Bonds of Matrimony (13 page)

'Certainly not!' Hero said with resolution.

His fingers fastened on the nape of her neck. 'Why not?'

'Why not?' she repeated, feeling quite weak at the knees at the thought. 'Whatever would Betsy think!' she exclaimed.

'Betsy again,' he observed. 'Those pretty ears of hers must be getting quite red.'

'I don't think you're at all kind to use me to make her jealous!'

'I kissed you before she came,' he reminded her. ''Don't you want to kiss me sometimes now too?'

She pursed up her lips. 'I don't think so!'

He chuckled. 'Only think, Hero? You don't sound very sure.'

She took a deep breath, determined to convince him, cost what it may, but the words refused to come out as she had intended. 'I'm not. I mean, I don't like it when you come the heavy husband!'

' You shouldn't make it so irresistible/' Hero digested this in silence. She couldn't see that she had done anything to

make him want to tease her. 'I still don't like it!' she maintained.

'Ah, but your likes don't come into it,' he argued with an arrogance that took her breath away. 'The only question is whether you can bring yourself to do as I ask, or whether we're going to have a battle about it. It won't make any difference in the end,' he added with the same amused smile, 'because kiss me you will, every morning and every night, and sometimes, like now, in between whiles, because that's the way I want it!'

'I won't!' she declared, feeling agitated.

He stroked her cheek with a gentle hand. 'I think you will,' he said. 'To please me you will!'

He took a step away from her, his hands dropping to his sides. 'I'm going to take the Turkana home to the other side of the Samburu Game Reserve,' he said. 'Come with me, Hero, and leave the trucking till this afternoon!'

The smell of a Turkana inside the narrow confines of the aeroplane was pungent and all-embracing. Their badly cured leopard skins mixed their scent with the strong smell of perspiration that emanated from their bodies. Hero watched them doubtfully as they sat down, plainly uncomfortable in a position they seldom adopted of their own accord, preferring to stand, or squat, or even to lie down. She thought they might be afraid, travelling for the first time in the metal bird that streaked across the sky, but they showed no sign of it if they were. They were as impassive as they had been when she had given them a lift in the Land-Rover. How much easier it would be, she thought, if she could accept whatever fate brought with the same calm acceptance that they displayed.

'Got them strapped in?' Benedict told her as she went up front.

'Well, no,' she admitted.

He raised an eyebrow. 'Wouldn't they let you?'

'I didn't try. They don't think very highly, of women - at least, they don't think very highly of me!'

'Oh? What makes you say that?'

'It wasn't anything much,' she said.

'But it was something?'

They don't think I'm a proper wife to you,' she said as calmly as she could.

'What an interesting conversation you seem to have had with them!' he observed. 'I'll have to use you as translator when we get to their encampment. I can't understand anything they say to me!'

'He was speaking Swahili. He called me your mwanamke!'

'And that's bad?'

The colour rose in her cheeks. 'It's irregular and not very polite.'

The look in his eyes mocked her and she blushed more deeply. 'What do you want me to do?' Benedict demanded. 'Knock his block off for him?'

'Of course not,' she said. 'But if the opportunity arises, I thought you might point out to him that I am your mke and not your mwanamke.'

'And are you?' he asked.

'I'm not either!' she denied hotly. 'But I won't be called names just because of something they've heard—' She broke off. 'I won't be referred to as your mwanamke, that's all. It isn't proper!'

'What could they have heard?' He stood up, amusement on his face. 'Why don't you tell them yourself if you feel so strongly about it? No, no—' as she threatened to go back into the cabin and tackle them immediately - 'You do it! What else are husbands for?' When he came back he still seemed amused. He bent over her, snapping the buckle into place. 'They'd heard you weren't married in the church in Isiolo, it was nothing more than that! The insult you imagined was the fiction of your own guilty conscience!'

Torn between a strong desire to ask him how he had managed to elicit that piece of information from them when they had no language in common, and the need to defend herself, she said, 'I don't know what you're talking about!'

'Never mind, my dear,' he replied easily, 'I'll give you plenty of time to work it out in your own way, but don't take too long - I find it hard going, living in the same house with you!'

It was a bumpy landing across the grey, rough grass of the edge of the desert. Benedict opened the door and let down the steps while Hero, knowing that she ought to be helping him, found that her fingers were suddenly too weak to undo her belt.

'Come on, mwanamke!' Benedict's voice called out to her.

She appeared, pink-faced, from behind the curtain. 'I think you're perfectly horrid!' she told him.

His response was to ruffle her hair. 'I won't tell you what I think of you right now! Are you coming, or do you want to stay on board?'

/T/    /

I m coming.

'Then stay close by, or I may decide to exchange you for a four-legged mule!'

'You can try!' she said coolly.

He was obviously amused. 'Don't you think they'd take you? Come on, Hero, buck up! I can't do without you, as you very well know, and if you're coming, you can do what you can to translate for me.'

The compound was a very temporary-looking affair. Fenced with a few sticks, interspersed with reeds, any of the animals-could have knocked down the barriers and gained their freedom, but they showed no signs of doing so. The cattle were painfully thin, and the Turkana complained they were having to travel further and further each day, looking for somewhere for them to graze. Benedict listened to all they had to say with great attention, offering a word of advice here and of caution there. Hero felt proud of him. She sat beside him on the scorched earth, shielding her nostrils as best she could from the dust and the smell of both men and animals, and was overcome by the strength of her admiration for the man who was her husband. He didn't seem to know the awe that other people felt in the presence of the Turkana, but nor did he patronize them, or think himself in any way superior. He wanted to help and help he did, quietly, efficiently, sharing his knowledge with these untamable nomads on terms that they could understand put to use for themselves.

She wasn't able to help him much by translating his words. Most of what he had to say was beyond her strictly kitchen Swahili and, as none of the Turkana spoke it any better than she did, Benedict managed by drawing pictures in the dust and pointing to the different animals he was talking about. Strangely, they seemed to understand him very well, and Hero wandered off by herself, seeking the company of the women with whom she felt more at home.

She hadn't thought that Benedict would notice her going, but he came after her almost immediately, tucking her hand into his arm with a look that was more than enough to remind her that he had told her to stay close beside him.

'They wouldn't do me any harm!' she protested.

'I'm not prepared to take the risk. If you're bored—'

'Of course I'm not bored!'

'Aren't you? Tell me what you know about these people. Could they be persuaded to grow a few crops?'

She shook her head. 'I shouldn't think so.' She bit her lip, reflecting that before that morning she would have been quite positive that they would not, but she was beginning to think that Benedict could persuade anyone to do anything. 'I don't know much about them. Only what people thought years ago, like their being unable to count above five, starting again with the formula five-plus-one, and so on. Oh, and that they're one of the few African peoples who don't circumcise their young men.'

'A great help!' he observed. 'How about bribery? They like tobacco and beads, but what about the cowrie shells the women are wearing? Is that some kind of currency as it was down at the coast?'

'No,' Hero said.

'Oh well, you seem quite sure about that!' he told her. 'I shan't ask you what they do mean—'

'No,' she agreed hastily. 'They symbolize being a woman. Benedict, wouldn't it be wrong to bribe them? The rains are late, but they may come, and then everything will be all right.'

'For a few months. A few days' rain isn't going to save much in the long run. The whole trend is for the desert belt to move south and we have to work in that context. The problem won't disappear if we look the other way, my dear. We know it's coming and we have to prepare for it!'

She looked at him, hoping he would not recognize a look she could not conceal from her eyes. 'You can't do it all alone!' she exclaimed.

He flicked her nose with his fingers. 'Careful,' he said, 'it isn't your admiration I'm seeking!'

He took a tighter hold on her hand and changed the subject. 'Have we any use for a donkey, do you think? Because they have one for sale—' She stiffened, unsure if he were still teasing her, but he showed no sign of noticing her reaction. 'Wouldn't you like a donkey? It's such a pretty thing.'

'Let's buy it!' she said.

The donkey cost sixty-five shillings. Its body was striped like a faded zebra and its temperament was mournful in the extreme. Hero thought, if it had been human, it was the kind that would have said we'd have been born with wings if we'd been intended to fly. It kicked up its heels the moment it saw the plane and, once inside, it kicked at everything in sight. Hero was exhausted after she had tethered it in the aisle between the seats, and battered and bruised besides.

'What are you going to call it?' Benedict asked, his arms folded across his chest as he watched her do battle with the animal.

'I shall call it after you!'

'Ben?'

Her eyes flashed. 'Fulani!' She tied the last knot and turned and faced him, her chest heaving with the effort of making the beast secure. 'It suits you both!'

'Now that doesn't sound at all ladylike,' he observed.

'I seem to have heard the term somewhere before.'

Doesn't it mean a so-and-so?'

Hero brushed down her dusty cotton trousers. 'I wouldn't really call you that.'

'Quite right!' he said with amused calm. 'You won't!' She gave the donkey a final pat and collapsed into her seat up front, sticking her legs out in front of her to ease her much-tried muscles. 'It's been fun, hasn't it, coming here?' she commented. 'I wish we didn't have to go home.'

'Better than trucking soil?' he suggested.

'Much better!' she said in a small voice. 'Don't you think?'

Betsy was every bit as furious as Hero had expected her to be when she heard that Benedict had left her behind that morning. Hero had been careful not to tell her, but by evening she forgot to maintain her guard and, when Bob was asking her about the cones of loose stones that Benedict had built up round some of the young trees he wanted to preserve, he had also asked her what had become of the three Turkana warriors who had been hanging about earlier.

'We flew them home this morning,' Hero answered without thought.

'You flew?' Bob grinned at her, impressed.

'Well, not exactly,' Hero admitted. 'But I was there.

I don't mind flying half as much as I thought I would!'

'You didn't think to ask us if we wanted to go too?' Betsy's cool voice came across the verandah.

Hero wiped her suddenly damp palms against the sides of her cotton trousers. 'I did, as a matter of fact. I think Benedict decided there wasn't enough room for us all to g°-'

'Then you could have stayed home and I could have gone!' Betsy shot at her.

Hero muttered something about going along to translate, and Bob hooted with irreverent laughter. ''With your Swahili?'

'You'd be surprised,' she said.

Benedict came out to join them in the darkness. Hero could see the red glow of his cigarette as he took it up to his mouth. He smoked too much, she thought, but then he also worked too hard. She had gone out with the lorry this afternoon, but after a few trips he had sent her back to the house, telling her she had done enough for one day. He himself had not come in, though, until their dinner had been on the table and Koinange had gone to look for him. She hoped that Betsy would leave him alone now and not go on and on about his not taking her to the Turkana settlement.

'Hero can say a great deal in Swahili,' Benedict said. 'She knows the difference between mwanamke — and mke.' Hero was very conscious of his mocking gaze.

'How would you know that, old man?' Bob asked, laughing.

Hero could sense Benedict's dislike of being addressed in such terms and she tried to change the subject. 'How many more days before we've finished trucking?'

'None, if I've any say in the matter!' Betsy interposed. 'Tomorrow Benedict can take me out, and you two can mind the farm between you. If I'd known it was going to be like this, I'd never have come! Where shall we go?'

Hero couldn't bear to listen any longer. She didn't want to know where they were going and then she couldn't imagine what they would be doing there. She jumped to her feet. 'I think I'll go to bed,' she announced. 'It's been a long day.'

'Who's stopping you?' Betsy demanded, annoyed by the

interruption. 'Well, Benedict?'

But Benedict wasn't listening to her either. He held out a hand and barred Hero's progress across the verandah.

'Haven't you forgotten something, Liebling?' he said, and the sound of his voice set her heart thundering against her ribs.

'I don't think so,' she breathed.

He stood up too and, when he drew on his cigarette, she saw he was smiling at her. But there was a hint of steel also in the touch of his hands and in the way he stubbed out the cigarette beneath his heel. Hero bent her head, determined not to give way to him.

'Hurry up, Hero,' he advised softly. She couldn't be sure she hadn't dreamed the words. She lifted her face to his and trembled as his hands tightened on her shoulders.