Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

Everyone was sitting around the logs now, listening to the Elgar as the flames of the fire began to subside. It had been weeks since any of them had the chance to hear music and everyone sat very still, just listening, locked in their own thoughts and memories. Wherever Jack went, apparently his music went with him.

“Who’s the film star?” he had said to Christopher when Natalie had got down from the vehicle they had driven back from the gorge.

He was surrounded by equipment—buckets, shovels, bolts of cloth, even a few books.

“Careful,” said Christopher. “This is Natalie Nelson, Doctor Natalie Nelson. She’s had her Ph.D. for all of six months. Today she made her first discovery.”

“Six months?” said Jack Deacon, holding out his hand. “That’s two months longer than me. I’m Doctor Jack Deacon, Doctor Nelson. Have you got used to the title yet? I haven’t. Doctor Deacon sounds like a fairground quack to me, someone who cures—” He grinned. “You fill in the rest.” He nodded. “Doctor Nelson isn’t bad. It sounds efficient, clinical, it sounds as though you know what you are doing.” He grinned again.

In truth, Natalie thought, Jack Deacon was a bit like a film star himself. Who did he remind her of? He had full, dark eyebrows, hair that rose up from his forehead in a wave, very slightly buck teeth, and prominent cheekbones. Who was it? Who was it? It was a film about American soldiers in World War II that she was thinking about, she had seen it in Cambridge. Not Marlon Brando, though he had been in the film too.

A log fell and a shower of crimson sparks rose into the air.

Yes, she had it. The Young Lions , that was the film. Starring Marlon Brando—and … and … Montgomery Clift—the name came to her: that was who Jack reminded her of.

Her mind went back to the Elgar. She knew it well. It was one of the pieces Dominic adored. Where was he now? she wondered. How often did he think of her? Did he think of her at all? She was thinking about him a little less each day, wasn’t she?

She changed the subject inside her head. The conversation at dinner had been different from usual too: politics. Eleanor had set that particular ball rolling.

“What are people saying in Nairobi, Jack? How soon will independence come?”

He wore a pale blue shirt with a plain gold ring on the little finger of one hand. Natalie thought he looked tired around the eyes.

“Most people are pushing for next year, but I think it will be further away than that. If I were a betting man, I’d put money on mid-’63.”

“Who, exactly, do you mean when you say ‘people’?” said Christopher.

There wasn’t much family resemblance between him and Jack, Natalie thought. Jack was a couple of inches taller, more muscular. There were one or two wisps of gray hair near his ears. He must be—what?—thirty-threeish. A bit old to have just got his Ph.D.

“I mean the leading figures in KANU and KADU—Kenyatta, Nzoia, Nambale.”

“These are men you know?” Eleanor had leaned forward so that her face came into the direct light of one of the hurricane lamps hanging from the roof of the refectory tent. That was when Natalie had noticed she was wearing lipstick.

“Yes, of course I know them—Nairobi’s not a big place. I’m a member of KANU, I’m on one of their committees. That’s why I couldn’t get here any sooner. I came as quickly as I could, after I heard about the murder.”

“Which committee is that?” said Arnold. “How many committees do they have?”

Jack extended the thumb of one hand. “A constitutional committee.” He put up his index finger. “A land reform committee, a foreign policy committee, a finance and tax committee, a labor law committee, an education committee—that’s the one I’m on—”

“Oh? Why is that?” Eleanor played with her spectacles.

Jack pushed back his chair. “Think about it. We white people are going to have a tricky time when independence comes. This is a black country. Black people, black politicians, will want to see immediate change. So we are going to see a rapid evolution in patterns of land ownership, in the ownership of the big industrial companies and the commercial outfits, like car dealerships, breweries, cinemas, bus companies.” He swiveled the ring on his little finger. “But there are two areas especially where they will need the whites, where white people who were born and raised here can be a big help—the banks and education. Most of the banks here are owned by whites, because most of the money originates in London or Johannesburg or New York. I know nothing about money but I do know about education and they—I’m talking about people like Kenyatta and Nzoia—know that they are going to need the help of educated people, white people with the right contacts, in universities in Britain, South Africa, America, to train schoolteachers, university professors, doctors, above all the bureaucracy that will run Kenya in the future. If Kenya is to be truly multiracial after independence, the best hope is that we—the whites—can help shape the country via its educational institutions.”

“And will it be multiracial?” Kees rested his chin on the fist of one hand. “Those newspapers you brought with you suggest there’s quite a bit of anti-white feeling building up.”

Jack tugged at one ear with his fingers. “Yes. Some chimpanzees, en route from Nairobi to the Medical Research Council laboratory in Britain, arrived dead. It seems they may have been poisoned, as a protest against what some people see as scientific colonialism. The specter of independence is infecting everything just now.”

He shifted in his seat. “There are two things of particular importance that are happening. KANU and KADU are jostling for position, and, with independence so very real all of a sudden, with a constitutional conference in London next February, old, traditional grievances are beginning to resurface, tribal memories and resentments, which may well come to a head after independence, if the various tribes don’t get what they want. And of course underneath it all, everyone knows that the more trouble there is, the quicker the British will want to leave.”

There had been a silence around the table then for quite some time.

Until Christopher had said, “What’s in it for you, Jack?”

Jack frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on . People say they go into politics for this or that idealistic reason but there’s always a personal—a selfish—motive, isn’t there? What can a white person hope to achieve in a black country? You must have some secret aim—money, power, position.”

Silence around the table.

Jack stared hard at Christopher.

This was a Christopher Natalie had never seen before.

The silence lengthened. Then Jack lifted his glass to his lips and drank some water. “I’ll ignore that.”

That was when Eleanor had changed the subject, and said to Natalie, “I understand you found a femur of a Pelorovis this morning. What can you tell us?” She removed her spectacles and rubbed her eyes.

Natalie fingered her watch. Above them, four hurricane lamps swayed in the breeze, casting a warm yellow glow over everything. “I’ll have to make some checks in the books I have with me, but I’m fairly certain it’s never been found so early down here. We had thought Pelorovis evolved about one and a half million years ago, then went extinct eight hundred thousand years ago—quite a short lifespan for a species, which generally last at least two million years. So this extends the life span and makes it an important find. Of interest to specialists only, I would say, but yes, well worth drawing attention to.” She brushed hair off her face. “Among zoologists it’s famous for having these down-turned tusks—very weird.”