However, at last the stumps had been drawn from a level piece of ground near our camp, and the land had been ploughed and worked down to a seed-bed that would have appalled any English farmer, but that was adequate for coffee, which was planted as seedlings ten or twelve inches high. In the dry weather before the long rains, a hot and dusty period, Robin had spent many sweaty and frustrating hours holding one end of a chain composed of thin steel rods, each three feet long. A Kikuyu warrior held the other end, and Sammy went down the chain putting a stick into the ground at each joint, to mark the site of a future seedling. This was complicated by the spacing of the seedlings in triangles, and the forest of sticks which soon arose sometimes grew confused, and had to be uprooted to enable everyone to start again.
Eventually, however, the Kikuyu dug holes for the seedlings. This task was supposed to be finished before the rains, but of course was not, and then came a crisis when the seedlings Robin had bought arrived before the ground was ready for them. In future years the plantation would be supplied from a nursery beside the river, under Tilly’s care, where coffee berries were planted in long mounds, like asparagus beds, and thatched with banana fronds to prevent the sun from drying out the moist riverine soil.
By now the first rains, which were torrential and cold and stopped the progress of all wagons and carts, had come and gone, and our seedlings had been planted in the freshly broken land. Already they had vanished beneath a carpet of weeds, which was rapidly becoming a jungle; the warriors had been set to work with pangas to demolish it, and give the precious seedlings a chance to find light and air.
After the first day of this, Sammy came to Robin to report that the warriors refused to demolish weeds any longer.
‘But it is not such hard work as the clearing,’ Robin protested, ‘and they are paid the same.’
‘It is not that,’ Sammy said.
‘Then what is the trouble?’
‘Their pride would be injured if they were seen cutting weeds.’
‘What is the difference between clearing the grass away before the land is ploughed, and clearing the weeds away afterwards?’
‘This is women’s work,’ Sammy explained.
Robin was indignant. He thought that the warriors were making an excuse and, if they were not, that work like this should not be done by women, but by otherwise idle young men.
His anger did not make any difference. The young men downed pangas and said that they were going home.
‘I know what our Dutch friend would do,’ Robin mused. ‘Put them down and give them twenty-five.’
This was a sovereign remedy in those days, but Robin did not like it, and he dodged the necessity whenever he could. ‘If it’s women’s work,’ he added, ‘perhaps we had better get some women. We can’t reform their customs overnight.’
He consulted Sammy, and Sammy went to see chief Kupanya, and in due course a number of young women came swinging gaily down the path from the reserve chanting a song which, to judge from the laughter it aroused among the warriors, was ribald and obscene. Their heads were clean-shaven except for a patch on top, about as large round as an egg-cup, which showed them to be unmarried, although probably they were all bespoken, and awaited only the settlement of the bride-price before being claimed. They were bare to the waist and had shapely breasts, not yet spoilt by prolonged suckling, and wore a triangular leather apron in front and behind. They also wore beads and brass or copper ornaments, such as bangles and anklets, and objects dangling from their ears.
The young men were delighted to yield up their pangas, which the girls seized with strong wrists and practised holds, and went into action against the weeds with great gusto and dash. They sang all the time, and did three times as much work as the men. In the afternoon they marched up the hill again to their reserve. Their fathers were not letting them stay away at nights, and there was plenty waiting for them to do when they got home. Their wages they would pay over to their fathers, with no doubt a large cut for Kupanya on the side.
When Captain Palmer rode over he saw these young women at work with mingled disapproval and envy.
‘Hardly seems quite the thing, does it,’ he suggested, ‘with all those idle young bloods eating their heads off and not lifting a finger.’
‘You know what tribal customs are,’ Robin answered knowingly, although it was unlikely that either of them had much information on this subject. Anthropologists had not yet made it respectable.
Tilly took Lettice to see her own activities, of which there were many, including hens and turkeys, a young orchard, an embryonic garden, and rows of pegs where everyone hoped a house would one day arise in its glory. Lettice was deeply impressed.
‘How do you find the energy to do so much?’ she asked.’ This country’s full of sloth, the air distils it; the essence of a thousand generations of doing no more than is necessary to exist, of leaving things as they are, has settled into the ground. And it’s become too strong for me to resist; I’m not very good at resisting things, I’m afraid. Or do you think I am just making excuses?’
Tilly did think so, but she smiled, and exchanged a sitting of turkey’s eggs for a pair of tumbler pigeons, which were very soon eaten by hawks. In theory, Tilly disapproved, at least in Africa, of everything that Lettice was or represented, but in practice she could not help being entertained by Lettice and enjoying her company. Tilly was on her guard against anything laid on, as she expressed it, with a trowel, but Lettice did not lay on her charm at all, she simply exuded it as a rose its scent, and just as unwittingly. That afternoon she sat on our narrow lean-to veranda playing with the siiky ears of her Pekinese and smiling a little forlornly at this glimpse into her own future. When to remedy a cold you take a lump of sugar soaked in eucalyptus oil, you taste the sharp, astringent flavour of the essence and the sweetness of the sugar at the same time. That is the kind of impression Lettice gave. The Pekinese looked out upon the world with an expression of lofty disdain probably due to their myopia, but which accorded well with their imperial origins and their bold, baroque design.
‘This country frightens me,’ Lettice continued. ‘I don’t mean the insects and the idea of snakes (I haven’t actually seen one), or even the lions and rhinos – why people should be so much more nervous about wild animals, who nearly always run away except when provoked, than about other human beings, who are so much more dangerous and vindictive, I’ve never been able to understand. No, it isn’t that which alarms me. It’s a sort of quiet, smiling, destructive ferocity. Doesn’t it strike you as strange that nothing people have created here has survived? Not even a few traces? No ruins of cities or temples – no ancient over-grown roads – no legends of past empires – no statues hidden in the ground – no tombs or burial mounds? No sign that generations of people have lived here, lived and died. Do you realize that quite soon we shall be the past? And what will there be to show that we have ever existed? We shall be swallowed up like everything else into a dreadful, sunny limbo.’
‘You’re being morbid,’ Tilly said. ‘It’s true the natives have done nothing yet with the country, but we shall.’
‘How confident you are! How do you keep your energy on the boil? When I start some simple task, a hundred distractions spring up to prevent me from completing it.’
‘I know just what you mean,’ Tilly agreed. ‘The other day I started to write to my sister and I counted twelve interruptions before I gave up. It wasn’t so much the interruptions I minded but every one of them was trivial and unnecessary, like a hornets’ nest in the larder, or a quarrel between Juma and the garden-boy, or a hawk taking a chicken. I never did finish the letter, and as for reading a book…’
‘Ah! That’s it. Since I’ve been here I find I cannot concentrate on French novels, and the other day I couldn’t for the life of me remember the words of one of my songs. We’ve got a small grand piano on the way out. Do you think we shall ever get it here? First of all the railway and then an ox-wagon, I suppose. I tremble for its safe
ty….’
‘It will be touch and go. And you will have to build a house for it before it arrives.’
‘And then I shall practise, practise, practise every day! I love the sun, I revel in the warmth, everything is bright and gay, there are wonderful birds and butterflies, and boys to do the donkey-work, everything combines to lull and please: and yet I’m not quite lulled. I can’t understand why.’
Lettice removed her hat, which involved the extraction of several long pins with heads of mother-of-pearl; her silky hair, wound over a frame called a sausage (I knew because Tilly used one) sat on her shapely head like a kind of plate, and threw a faint shadow over the top part of her face. The rolls of hair shone like polished mahogany, and the scent she used reminded me of heliotrope. It was rather like having seats at a play, she carried round a sense of drama as her own particular element.
‘Last night,’ she said, ‘I dreamt I was back in Norway, the country that I like best in all the world. We spent one summer fishing in the fjords, and Hereward hunted elk in forests which smelt of moss and resin. The fjords, how wonderful they were! The black forest was like a bear’s furry pelt coming right down to the edge of the dark, still water, and from the house we stayed in we could watch the fishing boats come in with their catch, and see the men wave to wives and friends in little white toy-like houses, so clean, so neat and somehow brave, pressed in by all those mountains and forests…. Once we saw the aurora borealis, it lit the sky like some tremendous ghostly signal for the end of the world, and everything was silent, even the dogs…. Well, there’s plenty of beauty here, and splendour, but it doesn’t make your heart swell and almost burst, it seems to compress it into a little button and make it hard and tight. Now I think I’m talking gibberish; you must try to forgive me, it’s such a treat to have someone to talk to about something besides dead animals and crops and how dreadfully inefficient the natives are at everything, which I’m sure is true.’
‘It all comes as a bit of a shock at first,’ Tilly remarked. ‘But you’ll get used to it. One sort of grows into the life.’
Hereward and Robin came back from their tour almost as brothers. Although Robin had served only for a short while in the Yeomanry, he had managed to recall one or two slight acquaintances in the Ninth; and, once that had been established, Hereward had fallen into line very satisfactorily about the quarry. He would engage a mason to cut and dress enough stone for Robin’s house as well as for his own. Robin would contribute the raw materials, which luckily did not need any wages.
‘Now we shall be able to build some stables,’ Tilly said delightedly.
‘And one for my piano,’ Lettice suggested.
Captain Palmer stroked his moustache and smiled at Tilly. ‘My wife is musical,’ he said, as if enlisting sympathy for some distressing ailment. ‘I can foresee difficulties in getting it here.’
‘It is with your trophies, Hereward,’ she reminded him. ‘They will need a stable too.’
Hereward laughed good-humouredly. ‘They will share ours. Perhaps it is bringing coals to Newcastle, but they have been in store for so long that I’m anxious to rescue them before they get weevily. Though I say it as shouldn’t, I have some fine specimens.’
‘I suppose you will add to them here,’ Tilly said.
‘Well, of course, when we’ve settled in…. They tell me the ladies are as keen on safari as the men. Perhaps we could persuade you to join up with us and show us the ropes; I know your husband is an old hand.’
Robin looked guilty and would not meet Tilly’s eye. Hereward was a treat for him, and he was making the most of it.
And so the Palmers, by and large, were a success. Lettice even paid some attention to me. I had at this time a hospital for sick animals, which included a lame hen, a baby duiker, and a pigeon with a broken leg. This I had bandaged with tape and set in splints made of two matches, and to everyone’s surprise the bird had not yet died. (A hospital for sick animals has a quick turnover, since very few wild creatures that are both injured and in captivity will survive.) Lettice helped me to rearrange the pigeon’s splints and to feed the duiker from a bottle; I do not think it was sick, it was merely small and deprived of its mother.
‘I once knew a woman’, Lettice said, ‘who wore a live snake instead of a necklace at dinner parties; she said it kept her neck cool. That sounds a very tall story, but it’s true.’
‘There’s a python in the river,’ I suggested hopefully.
‘It would be more a question of the python wearing the woman, I’m afraid…. Which is your favourite animal, among all that you have seen since you arrived?’
Even Lettice, I thought sadly – even Lettice who fascinated me like some brilliant-plumaged flashing bird, or like a clown on a magic bicycle – even she did not avoid that distressing adult habit of asking enormous questions to which there could be no sensible reply. Cornered, however – I did not want to disappoint her – I fell back on my chameleons. She looked surprised, and stroked the ruffled pigeon with slender fingers on which there sparkled several rings.
‘You should keep one as a pet,’ she said. ‘No, two; you must always have animals in pairs. Most people keep only one, and try to suck all the love out of it like a vampire, but that’s cruel…. Look at this bird’s eye, it’s like a ruby in a certain light; why are pigeons’ eyes red, I wonder? Yours are blue. So are Hugh’s; he is much younger than you, and I’ve no idea whether he’s fond of animals and birds, or whether he’s musical, or what his likes and dislikes are, except that someone told me he was fond of Gentleman’s Relish…. We must be going, Hereward; if we are away too long we shall find the headman drunk again and trying to murder someone, or perhaps successful, and everyone fled.’
After they had left Robin said with satisfaction: ‘That was a good day’s work about the quarry. I could never have afforded an Indian fundi. I hope he’s got as much money as he seems to have. One can never be sure.’
‘There’s something queer about them,’ Tilly said. ‘At least, about their being here.’
‘He’s a pompous sort of cuss, but there’s nothing very queer about that.’
‘Why did they come? They’re not the type,’ Tilly insisted. ‘My guess is they ran off together and have to live abroad; anyway, I bet there’s a scandal mixed up in it somewhere.’
‘A fine woman,’ Robin said appreciatively, looking after their departing ponies.
‘Emotional,’ concluded Tilly. This was a word of condemnation, because Tilly was a devotee of reason; she came of a Liberal family and believed that powers of intellect should prevail. In fact, no one was a greater victim of emotions, at least of the more generous kind, but she felt that to give way to them was rather disgraceful, and hoped by frowning upon them, whether they were at work in herself or in others, to drive them away.
‘The Palmers are too civilized for this life,’ Robin said. ‘Or, at least, she is; and he is too stupid. I fear she’s thrown herself away.’
‘At least on to a comfortable rubbish-heap,’ Tilly remarked.
Chapter 8
ONE day a syce arrived with a note scrawled on sky-blue writing paper in Lettice’s large and sloping hand. ‘Please come at once,’ it said. ‘There has been a terrible disaster.’ Tilly sent for Robin who was out on the farm. He returned reluctantly, some critical situation having arisen, and inquired of the syce:
‘What is this bad news?’
‘Sijui,’ said the syce, using that useful, universal word that covered almost every form of ignorance or indifference, and that had given its name to many rivers, districts, and ranges of hills.
‘It can’t be anything much,’ Robin suggested.
‘All the same, you ought to go over.’
‘I thought perhaps you might…’
‘Robin!’ cried Tilly. ‘Are you a man or a mouse?’
Robin paused for some time in thought, and lit one of the small cheroots he favoured.
‘Well,’ he concluded, ‘I’m never quite sure.’
But with reluctance he climbed on to his mule and trotted off to the Palmers’.
A note came back about an hour later. ‘You had better come, there has been a fight, and bring iodine, bandages, and a sharp pair of scissors.’ Tilly collected the equipment and set out, taking me with her. Outwardly, all seemed unruffled at the Palmers’; the sun shone, a man in a red blanket swung a sickle-ended stick very slowly to and fro decapitating grass-heads on what would one day be a lawn, several others drooped about in various attitudes of indolence and supple meditation among the foundations of the future house, which stood on a knoll commanding a wide view of grass, bush, and scattered trees. A dire event needs a crowd to endow it with reality; it is the murmuring, nudging people, the peering heads, the avid eyes that give it drama; without these, it is insignificant, and might be part of a dream.
We asked for Lettice, who was not in the lime-washed rondavel that was their living-room; a houseboy led us to the Kikuyu huts a little way off and Lettice emerged from one of them looking white and shaky, with blood on her hands.
‘Thank God you’ve come,’ she cried. ‘A wretched man inside has been cut to ribbons. I’ve done what I can but I’m not good at it; it’s dark and everything is filthy and they’ve all run away….’ She staggered a little, dived for the back of the hut and I think was sick, and when she came back Tilly took her arm and told her to go in and lie down. ‘First-aid is not my strong point either,’ Tilly said, ‘but I’m getting used to it; where has Robin gone?’