A Spear of Summer Grass

24



I went straight to the nearest telegraph office and cabled London. I had to do something, anything, and my only hope lay with Edgar. I explained, as briefly as I could, that Fairlight had been badly damaged by fire and that I wanted to buy the place. I cabled Quentin to offer him a business deal and to discover whether or not it was legal for Fraser to kick me out of Kenya. I bought Moses and myself each a stalk of sugar cane and we sat on the steps of the telegraph office to wait for the replies.

“Do you like Nairobi?” I asked him. I sucked at the cane, tasting a thousand memories of Reveille. Each year, the Colonel would take me out to the field to cut the first cane of the harvest, testing it for sweetness. He always cut a piece for me, peeling back the skin to offer me the pale flesh. It seemed impossible that the same taste was on my lips in Africa of all places.

Moses nodded excitedly then dampened his finger with juice from the cane to write on the step. “London.”

“You want to go to London?”

He nodded again. He occupied himself drawing pictures with the end of the cane while I ticked off the minutes.

Finally, as the sun dropped below the horizon and the brief evening turned sharply to night, the proprietor emerged with two pieces of paper. He put them into my hands and I thanked him, holding them up to the paraffin lantern to make out the words.

The first was from Quentin, assuring me that the lieutenant governor did indeed have the power to revoke my permission and have me chucked out. He promised to get on to one of his influential friends to sort it out, but that could take weeks, and by then I would have been bundled onto a steamer out of Mombasa. He also agreed to a proposition I had made him, and I felt my spirits rising as I tore into the next telegram, the one from Edgar. I read it over twice then three times before crumpling it up in my fist.

“Let’s go, Moses. There’s no reason to stay.”

I didn’t dare the drive all the way back to Fairlight in the dark. I stopped a little distance outside Nairobi and Moses and I slept in the truck. Hyenas kept up a racket during the night, and long before the sun was fully up we were on our way. We arrived back at Fairlight by lunchtime. The place looked sad and tattered and a little embarrassed as the acrid smell of smoke still hung in the air.

“Nothing hard work and some paint can’t fix.” Ryder emerged from the house as we arrived.

“Sorry I took your truck without asking.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t need it.”

“I went to Nairobi,” I started, but he held up a hand.

“First things first. I need to take Moses home.”

“Moses has gotten himself to and from his village a hundred times without help,” I snapped. I was tired and cross and all I wanted was a stiff drink and a proper sleep.

“Not this time,” Ryder told me. He motioned to Moses and they set off. I threw up my hands and followed them. We struck out on the path that we always took, but even before we reached the village, I knew something had changed. There was no gentle droning buzz of activity, no smell of woodsmoke and milling cattle. The village was empty of life, and the gates all stood open to the savanna beyond.

“What happened?”

Ryder turned to me. “The Masai will leave a place when they feel it’s time. His village has moved on, and I know where they’ve gone. His babu asked me to bring him when I could.”

He headed us into the bush and I felt my anger growing with each step. Half an hour’s walk past where the village had been, the Masai were building a new settlement. The women had staked out new homes and were busy plastering fresh mud on the walls while the men constructed sturdy bomas to hold the stock. I stopped at a distance and nodded to Moses, telling him to go on. He waved at me and I turned back to the path, walking as fast as I could.

Ryder stayed to chat with the babu a moment, but caught up to me quickly.

“You don’t have a weapon,” he said lightly. “Did you forget everything I taught you?”

“Shut up,” I told him. “Just shut up. I don’t want to talk.”

“Fine. I won’t tell you you’re about to step in an ant-bear hole.”

I dodged it and dashed my hand across my eyes. Ryder caught at my hand but I shook him off.

“Leave me alone before you catch it,” I muttered, but his hearing was good.

“Catch what?”

“Whatever damned curse it is that’s following me around.” I strode off again, and Ryder followed more slowly, walking behind me until we reached the ruined garden at Fairlight. He took my arm, hard this time so I couldn’t pull loose.

“Want to explain that now?”

“No,” I said, but he didn’t move, and I realised he was prepared to stand there all night, holding my arm.

“Everything is ruined. Everything I’ve done since I came here is wrecked. Everyone I cared about has been damaged.”

“That is quite a curse,” he said solemnly.

“Don’t you dare laugh,” I warned him. “I will slap you so hard your grandchildren will be looking for your teeth.”

“I don’t doubt it,” he said, but his lips still twitched.

I raised my hand, and he took it, pressing it close to his chest. I could feel his heart beating, slow and steady, and I shook my head. “Don’t. Don’t be nice either. It’s just too hard.”

“What is?”

“Saying goodbye to you. To this, to Africa.”

“So don’t go.”

“I have to,” I told him. “Fraser is rescinding my permission. I have to leave within a fortnight. He’s booking my passage back to England.”

“And you don’t want to go?”

“Of course I don’t want to go!” I said it as though it were the most obvious truth, the truest thing that anybody ever said, as I said the words aloud for the first time. “I don’t want to go,” I repeated. “I tried to buy Fairlight today.”

“Did you?”

“Oh, go on and laugh! I know it’s funny. Everything I do is a goddamned joke. But I wanted this place. I wanted it so much I cabled Edgar and asked him to sell it to me.”

“And did he?”

“No. He said it wasn’t for sale. And even if he would sell, the price he named was so high, there’s no way I could have managed it.”

“I thought you had some expensive Russian jewellery tucked away for a rainy day.”

His hand was still flat over mine and mine was still pressed against his heart.

“They’re paste. The Volkonsky jewels are nothing but pretty glass. That’s why I wouldn’t turn them over to the relative who is making a claim on my husband’s estate. I didn’t want anyone to know that Misha had been broke when he died. It would have embarrassed him so much to have people know that everything was gone. I promised him on his deathbed not to tell.”

“So you’re broke.”

“Near enough. I sold my car to Quentin, but that only got me nine thousand pounds.”

“Nine thousand?” He dropped my arm and rubbed at his chin. He hadn’t shaved, and the sun glinted gold in the shadow on his jaw. “That will do.”

“For what?”

“Fairlight. I thought you wanted to buy it.”

I stared at him, wondering if the heat had given me some sort of sickness. “I don’t understand.”

He spoke slowly. “Nine thousand pounds. It’s a fair price. For that I’ll let you have the house and gardens and a few acres for a shamba, but no more. I have plans for the rest of the land.”

I balled up my fist and hit him hard on the shoulder. “Stop talking nonsense and tell me what you mean right now.”

He caught my fist and held it. “Edgar couldn’t sell you Fairlight because he already sold it to me. I want the land, and I’ll keep it. But you can have the house and the property around it.”

“Why do you want it?” I asked, seizing on the least important question of the dozen that had sprung to mind.

“Because I’m establishing a nature preserve. If I mean to do something meaningful out here, I’d damned well better start. I’m not getting any younger, you know,” he said.

“I don’t believe this,” I said. “I need to sit down.” He slid an arm around my waist.

“Better?” he said into my hair.

I pushed him away. “No, worse, actually. But we’re both forgetting that I can’t actually buy property here. I’m an undesirable immigrant, according to Mr. Fraser. I was a fool to think they’d let me stay.”

He shrugged. “They will if we tell them you’re my fiancée.” I reeled a little, but he kept talking. “It’s a small lie, and by the time they figure out that it’s not true, Kendall will be back at his desk. Believe me, Fraser is using his absence as a chance to get rid of you, but if you stand your ground, you should be able to pull it off.”

“You want a fake engagement?”

“Is there a better kind?” His expression was cool and unreadable.

“I don’t know,” I started, but he put up a hand.

“Don’t decide now. I have to go up to Narok and look at a plane that a friend of mine is willing to sell. There’s been a lot of talk about how useful planes could be in running safaris, and if that’s true, they’ll be doubly useful in conservancy efforts. If you decide to buy the place, just cable me there and let me know. If not, then I’ll see you around, princess.”

He put out his hand and I shook it slowly.

“Safe travels, then,” I told him.

He started towards me then stepped back sharply, as if he’d just won a war with himself. He lifted a hand in farewell and for just an instant he stood at the end of the garden, silhouetted against the trees. Then he was gone, and I was alone at Fairlight.

* * *

I was alone for all of that week at Fairlight until Tusker came. She brought tinned peaches and we ate them with new bread by the side of the lake. A lazy hippo was bathing on the other bank, rolling over slowly from side to side in the mud to cool herself.

“I hear you’re leaving us,” she said.

“Word travels,” I replied, smiling.

“You’re an idiot. And so is he.”

“Thanks for that. You’re the one who told me not to get involved with him at all, remember? Or was that just a tidy piece of reverse psychology to push us together? I know you told him I wasn’t a stayer. Was that another bit of manipulation to get him to fight to keep me? Never mind. It doesn’t matter now. None of it does.”

She shook her head angrily and seemed about to change the subject then decided to plow on. “You’ll be miserable in London or Paris or New York. Have you thought of that? You’ll be standing on some stupid street in a stupid city wearing a stupid frock and you’ll be struck straight to the heart, wondering what is happening here, what we’re doing then. And you’ll be sick over it, sick as a parrot.”

“That’s quite a picture you paint,” I said lightly.

“It’s the truth.”

“Things are complicated,” I told her. “And they’ll be less so if I leave.”

“Why?” she demanded. “Because loving hurts? Grow up, Delilah. Life hurts. It’s only the strong who survive. It’s only the gamblers who aren’t afraid of rolling the dice who really live.”

I sighed. “It’s no good, Tusker. I can’t stay here for crumbs. I thought he wanted me, but all he offered was a sham engagement. He’s far more concerned about his conservancy. I’m only ever going to be an afterthought for him. And to continue your gambling metaphor, if I were going to stay, it would have to be for a man who was willing to go all in.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” she said, flapping a hand irritably at a bug.

“It’s a poker term. It means when you are so sure of what you’re holding that you risk everything. You put every last bit you have on the line because you are that sure you’re going to win.”

She let out a little scream and tugged at her hair. “Oh, you impossible little wretch! Don’t you even realise that’s what he’s done?”

“What are you talking about?”

“He has gone all in. The day he went to Nairobi it wasn’t just to buy Fairlight. It was to sell everything else he owns in order to raise the money. The coast house in Lamu, the dukas, his cane fields. It’s all gone.”

My mouth went dry. “Don’t be stupid. Ryder already has money. His father made a fortune in the gold fields in the Yukon.”

“And squandered it in a year! Everything Ryder has, he earned. And he sold it all to buy Fairlight, not for some stupid conservancy project, but for you, you little fool.”

“Why didn’t he tell me?”

She rolled her eyes. “I have horses with more wit than you, girl. Because he didn’t want you to feel beholden. He wants you here because you want to be here, because you want him and this life enough to give the rest of it up. Why do you think he’s willing to go along with the preposterous lie about you being his fiancée? Because he’s hoping one day it will happen.”

She finished with an air of triumph. I put down my peaches.

“He can’t marry me. His wife is—” I broke off.

“In Cairo,” she finished smugly. “Where he went when you were sitting in jail in Nairobi. It cost him a fortune, but he got his divorce. The minute you stepped in to save Gideon, he knew he’d have to get rid of that slut wife of his so he’d be free to take care of you. It was only a matter of time before Government House bowed to pressure and chucked you out of the country. He wanted to be free to offer you marriage to keep you here.”

“But he didn’t—”

She shrieked again. “What man would? Good God, you’re the most footloose woman he’s ever met. He knew if he proposed sincerely you’d bolt for Mombasa. He’s figuring if he can just keep you here, eventually you’ll come around and realise he’s worth twenty of any other man you’ve ever known.”

I shook my head. “Stop it. Stop saying things like that. You’re confusing me.”

“Why? It should be crystal clear to you. He is as desperately in love with you as any man has ever been with any woman. You want poetry and heartfelt declarations? He has sold everything he owned, everything he ever worked for, just for the possibility of keeping you close enough to see you once in a while. He’s willing to wait for you until the crack of doom, biding his time and eating out his own heart because all he wants is for you to love him back. So do it,” she said, her eyes bright. “Do it, Delilah. Love him back. He deserves that.”

She scrabbled at her eyes. “I’m an old fool, but I’m not wrong.” She rose heavily to her feet. “By the way, Gates is dead. Thought you’d like to know.”

The change of subject was so fast it gave me whiplash.

“What? How?”

“Fell off a ridge while he was poaching and broke his leg. Hyenas got to him.”

I shuddered, but only part of it was in horror. There was a tiny sliver of satisfaction that was so primitive and so savage, I ought to have been afraid of it. I remembered then my thoughts on the subtlety of a Masai revenge, of the laibon and of what Granny Miette had taught me about magic, the light and the dark, the healing and the harming, both sides of the same thin coin.

“So Fairlight is safe now.”

She smiled thinly. “Africa takes care of its own.”

After she left, I spent the rest of that afternoon sitting by the lake, watching the sun dipping lower, casting long shadows. I went to bed just as the moon rose. I could see a faint shape through the mosquito netting, a man hovering near the door, his features smudged as I looked out of the tail of my eye. When I turned to look at him directly, he vanished, and I knew that this time he was gone for good.

* * *

The next morning I walked to Patel’s and sent a telegram to Narok. That evening was Kit’s gallery opening in Nairobi, and I packed a bag with the things I had salvaged in order to spend the night. I had just locked the case when Helen arrived. She hugged me and pulled back to look at my face.

“My poor darling! Africa hasn’t been very kind to you, has it?”

“It’s had its moments. Let’s sit on the veranda and have a drink.”

I poured and Helen carried them out, exclaiming as she looked at Lake Wanyama. The light was glittering on the blue-green water, and in the shallows a marabou stork waded with stately intention. “Such a beautiful view! I think it might almost be better than ours.” Her tone was light, as if she hadn’t a care in the world, but I wondered if she were in pain. The sunlight wasn’t kind to her. It highlighted every line on her face. She had fought a hard battle against getting old or ugly, but time and disease were winning.

I chose my words carefully. “Rex said the same thing. He seems quite fond of the property.”

“He is,” she replied in the same cautious tone. “In fact, I thought it best you hear it from one of us. He’s making an offer on Fairlight. It’s a generous one,” she hurried on, “you needn’t worry that we’ll try to take advantage of your stepfather’s family. In fact, I think they’ll be pleased. Rex wants to rebuild the place. It’s always been such a fine house, and he’s always pictured himself living here on the lake.”

It seemed damnably cruel to talk about a future that Helen most likely wouldn’t share, but I didn’t have a choice.

“I’m surprised you want to leave the farm. I know how proud you are of what you’ve built there.”

She gave a short laugh and turned her head to me. “We can keep fencing if you like, but I think it’s best if we speak plainly. It’s time for you to leave Africa, my dear.”

There was nothing malicious in her voice, no new coldness in her tone. It was said as sweetly as if she’d been inviting me to a garden party. But I knew better.

“Is that why you burned Fairlight down? To get rid of me? Because you’re worried that Rex might be getting too fond of me?”

Her peal of laughter startled the stork. It launched itself with an irritable flap of the wings. “Oh, my darling child, is that really what you think? You must believe me when I tell you that so long as we live, Rex and I belong to each other. It doesn’t matter what else we get up to, we are partners. Our loyalty is only to each other. You just don’t matter enough for me to bother with.”

Oddly, I believed her. “Then why the push to get rid of me? Was it Kit? Did you resent the fact that he preferred me?”

She lifted a hand and studied her nails with lazy interest. “Did he? I always thought Kit was like a tomcat—only interested in what was right under his nose at any given moment.”

“You’re probably right. So what was it? What turned you against me? What made you so eager to frame me for Kit’s murder?”

Her hand stilled. “Do you know or is that a shot in the dark?”

“Oh, definitely a shot in the dark. Most of this is. But I had a lot of time to think it over in prison and I believe I’m right. You decided Kit had to die and you were happy for me to swing for it. And now you’d like me to leave Africa because I’m the one person who knows you killed Kit. I’d just like to know why.”

The laughter pealed again. “So many shots and so few of them true! Where shall I begin, pet? You and I both had our fun with Kit. Oh, it stung when he first started seeing you, I admit. He didn’t have as much time for me, and I didn’t like that. But it wasn’t long before I realised Kit wasn’t going anywhere. He liked variety too much, and that’s my specialty,” she said, stretching her legs out in front of her. “He was a lovely boy, don’t you think? But venal, with a very small heart, always grasping at what didn’t belong to him.”

“Is that why you gave him presents?”

She lifted one foot, balancing the heel carefully on the toes of her other foot. “I didn’t give those to him. Rex did.”

“Why on earth—”

She flapped a hand at me. “Can’t you guess? Blackmail! Kit discovered that Rex had been stockpiling weapons at a little fishing cabin he keeps up at one of the lakes. He threatened to go to the authorities with what he’d seen if Rex didn’t come across with some money. Rex gave him what cash he could lay his hands on, but Kit wasn’t terribly particular. He was just as happy with the wristwatch and the gramophone.”

“But most of the settlers are stockpiling weapons. Why would the government care if Rex is?”

She gave me a narrow smile. “Because most of the settlers aren’t contemplating kidnapping the Duke and Duchess of York to make their point.”

“You’re joking.”

“Not a bit of it. Rex had thought of abducting the governor, but as soon as he heard about the proposed royal visit, he realised how much better this would be! So much publicity for the cause of independence.”

“It’s madness.”

She shrugged. “Well, of course it is. But you know men and politics. Listen, I’ve been married for the better part of two decades. I know exactly how to manage Rex. All I had to do was go along with his idea and tell him how brilliant it was, and somehow in the year between now and the Yorks’ visit, I would have figured out a way to change his mind.”

“But then Kit happened.”

Her mouth turned grim. “Kit happened. He began making demands on Rex and Rex panicked. Believe it or not, Rex isn’t half as strong as he pretends to be. He relies on me—more than anyone ever realises. We are each other’s support, and he needs me.”

I wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince me or herself, but it made an odd sort of sense. Most men wouldn’t have tolerated Helen’s blatant catting around. Rex almost seemed to take a strange sort of pride in it.

“So Kit threatened to expose him and demanded money,” I prompted.

“And truth be told, there isn’t much, not after building the house and furnishing it and importing all of Rex’s breeding stock. Besides, I knew Kit. He wouldn’t stop until he’d bled us dry. He had to be taken care of.”

It was a sinister phrase, gentle and nonspecific, but lethal.

“You decided together to take care of the problem?”

“No, the idea was mine. The best ideas always are,” she added with a ghost of a smile. “All Rex had to do was pull the trigger and leave the rest to me. I knew Kit slept heavily after an afternoon in bed. We just needed to wait until the two of you had been together and then seize the moment.”

I thought back to the evening she and I had spent together—the long moments she had been alone in my rooms, powdering her nose and pilfering my jewel case.

“Did Rex know you intended to frame me?”

She rolled her eyes. “I told you—too many shots in the dark and most of them were misses. No one ever intended to frame you. I took that bracelet because it was Masai. I thought the authorities would centre their investigation on the natives instead of the whites. I was horrified when they identified the bracelet as yours.”

I wasn’t sure if I believed it or not, but she had no reason to lie to me now. In fact, she seemed to be enjoying herself. I told her as much.

She nodded. “It’s cathartic. Rather like the confessional except none of those boring churchmen to set you a penance.” She paused then looked me squarely in the eye. “We had a plan to save you, you know. Rex was keeping careful tabs on the situation in Nairobi. If they had charged you, I would have made a confession to killing Kit myself.”

“Why you if Rex pulled the trigger?”

Her smile turned beatific. “Because I’m the one with a life to give. There isn’t much of it left, but it would have done the trick.” She raised her glass in a salute and drained it down. Her mood turned brisk. “Any more questions?”

“I’m sure I’ll think of some after you leave, but I don’t expect I’ll get a chance to ask them.”

She rose and I followed suit. “Then I take it you’re heading back to civilisation like a good girl?” Her tone was arch but not entirely unfriendly.

I didn’t answer her directly. “Tell Rex he isn’t getting Fairlight. I made an offer myself this morning, but I was too late. It’s already been sold.”

Her eyes widened. “But who—”

“It belongs to Ryder.”

She laughed in spite of herself and threw up her hands. “I might have known. That man always does manage to get what he wants.”

I walked her down the veranda to the steps. “I don’t know where I’m going yet, Helen. But I know this—you took the life of someone who might not have been perfect, but who didn’t deserve to die. And you ruined the life of an innocent man who was my friend. I know I can’t go to the authorities. They’d laugh me right out of Government House. So you and Rex are safe from the law. But you aren’t safe from me. For as long as you draw breath, I will remember what you did to those two men, and I will pray you burn for it. And when you die, wherever I am in the world, I will remember and I will go on, Helen. Rex and Gideon and Africa and everything you love and everything you hate will go on without you. And we will all be the better for it. That is a thing I know for sure.”

I turned on my heel and went into the house and closed the door softly behind me.