Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

Eleanor nodded and leaned towards him. “Now Maxwell Sandys, the deputy attorney general, who is a friend of mine, has arranged for me to watch the trial from a special bench. Would you like to join me—Jack, Christopher, and me, actually?”

“Well, yes, if that’s convenient. Thank you. I was just telling Tally here that I don’t want to be in the way at all. I’m here, to be used by her as she wishes, and once the ordeal is over we can spend some time together.”

“Splendid. The trial starts at 10:30 tomorrow. Why don’t we all meet in the lobby here in the hotel at, say, 9:45 and walk over together? Is that convenient for you, Mr. Nelson?”

“Fine by me. Yes.”

“Hey, are those records?” said Jack, speaking for the first time and pointing at the paper packages Owen had given his daughter.

“Yes,” said Natalie. “Look.”

“Ruslan and Ludmilla,” said Jack, reading from the labels. “‘In fernem Land’? Isn’t that from Lohengrin —and isn’t that the one that includes the wedding march?”

“Yes, yes it does,” said Owen, looking bewildered. “Why?”

“Oh, no reason,” said Jack, resolutely refusing to meet Natalie’s eye. “Enjoy your dinner.”

Natalie stared up at the ceiling of her room. Jack had just left and, for once, lovemaking had not settled either her mind or her body. Tomorrow she was giving evidence and, as today had worn on—for her, a day of killing time as the court case opened—the tenseness inside her had mounted. She hadn’t expected that: she had thought she was as well prepared as she could be, her waverings were over, her story was a simple one to tell and though there might be trouble outside the courthouse, inside the building itself all would surely be calm and orderly. Her father was here and, at dinner the evening before, all the difficulties that had passed between them had been aired and it had felt as though the two of them were starting anew. That gave her an enormous injection of inner strength. Her anger had all but disappeared.

But as the hours had dragged on today, as the heat of the sun had built up, she had grown more and more on edge. It hadn’t helped that the doctor Jack had recommended, the expert in tropical diseases, was away on the coast and therefore unavailable for a consultation. So she was still a little anxious from the idea that had formed in her mind the day before, in the meeting with Maxwell Sandys, that Jonas, well meaning though he was, had got his diagnosis wrong so far as she was concerned, and she was in fact more ill than he thought. Her skin was still blotchy, she still got a tingling in her hands where the rash had been, and her headaches, instead of subsiding, were actually more frequent now than before.

It had been a difficult day in the sense that it had been a profoundly dull day. She knew it made sense to stay in her room at the hotel, out of sight, but she hadn’t been able to read because she couldn’t concentrate or relax. Jack had left her his gramophone but she hadn’t been in the mood for music. She had strung out breakfast and then lunch for as long as she could, but the food had arrived much quicker than it might have done, the restaurant wasn’t busy, and it was plain that the staff wanted to tidy up and clear her plates away as soon as she had finished. She tried reading a four-day-old British newspaper that her father had brought with him but that didn’t work either. And she couldn’t sleep: she was slept out.

Was she going to marry Jack? She couldn’t get her mind around that either, not yet. But … he was involved politically, and she had found she liked that. It set him apart … apart from Dominic, even above him. She was thinking more and more about politics. Even back home, in nearby Rossington, race was an issue. Jack enlarged her mind.

At last, at long, long last, around five, he had arrived with Maxwell Sandys.

“No surprises so far,” Sandys had said, immediately after they had arrived and had been given water and were seated in chairs. “All went more or less as I explained to you yesterday. We got through all three pieces of physical evidence today, so you are on first thing in the morning. How are you feeling—Jack said you are worried about your health?”

“Right now I’m feeling bored and looking forward to this all being over, so far as my testimony is concerned. Don’t worry about my health, but thanks for asking. I’ll be fine tomorrow. How is the judge?”

“Yes, I was coming to that. He seems to have turned over a new leaf—not completely new, of course, he’s still the same old John Tudor, but he was remarkably polite to Ndekei when he pled not guilty. When that happened, a lot of people in the public gallery cheered and Tudor immediately got going with his gavel, shouting that he would clear the court if such a thing happened again, that this was a set of proceedings that would be run fairly but firmly, according to the strictest principles of the law. We think he was warning Ndekei not to base his defense on Maasai law, that that wouldn’t wash. But Tudor has been remarkably even-handed so far. He knows he’s the center of attention, and maybe all the hostile newspaper editorials have been getting to him.”

Sandys fiddled with his tie. “Now, if today is anything to go by, there will be about three or four hundred people outside the court. Pushing through them will be quite an ordeal, my dear. There is a back way into the court but—”

“No, no, I’ll go in the front door. I don’t like what’s happening, as you know, but I’m not ashamed of what I’m about to do, not at all. Going in the back door would be cowardly.”

Sandys nodded. “I thought that’s what you’d say. I hoped it’s what you’d say. If only more witnesses were like you.” He shifted in his seat. “It’s not all bad news, by the way. The newspapers have been pretty silent in the past few days, what with the Gazette being closed. With proceedings so near, they know they have to be careful, that they too could fall into contempt. But Edward Ongoche was in court. He is editor of the East African Reporter and he was telling me that they have commissioned a poll among its readers, to be run as soon as the trial is over. They asked people if tribal law should take precedence over English law and their findings are interesting. They found that their readers, who are mostly black, are divided equally. Just under fifty percent say tribal law should take precedence, and more or less the same figure say English law is better. The rest, a very few, don’t know.

“Ongoche says it’s a typical result in his view. Half the country realizes that tribal loyalties lead to tribal grievances and rivalries and those grievances will hold the country back. When they publish their poll they are going to run an editorial attacking Marongo, for exploiting Ndekei’s misfortune for his own ends.” Sandys smiled at Natalie. “It’s rather late in the day for your appearance in court, my dear, but it’s helpful to know that you are not quite as isolated as you may think.”

Again he fiddled with his tie, which seemed too tight for his neck. “Sutton is here, by the way, and was in court, making notes furiously. He’s retained a barrister to look after his interests. The man has no standing in court, but I suppose it makes him feel part of the proceedings.”

Sandys had left after arranging to collect Natalie from the hotel next morning.

She and Jack had eaten dinner in her room that evening. They thought it would be bad tactics to be seen enjoying themselves in the dining room. Owen Nelson, it seemed, had got on very well with Eleanor Deacon during their time together watching the trial and the two of them were having dinner with Maxwell Sandys. Natalie was pleased for her father.