A Spear of Summer Grass

10



The next morning Dora hunted me down when I was having a bath to talk about the house.

“It’s really in deplorable shape,” she said, arranging my toilet articles on a tray and primly averting her eyes as I soaped up. “Most of the books are riddled with worms, there are moths in the upholstery and white ants seem to be devouring the wallpaper.”

“Take it down. I hate wallpaper.”

“But it isn’t our house,” she pointed out. “It’s Sir Nigel’s.”

“Nigel has let it go to rack and ruin,” I reminded her. “The whole place needs a good turning out and to be scrubbed from top to bottom. Let’s make a list.”

She fetched pencil and paper and by the time we were finished with projects—wood to be polished, floors to be scrubbed, baths to be disinfected, beds to be turned out—it ran to three pages of Dora’s tidy little handwriting.

“Now make another,” I ordered her. This list was purely for me. I had her outline my plans to keep dairy cattle for the workers and plow under a few of the struggling old pyrethrum fields for growing vegetables. “And chickens,” I added. “There ought to be chickens for fresh eggs. That means building a henhouse and a secure pen. Do lions eat chickens?”

She blinked at me. “Good heavens, how would I know?”

I stood up and she turned away again, applying herself to the list. “But that means purchasing lumber and wire and nails...” She trailed off, writing busily.

“Not necessarily. We haven’t prowled through the outbuildings yet. The barn alone is probably stuffed with old junk. We might find what we need there.”

“We’d better,” she said grimly. “What you’re talking about will cost money—money we don’t have.”

I shrugged as I towelled myself dry. “I’ll think of something.”

“You usually do.”

After breakfast I was pleased to find the little Kikuyu mother with her child sitting outside in the shade of the veranda, waiting for me. I removed the child’s bandage gently and was satisfied to find the wound healing nicely with no sign of fresh infection. I redressed it and mimed that she was to continue doing as she had done. She nodded, smiling her beautiful calm smile.

Suddenly, the smile faltered, and I realised she was looking over my shoulder. Behind me stood a man I hadn’t met before, and as soon as I turned, he pulled off his hat.

“Miss Drummond! I cannot tell you how sorry I am I wasn’t here to welcome you properly to Fairlight. My wife and I had taken the little ones to the sea for a bit of bathing.”

He gestured towards a pale woman—unlikely in this climate—and a pair of unwholesome-looking children. The woman nodded and the children simply stood silent, the boy picking enthusiastically at his nose while the little girl stared at me and breathed through her mouth.

“You must be Mr. Gates,” I said. I didn’t bother to extend a hand. I had no desire to touch any of them and I was highly put out that he hadn’t been here to receive us.

“I am, I am. And this is Mrs. Gates,” he added unnecessarily. “And our boy, Reuben and our daughter, Jonquil.”

Jonquil! It was a surprisingly exotic name for such an ordinary child. No doubt they’d taken one look at the boy and pinned all their hopes on the second child. I thought of asking if the children were simple-minded, but it seemed unkind.

“I would like to discuss the state of the farm with you, Mr. Gates. Kindly make yourself available this afternoon.”

His skin had been burned to umber by the African sun, but under the tan his colour was sickly, and sweat rolled from his brow. The tic of a tiny muscle near his eye kept a regular beat. He was nervous.

“Of course, Miss Drummond. Although I did understand from Sir Nigel that you were here for rest and relaxation. We certainly don’t intend for you to wear yourself out with things you needn’t trouble over.”

And there it was. The sharp metallic scent of his fear was in the air. I could smell it in his sweat, and I smiled, making quite certain it didn’t reach my eyes.

“Mr. Gates, I do not find rest to be relaxing. I like to be busy and I think here at Fairlight there will be much to keep me occupied.”

The wife darted a glance at her husband and tightened her hands.

He gave me a fawning smile. “Of course, of course. I do understand. And naturally whatever I can do to help...”

He let the sentence trail off, but I pounced.

“Actually, you can. I want to know if there is scrap lumber on the premises. I want to build a henhouse. You can organise some labourers to put it together.”

“A henhouse?”

“For chickens,” I said slowly.

“Yes, I understand.” He was getting rattled. There was a slight edge to his voice now, a resentment he couldn’t contain anymore, and I saw the wife shift another quick glance at him. I had no doubt he took his bad moods out on her. She looked like the sort of woman who was accustomed to catching the rough side of a man’s tongue. Of course, I couldn’t blame him. Her cringing made me want to slap her myself. “You want to keep chickens?” he asked.

“Yes. And I want the barn cleaned out and a pasture staked for a few dairy cattle. When that’s sorted, I want to plow under the two fields closest to the road. The pyrethrum crop is nearly unsalvageable there. The land looks exhausted. We can buy loads of manure from the Masai and till it in and plant it with vegetables and maize to make our own shamba. Between the milk and the eggs and the fresh vegetables, we should get these people looking a far sight healthier.”

“You mean to feed the farmworkers?”

“I do. And I have a mind to take a closer look at the pyrethrum crop as well. This much land under planting ought to yield a far better amount than I saw reported in the farm books.”

He held up a hand. “Miss Drummond, I must insist that you let me handle this. Farm work is man’s business.”

I snorted. “Not where I come from. My great-grandmother is past ninety and still she manages a sugar plantation that runs to twenty thousand acres. She tends cattle, delivers babies, keeps the books and she cracks the whip on anybody who gets out of line, including her six sons. Now, I would like to know more about Fairlight and I think you are the man to tell me. So, why don’t you plan on meeting me this afternoon and we’ll sort some things out?”

I smiled again and walked off before he had a chance to reply. Around the corner, Ryder was waiting on the veranda. He was settled into one of the planter’s chairs, his booted legs resting comfortably on the long arms of the chair.

“Good morning. I see you’ve been getting acquainted with the help.”

I shook my head. “I dislike that man, and those children look like they ought to have been drowned at birth. But I don’t want to talk about the walking farce that is the Gates family. You’re late. The Kikuyu have been and gone.”

He rose and pointed toward the tins of powdered milk stacked on the veranda. With them were a large bottle of castor oil and another of vitamins, and a fresh tin of antiseptic powder.

I prowled through the pile, happy to find sacks of dried beans and rice as well as a wide basket of fresh produce, onions and gourds mostly.

“Well done,” I told him, brushing back my fringe. “What do I owe you?”

He stood the barest inch too close. “Consider it a housewarming present.”

“I think I’ll pay my own way. What do I owe you?”

He smiled then and eased back a step. “I’ll tally it up later.”

“If you’re sure. I’d hate for you to lose any more money on my account,” I said sweetly.

He would have been a good poker player. I had beaten him at his own game, and he didn’t like it much, but there wasn’t a damned thing he could do but swallow it whole.

Just then Gideon appeared, carrying another tin of powdered milk. “Good morning, Bibi,” he said in his lightly accented English.

I raised my brows and he gave me a broad smile. “You would say ‘Habari za asubuhi.’”

He repeated it half a dozen times before I got the pronunciation right, but eventually I got my tongue around it. “Very good, Bibi. Now, I have heard that you would like to purchase a cow. Bwana Ryder and I will take you.”

“Gideon, I think Mr. Bell wouldn’t have bothered with the telephone if he’d had any experience with the marvels of the African bush. Yes, I would like to buy a cow, a very fine Masai cow.”

He shook his head. “This thing is not possible, Bibi. A Masai will not sell his cow.”

I thought of a peculiar Hindu gentleman I had met in London. We had spent the better part of an otherwise deadly dull dinner party chatting about India and his curious beliefs as I lapped up a steak and he pushed vegetables around his plate. The light came on.

“I understand. Cows are sacred to Masai.”

Gideon gave a hoot of laughter. “No. Cows are money, Bibi. They are worth far more than whatever you could think to exchange for them. But the Kikuyu keep cattle, too, and they do not respect the cattle as the Masai. They will take your money.”

“Lead on,” I told him.

He shouldered his spear and we walked together as Ryder fell in behind us. I remembered much of what he had told me the day before and I pointed out various plants to Gideon, trying out their Swahili names. A warthog ran across the path. “Ngiri,” I said triumphantly.

“Ngiri,” Gideon affirmed.

I smiled at him, and when he smiled back I felt a curious tug. It wasn’t just a smile from a handsome man. I collected those like other women collected air to breathe. This was something altogether different. There was a gentleness in Gideon, a simple way of looking at the world. He was unencumbered by the silly and the trivial. There was nothing petty about him. His world was bound by death and blood, and life itself was short and sharp as a thorn, cheap as dirt and as precious as diamonds. It is a rare thing to find a man who wears his pride without vanity, but Gideon was such a man. I wanted suddenly to know everything about him, to drink up everything he knew to the last drop. Fate had given him the gift of serenity, and I envied him bitterly.

I looked sharply away and he went on, reciting the musical words of Swahili for me as one might teach a child. “This is how you say ‘fire’...”

* * *

Cattle-dealing in Africa is the same as the world over. We found a Kikuyu willing to sell a few cows and their calves, and after poking into their mouths and feeling their udders, Gideon negotiated a price. There was much discussion I didn’t understand and much staring on the part of the Kikuyu children. They were a little awed by a Masai warrior, but a white woman in trousers was really something.

When we were finished, Ryder and Gideon talked a moment before Gideon turned to me.

“You must have a boy to watch your cattle. I know such a boy. Would you come with us to where I live?”

I accepted, and we set out on what turned out to be a long and dusty walk.

Ryder seemed to have recovered a little of his good humour and as we trudged through the bush, Gideon spoke. “Bwana, this is a thing that I know...” It was a game they played when they were out walking, Gideon told me. It always began with one of them saying, “This is a thing that I know,” followed by some truth, a fact or bit of philosophy. Then the other took his turn, either arguing the point or contributing something of his own.

“Would you care to play, Bibi?” Gideon asked. “I will start. This is a thing that I know—that the droppings of two animals will disturb the cattle—the lion and the ostrich.”

“The lion I can well believe, but the ostrich? Really?”

“Oh, yes,” Gideon assured me. “The ostrich is no friend to the cattle. Now, you must tell us a thing that you know.”

“Very well. This is a thing that I know—that Ryder saved my life by shooting a buffalo on the drive to Fairlight.”

Ryder’s head came up sharply, and Gideon stopped. “Bwana, how big was this buffalo?”

Ryder didn’t look at him, but kept his eyes fixed on mine. I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard. “The spread of the horns was over four feet.”

“That is very, very big, Bwana,” Gideon pronounced. “It is an excellent thing that you saved Bibi’s life.”

Still Ryder didn’t look away. “We saved each other,” he said quietly. Then he turned sharply on his heel and stalked away.

Gideon and I followed, and Gideon called ahead. “Bwana, this is a thing that I know—that you carry many poems in your mind. Will you speak one for us?”

Ryder shook his head, never slackening his pace. “Not now.”

I leaned closer to Gideon. “He writes poetry?”

“Oh, no, Bibi. He remembers the poems that other men have written. He carries them in his head, and sometimes he speaks them.”

I couldn’t quite take it in. I stared ahead at the broad back, the rifle slung over his shoulder, the glint of gold in the rings in his ears. “No, really. Ryder recites poetry?”

Gideon nodded. “And the periodic table of elements. I have learned only as far as rubidium. I have much left to know.”

I was still trying to get my head around the idea of Ryder with a head full of poetry and Gideon learning the periodic table when we arrived at a small village so primitive it was like something out of the Stone Age. A wide-open area under some acacia trees had been cordoned off with great bundles of thorn.

“To keep the cattle safe from the lion,” Gideon informed me.

I nodded. “It makes sense. I ought to do the same around the pasture I’m clearing at Fairlight.”

“The barn will be all that is required, so long as you have a good boy to watch the cows,” he said. “A good boy who will not fall asleep and let the lion steal in and take what does not belong to him.”

He led us into the enclosure of the boma and to a mud hut. It looked black as pitch inside, and Gideon stood in the doorway, calling respectfully to the occupant. After a moment there was a dry, shuffling sound, like the rustling of autumn leaves, and an elderly man came to the doorway. He was wearing the Masai toga—which Gideon had told me was called a kanja—and several slender leather thongs looped about his neck. They were beaded, as were the heavy ornaments in his ears, and perched on the tip of his nose were a pair of thick, round spectacles, giving him the look of a curious owl. In spite of the warmth of the day, he was wrapped in a sort of cloak of long, greyish fur.

He lifted his hands to Gideon’s strong shoulders and spoke to him in rapid Maa. Gideon returned the greeting, and the old man did the same to Ryder, holding his head briefly in his withered hands. Gideon turned to me.

“Bibi, this is my babu, my grandfather. He is a respected elder amongst my people.”

Ryder was at my side. “The babu speaks only a little Swahili, but he will understand your greeting of ‘shikamoo.’ A respectful way to address him is as Mzee.”

I bowed my head to the small, leathery man. “Shikamoo, Mzee.”

He raised his hand in a gesture very similar to one a priest might make. “Marahaba.”

“He thanks you for your respectful greetings,” Gideon told me.

The grandfather invited us in and Gideon led the way into the hut. The first thing I noticed was the stench. It was like walking into the deepest corner of a barn that hadn’t been cleaned in a century. There were mixed odours of mud and dung and smoke from the cooking fire, which had only a small hole in the ceiling for ventilation. A woman moved around with a battered pot and after a moment we were served calabashes full of bitter, milky tea that smelled and tasted of woodsmoke. I was only relieved it wasn’t more blood and milk, and I took it gratefully as we seated ourselves around the fire.

Gideon and Ryder chatted with the grandfather while I looked the place over. A Spartan might have found it bare. There was a cowhide pallet in a corner and a small shelf for cooking utensils. And that was it. Just a few square yards of beaten earth, walls of mud and dung, and a roof of woven grasses. But Gideon’s babu seemed content, and as the conversation wore on, Gideon informed me that his babu was a comfortably wealthy man for a Masai. He had many cattle, fine cattle, and he was proud of them. Ryder explained to him that I had just bought cattle myself and the babu responded with a burst of chatter.

“He wants to know if you have experience with cows.” Gideon was suppressing a smile, and I figured the old fellow was testing me. The Masai might not make a practice of selling cows, but Gideon had explained that they believed every cow on earth was theirs by divine right.

I fixed the babu with a firm but respectful gaze. “I am experienced, Mzee. My own babu is also a man who owns many cows.”

“He wants to know how many,” Ryder related.

I told him the number and the old man dropped his head into his hands, shaking it and moaning a little.

Gideon laughed. “He says that is a very great number, a greater number than any Masai owns. He says your babu must be a man of extraordinary good fortune. And this good fortune must have fallen to you as well. He is happy that the cows will be entrusted to you and he says that my young brother has his permission to come and tend your cows for you.”

“Your brother? Is he here now? Can I meet him?”

“Moses is at the mission school today,” Gideon said proudly. “He is very smart and he is good at his lessons. But I will bring him to you soon and you will have a good boy to mind your cows.”

We chatted longer, drinking our foul tea and communicating through sign language and Gideon. It was the nicest tea party I had had in an age, and I sighed a little as I dusted myself off when we rose to leave.

Gideon’s babu stopped at the doorway and shook his head as he looked at me.

“What?” I turned to Ryder.

“He says there is a spirit that follows you—a sad man with eyes that are grey, like the sky during the long rains. Do you know such a person?”

I could not speak so I merely shook my head.

The babu spoke again, more insistently.

Gideon interpreted. “He says it is so. The man with the grey eyes wears a uniform, like a soldier or policeman, and he watches you, Bibi. My babu has powerful magic. He can banish the spirit if you wish.”

“Don’t bother,” I said bitterly. “He can’t hurt me anymore.”

Ryder and Gideon walked me back to Fairlight. This time Ryder walked ahead, his shoulders set and his jaw hard. Something was needling him, but I couldn’t imagine what. I left him to his thoughts and chatted with Gideon. He told me about his plans to marry when he was no longer a warrior.

“It is our way, Bibi. A warrior, a moran, has work to do. He works hard for many years, from the time of his circumcision when he becomes a man and puts away his childish ways. Only when his work is finished and he becomes an elder is he permitted to take a wife and have children.”

“And you have a young lady in mind?”

He looked a little bashful. “I do. I think her father and mother will be happy for us to marry.”

“Do you get on well together?”

He nodded. “She is strong and smart and will build a fine house and bear many sons, I think.” He paused then added, “She is very quiet. I do not know what she thinks of. But perhaps a warrior is not meant to know the thoughts of women.”

“Is she pretty?” I teased him.

His expression was sober, but I noticed his eyes smiled even if his mouth did not.

“Pretty like the first sunrise after a deep rain,” he said.

“A poetic sentiment, Gideon. Have you told her that’s what you think of her?”

He shook his head. “A warrior should not speak so freely of such things to women. I should not have told you.”

“Some things ought to be said. Tell her. I promise she won’t be quiet if she knows how much you admire her.”

“I should talk to this woman? Tell her my inmost thoughts?”

“Yes. Trust me, Gideon. I’ve been married three times. I know what works and what doesn’t.”

“Three times! And you are a widow? All three of your husbands are dead?”

“No. Just two. The second one is still alive back in England. I divorced him.”

He shook his head again. “It is a bad thing to put away one’s husband, but sometimes it must be done. Did he mistreat you?”

“Not in the way some husbands do. He didn’t beat me.”

“Was he given to drink?”

I smiled. “Not as much as I am. It was a matter of trust. He thought I betrayed him.”

“Betrayed him?”

“He thought I was unfaithful to him with another man.”

Gideon clucked his tongue. “This is a bad thing, too.”

“Not always,” I advised him. “But in this case my husband was wrong. He believed gossip and lies over my word. And since he could not believe in me, I left him.”

“Did he learn that you were innocent?”

“When it was too late. And I wouldn’t take him back then because I am stubborn and proud and because we would have failed at being married eventually. But it was a lesson to him. We are great friends now because he knows he can trust me completely.”

“Why do you not marry him again?”

“He has another wife. And children now.”

“Fine sons?”

“One. And a twin daughter.”

“Daughters are good. Daughters care for the cattle and build the houses and take care of the ones who need them.”

“And what do warriors do?” I asked with a smile.

He smiled back. “We protect, Bibi. It is what we do.”