Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

He shook his head. “I did nothing. You saved yourself. The way you leapt over that body of the man on the ground—it was like watching a wildebeest jump in the bush.” He swallowed some of his own whiskey. “I shouldn’t say this, given the circumstances, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so lithe, so beautiful.”

“Fifteen shillings? Fifteen? You must be joking. Eleven, I’ll give you eleven.” Jack slapped the money on the counter and pushed it towards the shop assistant.

The assistant, a bent, wizened, nut-brown old woman with irregular teeth and a wicked grin, pushed the money back again. “Fifteen, master.”

It was the following morning, just coming up to noon, and Natalie and Jack had spent the previous three hours shopping for supplies. After she had left Jack the evening before, after the excitement in the street and the whiskies in the bar, Natalie had returned to her room to find a book propped against her door. It was Music in Africa , the book Jack had referred to earlier. And there was a note attached to it: “In case you can’t sleep tonight.” He had left it there before he had had second thoughts about where Natalie might go walking.

But she had lain in bed, wide awake, too restless to sleep and too disturbed to read, reliving her ordeal, recalling the smell of the sweet alcohol, sweat, and vomit in the street, rerunning her deposition in her head and trying to imagine the hostile questions she would receive in court.

And revisiting Jack’s remarks about her lithe movements. It was a judicious remark, she thought. He knew she had been shaken by her ordeal. He was making her feel better about herself but not making too much of it. She liked that. She had found she was looking forward to spending the day with him tomorrow. It must have gone three before she had finally dropped off.

They’d checked out of the Rhodes around nine, packed their bags into the boot of the car that Maxwell Sandys had lent Jack, and visited a variety of shops: a pharmacist, a vet, a garage, a bank, a liquor store where Natalie topped up on whiskey. They were now in a shop that sold radio-telephones and other technical gear, where Jack was negotiating to buy a spare battery for his mother’s radio.

He took back the eleven shillings, carefully put the ten-shilling note into his wallet, and turned to Natalie. “Okay, let’s go. We’ll try that other shop, near the railway station.” He took from Natalie the bag she was holding and led the way out.

“Thirteen shillings,” shouted the old crone after him.

He stopped and turned. “Twelve and six.”

The woman cackled. They had a deal.

Natalie grinned and gasped at the same time. This was a side to Jack that she had not seen before and had never imagined existed. In each of the shops they had visited today he had haggled. And haggled successfully. To Natalie he was totally convincing when bluffing, though she reminded herself she might just be naive. He drove the traders down, but they drove him up. She was too inexperienced, really, to know if he got the best price. But she had enjoyed watching him.

Outside the shop he put the bags in the car and shepherded Natalie in after them. It was as hot as ever, dust and flies milling around, the smells and the heat acting in concert.

Jack got in the car alongside Mbante. “The Karibu Club,” he said. Turning back to Natalie, he said, “We’re all done. So, lunch first—then we can head for the airport.”

Away from the center of town the streets grew quieter, wider. There were more children, many of them shoeless. Trees appeared, a school with a field, where children in uniform played in the sun. They reached a vast roundabout with a straggle of hibiscus. They passed by a stall selling flowers and cold drinks and reached a dual carriageway where the traffic thinned. Here there were billboards advertising the new airlines, Land Rovers, cream to straighten the hair.

Mbante turned off the dual carriageway into a lane lined with eucalyptus trees. Behind the trees, Natalie glimpsed large houses set back behind English-style lawns and vast bushes, rhododendrons at a guess. After a few hundred yards, they turned off the lane into a drive with a hedge down one side and a close-cropped lawn on the other. This, as Natalie soon realized, was the edge of a golf course.

“This is the Karibu Club,” said Jack softly. “Karibu means ‘Welcome.’”

They rounded a bend and the drive stretched before them, leading to the main clubhouse, mainly white, with blue shutters and a roof of terracotta tiles. Beyond the clubhouse was a polo field where a couple of riders—white—were practicing, galloping their mounts and hitting balls towards some goalposts. Their sunglasses caught the sun. The contrast with downtown Nairobi was marked.

Mbante pulled up in front of the main club entrance, an ebony-wood porch with a thatched roof. A black man in a green blazer came forward to open the car door.

Natalie got out and smiled at the man. He reminded her vaguely of Ndekei. Jack hadn’t mentioned the case today, or her ordeal, or the book he’d left outside her room. Sensitive again.

He led the way inside the club.

Broad planks of dark shiny wood lined the floor of the large reception hall. There was a smell of polish and tobacco smoke. A tall man, also in a green blazer, beamed at Jack.

“Welcome back, Dr. Deacon. How is your mother?”

“She’s well, Bukawa, thank you. I’ll tell her you were asking. How are the children?”

The receptionist grinned. “We’re all fine, sir. Thank you.”

“Say a special hello to Samara, eh? She’s my favorite.”

Another big grin, as the receptionist took out a form for Jack to sign, so that Natalie, as a visitor, could enter the club. “Fathers aren’t allowed favorites, Dr. Deacon. But she’ll be pleased you said hello.”

Jack handed back the form, turning to Natalie. “Bukawa is a lucky man, he has four daughters.” He turned back. “I’m looking for Frank Villiers, Bukawa. Has he been in today?”

The receptionist nodded. “Try the bar or the library. It’s too early for bridge.”

“Thanks.” Jack turned. “This way, Natalie.”

Their footsteps made a clatter on the boards as he led the way down a corridor. Off to one side was a small courtyard, with tubs of flowers and tables and chairs set out under umbrellas. It was all very English, she thought, or what she imagined Brighton might look like. When they came to the library the smell of tobacco smoke intensified. Jack peered his head round the door while Natalie waited in the corridor. He nodded to people he knew and exchanged a few words. But, evidently, Frank Villiers was not in the library.

As Jack stepped back into the corridor, Natalie said, “I didn’t have you as the clubbable type.”

“You’re right, I’m not.” He looked down at her. His hair flopped forward. “My father was a member and he proposed me before I was old enough to resist. In his day this is where a lot of work got done—the colonial government relaxed here when it was off duty. So this is where my father negotiated licenses to excavate, raised loans to help with his digs, and entertained the academics out from Britain or the U.S. I need to see this Villiers chap, that’s why we’re here.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see, come on.” He marched off again, further down the corridor, until it reached a corner to the left. At the right angle there was a large double door, wide open. The shiny wooden floor continued into the room beyond, which was dominated by two huge ceiling fans, one over the bar itself—a long, carved, mahogany counter, gleaming with polish—and the other near a large full-length window, which gave on to a terrace beyond which was the polo field. Natalie could make out about half a dozen people sitting at some tables. She heard the low buzz of conversation.