Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

She had found Maxwell Sandys’s conversation after the deposition disconcerting. Had he really been trying to find out if she would back down if the going got tough? Or was he—she hesitated to think this—actually inviting her to change her testimony? She hoped not. That was against all she had been brought up to believe, and it certainly wasn’t fair to Richard, or his parents, or even fair to Russell, who hadn’t lost his life but had lost so much else personally. Where was Russell now? she thought. Was he back in Berkeley yet? At his desk, stirring up trouble?

She would ask Jack. He would know what Sandys had meant by his questions. Come to that, though, what had Max meant by his remark about Jack, that he was “taken” with her? She knew what he meant at one level, of course. She understood the words, as spoken. But Jack, though considerate, had certainly never given her cause to think of him … they had met only days before.

Her earrings were fixed. She stood and reinserted her feet one by one into her shoes in front of the mirror. Yes, the earrings, half hidden behind her hair, caught the light. She hadn’t put on too much lipstick and those shadows under her eyes … were still there.

She picked up a small bag, put her lipstick and a small handkerchief inside. She stared at the room phone as if that would make it ring, conjuring up her father, thousands of miles away. Nothing happened and she grabbed her room key and went out.

A buzz of conversation—of people drinking, talking, and eating—swept up to greet her. The rooms were gathered around the top of the lobby, off a gallery which looked down. She could see Jack sitting at the bar, by himself. He was wearing a lightweight sand-colored linen jacket, dark blue cotton trousers, and a pale blue shirt, no tie.

She descended the stairs. Her heels sounded on the wooden planks and, when he heard them, he turned to look. He rose from the bar stool and walked towards her.

“You should wear a dress more often. You look wonderful.”

“Thank you.” She touched the lapel of his jacket. “You look good, too. Very handsome. But I was promised a blazer.”

There was a moment’s awkwardness between them. Then Jack smiled and said, “Drink? Gin and tonic, wine, martini?” He moved back towards the bar.

Natalie followed. “No, I’d like a whiskey, on the rocks.”

“Of course, silly me. My mother told me.”

He turned. “A whiskey for Rita Hayworth,” he called across to the barman.

He was drinking what looked like a gin and tonic.

They clinked glasses and sipped their drinks.

“How was your afternoon?” Jack helped himself to nuts.

Natalie had decided to delay her questions about Maxwell Sandys until their dinner proper. She was perfectly content to enjoy the atmosphere of the bar, a little casual conversation in civilized surroundings. This time tomorrow they would be back in the gorge.

“Nairobi is pretty much as I expected. The French have this new term— le Tiers Monde , the Third World—and Nairobi is a perfect example. All the trappings of modernity, a great deal of which doesn’t work, and eagerness for independence, whether they are ready or not.”

“No one is ever ready for independence, Natalie, not if you listen to the people who are about to lose power. I had a drink earlier with Max. I asked him what his office is doing to bring on black lawyers and he got quite shirty—he said it was none of my business. He was covering his tracks. He should be doing more, and he knows it.”

“You talked about ‘hotheads’ this morning, in Max’s office. Are you being a bit of a hothead yourself?”

“Is that what you think?” He looked worried, then grinned. “I just think that if white people—white Kenyans , never forget—are to have any role in the new country, play any part, politically, we have to make our voices heard now, and we have to play to our strengths. Helping to bring on black talent is one of the best ways of showing … well, of showing our goodwill.”

“And not everyone has goodwill?”

“No. Not at all, and on both sides. There are still plenty of out-and-out racists, and many more like Max, reluctant to embrace change. And there are plenty of black racists too, of course, who think that the only good white is one with a plane ticket back to Britain.”

“How many whites think like you?”

“Not enough.”

She hesitated. “Have you made many enemies?”

He drank some gin and swallowed hard. “A few, yes. People who know change is coming, has to come, but will do nothing themselves to bring it about. Most of them never say what they really think but their silence, their sheer inaction, can’t be disguised. Have you never noticed that hatred and silence go together? Hatred and sulking. Hatred is always ashamed of itself.”

Natalie was turning this over in her mind when he added, “That’s the headwaiter, Stanley. I think they’re ready for us.”

Natalie glanced over in the direction Jack was looking. An elderly white man, bald and dressed in wing collar and tails, was standing next to the entrance to what looked like a serious dining room. For some reason, Natalie had assumed they would be eating by the pool.

“Come on,” said Jack, getting up. “I don’t know about you but I’m famished.”

The dining room was decorated in the same style as the bar, as if it were a safari lodge, with slatted blinds, much greenery, zebra hides on the walls, cream-colored linen. Half of the room was covered, half open to the sky. There was a staccato rasp of crickets in the bushes.

As they sat down at the table, the headwaiter who had shown them in lit a small candle, lost between the glasses. Two menus were brought.

“Another whiskey?” said Jack, pointing at her almost empty glass.

“Why not?” She put her small bag on the floor, by her feet.

They both picked up the menus.

Jack grunted. “This place can’t make up its mind whether it’s in Africa, or Sussex.” He smiled. “Look—roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, shepherd’s pie, and below that, ostrich steak. They could probably find some warm beer, if we asked.”

“Do you miss Britain, Jack? You were born here, weren’t you?”

“Yes to your second question. No to your first. I may look British but I’m African through and through.” He set the menu down. “Who could live in Britain once he—or she—has lived here? I know it’s not perfect, but don’t you feel something every time you go out to dig in the gorge? Could you live surrounded by all those little houses, little gardens, little roads? All that rain?” He shook his head. “I couldn’t.”

“I’ll have to, I suppose. Cambridge isn’t quite as bad as you say. Small—yes, but very beautiful, and open to the sky, like Africa.”

“You’ve only been here a few weeks. There’s plenty of time to let the landscape get under your skin.” Jack’s hair was flopping forward and he pushed it back in an unself-conscious way that she liked. “I’ve watched you, smoking late at night, outside your tent—no, I wasn’t prying.” He put his hand over his heart. “I was checking the fence one evening, when we thought a fox had got in. I told you the other night, the time we were listening to the Adagio, that your face is a shield. Outside your tent, you look … composed, self-contained, complete. No one’s complete, of course, ever. But you do your best to look it. You give off this aura of being very self-composed—I wish I had it.” He took a roll from a small basket at the edge of the table.

“Everyone seems concerned about my composure,” replied Natalie tartly. She swallowed some whiskey. “That’s all Maxwell Sandys could talk about in that courthouse: whether I will make a good witness. I’m here as a scientist, Jack.”