Czytaj książkę: «The Hunters»

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for An Unsuitable Woman

Dedication

Part One: 1925–1927

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Part Two: 1933–1937

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Part Three: 1937–1938

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Historical Note

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Kat Gordon

About the Publisher

Her heart stopped at 20:57 exactly. She had looked at her watch only moments before, and asked the totos to turn on a lamp. She had been reading and hadn’t noticed it getting dark until her eyes had smarted suddenly with the strain.

It had been a warm evening – a warm end to a hot, sticky day that had wrapped itself around her, dampening her upper lip and armpits and the backs of her knees – and she was wearing a thin blue cardigan over the white dress. It made her laugh, wearing white, after everything that had happened, or maybe it made her cry. She stopped the totos again and asked for some tea. Her stomach was still delicate. Her whole body had changed since childbirth, in fact. But she didn’t like to think about that.

She turned her head towards the door, as if she’d heard a noise outside. A crunch and a low purr, but not an animal’s; this was a car pulling up. She wondered for a moment if it was Theo – he often dropped by unannounced. She held the book up. She didn’t want to see him. She didn’t want to see anyone, except the totos passing in and out of the shadows cast by the lamp.

Through the screen door she could smell the magnolia tree, and the roses she’d planted. The sweetness of the flowers mingled with the sharpness of the limes that the totos used to polish the furniture, filling the room with a powerful haze. It made her feel tired, or was that the sudden quiet? The cicadas had stopped their humming, and she couldn’t even hear the water. Peace.

A toto stood in front of her with the cup of tea and she shook her head. She’d changed her mind. She didn’t want tea, she didn’t want anything. Go back to the kitchen, she said. Or anywhere; just stay out of this room. She closed her eyes.

The bullet went through the book first; she hadn’t lowered it. Maybe that was the reason there was so little blood, just a small, dark hole in her chest over her heart. When the totos found her, her eyes were open and clear. They said it almost looked as if she was smiling.

Part One

Chapter One

The station was big and crowded with no benches or stalls, just two signs, one reading ‘Mombasa’, and the other ‘Upper-class passengers and luggage’. Most of it was open to the hot November sun and the flies.

After a few minutes I found a porter, and led him back to my family: my father, mopping his forehead, my mother, tapping her foot, and my twelve-year-old sister Maud, melting against the pile of trunks holding books and clothes and everything else that hadn’t been sent on ahead to the new house at Lake Naivasha.

‘There you are, Theo,’ my father said. He waved our tickets and two pennies in front of the porter, ‘Load our luggage into the carriages, there’s a good man.’

‘Yes, Bwana Miller,’ the porter said. He was wearing a thick navy jacket and trousers. As he picked up the first of our trunks I saw he had dark circles under his armpits. He smelled different to the Africans in Tanganyika, less spicy and more sour.

Our carriages were two square compartments with an interconnecting door and mosquito screens attached to the window frames. I sat next to the window on a green-cushioned bench and my mother and Maud sat with me. Smartly dressed train guards checked our tickets and bowed to my father as he strode around the two rooms, explaining little features here and there. My father was an engineer, now Director of the same railway that in 1896 he’d come out to Africa to build.

I rested my forehead against the cool glass of our carriage window. We’d spent the last two weeks in Dar es Salaam, and if we were still there I would have been stretched out along the jetty with Maud and Lucy – the daughter of my father’s friends – soaking up the warmth of the wood beneath us, and listening to the shouts of the men unloading fish and spices along the harbour. In front of us, moored dhows would be bumping gently against each other in the waves, and kingfishers dive-bombing the water in flashes of blue and orange. Across the bay was Zanzibar, home to the sultan. One afternoon I’d taken my father’s binoculars out to look at the island, a stretch of brilliant white sand dotted with palms and matched by the whitewashed palace and fort at its edge. To the left I could see an Indian banyan tree, alive with vervet monkeys, and behind that, the shaded labyrinthine streets of Stone Town. Children darted in and out of focus, rusted-red iron roofs sloped upwards, and bedsheets, used in the place of curtains, flailed outwards in the breeze. ‘That’s the breath of God,’ Maud said, when I showed her. I didn’t see how Kenya could be better than that.

Along the train, doors began to slam.

‘Theo, open the window, please,’ my mother said.

‘Perhaps we should leave it closed,’ my father said. ‘It gets quite dusty later on.’

My mother frowned, and he hurriedly waved at me to do as she said.

With the window open the carriage began to smell. Home – Scotland – had smelled clean, like heather, or salt when the breeze blew straight from the ocean. And then in the spring and autumn the rain would come, hammering the earth and releasing the rich smell of peat from it. Africa smelled too much – fishy, peppery, rotting, and smoky all at once – and at first I’d thought I was going to pass out in the confusion. Now I could occasionally make something out: the sour, animal scent of a donkey, or the sweetness of the mimosa that spilled over the white fences surrounding the Europeans’ houses. Or caramel, from the sugared nuts a man was selling on the platform.

‘That’s hardly any better,’ my mother said, peeling off her gloves, and I pressed myself against the back of my seat to be further away from her. She was seventeen years younger than my father, and I knew that men found her beautiful. To me, however, she was only unpredictable. Sometimes she would nuzzle me, rubbing her nose against my cheek and gently pulling my hair, and other times she would fly at me, cuffing me around my head. My last tutor had quit when my mother – whose own schooling was stopped at thirteen – overheard me stumbling on my arithmetic and ran into the room to slap me across the face, shouting the right answers. After that I was sent to boarding school.

‘When are we going to leave?’ she said. ‘Can’t you have a word with someone, William?’

‘Just a few more minutes.’

Maud traced an outline with her finger over the mesh of the mosquito screen. ‘Will we come back to Mombasa?’

‘Another time,’ my father said. ‘We’re going to The Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi now. You know, Theodore Roosevelt stayed there in 1909 on his “African Safari and Scientific Expedition”.’ He placed a meaty hand on my neck. ‘Your namesake, Theo.’

At fifty-four, my father was the one who resembled Roosevelt, with his moustache and his glasses and his waistcoats. I was slim, short and blond, and my mouth was too large – too thick-lipped – and my nose too wide, my eyes too green and my cheekbones too high to be much like the former President. I was too girlish-looking. The boys at my school had called me Theodora; sometimes they’d chased me around the rugby pitch and pinned me down while they took turns to kiss me.

I breathed in deeply; the idea that I’d never see a school again made me want to shout with exhilaration. My mother had already found a governess to take charge of my education. After the incident with one of the rugby boys that last term, and after I’d been sent back early, she hadn’t spoken to me for a week, but at least she seemed to realise I was better at home for the next three years. Then there would be university, but I didn’t need to think about that yet.

‘Will we see any animals from the train?’ Maud asked.

Maud had large brown eyes and olive skin; in Scotland they’d called her ‘the Spanish Sister’, because of her looks and her habit of carrying a bible around. I’d once heard my father tell a friend that Maud had never lied in her life.

‘We will,’ my father said.

There was a shrill blast of a whistle from the platform, and the train jerked forwards impatiently.

‘Finally,’ my mother said.

At first the scenery was of dusty bazaars and colourful buildings – pale pinks and greens and glowing whites with towers and domes and covered balconies – or wide roads lined with palm trees and sycamore figs and only a few cars in sight. The blare of shouting reached us through the open window, becoming muffled as we headed out of the centre and the houses turned European: well-spaced bungalows with large, tropically lush gardens. Then came the thatched huts and swampland, African children running alongside the tracks to wave at the train, and then we were out of the city completely. The view changed to brown scrubland and small streams and I turned away from the window, disappointed with what I’d seen of the country so far.

The journey was slow. We had to stop every time a buffalo wandered onto the track, and the train jolted badly. At Voi we stopped for an hour, this time to have dinner by the side of the track, under large hanging lamps and a cloud of buzzing insects. We started with soup then moved on to a rubbery-tasting fish.

‘It’s good to have some proper food again,’ my father said, spearing a large piece with his fork.

I swirled my own piece around its plate, leaving trails of slimy leeks in its wake.

‘What’s wrong?’ Maud asked me. ‘Do you miss Dar es Salaam?’

‘We were only there for a fortnight,’ my mother said. ‘You can’t be that fond of it already.’

In Tanganyika our supper had been dates, then spiced beef or fish curries cooked in coconut milk and served with rice on a metal platter, with hollows for each dish so we could mix the food if we wanted to. Sometimes, if we were still hungry afterwards, we’d buy food from the baba lishas – the feeding men – down by the harbour: grilled cassava with a chilli sauce, samosas, pineapple, custard apples, avocados and andazi, a sweet, deep-fried dough cake. Lucy’s parents had joined us on our second night for supper, bringing Lucy too, the first time we’d met. She sat with me and Maud and I tried to talk to her, but she was monosyllabic.

‘You made quite an impression,’ my mother said afterwards.

‘She didn’t like me.’

She gave me a funny look. ‘Your delusions never fail to amaze me, darling.’

My father pushed away his empty plate, and an Indian waiter in a starched white uniform swooped down and exchanged it for one piled with beef. My mother, who’d just laid down her knife and fork in the middle of her plate, hurriedly picked them up again and continued to pick at her fish.

A cat appeared in the doorway of the station master’s office, and sauntered along the platform in our direction.

‘Here, kitty,’ Maud said, holding out a morsel of fish.

The cat reached my mother and started to rub himself against her leg, purring and arching his back. My mother reached down and scratched his head, and I suddenly wondered what it would feel like to be him, to stroke my face against her long, smooth leg, and have her fingers gently massage the ticklish spot just behind my ears. I looked away from the two of them.

‘How much longer before we reach Nairobi?’ I asked.

‘Oh, sixteen hours or more,’ my father said.

‘Is it as far as Edinburgh to London?’ Maud asked.

‘Much further.’ He dabbed his mouth with his napkin. ‘That’s why it took so long to build. That and the lions, of course.’

‘The lions?’

‘In Tsavo,’ my father said. ‘Slave trader caravans used to cross the river there, and two lions developed a taste for human flesh. They must have been eating the bodies of dead captives left by the wayside before we showed up.’

Maud put down her cutlery.

‘They ambushed the workers at night and dragged them off. After a while most of the workers ran away – we had a devil of a time trying to get them back. The lions ate more than a hundred men until Patterson found them and shot them.’ He shook his head. ‘He took them home as rugs. Beautiful specimens.’

When we returned to the carriage, the guards had made up our bunks with crisp sheets, soft pillows and blankets. Our parents were in the compartment next door, and I shared with Maud. I lay on my top bunk, unable to sleep. After an hour or so I jumped down and stood by the window.

‘What are you doing?’ Maud asked.

‘Surveying my kingdom.’

She got out of bed and stood next to me, wrapping her arms around herself. ‘Do you think there’ll be wild animals there? By our house, I mean.’

‘Of course there will be.’

‘I want to see an elephant. And a tiger.’

‘Tigers are in India, Spanish. Africa’s got lions, and hyenas. And leopards.’ I turned to face her, leaning back against the window. ‘You know they live in trees, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you have to look up when you’re in a forest. Otherwise they could drop down behind you and bite you here,’ I put my hand to my throat, ‘and drag you back up and we’d never find you.’

‘They don’t eat humans,’ Maud said.

‘They eat everything.’

‘Stop trying to frighten me.’

‘It’s no fun if you don’t actually get frightened anyway.’

‘Mother says we can have a dog here.’

‘She won’t really let us.’

Maud looked up at me, wide-eyed. ‘But she promised.’

‘When I’m older and I have my own house,’ I said, ‘you can live with me and we’ll get a dog.’

‘Are you going to move out soon?’

‘Why? Do you want me to go?’

‘No. I hated it when you went to school. But I do want a dog.’

I tried to hide my grin.

‘Anyway,’ she said, leaning her head on my shoulder. ‘I won’t be able to live with you because you’ll have a wife and a family.’

‘I’ll never love another girl as much as I love you.’

She sighed. ‘Liar.’

Just before dawn the next day the train stopped for the passengers to stretch their legs. The light was silvery, just clear enough to see by, and jugs of hot water were produced for the men to shave. The grass by the side of the tracks was still wet with dew, the air so cold it burned my throat. We huddled together, scarves wrapped around our faces so that only our eyes were showing.

‘Only six more hours,’ my father told us. ‘You know, if we stayed on all the way to Lake Victoria we’d have travelled more than five hundred and eighty miles. How about that for engineering? We built this line through swamps, forests, mountains, plains, deserts, you name it. They didn’t think we could do it, but we did. And before the bloody Germans, too.’

Sometimes I wondered why my father disliked the Germans so much. Maybe, I thought, it was in solidarity with my mother, whose only brother had been killed by them in the War, whereas my father had stayed at home with flat feet. My mother never talked about her brother. I couldn’t remember him, but I’d seen a photograph of him in her locket. I thought he looked like her, and like me.

We climbed back aboard and as the train wound its way along the track the sun came out and coloured the landscape outside our window in blushing oranges and coppers and scarlets. Now that we could see better, we realised we were covered in dust from where the desert had blown through the mosquito screen. My mother took out a handkerchief and rubbed at her face, but said nothing, and the window stayed open.

A few hours after sunrise, the air was already shimmering with heat. Maud and I sat with our faces turned towards the view and I felt my stomach knotting with relief and excitement. Overnight, the scenery had turned dramatic – plains stretching endlessly away from us, matched by a colossal, empty sky. Looking upwards I saw it carried on blankly forever, miles and miles of bright blue and nothing else.

The plains, on the other hand, were warm with life. Giraffes clustered around trees, nibbling at the upper branches, and swooping long necks down to nuzzle at their babies, already taller than my father. Fifty or more zebra marched in a long snaking line towards a nearby pond, where a herd of wildebeest were bathing, the mud darkening their spindly legs. One of them raised his head and stared at the train. He had the gentle eyes of a cow, but a horse’s long face.

‘Look, Theo,’ Maud said, pointing.

I saw a flash of white, brown and black – four gazelles running and leaping abreast of each other to rejoin their herd.

‘They’re so sweet,’ she said, clapping her hands.

I pressed my face against the screen – Dar es Salaam had been exotic, but this new Kenya was the Africa I’d dreamed of, the Africa of H. Rider Haggard, and I was impatient to finish the train journey, to start living in this incredible landscape.

Eventually we saw a city on the horizon. It got closer and closer, the buildings on the outskirts made of daub and wattle, or yellow stone, then sturdier brick buildings, then the train pulled into Nairobi, and we piled out with our luggage onto the wide platform, with the station clock swinging from the canopy above us, showing twelve thirty in the afternoon.

‘Well,’ my father said. ‘Are we ready for our new lives?’

In the hotel lobby I saw a framed photograph of the town in 1904 – rows of identical huts along a dirt track and The Norfolk, newly opened. Nairobi had grown since then, but the hotel still looked the same: a long, low building with a mock-Tudor front, surrounding perfectly manicured gardens and a turquoise pool in a courtyard area. Inside, the roof was supported by rows of gleaming white columns and criss-crossing white beams. It was the grandest building I’d been in. I didn’t wonder that Roosevelt had chosen it for his hunting trip.

Our interconnecting rooms were homely, decorated in soft greys and caramel browns and furnished with sleek sofas and lacquered dressers. Chrome and frosted-glass desk lamps provided soft pools of light, and slatted doors to the garden kept the heat out. My father tipped the bellboy another penny and closed the door behind him.

‘What do we think?’ he asked my mother.

She lay down on the bed in their room. ‘A soft mattress at last,’ she said. ‘Maud, come and unpin my hair.’

My sister knelt by the side of the bed removing hairpins one by one until her hair fell in a fiery mane across the pillow. Maud had inherited red hair from our mother, but hers was a dark mahogany colour, not the pure copper that gleamed before us now.

I met my mother’s eye. ‘Can we go for a swim?’ I asked. She shrugged, but gripped my wrist as I turned to collect my bathing shorts.

‘Look after your sister,’ she said.

Maud and I changed and took our towels downstairs. Out of our room, I was painfully conscious of the bruising on my left thigh that showed just below the bottom of my shorts. My mother had been responsible for that, after I’d made too much noise outside her hotel room one afternoon in Dar. She’d had a headache but I’d forgotten, and the fact that I’d brought the beating on myself only made me want to hide the evidence even more, so when we reached the garden path I sped up. By the time I reached the pool I was running. I dropped my towel and sprang forwards, feeling my muscles uncoil after days of cramped conditions, and hitting the water with a smack.

I let myself sink to the bottom, holding my breath until I thought I was going to pass out, then clawed my way back to the surface. Maud was sitting cross-legged by the side of the pool. I could tell she’d been watching for my bubbles.

‘One day you’re going to go too far,’ she said.

We stayed for an hour, racing each other, doing handstands underwater, then drying off in the sun. It was early afternoon when we went back into the hotel and the lobby was deserted. The receptionist was talking to someone in the office – we could hear his voice floating out but not the words. We walked through the room, trailing our fingers over the deep armchairs arranged in groups around it. Our footsteps rang differently across the wooden floors, Maud’s slapping as she ran ahead, mine padding softly behind her. I’d been in a grand hotel in Edinburgh before, but that had been stuffy, smaller and darker and filled with elderly people asleep in uncomfortable leather chairs. The Norfolk was nothing like that.

‘We should put some clothes on,’ Maud said when we’d done a full circuit. ‘Someone might see us.’

‘Mm-hmm.’

‘Are you coming?’

‘Later,’ I said. I heard her skidding off, but I was already looking at the covered terrace outside the hotel. The same plush armchairs were assembled out there, but two of them were occupied. I felt myself mysteriously drawn in their direction, not minding that the occupants were in a private conversation, or that I was naked other than bathing shorts.

At first I thought they were a young boy and an old man – since only old men wore brightly coloured African shawls – but then I reached the edge of the terrace and saw that the old man was young and blond, and the boy’s flannel shirt gave way to a long, white neck, and above that a slim face, half-hidden by a cocktail glass, but visible enough for me to see a woman’s painted mouth and elegant nose. More than that I noticed her eyes, which were fixed on me over the rim of her glass; they were the colour of the last moment of an African sunset, when the sky deepens with violets and blackish-blues, and they made me feel hollow. She was the finest, most delicate person I’d ever come across, a living china doll with porcelain skin and wide, doe-like eyes and black hair so shiny it was like an oil slick. When she smiled I felt a surge of energy in my stomach.

He had his hand on her knee, but lightly, as if he didn’t need to keep track of it. Her body was twisted towards him, one elbow resting on the arm of her chair and her face propped up in her hand.

When I didn’t look away she smiled, and dropped her gaze, then murmured something to the man who turned to look at me properly. He smiled too and called me over, and I felt a flush rising through my body that had nothing to do with the sweltering heat; I fled back inside the hotel, leaving them laughing at my shadow.

That was my first glimpse of Sylvie and Freddie.

Chapter Two

A few days later I was sitting at one of the outer tables on the terrace with my mother and Maud. It was nine pm, the hotel busier now, and the moon was out, much lower and larger in the sky than back at home. A few feet away in the dark was the creaking sound of a calling nightjar and the buzzing of katydids. Each table had a flickering candle to see by and waiters moved silently in and out of the shadows, bearing trays of cocktails and olives. A low hum of conversation filled the air.

‘I don’t know where your father’s got to,’ my mother said.

‘Mr MacDonald probably invited him for supper.’

She sighed.

‘Excuse me …’ The voice came from behind me. I turned and recognised the blond-haired man. He wasn’t wearing a shawl this time, but a shirt and dinner jacket. His face was half hidden in the darkness, but I could see a gleaming row of teeth and the whites of his eyes.

‘Yes?’ my mother said.

He stepped forwards. ‘I couldn’t help noticing you’re new here.’ He winked at me as he said it, and I flushed as deeply as I had at our first meeting. ‘I’m Freddie. Freddie Hamilton.’

‘Jessie Miller,’ my mother said warily. ‘My husband is William and these two are Theo and Maud.’

‘Come into the garden, Maud,’ he said.

‘My favourite poem.’ My mother smiled and I realised, thankfully, that she wasn’t going to be difficult.

‘I should congratulate you on two very good-looking children,’ Freddie said, and I felt he was looking at me particularly when he said it. ‘But how could they be otherwise with such an attractive mother?’ He clapped his hand on my shoulder and I started. ‘How old are you, Theo?’

‘Nearly fifteen,’ I said, at the same time that my mother said, ‘Fourteen.’

‘You make friends so quickly, Freddie,’ a woman said, and I felt myself tense under his hand as she came into the light, her eyes even darker and wider than before. I caught a hint of her scent in the air – musky and fruity, and intoxicating, like her voice, which was husky, with an American twang. It was nothing like the voice I’d given her in all the conversations I’d imagined us having over the last few days.

She was so close to me that I could have reached out my right hand and touched her. She was wearing the same outfit as before, with the addition of a small monkey perched on her shoulder. Now she was standing, I could see how long her legs were.

‘He’s called Roderigo,’ she said, and I realised she must have been watching me. ‘I’m Sylvie de Croÿ.’

‘These are the Millers,’ Freddie said. ‘Jessie, Theo and Maud.’

‘Can I hold him?’ Maud asked.

‘Of course you can.’ Sylvie offered her forefinger to Roderigo, who wrapped his paws around it, and swung him off her shoulder into Maud’s lap.

‘He doesn’t bite, does he?’ my mother asked.

‘This one’s tame,’ Freddie said.

‘Freddie bought him for me,’ Sylvie said. ‘He knows a man.’

‘You have to be careful who you buy them from. The locals know we like to have them as pets, so sometimes they wait underneath marula trees and catch them as they fall out, then pretend they’ve been domesticated for years.’

He still had his hand on my shoulder, weighing on me. I’d come across boys like him at school – popular, witty, larger-than-life. In comparison to them I’d always felt smaller and wirier than ever, with big, clumsy hands and feet.

I cleared my throat, trying to get my voice to sound as confident as Freddie’s. ‘What makes them fall out?’

‘Marula fruit gets them soused,’ he said.

‘He’s so sweet,’ Maud said.

‘He’s very naughty,’ Sylvie said, and smiled slowly.

‘And what brings you all to Kenya?’ Freddie asked.

‘That would be my husband,’ my mother said.

‘He’s the new Director of the railway,’ I said.

Back in Scotland, our neighbours had been amazed at my father’s job offer. Freddie and Sylvie didn’t even bat an eye. I shrank back in my chair, embarrassed that I’d tried so obviously to impress them.

‘The “lunatic line”,’ Freddie said. ‘That’s what they call it around here.’

I’d heard the name too. My father didn’t like it.

‘Of course it was going to be a difficult project,’ he’d said once. ‘It was the biggest we’d ever undertaken.’ The line had taken five years to construct, and he’d lost many of his Indian workers, shipped over by the British for the job. They’d been struck down by dysentery or malaria, and, in the worst cases, the malaria developed into blackwater fever, where the red blood cells burst in the bloodstream.

‘You have to know the symptoms to look out for,’ he’d told us. ‘Chills, rigor, vomiting. Black urine was the worst. If we saw that, we knew they were as good as dead.’

Sylvie took a cigarette case out of the pocket of her slacks. Her fingers were slim and delicate, but her nails were ragged and unvarnished. ‘I took the train when I first got in,’ she said. There was a kind of bubble in her voice, like she was holding back laughter. ‘My husband was sick after eating that brown stuff they serve.’

‘Windsor soup,’ I said, surprised. I couldn’t imagine Freddie being ill.

She leaned forwards and lit her cigarette with our candle. ‘I hear it built the British Empire.’ She bowed her head when she was talking, making it hard to tell who she was looking at.

‘Oh, here’s William,’ my mother said.

We all turned to look at my father, who was picking his way around the other tables on the terrace. He knocked into the back of a white-haired old lady’s chair, and she glared at him. I wished suddenly that he was younger, more dashing.

‘I’m sorry I’m late, darling,’ he said to my mother as he reached us.

She tipped her face upwards to receive his kiss. ‘Freddie, Sylvie, this is my husband, William.’

My father held out his hand and Freddie removed his from my shoulder; Freddie’s nails were in much better condition than Sylvie’s – smooth and blush-coloured.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ my father said. He shook hands with Freddie and Sylvie then mopped his forehead with a handkerchief. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Freddie wipe his fingers on his trousers.

‘Would you like to join us for a drink?’ my mother asked.

‘We’d love to,’ Freddie said.

‘Theo, Maud, give up your seats,’ she said, and we hopped up.

The grown-ups ordered drinks and we hovered nearby, Maud busy cradling Roderigo. It was well after our usual suppertime, but I was still brimming with energy somehow, even with an empty stomach.

Freddie sprawled back in my chair, the ankle of his left leg resting on the knee of his right. He was extremely physical, his hands constantly on the move, tapping his fingers on his foot then on the arm of his chair.

‘I can’t believe you’ve never seen Kirlton,’ he was saying. ‘How can you call yourself a Scot? When we were growing up I thought it was more important than Buckingham Palace.’

‘I’ve never seen Buckingham Palace either,’ my mother said.

‘Now you’re just being contrary.’

My mother laughed. ‘So is it still in your family?’

‘No,’ Freddie said. ‘My grandmother sold it, cursed woman. Generations of bad money management. My father even has to,’ he leaned forwards, ‘work.’

She smiled. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘It’s true. For the Foreign Office. He was training me up to replace him, but I married an unsuitable woman and came out here to be a farmer instead.’

I felt a thrill at hearing Sylvie described as ‘unsuitable’ and wished my mother would ask him more about it.

‘Well, you’re young enough to get away with it,’ my mother said.

‘You noticed,’ Freddie said, grinning.

‘You can’t be more than twenty-eight.’

‘Twenty-five in May, actually. But you can’t be more than eighteen.’

‘Now you’re being cruel,’ my mother said.

Sylvie was talking to my father about the railway. People’s expressions, especially women’s, usually started to glaze over within five minutes of the topic, but Sylvie was keeping up with him, asking him questions. Every time she exhaled she turned away so the smoke wouldn’t go in my father’s face. In profile, hers seemed sharper somehow, her nose and jaw clearly defined and her lashes long and sweeping. Her eyes protruded slightly, and she kept her lids halfway down, blinking dreamily. She spoke dreamily too; if Freddie was a torrent, Sylvie was like a slow-moving river.

‘Look, Theo,’ Maud said, appearing at my side. ‘Roderigo’s gone to sleep … I think he’s snoring.’ She put her head down to listen.

‘Maud, don’t get too close to the monkey’s mouth,’ my mother said.

‘Freddie said he was tame,’ I said.

‘Mr Hamilton, Theo.’

‘Freddie, I insist,’ Freddie said. ‘Especially as we’re countrymen. It’s good to hear my name pronounced correctly for once.’

‘Was that meant for me?’ Sylvie asked.

Freddie took her hand and kissed it. ‘You torture it more than the natives.’

‘I’m not surprised if they don’t get it right,’ Sylvie said, withdrawing her hand. ‘They’re all terrified of you.’ She cocked an eyebrow at him and he laughed.

‘Edie’s got you pegged,’ he said, and turned to my parents. ‘Edie’s my wife.’

I felt my stomach lurch – as if I was back at school in one of the rugby games, a bigger boy rushing towards me. So they weren’t married, or at least not to each other.

‘What does she say?’ Sylvie asked, smiling.

‘That you’re a wicked Madonna, slaying the menfolk and defending the vulnerable.’ He stood up and drew her up after him, slipping his arm around her back. She went slack and seemed to lean into him, raising her eyes to meet his and smiling that slow smile. I felt myself prickle with envy and admiration, but also embarrassment at my misunderstanding. They were the two most beautiful, exciting people in Africa. Marriage would have been too ordinary for them. Of course they were lovers.

‘Look at you –’ Freddie said. He lifted his free hand up to Sylvie’s face and ran his thumb across her lips. She made a snapping sound, like she was about to bite it, and he moved it quickly, laughing at her. I looked at my parents. They were both checking their watches, and I hoped it wasn’t time to go.

‘Well.’ Freddie bowed his head at my mother. ‘We should leave you to have your supper.’

My father stood up. ‘Yes – we better eat soon. Paid for the food here all week – don’t want to waste it.’

Sylvie turned away and I had a sudden dread that we’d never see them again. I took a step forwards. ‘Are you staying at the hotel?’ I asked.

My parents looked surprised. Freddie and Sylvie looked amused.

‘For tonight,’ Freddie said. ‘I’m driving back to African Kirlton tomorrow, but I’ll be in Nairobi again for Race Week.’

‘What’s that?’

‘One of the highlights of the social calendar here,’ he said. He looked at my parents. ‘It happens over Christmas. I’d be happy to take you around it if you’re interested?’

I prayed they’d accept.

‘Don’t feel like you have to,’ my mother said.

‘I don’t,’ Freddie said. He kissed her hand. ‘Good to meet you, Jessie, William, Maud, Theo. I’ll call for you in a week.’

My mother stood too and they all shook hands.

‘Very nice to meet you,’ my father said.

‘Nice to meet you too,’ Sylvie said. She came towards me and reached out her hands. For a moment I thought she was going to touch me, and my legs trembled, but she lifted Roderigo out of Maud’s arms instead, then left.

Chapter Three

On Friday morning my father said he’d take the afternoon off to show us around Nairobi. By midday the sun was fierce, and the lobby, where we were supposed to meet, was busy. I escaped into the garden and found my mother and Maud already out there. They were with another couple, a tall, dignified-looking man with thinning hair and a bristly moustache, and a slim, serious woman with dark, bobbed hair and a pretty, oval-shaped face. He was probably a little younger than my father, and she was probably a little younger than my mother. They were all standing on the garden path, and the woman was naming the flowers growing in the beds nearby.

My mother waved me over. ‘This is my eldest,’ she said. ‘Theo, say hello to Sir Edward and Lady Joan Grigg. Sir Edward is the Governor of Kenya.’

‘How do you do?’ I said.

Lady Joan looked me up and down and smiled at my mother. ‘I’m glad we don’t have a daughter,’ she said, which I thought was an odd remark.

‘Joanie’s trying to twist your mother’s arm,’ Sir Edward said to me. When he talked his moustache bristled even more. ‘She wants her to help out with the Welfare League she’s going to create.’

My mother spread her hands helplessly. ‘I don’t know anything about nursing or midwifery. What exactly could I do?’

‘Fundraising.’

‘I don’t have much experience of that, either.’

‘Every woman’s had to extract money from someone at some point,’ Lady Joan said. ‘And it’s a good cause.’ She nodded at me and Maud. ‘You’ve had children of your own. White settlers think the natives don’t feel pain when giving birth, but that’s completely ridiculous. We need to provide proper midwifery training for them.’

Sir Edward made a show of looking at his wristwatch. ‘I think I’ll head back to Government House. Leave you ladies to discuss the … finer points.’

‘No, don’t go,’ Lady Joan said. She turned back to my mother. ‘I won’t force you, of course. Just think about it.’

‘Well …’

‘She won’t leave you alone now,’ Sir Edward said, laying a hand on his wife’s arm. ‘It’s much easier to give in, believe me.’ He looked at Lady Joan as if he admired her and she rolled her eyes.

I felt the sun beating down on my head and shoulders, and wondered how much longer we were going to stand around.

‘You must come over for supper,’ Lady Joan said. ‘I can put my case across properly.’

‘Do you have any wild animals?’ Maud asked.

‘I’m afraid not,’ Sir Edward said. ‘We have lots of dogs, though. Do you like dogs? One of our bitches has just got pregnant.’

‘I like dogs,’ Maud said solemnly.

‘Perhaps we can find a puppy for you,’ Sir Edward said.

‘Then it’s decided,’ Lady Joan said. ‘Come around for supper and choose your dog.’

‘It’s very kind of you,’ my mother said. ‘But we leave for Naivasha in a few weeks, and of course, there’s Christmas before that …’

‘And Race Week,’ I said, suddenly more awake. ‘Freddie’ll be showing us around then.’

‘Lord Hamilton?’ Sir Edward asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Did you know him before you came out?’

‘We met him the other night,’ my mother said, frowning at me.

Sir Edward raised his eyebrows. ‘That might be his fastest work yet.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘The government officials have a name for that crowd,’ Lady Joan said. ‘The Happy Valley set.’

My mother looked helpless again. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

‘The “Valley” is because they live in the Wanjohi Valley region. The “Happy” …’ She glanced at Maud and then me. ‘I wouldn’t really like to say.’

‘Freddie’s a decent sort,’ Sir Edward said. ‘He takes his farming seriously. And he’s going to be High Constable of Scotland when his father dies. That’ll force him to grow up.’

‘I liked him,’ I said.

‘He’s very charming,’ Lady Joan said, ‘and you’re very young. But he’s not a good friend to have.’

I fixed my gaze over her shoulder so I wouldn’t have to look at her properly. I’d changed my mind – she wasn’t pretty at all.

‘He’s her third husband,’ she continued. ‘And I’ve heard bad things about their new guests – the de Croÿs. I don’t believe Madame de Croÿ is a good influence.’

‘You don’t know her,’ I blurted.

Lady Joan gave me an odd look.

‘We shouldn’t keep you,’ my mother said, holding out her hand again. ‘And it’s very kind of you to invite us over. I know William will be delighted to meet you.’

Sir Edward touched his wife gently on the shoulder. ‘Come on, Joanie,’ he said. ‘We should be getting back.’

‘I’ll be in touch about the League,’ she said.

‘Please do.’

They headed off.

My mother turned to Maud. ‘Can you run out to the front of the hotel, darling, and see if your father is there yet?’

She waited until we were alone before beckoning me to her and twisting my ear viciously until it couldn’t go any further. I bit my tongue to stop myself from crying out. ‘Don’t be so stupid,’ she hissed, and shoved me away. ‘Do you want us to have a chance out here or do you want to ruin it?’

I pressed my palm against the ear, trying to stop it throbbing. ‘Why can’t we have a chance with Freddie and Sylvie?’

My mother started walking away. ‘You don’t understand people,’ she said over her shoulder.

My father hadn’t arrived yet, so Maud and I waited on the terrace. I sat with my head against the cool of a pillar, boiling with anger; Maud sat next to me.

‘Lady Joan’s a bloody old witch,’ I said.

‘I liked her.’

‘She’s got something against Freddie and Sylvie, and now Mother’s bound to stop us being friends with them.’

Maud turned her face to me, eyes serious. ‘Mother only ever does something because she thinks it’s right.’

‘She does whatever she wants at the time.’

‘But she loves us, Theo.’

‘I don’t –’

‘There you are.’ Our father appeared before us and I bit my tongue.

Maud was sent to fetch our mother. We piled into the Model T Box Body my father had hired and drove away from The Norfolk, down Government Road and into the centre of the town. After a while, it got too hot with all of us in the front seat, and I switched to standing on the running board, hooking my arm through the door to stay on. Some of the roads had been laid properly, but many were made of a type of crushed gravel and a slight breeze blew its dust into my eyes and mouth. Every time my forearm touched the scorching metal a white-hot pain went through me, but it felt cleansing. My mother wouldn’t look in my direction, and I dreamed of catching her attention somehow – throwing myself off in front of another car maybe – and forcing her to see me, apologise to me.

Nairobi reminded me of the frontier towns in the Westerns I’d seen, with hitching posts outside the buildings and troughs for the horses. Only the people made it clear we weren’t in America. I tried not to stare at the women wearing skirts and nothing else, carrying large earthenware jugs on their heads.

My father showed us ‘railway hill’, where George Whitehouse had built his first house. He’d been the chief engineer of the railway, and my father used his church voice when he spoke about him.

‘The town was founded as a railway depot,’ he said, ‘and now it’s the capital of British East Africa.’

We turned onto 6th Avenue at the corner where the Standard Bank of South Africa stood. Groups of white settlers were standing on the bank’s porch, talking and smoking, and thick blue clouds had gathered around their heads. As we drove past my eyes began to sting.

Further up the road was the post office, with a white flag hanging from the tall flagpole in front of the building.

‘A blue flag means the mail ship’s left Aden for Mombasa,’ my father said. ‘A red flag means overseas mail has been received. The white flag means the mail’s ready for distribution. Not very sophisticated, but the couriers will find you anywhere – even on safari.’

‘Can I send a postcard to Grandma?’ Maud asked.

‘Good idea,’ he said.

The car juddered to a halt in front of the building, and I stepped down from the running board, stretching my back and arms. The sun was almost directly overhead and my skin felt tender from exposure to it. My mother made her way to the shade of a gum tree, fanning herself with the two wide-brimmed, floppy hats that all the women wore out here. She was still ignoring me and I suddenly couldn’t bear to be near her.

‘Maud, choose a postcard,’ my father said, mopping his forehead. ‘I need to send a telegram to the Glasgow office, and then we’ll head back.’

‘Can I stay out?’ I asked him. ‘I don’t mind walking home.’

My father looked to my mother and I felt my heart sink. Out of the corner of my eye, her expression was impossible to read. I scuffed my shoe in the dirt.

‘Don’t walk in the sunshine,’ she said eventually. ‘Here, take some money just in case.’ She held out some coins and I stepped towards her warily. ‘Remember – stay in the shade.’

‘I will,’ I mumbled.

She surprised me by kissing my forehead. ‘And be back at the hotel by four o’clock, or we’ll start to worry. We don’t want to lose you.’

My anger dissolved into gratitude at how quickly my punishment seemed to be over, and I started down the road with no clear idea of where I was going, relishing the opportunity to explore. Leaving the main streets behind me, I ended up in a more residential area, where most of the houses were bungalow mansions with tiled roofs, smallish windows and verandas supported by brick pillars. Perfectly straight paths ran between veranda and white picket fence, where flowers bloomed in pinks, purples, blues and creams, and in front of each house immaculate green lawns lay like carpets rolled out for important visitors. The road was wide, and dappled in the sun. I thought of the red tenements in Edinburgh, five storeys high and always cold inside, and felt a smile forming on my face.

These streets were mostly empty, but after a while I started to pick up a buzzing sound and, turning a corner, I stumbled on an open-air market. Stalls had been set up displaying all manner of produce: carnations, violets, tomatoes, large brown eggs, limes, courgettes, green bananas, aubergines, sacks of flour and dusty potatoes. People were thronging the aisles, squeezing and weighing the vegetables, and swatting away the flies that hovered at face-height. I hesitated, overwhelmed for a moment, but when I finally ventured in no one paid me any attention until I reached a crossroads in the market and paused, trying to decide where to go. A few shoppers knocked into me, and I felt a tap on my shoulder and smelled amber and peach. ‘You’re a lone beast, aren’t you, Theo?’

It was Sylvie. She was wearing a loose-fitting black blouse with a plunging neckline that ended just above her bellybutton, and black velvet trousers. Roderigo was wrapped around her neck, nibbling her earlobe. I got the impression she was laughing at me in a friendly way, although she wasn’t actually smiling. I felt a rush of panicked excitement at being alone with her.

‘I see you’ve found Mr Sand’s market,’ she said. ‘Here every Tuesday and Friday.’

‘Oh?’ I cursed myself for being so tongue-tied.

‘And what are you up to?’ she said, with that bubble in her voice again. ‘Buying provisions for The Norfolk kitchen?’

‘Just looking.’

‘Mm-hmm?’

It was hard not to stare at the apricot-coloured skin stretched taut over her stomach. She was still watching me, her head cocked to one side. I tried for the most grown-up conversation I knew, ‘Would you like to have a drink?’

Now she laughed for real, throatily. ‘Are you asking me on a date?’

Blood thrummed in my ears. ‘I’m …’

‘I’d love to have a drink with you.’

She fell into step with me. My body moved automatically, steering a path through the crowds and towards a bar on the side of the square. Despite all the people around, it was empty, and several of the tables had dirty glasses or overflowing ashtrays on them.

She sat in a chair on the porch, and I sat opposite her. When she leaned towards me I saw that she wasn’t wearing a brassiere, and her small, firm-looking breasts had dark nipples. My hand was on the table, and for a moment I thought they might brush against it. I bit my tongue, desperately trying to distract myself.

Roderigo scampered onto the table between us, exploring the ashtray, picking up the butts and tasting them before spitting them out onto the floor.

Sylvie folded her hands neatly in her lap and smiled mischievously. ‘I’ve never been taken here for a drink – I hear it’s quite unwholesome.’

I jumped up, my face burning. ‘We can go somewhere else.’

‘I want to stay here.’ She laughed at me again and signalled for the waiter. ‘I’ll have a whisky sour,’ she told him. ‘And this gentleman will have some wine-and-water.’

The waiter went away without saying anything, but I thought I saw him sneer at me. Freddie would have known exactly where to take her, I told myself, and he would have done the ordering.

Sylvie took out her cigarette case and lit a cigarette. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now I can get to know you properly.’

‘There’s not much to know.’

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. People are talking about you already, you know.’

‘Why?’

‘You’re absurdly handsome, Theo.’

I felt my heart beating violently in my throat. I’d never been made to feel handsome by people my own age – it seemed too manly a word – but maybe adults had a different idea of beauty to children and I thought how wonderful it would be to be part of a world where I was appreciated rather than laughed at.

Sylvie gave me her special smile and breathed blue smoke out of her nostrils. ‘Freddie noticed it,’ she said, ‘the first time we saw you at the hotel. He said “Who’s that beautiful boy over there?” You were like a wild animal, the way you were watching us with your big eyes. Then you ran away as soon as we’d spotted you.’

Knowing that Freddie thought that made me feel hot and cold at the same time. I flailed around for something to say. ‘Sorry.’

‘For what?’

‘For running away – it’s rude.’

‘I wouldn’t say that.’ She leaned back again in her chair. ‘Now, I know you were born in bonny Scotland, but have you lived anywhere else?’

‘No. Have you?’

‘Born in Buffalo twenty-five years ago,’ she said, pulling on her cigarette. ‘Mother died when I was seven, father remarried.’ She parted her lips slightly to let the smoke curl out of her mouth. ‘I actually liked my stepmother, but my father was a bit of a kook, so I went to live with Aunt Tattie in Chicago when I was thirteen. Then she decided I was running with some unsavoury characters so she took me to Paris, where I met my husband, the Comte de Croÿ.’

The Comte de Croÿ; I rolled the title around in my head – he was probably old and rich and fat.

Our drinks arrived and Sylvie waited until the waiter had gone before continuing, ‘We lived for a little while in Beaufort, his castle in Normandy, but I felt … trapped. So he agreed to bring me out here.’

So he was some provincial Frenchman who didn’t speak a word of English and ignored her. I remembered Lady Joan’s disapproving face when she mentioned Sylvie, and felt a surge of protective anger. Why should she stay with her husband if she was unhappy? If someone younger came along who could make her laugh, and look after her, then why shouldn’t she be with them?

Sylvie dropped her cigarette on the floor and ground it out, then scooped Roderigo up in one arm. ‘And that’s the potted history.’ She held her glass up and I chinked mine against it. ‘Salut. Your turn.’

‘Born in Scotland,’ I said, shifting in my seat. ‘Lived there until a month or so ago. Both parents alive. One sister.’

‘She’s charming. She reminds me of my eldest daughter.’

I took a sip of my wine, but it went down the wrong way and I broke into a coughing fit. Sylvie took out another cigarette and lit it, pretending she hadn’t noticed. I took a second sip of the wine, trying to calm my throat. ‘I didn’t know you had children. You don’t look old enough.’

‘I’m not,’ Sylvie said. ‘I wasn’t. I should have waited.’ She drained her whisky sour and gestured to the waiter for another. ‘They’re both living in France with Aunt Tattie. Great Aunt Tattie now.’

‘Oh.’

‘They’re adorable, but they’re …’ She leaned back in her chair, resting her head against it. ‘People. Human beings.’ Roderigo climbed back up to his perch on her shoulder and she scratched him behind his ear.

‘I suppose so.’

She smiled. ‘I mean – they’re real. And they’re so small and they need you so much, and I couldn’t be sure I wasn’t going to mess up their lives.’

She looked so beautiful and fragile. I knew I should say something, but I didn’t want to disturb her, either.

‘I’m sure you wouldn’t. You’re very nice.’

‘I’ll give you a tip.’ She pulled on her cigarette. ‘That’s not really a word that women want to be called.’

‘Sorry.’

She was laughing at me again, but I didn’t mind.

The waiter brought over her second cocktail and we clinked glasses again. I was suddenly, idiotically happy.

‘To Africa,’ she said. ‘And new friends.’

‘To new friends.’

When we finished our drinks I tossed the money down onto the table and hurried over to pull out Sylvie’s chair for her. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her tip the contents of the ashtray she’d been using onto the floor, and slip the ashtray into her purse. I stopped just beside her, feeling my cheeks flare up.

‘Well,’ she was saying. ‘Now I can cross this bar off my to-do list.’

‘Yes,’ I mumbled.

She looked up at me expectantly. My mind was racing – maybe her husband controlled the money and wouldn’t give her any. Maybe she was keeping it as a souvenir of our drink together.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I can’t get up with you standing there.’

I looked at her properly and she smiled. I felt her perfume envelop me.

‘Let me,’ I said, and moved her chair back for her as she stood.

‘You’re a rarity, Theo,’ she said. ‘Beautiful people don’t usually have beautiful natures.’

My breath caught in my chest, making me feel dizzy. Without thinking about it I offered her my arm, as I’d seen young men do to young women before. Sylvie considered it gravely, then slipped her arm through mine. I knew I would be late back to the hotel, and my mother would probably be angry, but it didn’t seem to matter any more.