Circling the Sun

  The small village was a clustering of battered wooden houses and shops, tin roofs and thatched ones, cold hammered streets. It was a harder place than Njoro or Nakuru or Gilgil, and I saw instantly that it would be more difficult to love. At the first café I came to, I tethered Pegasus and went in to enquire about Westerland. With a very few questions, I learned what I needed to know, and more, too—that the neighbouring estate, Inglewood Farm, was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Carsdale-Luck, the stodgy couple I’d met at Karen’s shooting party the year before. I hadn’t developed any relationship with either of them in the handful of days we were thrown together, but as I made my way towards Westerland, I tried to think how I might stitch the two opportunities together. The scheme would take some fast talking, but I did have wins behind me. I knew my trade and could prove it; I would only need time and a little faith.

  —

  Cockie’s cousin Gerry turned out to be a warm and level-headed fellow. Cockie had already sung my praises in a long letter, and he was ready to let me have a try with a two-year-old bay stud, the Baron, which he owned along with a silent partner, Tom Campbell Black. The Baron had yet to find his footing, but he had fire and plenty of guts, too. I knew I could do something with him and also with Wrack, a yearling stud sired by Camciscan, the star of my father’s breeding roster from days long past. Wrack belonged to the Carsdale-Lucks, who had also agreed to take a chance on me. They had given me a nimble filly, too, Melton Pie, and a hut on their property and the use of one of their houseboys as a groom.

  “With Camciscan’s blood, Wrack is sure to have some winning in him,” I promised the couple when they came to watch us work. George Carsdale-Luck smoked spiced cigars that made the paddock around him smell like cloves and Christmas. His wife, Viola, was forever perspiring even in Molo’s chill, with always-damp collars and a host of paper fans. She stood at the edge of the track as I ran Wrack a mile and a quarter at half speed, and then said, as I paraded him by, “I haven’t seen many women in this line of work. Aren’t you afraid it will coarsen you?”

  “No. I never think of that.”

  There was more than a whiff of Emma Orchardson in Viola. If I let her, I thought, she might go on to suggest I wear a hat and gloves, but my rough edges weren’t going to matter a whit once Wrack hit a win and good money. I had only a few short months—just until July to get him ready for the Produce Stakes, which would be run in Nairobi. Until then, I would work hard and not let myself get distracted.

  Throwing myself into training was easy to do in Molo. I rose before dawn, toiled all day, and fell into bed exhausted. Only sometimes very late at night did I let myself think about what might be happening at the Muthaiga Club, what joke Berkeley might be telling, with what in his glass, what the women wore dancing or at tea, and if anyone ever mentioned my name, even in passing. If it was a very long night, and sleep didn’t come at all, I would let every guard down and think of Denys. Perhaps he was sloped in one of Karen’s low leather chairs by the millstone table, reading Walt Whitman and listening to some new recording on the gramophone. Or in his storybook cottage at the Muthaiga, sipping at nice scotch, or off in the Congo, or in Masai country after ivory or kudu or lion, and looking up, just then, at the same tangle of stars I could see from my windows.

  How close people could be to us when they had gone as far away as possible, to the edges of the map. How unforgettable.

  One morning Pegasus and I rode out from Westerland to get supplies. I was hunched over the saddle in my buckskin coat, fingers cramping with cold, when I saw the canopy of a motorcar folded and propped, throwing back chilly light. A man stood bent over the engine, wearing dungarees and moccasins much like my own. There weren’t many motorcars in Molo, which was as far behind Nairobi in time as Nairobi was behind London. It was a difficult place to get to, the steep escarpment wanting to wall you out. It was a hard place to break down, too, so I knew I should help if I could.

  “Is there something I can do?” I called out from the saddle.

  “What’s that?” He straightened from behind the canopy, wiping oil-blackened hands on an oil-blackened bit of cloth. He was young, I saw, with a sweep of almost-black hair. His breath rose in puffs past thin lips and a dark, trimmed moustache.

  “You’ve got yourself into a spot here.”

  “I haven’t given up yet.”

  “You must know about engines then.”

  “Not really, but I’m learning. This one seems to want to challenge me—to see if I’m serious.”

  “I don’t think I’d have much patience for that.”

  “You don’t think this one tests you?” He pointed at Pegasus.

  I laughed and climbed down from my saddle, holding on to the reins. “We test each other,” I conceded. “But that’s more the natural order. Men and horses have lived together for centuries. I sometimes think the autos will all break down and be abandoned and we’ll find them like skeletons on the side of the road.”

  “That’s a nice picture you’re painting—but I predict it will go the other way. The auto is just the beginning. The tip of things. Men only want to go faster and feel freer.”

  “Pegasus is enough for me, thank you.”

  He smiled. “Pegasus, eh? I’m sure he’s very fast, but if you ever went up in an aeroplane you’d swallow your words—and your heart as well, maybe.”

  I thought of Denys and JC and Maia—each of them alive with the talk of flight. Above us in the sky there was nothing at all, not even clouds. “What’s it like?”

  “Like breaking through everything that ever wanted to rein you in. There are no barriers up there—nothing to stop you from going on for ever. All of Africa stretches out under you. It doesn’t hold anything back or want to stop you.”

  “I might guess you’re a poet.”

  “A farmer, actually.” He grinned. “I have a little plot up near Eldama. What do you do around here?”

  When I told him, we quickly put two and two together. He was Gerry’s silent partner, Tom Campbell Black; he owned part of the Baron. “You’ve got a fine horse,” I told him. “I’m banking he’ll win something big come July. Maybe then you can buy that aeroplane.”

  “Can I hold you to that?” He bent over the engine again and made a few last adjustments. “Mind your horse, I’m going to give it a crank.” After half-a-dozen lurching wheezes, the engine clanked to life. I watched him fold the canopy and settle his tools in the boot while Pegasus stamped beneath me. He was cold. I was, too.

  “Good luck to you,” I called out over the noisy churning of the motor, and we both waved goodbye.

  —

  Within a few months, things in Molo took a turn without warning. One of the stable doors at Westerland had a rusty hinge, and Melton Pie got out late one night and panicked somehow. She ended up tangled in some wire fencing, her barrel and cannons badly torn. She would recover, but the veterinary bill was shocking. George and Viola were furious and wanted to pin it on me.

  “How’s a rusty hinge my fault?” I asked, when the two had me driven into a corner one night in their library at Inglewood.

  “She was in your care!” George railed. “You should be overseeing everything.”

  I looked at Gerry to back me up, but he only sat pinched in his chair, his neck flaring pink under the line of his trimmed beard. “Perhaps you could offer to pay half, Beryl,” he finally offered.

  “With what? I live like a pauper, Gerry. You know that. And besides, why should I pay for her care? That’s an owner’s place. I certainly won’t get a penny when she wins.”

  “She’s won nothing,” Viola said flatly.

  “You haven’t given me time.”

  “I can’t see how we can take the risk now,” George pronounced, folding his arms over his tight-fitting vest.

  And so the matter was settled, and not in my favour. I would have to pay the fees, somehow, and the Carsdale-Lucks were letting me go. They would give me a week to find another place to live and clear off their property.
I went back to my cold hut that night feeling kicked and maligned. Gerry had assured me he wasn’t going to pull the Baron away from me, but I would have to find more horses, and somewhere to live while I trained them. I sat up late, poring over my account books, wondering how I would come up with the money for Melton Pie, when I heard footsteps outside my hut. There was no bar on my door, and for a long moment, I froze. Was it George Carsdale-Luck coming to ask for the cash on hand? Was it Jock, ready to announce that he’d changed his mind about the divorce? My heart clutched and thundered in my chest.

  “Hodi,” a man’s voice called from just outside.

  “Karibu,” I said as I moved towards the door, still not recognizing the voice.

  I pushed open the thatch door and saw a tall, well-muscled warrior with his shuka gathered over one shoulder. A curved sword rested in a leather scabbard swung low on narrow hips. His hair was shorn close but for one heavy plait that began at his forehead and cut over his clean scalp. His eyes were black and bottomless and when I saw them I wanted to cry. Arap Ruta had found me. He’d found me, even here.

  I looked at his bare feet, the plaited thongs tied around dusty ankles. He’d walked from Njoro—pointing himself at me the way you might throw a single arrow at several hundred square miles. For all of Kenya’s vastness, it was incredibly difficult to disappear into, even if you wanted to. There were so few of us that we left trails as clear as smoke signals. That Ruta had managed to find me wasn’t a surprise, but that he had wanted to. I thought he had forgotten me.

  “I’m so happy to see you, Ruta. You look well. How is your family?”

  “There has been cattle sickness at home.” He stepped into the patchy glow of my lantern. “It’s difficult to feed many on little or nothing.”

  “How awful,” I told him. “Is there something I can do?”

  “Everything has changed. There is no work. I thought you might have a job for me to do.”

  He’d been proud even as a boy; as a man I guessed he was even more so, and that it hadn’t been easy for him to come to me asking for a favour. “You’re my oldest friend, Ruta. I would do anything I could to help, but I don’t know if there is work just now.”

  He looked at me, trying to read my expression. “Your father was happy to have me in his stables. I haven’t forgotten what I know about horses, and I still ride well. I could sit anything once.”

  “Yes, I remember. Will you come in?”

  He nodded and brushed the dust from his feet, and then sat on a folding stool as I tried to explain. “Things have been difficult. One day there might be many horses to train, and plenty of money for everyone, but for now…” I let my words trail away.

  “I am patient.” His eyes were clear and black and steady. “When we win, you can pay me.”

  “But I don’t know when that will be. The best chance I have is the Baron, at the Produce Stakes, four months away. I haven’t begun to prove myself here yet.”

  “I believe we can win, memsahib.”

  “You do?” I couldn’t help but smile. “I’ve been doing it all alone, but the truth is I don’t know how much real faith I have any more.”

  “I’ve never seen you show fear. I am not afraid, either. I will send for someone to bring my wife. She will cook for us.”

  “It’s a good plan, Ruta, but where will we put everyone?”

  “We are serious and mean to win derbies. Surely room can be found.”

  I sat blinking, astonished by Ruta’s optimism and by how simple it all sounded coming from him. Nothing was simple, of course—but there was a striking symmetry in Ruta’s turning up here. We both needed the other very badly. That alone felt right. Perhaps we could win one day.

  “Have some coffee. It’s not very good, I’m afraid.”

  “You never had a gift for cooking,” he said with a small smile.

  “No, I never did.”

  At the tiny cedar-wood table, I poured for us. He told me of his wife, Kimaru, and his two-year-old son, Asis. I explained that my marriage had ended, knowing he wouldn’t understand or approve in the least. For the Kips, wives were treated as property, and the power balance was inimitably clear. Men were the heads of households, and their women respected this, and them, as law.

  “Bwana Purves was not your father,” he allowed once I’d finished my story.

  “No,” I said. “Nor yours.” Ruta might never fully grasp the choices I’d made, but we didn’t have to agree on everything to help each other. He had his own reasons for the long journey from the valley floor to my hut in Molo. “You have no idea how much I’ve needed your help, my friend. I didn’t know it myself until now.”

  “I’m glad I’ve come. But tell me, is it always so cold here?”

  “I’m afraid it is.”

  “Then we will have to build a bigger fire, Beru.”

  “We will,” I said. We already have.

  Only fearlessness would do now, and with Ruta by my side, I could finally remember what that felt like. I boldly beat the bushes for horses to train, and by early April had a bright chestnut, thick-shouldered stud named Ruddygore as well as the Baron—and I had Wrack and Melton Pie back, too. The Carsdale-Lucks had sold them both to another owner who immediately trusted me a good deal more than they ever had. I was able to take them all with me when I left Molo for Nakuru—for this was how Ruta and I solved our housing dilemma. Molo was too cold and too forbidding, and so we made arrangements to lease space at the Nakuru racecourse, not far from Soysambu and territory I knew well. Ruta and his wife took over a small mud hut behind the main paddock. I had a bed on crates high up in the stands under a tented metal roof. There was a bale of hay for my bedside table, another bale for a chair, and yet I was immediately happy and at home there. Life seemed liveable again. Ruta and I had each other and a good race looming. What more was there?

  I was most excited about Wrack. He’d had potential since the moment of his birth—perfect conformation and the very best lineage. But potential could turn or spoil, or even dissolve. The final shadings of any racehorse’s training were the most important strokes in the whole process. In a few months I’d watched him grow from a wilful and arrogant colt into something magnificent. Every muscle under his rippling chestnut coat spoke of power and grace. His legs were pistons and his body bright. He was built to run, and to win, and he knew it.

  Wrack was our ticket—Ruta’s and mine. He would be the way we’d shoulder into this difficult world and make our mark.

  —

  One afternoon, a few weeks before the race meeting, I was in town sorting out a feed order and decided to drop in to D’s hotel. It had been more than a year since the last time I was there, that traumatic night when Jock had gone for D and smashed him to pieces. It wouldn’t have been hard to avoid the place altogether if I didn’t want the memories or the chance of running into D, but I was finally feeling ready to face him again and see where we stood. I tied Pegasus outside, brushed off my moccasins, and swatted at my hair, wondering if I was even half presentable. Inside, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the light, but when I had my bearings, I saw that D wasn’t in the room at all. But Denys was—stretched out long in his chair with a drink, his dusty hat beside him. I think I stopped breathing.

  “You look well, Beryl,” he said, when I’d made my way towards him, only half feeling my feet. “How have you been?”

  There was already too much history between us, too many difficult choices. Losses I might never have words for. “Getting by,” I managed to say. “What about you?”

  “About fair.” He blinked his hazel eyes, and as I took in the fact of him, I felt my heart shudder and spin as it always had when he was near. Perhaps it always would. “You were in London, I heard?”

  “Yes.” I reached for the top of a chair to steady myself.

  “I was away as well, for my mother’s funeral.”

  “I’m so sorry, Denys.”

  “It was her time, I suppose. Or maybe that’s just what peop
le say.”

  “And you’re working now?”

  “Yes. I took out my first professional client a few months back. A pretty good fellow…American actually. He learned to use a machete and carried his own supplies.”

  “See? I knew you could train all these spoiled Teddy Roosevelts to be reasonable.”

  “I’m not so sure. Blix had one recently who insisted on bringing a piano along.”

  “Oh, Blix. I miss him.” The words hung between us for a few moments like filaments or webbing. “How’s Karen?”

  “She’s gone to Denmark to visit her mother, but by all reports she’s well.”

  “Ah.” I fell silent, reading his face again. He’d had a lot of sun, but under the healthy colour, I could glimpse a hint of exhaustion, or maybe it was worry. “And Berkeley?”

  “Berkeley’s taken a bad turn, I’m afraid. He was stuck in bed at Soysambu for a month when his heart nearly gave out there. The doctor told him not to move again, but he didn’t listen.”

  “That sounds like Berkeley. Where is he now?”

  “At home. I don’t know how much time he has.”

  “Berkeley can’t die. I won’t allow it.”

  “Maybe you should tell him that soon, then.”

  I tried to force back my emotions while we rested in silence for a few minutes. Berkeley would have to be fine somehow, and what of Denys? Could we be friends again after all that had happened?

  “Come out to Mbogani sometime,” he said when I readied myself to leave. “I’ll stand you a drink.”

  “I thought you said Karen’s away.”

  “She is. You’re always welcome, though.”

  “Oh” was all I could say. Then I stood and leaned in to him for a moment, brushing his smooth-shaved skin with my lips. “Good night, Denys.”

  —

  The next day I rode to Solio, arriving near the cocktail hour. Knowing Berkeley, I half expected him to be out in the yard, a bottle of champagne in each hand, but he was confined to bed. It broke my heart to see him there, frail and bloodless, small-looking as a child.