Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

“Let me help you now.”

“Great, thank you. Just make sure to keep the piles separate. I’ve painted a little number on each one, in white paint. And I have a map here in my pocket, recording where each one was found.”

“Sounds like another Ph.D. to me.” Natalie smiled at Kees as she picked up some of the stones and started the trudge back to the Land Rover.

How good it was to be back in the gorge, what she thought of as her natural habitat now, despite all its attendant discomforts—the heat, the airlessness, the smells. Today’s variety was baboon dung again—she was becoming a connoisseur.

She reached the Land Rover, with Kees not far behind.

They put one set of axes on one towel, the others on a second, of a different color, so there could be no mix-up. Then they went back for the rest.

Aldwai, leaning on his gun, watched all this from a distance.

“How far away might this mine be?” Natalie asked Kees as they retraced their steps.

“How long is a piece of string?” He smiled. “All we know so far is that early man acquired obsidian from as much as one hundred and fifty kilometers away. I don’t expect the mine in this area to be anywhere near as far away as that. Obsidian is light and the objects it makes, as you have seen, are small and for ceremonial use. Chert is much heavier, and those early hand axes, as you can see, are quite big, for everyday use. I don’t think early man would have ventured more than—what?—five to fifteen kilometers away, though you never know. Anyway, tomorrow I start looking. If I find something, it will be an extra announcement at the press conference.”

They reached the remains of the axes they had left behind, and both stooped to collect what was left.

As they did so, Natalie said softly, “You remember you said to me, that time we were discussing obsidian mirrors, when you first told me you were homosexual, that Richard Sutton was also that way inclined.”

Kees nodded, but immediately looked around, to double-check no one else was within earshot.

“Do you still stand by that?”

“Yes, I think so. Why do you ask?”

She picked up a number of stones. “Well, you couldn’t have known this but, once, before Richard died, I went into the storeroom, to return Ndekei’s Wellington boot—which had got lost and I had found—and Richard was there and he and Ndekei were standing very close. Richard said he had indigestion and was there for some bicarbonate of soda, but… well, I wonder if he was, really …” She tailed off.

Kees whistled. “What are you saying? That you think Richard and Ndekei …? Is that why you asked if married men could also be homosexual?”

She nodded.

“But that means … if you are right, the real reason Ndekei acted as he did was not … was not what he told the police.”

She nodded again. “Maybe the two reasons coincided. But you see why your hunch about Richard is so important. It’s important to me, because if Ndekei killed Richard for—oh, let’s say for something having to do with sexual jealousy—then that changes the whole picture, and it means the Maasai threat to destroy the gorge is founded, at least partly, on a lie.”

Kees nodded. “I can see that, yes. But I can’t give you a firmer answer, Natalie. I did notice that Richard looked at me in a way that… that I am familiar with. If he had looked at me in that way in Amsterdam, I would have had no hesitation in approaching him. But in Amsterdam rejection, if it happens, is fairly anonymous. Not here, which is why we never … why nothing ever happened. I can’t be much more help, I’m afraid.” He tailed off.

She nodded. “I did wonder, at one point, whether to talk to Maxwell Sandys when he came in from Nairobi the other day, to test how what you know changes things—”

“You didn’t say anything did you? You promised !”

“No I didn’t! Don’t worry, Kees. I didn’t. But … but I do think … things will only change, Kees, if you make them change, stand up for yourselves, get organized politically—”

Kees was shaking his head and biting his lip. “I can’t think politically, not for now.” He hesitated. “I remember that last time we spoke I told you I was in a minority, like you. Well, my minority just got smaller, by one.”

“What do you mean?”

“Remember I told you about Hendrik, the man I share a house with in Amsterdam?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“And you may remember I told you he is a wine merchant. I had a letter from him in the last batch of post. He’s been to California, to buy some wine from their phylloxera-resistant vines, because the European vines have this disease and it’s affecting wine production, and therefore prices.” He paused, his features clouding. “While there … while there he met someone else.” Kees breathed in, and swallowed hard. “He means a lot to me, but his letter said he has met someone else and that he is emigrating to America, to San Francisco, with this other … person. That it is all over between, us. So now I feel …” He caught his breath and resumed picking up the hand axes.

Natalie didn’t know how to respond. She had no experience with this kind of situation.

“I don’t know what to say, Kees,” she whispered, as they both headed back to the Land Rover.

She was about to say that she, too, had recently split up with someone when she realized she hadn’t thought about Dominic for days. She said nothing.

“Ah, here’s Naiva.” Eleanor reached out and gripped the other woman’s arm. “Before we start dinner, can you tell us, Jack, are you going to do this Christmas what you did last time—for the children of the staff, I mean?”

Jack, swallowing some water, nodded his head. “Circuits and bumps, you mean? Yes, I don’t see why not? They seemed to enjoy it, all those who weren’t scared stiff of flying.”

“What’s all this?” said Arnold.

“It’s Jack’s idea … a collective Christmas gift, to all the children of the ancillary staff.” Eleanor held out her glass, so Jack could fill it with water. “If they want to, and if their parents give them permission, he takes them for a ride in his plane—not long, they fly over their own villages so they can see them from the air, they look at some animals from the air, and he lands and takes off again immediately, so they have some impression of speed. One or two of the very young ones were scared of the noise and the idea of leaving the ground, but most of them loved it.”

She turned back to Naiva. “There you are, my dear, you can tell everyone that Mr. Jack will fly anyone who wants to go—let’s say on the afternoon of the day before Christmas Eve, December 23. Is that okay, Jack?”

Jack nodded.

Naiva beamed.

“Now you can serve dinner,” said Eleanor, sitting back.

She waited for a moment, as Naiva moved around the table.

“Where’s Kees?” Eleanor said. “He wasn’t here at lunch. He must be back by now.”

“I’ll go look for him,” said Jack, getting to his feet.

Naiva placed a large bowl of pasta, smothered in a tomato sauce, in the middle of the table, from where they could help themselves.

She was just bringing a jug with more sauce when Jack arrived back, running. “There’s no sign of him. His bed is all smooth, his tent flaps were tied, everything inside is neat and tidy.”

“He’s never gone off before,” said Eleanor. “I don’t like this. What can he be doing?”

Natalie put down her water glass and relayed the substance of her conversation with Kees a few days before, about looking for a chert mine.

“Oh dear,” breathed Eleanor and looked from Jack to Christopher to Daniel. “If he got too much sun, became sick, delirious, he might have lost his bearings, stumbled across all manner of predators.” She got to her feet. “We must go and look for him. Jack, you take one Land Rover and head south, Daniel you take another and drive east, I’ll drive the third and go north. If he’d gone west he’d have been back in the camp. Arnold, you come with me, Natalie go with Jack, Christopher with Daniel. Jonas, you stay here in case your medical skills are required. If anyone finds him, we’ll radio in and you can drive the other Land Rover to wherever he is.” She turned to Naiva. “Sorry, my dear, keep some food warm if you can. I don’t know how long we shall be.”