Читать книгу An Unsuitable Woman - Kat Gordon - Страница 13

Nairobi train station seemed familiar, ordinary even, the second time around. I’d been feeling the effects of my drinking for the last few days, staying in our bedroom with the blinds closed while Maud read quietly nearby. Now, the first thing I did when we entered our carriage was throw the window open.

‘Watch out for the mosquitoes,’ my mother said, but nothing more. She’d barely spoken to me since the night of the races, although once or twice I’d caught her looking at me with a new, almost uneasy expression. I didn’t know what she’d told my father, but it must have placated him, because he hadn’t mentioned my absence, and I wondered why she’d protected me, or if she was just holding it over me until I did something else.

‘Let’s hope the good weather holds,’ my father said, as we settled ourselves.

I hoped so too – I knew from reading up about it that Lake Naivasha was called after the Maasai word for rough waters.

I leaned my head against the back of my seat and dozed off. It was fifty-four miles from Nairobi to Naivasha, over three hours by train. Occasionally voices broke through – Maud asking questions, my father pointing out towns – but I woke properly only as we were sliding into our station. My father folded his newspaper and bounded up, beaming.

‘Here we are,’ he said.

Ramsay, the man my father had hired to build our new home, was late, pulling up in a dusty Buick a long time after the train had left us behind on the station platform. He was a small, squat man with a Scottish burr, and a glass eye.

‘We expected you an hour ago,’ my father said, frowning at him.

‘You’re on Africa time now,’ Ramsay said. He picked up our suitcases and tossed them into the back seat as if they were made of air. ‘The bairns will have to walk. It’s only a few miles.’

There was a moment of silence.

‘Well –’ my father said, doubtfully, but Ramsay was already laughing to himself.

‘Just a wee joke,’ he said. ‘They can sit on the luggage at the back.’

We clambered on top of the suitcases, almost slipping off when the engine started with a jolt, and travelled like that for the few miles to our new home.

Naivasha was much smaller than Nairobi. The main street was only a few shops long, and they were all shuttered. The surface of the road was even more pitted, and I held Maud’s hand tightly as the car bounced along. No one was out on the road, although occasionally we saw lights in windows, figures moving through rooms on their way to the dinner table, or to gather around the wireless, check the baby was sleeping.

It was fully dark when we turned off the road and onto a forested drive. The trees were tall and shapeless, muffling the sounds around us. Maud drew closer to me, and I squeezed her, thinking suddenly of the leopards I’d talked about on the first train journey. I thought I heard a soft snap, as if twigs were breaking under a heavy foot, and a low growl, and I was about to ask Ramsay if we could go faster but then the trees were thinning and we suddenly saw the lake spread out before us, glittering in the moonlight. Down by the water was a house, with a large garden sloping downwards to end in a jetty. Ramsay pulled to a stop ten feet from the veranda and we climbed out.

‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘Kiboko House.’

‘What does that mean?’ Maud asked.

‘Hippo House.’

‘It’s rather dark,’ my mother said.

‘I’ll find the lanterns,’ Ramsay said.

While the adults huddled on the porch trying to work the lanterns, I picked my way down to the end of the jetty. Fireflies skimmed the water, lighting up the papyrus that grew thickly beneath the wooden planks, and blue water-lilies on the surface. A rowing boat was tied to one of the posts and bumped against it in a small wave when a dark shape rose out of the water a few yards from me, then quickly submerged again. I backed slowly away.

‘Theo?’ My mother’s voice floated down to me. ‘Where are you?’

I turned to face the house. They’d lit the lanterns now and hung them on the porch. Beyond, everything was in darkest shadow, but the house itself was bathed in a flickering orange glow. It was a yellow-stone bungalow with tiled roof, like the houses I’d seen in Nairobi on Market Day. Remembering them led me to thoughts of Sylvie, and I wondered how far we were from her and Freddie at that moment.

I walked back up to join the others as they rattled the key in the lock. Behind us, there was a splashing sound, and a chorus of frogs and ducks set up a complaint. Ramsay was chattering away about the area, pointing into the darkness.

‘The cleft over there, that’s known as Hell’s Gate,’ he said. ‘Red cliffs. And you’ll see Mount Longonot as soon as there’s any light. It’s a dormant volcano, over nine thousand feet high.’

‘Charming,’ my mother murmured.

Maud was leaning against one of the pillars on the porch with her eyes closed. Her face was white.

‘Tired, Spanish?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘We’ll be in soon,’ I said.

The key made a grinding sound and the front door swung open. Ramsay stepped forwards and held up his lantern. We peered inside. The door gave way straight onto a large cream sitting room with an open stone hearth in the middle and two corridors leading off the room at either end of the far wall. Our furniture had been sent ahead, and now it was all in place: the mahogany secretaire bookcase, the Windsor chairs in elm and ash, the oriental hardwood coffee table, the oil paintings of ships, all looking incongruous in their new surroundings.

Ramsay took us through an arched opening on the left and into the dining room – same proportions and decor – and the small kitchen, where Ramsay’s wife had left us a cold meat pie and some bread and apples. Behind these rooms was the left-hand corridor, with three of the bedrooms and one of the bathrooms. My bedroom was cell-like, with white walls, a small chest of drawers and single cast-iron bed. Next door, Maud’s was exactly the same. At the end of the hall, our bathroom had a claw-footed tub, toilet, sink and a wall-hung medicine cabinet. Mosquito screens were fitted over all the windows.

Off the other corridor was another small bedroom, another bathroom, then the master bedroom, with two large walnut beds, and silks and drapes on the wall. At the end of that corridor was a small study for my father.

‘Excellent,’ he said.

‘I’ll bring the luggage in,’ Ramsay said. ‘When will your maid be arriving?’

‘Maid?’ my mother asked.

‘Most families bring one with them,’ Ramsay said. ‘That’s who the extra bedroom is for, on your corridor.’

‘Ah,’ my father said. ‘I thought you might have arranged that already, Jessie.’

I saw my mother’s jaw tighten.

‘Nae matter,’ Ramsay said, cheerfully. ‘I’m sure I can find one for you – one of the Nairobi families is bound to leave soon. And cooks and drivers and other staff you can hire from the natives. They’re able to do that much.’

‘Well,’ my father said, after a pause. ‘We can make do tonight, anyway. Thank you so much for all your help.’

‘I’ll get the bags,’ Ramsay said.

‘Theo, you go with him,’ my father said, and I followed Ramsay out onto the porch.

By the time I’d carried my suitcase into my bedroom, sweat gathering in the small of my back, he’d already moved all of the others.

‘I’ll be seeing you,’ he said. ‘Watch out for the hippos. Meanest creatures alive. And leopards – if they come prowling round at night, turn on the lights and make plenty of noise, scare ’em off. And never leave your windows open.’ He nodded at me and went back to his car, whistling.

The next few days were spent exploring the house, the lake and the garden, which was lush with jacaranda trees, lawn and flowerbeds. The gardener had planted scarlet canna, frangipani, bougainvillea, and, probably as a nod to potential homesickness, English roses. Our water came from a stone well sunk into the ground one hundred feet from the house. Further away still were the Africans’ buildings, round mud huts with thatched roofs where our staff would live.

In the end Ramsay couldn’t find us a maid, but he did find Abdullah, who served as ‘head boy’. My parents hired a cook, a driver and some low-level servants known as ‘totos’, who wore kanzus, long brown cotton robes that were the typical uniform for servants in Kenya. None of the totos had their bottom two front teeth. When I asked why, Ramsay said they all had them removed as a preventative measure, so if they developed tetanus – rife in Kenya – and therefore lockjaw, they would still be able to take food in through the gap. The boys walked hand-in-hand, or with arms wrapped around each other. There was something intimate about it that I didn’t like to watch, and I turned away whenever a pair came into sight.

My father bought a second-hand Buick that broke down at every opportunity. We broke down on the way to Gilgil, Nakuru and N’Joro, as the road wound in and out of sight of the railway line. We broke down in Gilgil itself, a dusty station that doubled up as a post office, with one Indian duka, as the small retail shops were known, and nothing else. We broke down next to the Kikuyu settlement where African children ran away screaming that the mzungu had come to eat them. But east of Gilgil were the Aberdares, the easternmost mountain range of the Great Rift Valley, and there the car ran as sweet as honey. Climbing up into the hills, we looked down on the valley, with its cliffs and boulders, burbling streams and gushing waterfalls, its silvery forests of figs and olives, and vast, dark green pastures that stretched between our escarpment and Mau escarpment, tens of miles to the west. The soil beneath the car was red, and volcanic, but good for farming, our father told us, which was why so many Europeans had settled there.

The air was cold on the Aberdares, and brilliantly fresh, but descending, we drove through a mist that filled the car with the smoky, pine-like smell of cypress trees.

‘It feels like Scotland,’ Maud said.

The whole time we were playing and exploring and settling in I was thinking of Freddie and Sylvie, wondering what they were up to, and whether they were expecting us to call on them, as my parents had promised to do. When we went out in my father’s car, I kept a sharp eye out for Hispano-Suizas, and one dark-haired passenger in particular.

After two weeks in the new house, Freddie’s car pulled up outside as I was reading at the veranda table. Freddie whistled, and I got up, moving forwards as he opened the door for his passenger. An elegant ankle appeared, then a perfectly formed leg. I felt my excitement rising until her mousy-brown hair; it wasn’t Sylvie.

The new woman was very small and slight, with a weak chin, small mouth, large nose and high forehead. She was wearing a fashionable drop-waisted silk dress and strings of pearls, and her bare feet were dainty. She was a carrying a pot of geraniums, and shifted them to the crook of her arm to wave at me in a friendly way. She looked a little older than Freddie, who seemed almost boyish next to her.

‘Theo,’ he said, ‘meet Edie, my wife. She insisted on calling on you.’

‘I’m the friendly one,’ Edie said, and flashed her teeth at me in a smile.

‘Theo?’ my mother called from inside the house. ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s Freddie,’ I called back.

My mother appeared in the doorway. ‘How nice to see you again,’ she said, shading her eyes from the sun.

‘You must be Jessie,’ Edie said. She held out the geraniums. ‘I’ve brought you these – you’re meant to plant them around your doorway.’

‘Thank you,’ my mother said, accepting them.

‘The smell repels the puff adders.’

‘Oh goodness.’ She looked down at the pot in her hands. ‘The agent never told us about that. Would you like a drink? I’m afraid William isn’t at home.’

‘Wonderful,’ Edie said. ‘We brought some champagne for the road, but I finished it a few miles ago.’

‘Please sit.’ My mother put the flowers down on the porch table and disappeared inside.

Edie grinned at me. ‘Freddie, I’m bloody exhausted,’ she said, lowering herself onto one of the chairs. ‘Can you bring me my cigarettes from the car? Would you like one, Theo?’

‘Does that repel puff adders too?’

She smiled again. ‘Good, you’re funny.’

Freddie brought her cigarettes over and she lit up. ‘They’ve all been talking about you non-stop, you know,’ she said. ‘Sylvie especially.’

My skin tingled the same way it had when she’d touched me at the races. ‘Is she still staying with you?’

‘They’ve just moved out,’ Freddie said.

‘Oh.’

‘They bought a spot nearby – fell in love with it. They’ll be building that for a good few months.’

I looked at the table, trying to hide my smile, but I felt it radiating from me anyway.

‘Here we are.’ My mother appeared again, with Abdullah behind her carrying four glasses of white wine on a silver tray, three full and one half-full. Behind him, Maud trailed, looking sleepy as she was introduced. The half glass was placed in front of me and I looked sideways at my mother, who nodded.

‘Cheers.’ We clinked glasses. The wine tasted heavy in comparison to champagne. I swallowed it quickly.

‘How about a quick tour of the garden?’ Edie asked. ‘I’m crazy about gardening.’

‘Of course,’ my mother said. She led the way down from the veranda, looking uncertain. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know where everything is.’

‘The roses are at the bottom of the hill,’ Maud said. ‘Next to the hydrangeas. The gardener puts coffee in the soil so they turn blue.’

‘You show us, darling.’

Maud led us down the lawn and stopped in front of a rose bush. ‘This one’s my favourite.’

‘I can see why.’ Edie leaned forward, eyes closed, and sniffed the biggest flower. ‘It’s so good to be able to bend over without a giant belly getting in the way.’

‘Edie gave birth to our daughter on the fifth,’ Freddie said.

‘Congratulations,’ my mother said.

‘Nan,’ Edie said, opening her eyes. ‘She’s called Nan.’ She put out a finger and gently touched the rose, which bowed slightly then sprang back up. Her expression was blissful. ‘Isn’t this beautiful?’

‘She’s beautiful,’ Freddie said, and kissed his wife. ‘And what a pair of lungs.’

‘Where is she?’ Maud asked.

‘She’s at home with her nurse,’ Edie said.

‘Probably making this face,’ Freddie said, and scrunched up his nose and eyes.

We laughed, even my mother, and Freddie turned and winked at me. I wished the boys back at school could see me now. They’d never have believed that someone so charming, so attractive, could be friends with me. It was intoxicating, and I almost forgot Sylvie wasn’t with us.

‘So you’ve just got these two beautiful children?’ Edie said. She moved on to the hydrangeas and repeated the smelling and touching routine. We stood behind her in a semi-circle. Maud watched her with a serious expression.

‘Yes,’ my mother said.

‘You must have been terribly young when you had them.’

‘I’d been looking after my little brother for a few years by then – I didn’t feel young.’

‘And where’s he now?’

‘In a field in France.’

Edie pulled a face. ‘I’m so sorry. That bloody war.’

‘He was at university when it started – Edinburgh. His tutors all said he was doing very well, but Percy always had such a clear sense of duty.’

Freddie looked sympathetic. ‘I’m sure we would have loved him.’

‘Everyone did,’ my mother said. She smiled – a different smile to before, but it reached her eyes. I felt dizzy all of a sudden and realised I’d been holding in my breath.

After we’d finished looking around the garden I walked Freddie and Edie to their car. My mother and Maud had already gone back inside, leaving the front door open for me. I could hear my mother calling to Maud from one wing to another, and the cook, in the kitchen, clanging pots and pans together, preparing supper for that evening.

‘It’s beautiful here,’ Edie said, ‘Aren’t you glad you came?’

‘Yes.’

‘Africa suits you,’ Freddie said.

I opened the passenger door for Edie and she slid in gracefully.

‘We’ll have a get-together soon,’ she said. ‘You’re invited, of course.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘What’s wrong? You don’t look very sure.’

‘Carberry won’t be there, will he?’

She laughed. ‘No. I hear you’re not exactly firm friends.’

‘Someone should shoot him.’

It came out less witty than I’d hoped, and Freddie raised an eyebrow, but Edie laughed louder. ‘Not you,’ she said, ‘or you’ll miss all the fun at the party. Do come.’

‘As long as you stay away from the gin,’ Freddie said, wagging his finger at me.

‘And the champagne,’ I said.

‘Oh darling, we’re not barbarians,’ Edie said. ‘It’s a party – of course you’ll have champagne.’

Freddie grinned. ‘See you around, Boy Genius,’ he said.

He started the engine, reversed the car up the driveway, and then they were turning the corner and out of sight.

I couldn’t sleep that night, and around eleven I got up to fetch a glass of milk. My mother and father were talking on the veranda, and I paused in the sitting room when I heard Freddie’s name mentioned.

‘Just turned up,’ my mother was saying. ‘I don’t even know who he was here to see. He seems pretty experienced for a twenty-five-year-old, too experienced for Theo.’

Freddie’s face danced before me – his wide smile and straight white teeth, his raised eyebrow and smooth skin. My heart thumped painfully in my side, and I moved closer to the screen door, staying out of sight. It would all be fine, I tried to tell myself – Freddie didn’t think I was too young and immature. My mother couldn’t stop us being friends if we both wanted to be.

‘He’s changing.’

‘Well that’s natural, my dear. I know mothers want their children to stay children forever –’

‘You know Theo’s different. I don’t want him influenced in the wrong direction. Not when I’ve worked so hard on him.’

‘Of course you have,’ my father said soothingly. ‘But Lord Hamilton seemed alright to me. A little bohemian, maybe. Was he alone?’

‘No – with his wife. Lady Joan mentioned her in Nairobi.’

‘Not complimentary?’

‘Not very.’

‘Women never approve of other women.’

My mother’s voice changed. ‘What’s that?’

‘Oh this? I picked it up today – MacDonald said every household needs one.’

‘I don’t want it indoors.’

‘It’s for the leopards.’

‘What if the children see it?’

‘They won’t know what to do with it.’

‘I don’t want it indoors.’

‘It’s for our own protection, my love.’

‘It’s asking for trouble,’ my mother said. ‘Hide it.’

‘As you wish.’ My father must have recognised the danger in my mother’s voice, as I did, because he changed the subject. I silently thanked him for whatever purchase had distracted my mother from deciding to end my new friendship, and went back to bed.