Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

He paused, to let this sink in.

“Of course, all this doesn’t necessarily apply to you. Through it all, Natalie, you say you have never wavered, about your testimony, and I have never wavered in my feelings about you. That must mean something—and one of the things it means is that there’s still time for you to change sides.” He leaned forward and touched her knee. “I know you went to Lamu with Jack Deacon and you know I know. Did anything happen?”

“It’s none of your business, Russell.”

“I’ll take that as a yes, that you spent the night with him. Lucky him. If I hadn’t been kicked out of Kihara, before he came on the scene, maybe I—”

“Russell!”

Some of the journalists looked over as she raised her voice.

“The Deacons look after each other, don’t they? And now you’ve joined them, jumped into bed with them, metaphorically and physically—”

She slapped his face.

Now all the journalists were looking.

There was an imprint of her hand on his cheek, where she had hit him. That part of his face was redder than ever. “Oh Russell, stop feeling so sorry for yourself! You’re behaving like a fossil all over again, stuck in one level. The world doesn’t stand still—”

“It’s only been a few weeks!”

“What has only been a few weeks?”

“Us. Our whiskey sessions, listening to the baboons.”

She gasped. “There never was an ‘us’! I told you that before you left. Yes, there were a few evenings of illicit whiskey drinking, a few—a very few—episodes of physical contact, and maybe—what?—one kiss, or was it two? All of it cut short by a piece of monumental stupidity, which was your fault. That’s not enough for an ‘us’ to be created. So you’re mad to expect me to leap over to your side just because you ask. I told you all those weeks ago, during one of our fabled whiskey sessions, that this season’s digging would be remembered for all the wrong reasons—and then along came the discoveries, the jaw, the skull, the vertebrae, Kees’s hand axes, and I forgot my own warning.”

She swept her fingers through her hair. She noticed some of the journalists still looking in her direction. She ignored them.

“Then you come back again and raise all the old problems, all out of spite, envy, and resentment. All caused by Richard’s and your gross stupidity. And then you have the gall to invite me over to your side!”

She took a deep breath.

“Russell, what I do with Jack Deacon, or Christopher Deacon, or Eleanor Deacon, should I choose to, is none of your business. You do your worst. Get into bed with that crook , Richard Sutton Senior, and fight the Deacons. I can’t stop you. But if you do, you do it on your own, without me.”

She stood up, looking down at him.

“There was never an ‘us.’” She touched his cheek where she had slapped him, and softened her tone. “And there could never have been.”

She turned, pushed through the scrum of journalists, and left the bar.

“You know Marongo better than anyone, Jack, better than any other white person anyway. Will Russell’s plan work?”

Natalie was in Jack’s room at the hotel. After she had stormed out of the bar, leaving Russell with his slapped face, she had joined Eleanor, Jack, Christopher, and the others where she knew they were having dinner, in the hotel coffee shop, and had relayed what had occurred.

Everyone had been surprised, upset, and bewildered, but because they were all in a kind of limbo, waiting for the press reaction to the conference, and Russell’s intervention in it, no one seemed too prepared to get to grips with the threat he appeared to pose.

“Let’s clear our fences one at a time,” said Eleanor. “I’m tired, I need to sleep.”

“He had you followed to Lamu?” said Christopher. “That’s expensive and shows … it shows a very determined adversary. Were you frightened?”

Natalie nodded. “I was concerned. I wasn’t certain I—we—were being followed. It seemed a bit far-fetched. But Russell confirmed it. You’re right, Sutton Senior is very determined indeed.”

“A good job Jack was with you.”

She ignored that. “What provokes me the most is: how did they know Jack and I were in Lamu? His contact at the American embassy couldn’t have known that.”

Christopher nodded, finishing the water he was drinking. “Sounds like he has a spy in our camp. That makes the blood go cold, right? You never thought of not giving evidence, did you? Never mentioned leaving the country?”

“No, of course not. You know that. You all know that.”

“What did you make of Lamu?” Christopher asked. “I haven’t had a chance to ask you.”

“I loved it, except for the sea urchins. A swim in the sea was a real break, a real luxury.”

“Where did you stay?”

“The Cotton House,” said Jack.

“In the rooms with the balcony?”

Natalie nodded. “How about you? How was the Christmas Eve party at the Karibu Club?”

“Yes, how was it?” added Jack. “Pick up any gossip?”

Christopher shook his head. “It was all very tame. The only thing worth remarking on, the only surprise really, was that minister from Britain, you know, the one who came here—”

“Jeavons, you mean, the minister of science?”

“That’s the one. Well, he was here again and deep in conversation with John Tudor.”

Jack frowned. “They can’t have had much in common, one a scientist, the other a judge.”

“Wrong,” breathed Eleanor. “Jeavons is a minister of science, but by training a lawyer.”

“Even so, what would they have to talk about?”

“It was Christmas Eve, for pity’s sake,” said Christopher. “All I know is that they went at it for ages.”

Natalie decided to change the subject. “How are the flying lessons going?”

“Well enough,” Christopher said. “I’ve had no more panic attacks, if that’s what you mean—”

“I didn’t mean—”

He stood up. “I’m tired too. See you tomorrow.”

“Don’t say you’re tired, Jack,” she said, after the rest of them had dispersed. “Someone needs to think this through.”

He nodded. “Let’s go to my room.” He smiled and added, “You’ll be quite safe and We’ll have more privacy.”

He was seated now, in the chair by the chest of drawers, as Natalie lounged on the bed.

“I did know Marongo very well,” Jack said. “But we haven’t really been close for two or three years now. Since he’s been chief, he’s had to keep his distance. Yes, I’m an honorary Maasai but I’m also white—you can’t hide that fact. The closer independence gets, the more political Marongo becomes.”

They had brought their whiskies with them and he swallowed some of his.

“Independence means various things and one of the things it means is change, including political change. And I can see that we may have played into Marongo’s hands with this very press conference, and in a way that plays to Russell’s strengths as well.”

“What? How do you mean?”

“It’s my fault, really, with this whole idea of a presentation. We’ll soon see what the press makes of today’s events and either way we have achieved our purpose—we’ve made the gorge important. It will be very difficult for Marongo to destroy Kihara as it is now. That would make him and his Maasai savages. At the same time, a change of personnel could be very useful—I’m not saying it will happen, just that I can see how it would suit Marongo.”

He added more water to what was left of his whiskey.

“As it stands now, the gorge is indelibly linked to the Deacons. My parents put it on the map, scientifically speaking, there has been a trail of scientists, journalists, and politicians through here, and of course they are mainly white and they mainly came to see my father, then my mother—and, if things continue, it will be Christopher, Beth, and me. A change now, at independence, to a different team that is not the Deacons, but one selected—at least tacitly—by the Maasai, would associate them with whatever is discovered in the future. They would be reclaiming the gorge, but not destroying it.”