The Clouds Beneath the Sun (18 page)

Natalie looked over to the window. Where she was, she couldn’t see out. “If I’d just kept my mouth shut …”

Sandys leaned over and patted her knee. “You’ll be fine.”

She stood up to look out of the window, to see where the noise was coming from all of a sudden. She saw several people with placards; it was a small demonstration.

“What do the posters say?” asked Natalie. “Why are they screaming?
What
are they screaming?”

“They’re nationalists, and Marxists,” replied Sandys. “Mainly from tribes who feel they were dispossessed of their land by the white man, usually long ago, in the nineteenth century. They feel that, after independence, they’ll get their land back. But they’re only part of the problem. There is another group made up of Muslims. They loathe the Marxists and want a more … a tighter Islamic law. You know, no drink, your hand cut off if you are convicted of theft, three wives for everyone.”

Natalie looked out at the demonstrators. Many of them were children, no more than twelve or thirteen. “Is there going to be trouble at independence?”

“There’s bound to be some. There already
is
some. But things are moving fast enough
towards
independence to head off the worst excesses, I think. It shouldn’t be too bad, if the governor keeps his head.”

He was silent for a moment. Then he looked over his shoulder, to make sure no one had come back into the room.

“Natalie … given the statements you have made, to the police and today, in your deposition … well, under the law, we can compel you to give evidence. But of course we would rather you gave evidence willingly, of your own free will.” He fingered the tabs at his throat. “What I mean is … knowing the risks, the glare of publicity that you may well attract, the hostility, the pressure of the attention in the press … we need to know, as soon as possible, whether you are likely to change your mind. If you
are
going to have second thoughts about your testimony, better to have them now than on the eve of the trial. Am I being clear enough for you?”

Natalie looked out of the window again at the placards. “Sir Maxwell, I can’t pretend that I like being caught up in this … this mess. Yes, part of me thinks that Richard and Russell brought this trouble on themselves. Yes, I understand that Mutevu Ndekei was only obeying local traditions. But did Richard Sutton deserve to
die?
No, I don’t think so. I am British, brought up in a Christian household. I saw what I saw. I can’t go back on that and will tell it to the court. In the same way—”

He tried to interrupt but she waved him down.

“—in the same way, if I say I will give evidence, that is what I mean. I—will—give—evidence. I don’t want to be the object of any demonstration, or smear campaigns in the newspapers, or anywhere else for that matter, but I owe it to Richard, and to Russell, to give evidence, quite apart from my own conscience.” She smiled. “Am
I
being clear enough for
you?”

Sandys nodded and stood up himself. “Yes, yes you are. Thank you. I wish all witnesses were like you, my dear. No wonder Jack is so taken with you. All being well, Ndekei will hang before Easter. Lunch?”

•   •   •

Natalie stared at her face in the mirror. She had a good skin, she knew that. People were always telling her. But the shadows under her eyes, so prominent in the wake of Dominic’s defection, hadn’t quite gone. What color
were
they? They weren’t brown—that was too strong a word. They weren’t gray either—that was too weak. They were nothing like bruises, so purple and yellow were out. Whatever color they were, they gave her face a washed-out, vulnerable look. As though she spent her nights crying. True enough in its way. She wished they would disappear and added a little powder, as camouflage. It worked, up to a point.

She tried some brown lipstick. That suited her coloring. A smidgeon of brownish rouge on her cheeks, just under her cheekbones, and she was more or less done. She stepped into her dress—the only one she had brought, which had been hanging over a hot bath for the past three hours, in the hope that the steam would help at least some of the creases fall out. It was white, with green and yellow flowers printed on it. Short sleeves. She clipped on a gold bracelet her mother had given her. Shoes with wedge heels. The only heels she had with her in Africa.

She was ten minutes away from dinner with Jack and sat now in a wicker chair on the balcony of her room in the hotel, overlooking the pool where she’d eaten lunch. Beyond the lobby area was an arcade of shops—selling newspapers and magazines, traditional clothes, European jewelry—and then a covered walkway alongside the pool, where one area was set aside as a restaurant. She looked around. All the people seated at the tables in the restaurant were white, all the staff black. There were at most half a dozen bodies in the pool, but they were all white, too, as were those lounging on the long chairs covered with towels. But the man cleaning the pool was black, and the man handing out towels. It was no more than what she had expected, but after her experience of the demonstration, and what Sandys had to say about Mutevu’s defense, she couldn’t help but notice.

She had spent the afternoon touring Nairobi in Maxwell Sandys’s car, with Mbante, the driver, pointing out the sights in his not-very-good English: the governor’s house, the National Assembly, the market, the train station, the main mosque—an ugly affair, she thought, in blue concrete with hardly any windows. They had driven past the racecourse, with its thin grass and rotting railings, which had once been white. And along embassy row, with its flagpoles, security gates, barking dogs, and hidden tennis courts. Mbante hadn’t specifically meant to show her but she had seen anyway the shantytown on the edge of the capital, the chaotic bus station—for blacks only, it seemed—and a local hospital, with bin upon bin of surgical waste overflowing into the car park. The National Museum had been closed, as had the National Library. Temporarily, or permanently, she couldn’t tell. She had seen two other, much smaller demonstrations, but on each occasion Mbante had turned the car quickly away.

When she had got back to her room, she still had a couple of hours to kill before dinner, and so there was more than enough time for a debate with herself over whether to call her father. It was a risk and she alternated between anger at him and a longing to hear his voice. When she had received the invitation to Kihara from Eleanor Deacon, she had written to her father to tell him she would be going abroad, and for some months. She had allowed time for the letter to reach him, then phoned. His housekeeper, Mrs. Bailey, had answered. She had gone in search of Natalie’s father but had returned to say he was practicing at the piano and was not to be disturbed. Owen Nelson practiced at all hours and was simply being distant, deliberately so. Natalie had left for Africa without saying goodbye.

If she phoned now, would it be any different? Her mother had always wanted to come to Africa, to see the great animal migrations she had read about. Would that make her father more amenable to a phone call from Nairobi, or less?

Natalie didn’t know, but it was his birthday in a few days and so, crossing her fingers, she placed a call with the hotel operator. She didn’t know when she would get another chance. But the operator hadn’t rung back yet.

Having tried on her shoes, she quickly slipped them off again as she affixed first one, then the other earring. Single pearls—her mother’s, naturally. They were lovely—plain, simple, and they matched Natalie’s skin color perfectly. But every time she put them on, she experienced a twinge of guilt. She only had them because her mother was dead.

She realized with a start that she had nothing with her that Dominic had given her.

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.”