Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

When Natalie arrived, Eleanor was sitting at her desk and writing her journal by the light of a hurricane lamp. Everyone knew that Eleanor kept a journal, which she compiled at the end of every day, though no one had ever seen what she wrote. Most of them assumed that she was going to publish her diaries sooner or later, possibly posthumously.

As Natalie ducked into the tent, Eleanor stopped writing, looked up, and smiled. Natalie was surprised to see that Eleanor was already changed for bed—she was wearing a pair of men’s pajamas that were much too big for her. They were yellow, with brown checks.

Seeing Natalie’s eyes roaming over her frame, Eleanor looked down at herself and said, “These were Jock’s. I’ve never bothered to get a new pair.”

Natalie nodded. “You’ll be setting a new fashion.”

Eleanor was about to allow herself a smile at this, but suddenly looked up sharply. “Do I smell whiskey on your breath, Natalie?”

Natalie colored. She knew she had colored, too, so there was no point in denying the allegation. She nodded.

Eleanor stood up. She was flustered, irritated more than angry. “I have strict rules about alcohol. And I know those rules were among the papers you were sent in Cambridge, on your appointment. Has Russell North got a secret supply?” Eleanor put down her pen and took off her spectacles.

“No, no. It’s mine.” Natalie brushed the hair off her face. “I’m not an alcoholic, Eleanor. I have a small flask with me, and every evening, after dinner, I like to sit alone, under the stars, having one last cigarette and a few sips of whiskey. It’s not a crime and it doesn’t affect my work. Like you write your journal, I relax in my own way. That’s what I was doing when I saw … when I saw Mutevu Ndekei.” She knew she was trembling but forced herself to keep looking steadily at Eleanor.

Eleanor had closed up her journal and was putting it away in one of the filing cabinets, which she kept locked. “Where is this flask now?” she said.

“In my tent.”

“You can give it to me tomorrow.” Eleanor picked up her spectacles from the writing table. “I’m sorry, it may seem excessively zealous to you but I have my rules. I don’t for one minute think that a nip of whiskey will affect your work, my dear, but if any of the Africans found out, your flask would be stolen in no time, and one or more of them would be drunk in no time plus ten minutes. Do you understand?”

Natalie nodded, deflated. “I suppose so.”

Eleanor turned away, toward the flap that led to the bedroom. “I’ll keep it under lock and key, until you go home. With the champagne, in case we find something really important.” She smiled. “Now, come through and I’ll show you where you are sleeping.”

She led the way, carrying the hurricane lamp with her. Natalie followed. She had never been in here before and was amazed by what she saw. Apart from two single beds—laid out as in a hotel, side by side, with a small table between them—the room was dominated by photographs. Photographs on tables, photographs hanging on tent poles, on a small bookshelf. Photographs of Eleanor, of Jock, and of one celebrity or another: Jomo Kenyatta, leader of the Kikuyu tribe; Solly Zuckerman, who she knew was Britain’s chief scientist; Sir Evelyn Baring, the governor of Kenya; Haile Selassie, emperor of Ethiopia. There were also photographs of hand axes, fossil bones, skulls of early man and other primates, photographs taken at conferences, the whole world of paleontology in one form or another. And there were a number of blowups of Kenyan stamps showing ancient skulls Eleanor and Jock had found.

As Natalie worked her way around the photographs, Eleanor sat on her bed, kicked off her shoes, let her hair down, and began to brush it. She let Natalie finish her tour of inspection before saying, “You get into bed first, then we’ll talk.”

Natalie unbuttoned her shirt, unlaced her boots, stepped out of her trousers, folded them and laid them on a chair next to the bed. She slipped off her bra and put on her own pajamas, blue cotton. She slid between the sheets. The bed was firmer than the one in her own tent.

Once she could see Natalie was settled, Eleanor took the hurricane lamp and left it in the office outside. Coming back in, she said, “There’s enough fuel for the lamp to last through till morning. The light might deter any late-night prowlers.”

Some light from the office leaked into the bedroom, enough for Natalie to see Eleanor get into bed. There was obviously going to be no chance to read, or smoke. Both women lay on their backs.

Natalie stared up at the sloping canvas roof and let her eyes adjust to the gloom. She listened to the night. A wind had got up and was playing in the webbing of the tent supports. The thorn was moaning softly. She heard the low grunt-cough of a warthog. She had gone the whole day without a shower, something she hoped wouldn’t happen too often in the future.

“I really do think it’s safer for you to sleep here until Mutevu is caught.” Eleanor broke in on her thoughts unceremoniously. “But I wanted a chat anyway, my dear. I know so little about you, in a personal sense, of course. I’ve read your research, and I know you were with Tom Little in Blombos Cave in South Africa.” Eleanor turned on her side to look at Natalie. “You’re very beautiful—I’ve seen the way both Russell and Christopher look at you—but you don’t get much post from Britain. Is there no man in your life?”

So Russell wasn’t the only blunderbuss, thought Natalie. Not for the first time tonight, she blushed. Thankfully, once again, in the gloom, no one could see. But she was trapped. “No, not anymore. I was … there was a man back home, for nearly three years. He was a musician, a cellist, always traveling and always married. I spent weeks, months, waiting. Waiting for him to come back from a tour, waiting for him to get a few days free from his wife, waiting for him to come down to Cambridge, waiting on platforms for the train to London.”

“What happened?”

Natalie told Eleanor about that last afternoon, with the bicycles by the river, and the faint singing of the choir. She couldn’t look at Eleanor as she said all this. “I was so surprised, so … winded that I didn’t put up any resistance. I mean, you can’t fight for someone, can you? I’ve never believed that. When you read it in books, I mean. Part of the experience of loving is … is of being loved in return, and that has to be freely given …”

She tailed off. This was too much intimacy, too quickly. That was one effect of life in the bush.

Eleanor lay back on the bed again, staring up at the slope of the canvas. She let a period of silence elapse, before saying, “Great literature can be very misleading, my dear.” She had a jar of skin moisturizer and had begun applying it to her cheeks. “Great literature is always about grand passion—meaning great love affairs. Have you ever noticed how almost no one in the real world lives like that? Not anymore and maybe not ever. Oh, I grant you it’s what a lot of people say they want, or think they want. But is it really?” She slipped off her watch and placed it on the table between the beds. “Jock taught me a lot—I’m sure you’ve heard he was a great womanizer, always chasing after younger women. All true, but less than the truth, a good deal less. Jock knew one thing and he taught it to me, and he taught it well. It is that in modern life—and by modern life he meant life with all the risk taken out, the risk of illness, the risk of starvation, the risk of war—that enduring passion, fulfillment, is to be found most of all in intellectual pursuit. Sexual passion, being in love, fades. Everyone over a certain age knows that but few admit it or accept it as Jock accepted it.”