.”

  Over lunch, all talk revolved around Jeavons, as they filled him in on the work being done in the gorge. He was not a scientist by training—he was a politician, a lawyer—but he seemed interested enough, asking intelligent questions and listening carefully to the answers. It turned out that he was the member of Parliament for Rossington, a constituency adjoining Gainsborough, so he and Natalie had that in common. She asked him what the main local issues were, politically speaking. He replied that one was housing—there was a great need for more council houses, even this long after the war—and that race was becoming a problem. West Indians were moving into the area that had been whites only until recently.

  “There’s a lot of local feeling,” Jeavons said. “I suspect that race is going to be a big issue in British politics in the next few years. It’s not just Africa and the United States where skin color matters.”

  Natalie had been shocked to hear what Jeavons said. As an experienced barrister, he told her he was fascinated by her own dilemma but, like a good politician (so she thought), was careful not to take sides.

  Because he was leaving early the next morning—he and Sandys had flown down from Nairobi, piloted by Sandys—the minister was driven out to the gorge by Eleanor in the heat of the afternoon. Natalie was glad she wasn’t going with them.

  She spent the afternoon hours writing her paper that would form part of a press conference, if there was one, as she had promised Jack. While she was sitting in the shade of her tent, she was approached by Mgina, who had a young man with her. He was a shade taller than she was, but every bit as shy in the way he held himself.

  “Please, ma’am, this is Endole, the man I am to marry.”

  Natalie got to her feet and shook hands with the young man. “Congratulations,” she said. “I am very happy for you. When is the wedding?”

  “In one week, ma’am.” Endole had a very deep voice, but still soft and gentle, like Mgina’s.

  “And after you’re married, Mgina, you will live with Endole’s family?”

  Mgina nodded.

  “As the third wife?” It pained Natalie to say it, but she wanted to see their reaction, when they were together.

  Mgina nodded and smiled. Endole said nothing; his expression never varied. They were both perfectly content.

  “Hold on,” said Natalie. She dipped into her tent and brought out her camera. She took several pictures of Mgina and Endole. They smiled and laughed in embarrassment.

  “Now we must tell Mr. Jack,” whispered Mgina when Natalie had finished. She turned away, then turned back. “I must learn to call him Doctor Jack now, yes? But he’s not a medical doctor, is he?”

  “No, he’s not. I don’t expect he minds what you call him. He has a Maasai name, you know—”

  Too late, she realized her mistake. Jack’s Maasai name evoked the drama of the burial ground.

  Mgina and Endole looked at each other, then sheepishly walked away, towards Jack’s tent. They didn’t want to resurrect memories of the murder any more than Natalie did.

  • • •

  The chatter around the dining table was unusually loud tonight and the reason wasn’t hard to find. In honor of the minister (or was it out of affection for Sandys?), Eleanor had suspended her “no alcohol” rule and allowed a little wine and beer (for Arnold Pryce) to be brought from the locked storeroom, the only brick-built construction at Kihara Gorge.

  Natalie was discussing with Pryce and Jack what they were going to give Mgina and Endole for a wedding present. Jack was thinking of giving the couple a flight to Nairobi, if they wanted, but Natalie preferred something more personal, something that would last, a framed photograph perhaps.

  All of a sudden, voices were raised at the other end of the table, where Eleanor was sitting between the minister and Sandys.

  “And I repeat,” insisted Jeavons, “that the prime minister would like you to change your mind. It will be good publicity ahead of the independence conference. Do say you will.”

  “No,” said Eleanor firmly, shaking her head, her chin jutting forward in the way that Natalie was now used to.

  “Yes, come on, Eleanor, if I can accept, why can’t you?” Sandys laid his hand on Eleanor’s arm.

  Slowly, she withdrew it. “I think the whole idea stinks. No.”

 
“What idea stinks?” said Jack affably.

  Eleanor, the minister, and Sandys looked sheepish.

  “We can’t really talk about it,” said Jeavons in a low voice. “Not yet, anyway.”

  “Come on, mother, out with it. What’s got Max here all hot and bothered? What has he accepted that you haven’t—oh, I know, I get it. Of course. It’s that time of year. Am I right?” He grinned. “Am I right?”

  Eleanor nodded.

  “Is someone going to tell the rest of us what the mystery is?” said Natalie, transferring her gaze from the minister to Sandys to Eleanor. When neither of them replied, she turned in her seat. “Come on, then, Jack, what’s the answer to the riddle?”

  Jack nodded, drinking a slug of wine. “What Max has that our mother doesn’t is a knighthood.” He wiped his lips with his hand. “My guess is that she has been offered a damehood in the New Year’s honors list and she, bless her, has turned it down.”

  All eyes turned on Eleanor.

  “Eleanor,” said Natalie, “is it true?”

  “Well, I’ve had a letter from the palace, yes. They never say you’re getting anything definitely, just that Her Majesty ‘has it in mind’ to consider you for an honor and, if granted, would you accept?” She fixed her gaze on Natalie and shook her head. “I said no. I think all the wrong people are rewarded in Britain, all the attention seekers and snobs, rather than real achievers. Your work should speak for itself. Added to which, in this case, there’s a political element. I was chosen because of the upcoming independence conference and that’s not right.”

  “But Eleanor,” said Jeavons, “you’re very deserving—I’m surprised you haven’t been asked before.”

  “But I have! Three years ago. I said no then, too. That’s how Jack could read between the lines.” She leaned forward. “And I tell you, Minister, there are lots of deserving people, unknown people who give their lives to good causes, who never get honored. Who gets honored? I’ll tell you who gets honored—well-paid, overweight businessmen who aren’t satisfied with being well paid, but who want a gong to hide the fact that they are, most of them, very ordinary human beings. It’s a rotten system, Mr. Jeavons, and I want nothing to do with it.”

  She wiped her lipstick off her glass with her napkin.

  “Normally, if you are offered something and turn it down, you must wait at least five years for another offer. The fact that they’ve waited only three years in my case shows this is politically motivated. So I want it even less. You can tell the prime minister from me that—”

  “Eleanor!” Sandys again put his hand on her arm. This time she did not remove it. “Calm down. Think for a minute. We all know, around this table, the threat you face. If you were to be honored, it would be much more difficult for the authorities—whoever they are—to close you down.”

  That thought had occurred to Natalie at precisely the same moment.

  Now Eleanor took back her arm. “Maybe so, maybe so. But I don’t like it—it’s wrong. The work should speak for itself.”

  “I wish everyone felt like you, but I fear they do not.” The minister spoke quietly. “You’d be surprised how a title attracts attention, even these days. Why not sleep on it—”

  “No!” She softened her tone. “No. My mind’s made up.” She looked up and scraped back her chair. “Jack, how about some music to go with the wine? Let’s spoil the minister with all our luxuries at once.”

  “Sure,” said Jack. “What’s your taste, Minister, Beethoven, Brahms, Basie?”

  “Oh, Basie, please.”

  “‘Shoe Shine Boy’ suit you?”

  “I never thought I’d hear ‘Shoe Shine Boy’ in the bush—amazing.” Jeavons beamed.

  “The Count Basie Orchestra coming up!” said Jack as he got to his feet.

  Suddenly he stopped, winked at Natalie, and then looked at his mother. “Having a title worked for Basie—it worked big time.”

  He left the tent grinning as his mother threw her napkin at him.

  • • •

  Natalie didn’t mind jazz, but she didn’t find it moved her anywhere near as much as classical music. She didn’t like the endless repetition and the heavy syncopation, which she found intrusive. Classical music let you think.

  Still, as she sat near the fire, listening to “Shoe Shine Boy,” she could see that the minister was extremely relaxed and nodding his head—his very fine head—in time to the beat. He had a sharp, legally trained mind, and seemed to see the point of jazz, so maybe she was missing something. But she had in particular been fascinated by what he had to say about politics in Britain, especially race. Could it become as important an issue as in Africa or the United States? Surely not. But Jeavons seemed to know his own mind, and he was a minister after all.

  She tried listening to the jazz with her eyes closed, as Arnold Pryce liked to do. It didn’t help. When she opened her eyes, she happened to notice, in the distance, in the gloom, Mgina slipping out of her tent. Natalie frowned. What was Mgina doing in her tent at this time of night? The laundry was usually brought back in the afternoon. Maybe it was a late delivery.

  As soon as was decent, she got up from her seat, said good night to everyone, and retreated to her own quarters. There was no sign of any laundry on her bed so it was a mystery why Mgina had been there. Then she noticed there were some fresh flowers on the writing table. Normally the flowers were changed twice a week, and the next change wasn’t due yet. But maybe, just now, fresh flowers were plentiful—she’d have to ask Mgina. For now, Natalie had Russell’s letter to answer, and she wanted a smoke. Given that tonight they’d had wine at dinner, she didn’t bother with whiskey.

  Jack played “Shoe Shine Boy” three or four times, then the camp fell silent. One by one, the people around the fire got up and returned to their tents. The minister was one of them—he and Sandys were using the two guest tents at the far end of the row, well away from Natalie’s own quarters. Soon only Jack, Eleanor, and Sandys were left but as Natalie watched, she saw Jack get up and kick some sand onto the fire to kill it, and then he retired to bed.

  Sandys and Eleanor both stood and kissed on the cheek, and then Eleanor went back to her tent and Sandys strolled to the guest tent he had been allocated.

  Natalie finished her cigarette, put out her own lamp, moved the chair and table inside the tent, and then sat, looking out.

  The camp had closed down for the night and all was quiet, save for the noises of the Serengeti—shrieks high in the trees, a rush of hoofs as a herd of something tried to escape a predator, the flap of wings from a large unseen bird, slow and rhythmical.

  She sat on. She had set herself to wait for half an hour, to see whether something might happen, something that she thought would happen, and she had a bet with herself that, if her instincts were right, she would treat herself to another cigarette.

  Ten minutes passed, fifteen. Just on twenty she saw a figure walk quickly from the area of the guest tents towards Eleanor’s tent. Sandys. He didn’t look round and he certainly didn’t shuffle, as Ndekei had done. When he reached Eleanor’s tent he went straight in and disappeared.

  Natalie reached for her packet of cigarettes.

  • • •

  “Over to your left,” said Daniel, pointing. “Remember, Miss Natalie? That’s what we call a sausage tree.” He slowed the Land Rover.

  Natalie was sitting next to him, with Kees in the back. It was a week later.

  She looked to where Daniel was pointing.

  “Isn’t that a leopard?” said Kees.

  “Your eyes are good,” breathed Natalie. “I can’t see it. I’ll never get the hang of spotting things in the bush.”

  “Well done, Mr. Kees,” said Daniel. He pointed again, for Natalie’s benefit. “About ten feet off the ground. I told you, leopards like sausage trees.”

  With difficulty, Natalie located the leopard. “They are so graceful, leopards. But so well camouflaged.”

  “Hmm,” growled Kees. “I’m l
ong-sighted. I need specs for my work, and for writing.” He added, “Look, I see Maasai ahead, over to the left. Do you think they want a lift somewhere?”

  “What are they carrying?” said Daniel, lowering his voice.

  “Something glinting in the sun,” replied Kees.

  Daniel turned off the track and drove through some scrub thorn bushes.

  “They are a long way off the road, aren’t they?” said Kees softly.

  “Why does that matter?” Natalie was itching to get back to camp.

  “Well,” said Kees. “If you are on foot you can go anywhere, of course. But if you stick to the tracks and roads, and we come along, or someone like us, in a vehicle, you can get a lift. It’s odd that these two are in open country.”

  They all watched in silence as they approached the Maasai, who stood still as the Land Rover came near.

  Daniel pulled up close.

  The two Maasai were tall, grown men rather than boys, and they had their red cloaks pulled around them. He turned off the engine, leaned out, and spoke to them in Swahili. They shook their heads so he switched to Maasai.

  They replied, but briefly.

  “They say they are looking for lost cattle but I don’t believe them.”

  “Why ever not?” Natalie looked at Daniel. “Why would they lie?”

  “Look around. The soil is undisturbed. Nothing has been this way.” He nodded his head to the left, to the south. “They are coming from Olinkawa.”

  “Why is that significant?”

  “It’s inside Tanganyika.”

  “So?”

  Daniel turned in his seat. “Do you have any cigarettes?”

  “Not on me, no.” Natalie shook her head.

  “I do,” said Kees. “But I thought we weren’t allowed to give Maasai cigarettes?”

  It was true enough. Cigarettes were very popular among the Maasai but they were a fire risk.

  “Give me your pack,” said Daniel, still speaking softly.

  Mystified, Kees took the cigarettes from his shirt pocket.

  Daniel undid the pack, leaned out of the Land Rover window again, and held out the pack to the two Maasai.