Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

Dinner tonight had been a stilted affair. Eleanor, as Natalie could see only too well, was angry inside—a swamp of swirling, searing, curdling emotions. In decades of digging, nothing like this had ever happened to Eleanor Deacon, or her excavations, and despite the shock, despite the overreaction of Mutevu, and/or the Maasai, despite the horrors of blood and coroners and air ambulances and cynical, prying journalists, Eleanor’s main feeling was regret, regret that the killing had happened, rather than sympathy with Richard Sutton, who had done something very foolish in her view. That much was plain.

Natalie found Eleanor’s reaction understandable, but she did not agree with it. Richard and Russell had behaved badly—yes, very badly. They had been willful, crass, egocentric beyond—well, beyond all understanding. But theirs was not a capital offense, not in her book, not by a long chalk. Grossly insensitive—yes; insulting—yes; disrespectful—yes. All that. Their behavior made her breathless just thinking about it. But the crime, surely, did not merit the punishment, which was also beyond understanding, and barbaric. Those flies on Richard’s throat, in his nostrils, the pungent, acrid smell of urine … she shuddered all over again.

Russell poured a second cup of whiskey. The cup seemed so tiny in his hands, Natalie thought. He handed it across to her. She shook her head. “You first.”

He gulped the liquid and his Adam’s apple rocked in his throat. “What a mess.”

“Not what I imagined for my first real dig.” She took the cup. She hadn’t changed all day. No one had bothered with showers. She felt dirty and wretched.

“Is that the first dead person you’ve seen, Russell?”

He shook his head. “No. But don’t ask any more. I grew up in the outback, remember. I don’t want to talk about it, not tonight. Okay?”

“I’ll change the subject, then. Since I’m going to be spending the night with her, tell me what you know about Eleanor.”

He took back the whiskey cup and drank from it, smacking his lips as he did so. He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. He hadn’t shaved and the stubble on his chin was longer than ever. He looked a bit wretched too.

“A difficult woman, but then she’s had a difficult time. She was old Jock Deacon’s second wife. Jock, born in South Africa, was a dedicated paleontologist—also very good—but he had one flaw, and it was a big one.” Russell stroked the crease on his cheek. “Women, younger women, a succession of them. He divorced his first wife—a bad career move in those days, which denied him a full professorship in your very own university, Cambridge, which was very straitlaced in the years before the war. Denied that avenue, he allowed himself to expand in other directions.” Russell rubbed the stubble on his jaw, passing his fingers back and forth, seeming to notice it for the first time. “Jock ran the first and the finest digs in Kihara Gorge, and although he married Eleanor two years after his divorce from his first wife, he was soon philandering. One young researcher after another turned up here; he gave them projects, and took them to bed.”

“Didn’t she mind? And how do you know all this?”

Monkey screams came from the gorge. Natalie and Russell grinned at each other.

“I’ll answer the second question first.” He wet his lips with more whiskey. “I know all this because everyone in paleontology knows it, but also because one of the women—Lizbet Kondal, a Swede—worked in my department at Berkeley, and she told me firsthand.” Russell played with what was left of the chocolate packet that Natalie had placed on the table. “Did Eleanor mind? If she did, she never showed it. Jock was a bit of a showman on the side. He knew he had to be, had to make paleontology sexy to the foundations, in order to get them to part with their money. Therefore it didn’t hurt if he was a little larger than life—and the press lapped it up. But Eleanor was always more interested in the science—and she was the better scientist in any case. She let Jock go round the world lecturing, raising funds, charming foundations and young women in more or less equal measure. Meanwhile, she got on with the hard slog of recording all the finds, putting them in order, writing them up.”

Natalie lit a cigarette.

“They must have loved each other in the early days; after that the arrangement suited both of them; then, finally, it got very competitive and that was not so nice to watch. Towards the end of Jock’s life, he realized that Eleanor had overtaken him. She knew more, had published far more—and far better—papers.”

He sighed, passing his fingers through his hair. “Finally, she was offered the Cambridge professorship he had always been denied, that and a fellowship of the Royal Society, the first and only paleontologist to be honored in such a way. Some say his envy at her success killed him, but in fact Eleanor is always generous about Jock. She could never have done what she did without the funds he raised, that’s what she always says.”

“Did she never … you know, break out?” Natalie was longing for a shower and, above all, a clean bra.

He shook his head. “I’ve never seen it. Lizbet told me Eleanor did once have an affair, with some government lawyer from Nairobi, but if she did she was far more discreet than Jock. Few details leaked out.”

He fell silent and for a moment neither spoke. There were more clouds tonight and the moonlight was much less. The yellow glow from the hurricane lamp made the shadows deep. Russell’s eyes were bluer than ever.

He leaned over, and reached for her hand.

She took it away, as she had done before.

He shook his head. “You still can’t loosen up then?”

“Russell! Think what’s happened today. I’m still in shock at what I saw, what I discovered. Your life might be at risk, you’ve got a gun— two guns—to keep away … to keep away who knows what. Now isn’t the time—”

“But that’s not why … that’s not why you did what you did, is it?”

She didn’t reply immediately. She wanted to slow down. Pauses, silences, could mean as much as words. “I told you … I’m not ready.”

He looked at her, holding the whiskey cup to his lips. “If you say so.”

If he didn’t believe her, she thought, well, that couldn’t be helped, and it was perhaps better that way. It shouldn’t always be necessary to spell things out. Russell wasn’t … damn Dominic.

The silence lengthened. Strong animal smells wafted in from somewhere.

Eventually, he said, much more quietly, “I’m sorry.” He sighed. “I seem to have spent the last few days being in the wrong.” He looked across at her. “But I’m not wrong in how I feel about you, Natalie. I’ve fallen for women before but not … not … to tell you the truth, when I’m with you I feel even better than I did when we made our discovery. Ten times better. Better than sunshine, whiskey, and discovery all added together.”

Was his face flushed at saying so much?

She couldn’t tell.

She shook her head. How blatant did she need to be?

But not tonight. They’d all been through too much in the last hours. So she let it go and instead inspected her watch. “I’d better go. Wish me luck.” She lifted what was left of the whiskey and held it out for Russell.

He shook his head. “You drink it. For Dutch courage.”

They both smiled and she swigged back what was left of the second nip.

“See you at breakfast.”

Eleanor Deacon’s tent was bigger than anyone else’s, much bigger. That made sense, because it comprised an office, in the front, with a bedroom beyond a big flap that was always kept closed. Eleanor stored all the files in the office part, paperwork both in connection with the paleontology and the administration. Against one wall of the outer tent was a table with the radio-telephone, which intermittently barked into life. Next to it was the first-aid box, for use if Jonas wasn’t around.