The Clouds Beneath the Sun (24 page)

Her middle finger went up. “Three, we shall make yet another approach to the elders of the Maasai, the
loibone
, to see if they can be prevailed upon to change their minds. I’m not hopeful it will work, but you never know. Maybe they have their elders who are not stubborn too.”

She looked around the table. “I think we all know where Natalie and I stand. But we haven’t heard from you, Kees, or Jonas, or Arnold. This is not something we can put to a vote, but do any of you want to say something? Or you, Christopher?”

No one did.

Naiva noiselessly removed the plates from the table. A buffalo called out somewhere in the distance. Smoke from the fire drifted into the dining tent, casting fuzzy shadows. The crackle and spit of the logs filled the silence that remained.

•   •   •

Natalie lay in bed in the dark. She had so looked forward to her late-night smoke and whiskey when she had been in Nairobi, but tonight, after her tussle with Eleanor, she was too much on edge and she longed for the oblivion of sleep. Dinner had been finished quickly, after Eleanor’s little speech, and Natalie had returned to her tent and undressed in no time. She’d hardly slept in Nairobi so she was tired enough but, even so, sleep wouldn’t come.

Before her arrival at the gorge, she’d been nervous, unsure whether she would be up to the mark academically speaking. Oh, for that sort of problem now. Nothing could have prepared her for the conundrum she was now facing—and facing, very largely, alone. The irony was that she hadn’t, actually, done anything. She had been sitting quietly, smoking, enjoying the night, hardly moving, totally silent, staring into the darkness, when she had seen Ndekei. She had been as passive, as unproactive as it was possible to be. And yet her total inaction was the cause of all the trouble.

She turned on her side. She smelled the canvas of the bed, the detergent the sheets had been washed in. She recalled her first nights at college in Cambridge, the first strange bed she had ever slept in. God, she had been innocent. She recalled Dom’s smell. That had always troubled her in a minor way. The reason she always noticed Dom’s smell was that she was never with him long enough to take it for granted. She supposed that happily married couples—or at least those who managed to stay married for any length of time, or just lived together, as more and more people were doing—stopped noticing each other’s smell.

Jack had his own smell too, of course. He smelled ever so slightly of his airplane, the leather seats, kerosene or Avgas, whatever airplane fuel was called.

Lying in bed, in her pajamas, she put her hand on her chest where she had inadvertently left her shirt button undone. She hadn’t really shown too much of herself, not at all. But the very fact of the button being undone made her think of the first time she had unbuttoned her shirt for Dominic. She had been embarrassed then but excited too, the first real thrill of sexual anticipation she had known. With Dominic she had peeled off her shirt, then her bra, to let her breasts hang free, loose, the first time she had known that physical freedom in the presence of a man, in front of a man. Dominic had groaned and buried his face in her flesh, kissing and licking and sucking her nipples. That was when she had discovered how sensitive her nipples were—how, when Dominic had bitten them between his lips, she had chewed in air and wrapped herself around him. There were tears in her eyes, spittle at the corners of her mouth, from their kissing. Dominic had licked her nipples again. She had never expected she could feel so wet.

When Jack had looked at her undone button, the feelings she’d had couldn’t be compared with that day in her rooms at Cambridge, with Dominic. But, along with her embarrassment, there had been excitement too. An excitement she hadn’t known in months.

She dragged her mind away from Dominic and Jack. Eleanor had said tonight that they must dig on, as if the situation were normal. Yes. Yes, please—but was that practicable, given what was hanging over them all now?

She heard a noise outside the tent. Footsteps. Did she have a visitor? From the footfall, she sensed it might be Christopher. She held her breath.

The footsteps went away.

In Nairobi, she had thought about Christopher even less than she had thought about Dominic.

That told her something.

6
THE SKULL

“L
ook, vultures.” Jack stood over Natalie as she crouched in the gorge, teasing the rock with a small pickax.

She stopped what she was doing, sat back on her haunches, and looked up, shielding her eyes from the sun with her gloved hand.

“Must be a buffalo that’s got into trouble,” said Jack softly, handing her a water bottle. “Like to go see?”

She gulped at the water and then shook her head. “I don’t want to witness any more crimes, Jack.” She smiled grimly, handed back the bottle, and wiped her forehead with her glove. “Besides, I’m in the middle of something.” She pointed with her pickax. “I think I may have some sort of jaw.”

Jack was immediately attentive. He put the bottle away and knelt down beside her.

It was already a week since their return from Nairobi. Life was normal, more or less. They spent their mornings digging, their afternoons following up with note-taking, reading, or drawing, and their evenings discussing their discoveries, or the lack of them, over dinner.

Neither Christopher nor Jack had visited her in her tent. Part of her hoped that Jack would stop by, but he seemed content with their normal exchanges during work and at meals, and left her alone in the evenings to be by herself—as he had done that evening in Nairobi, behavior that everyone else had criticized him for. But not her. He didn’t crowd her and she liked that.

Leaning forward, Jack whistled. “Yes, that looks like the line of a jawbone. It looks hominid too. Careful how you go … you should get to the teeth soon. If there are any left.”

She craned forward again.

“Clever of you to spot the sweep of that jaw, Natalie. You seem to have an eye.”

“Years of doing jigsaws as a girl,” she replied. “It gives you a taste for patterns.”

“Hmm. Maybe. But, look, you need better tools than the ones you’ve got. You’ll never be a crack paleontologist with shoddy tools—you need some wire brushes.
This
jigsaw is no toy.” He stood up. He had leant his shotgun against the wall of the gorge and he reached for it. “There’s a troop of baboons not far away, so the Land Rover’s all locked up. I’ll have to go and get the key from Daniel. I’ll be as quick as I can. Okay?”

She nodded and carried on picking away at the lining of the gorge. Fossilized bone tended to be softer than the surrounding rock and, in general, that could be felt through the tools they all used. The bone she was picking away at now she had noticed about two hours before. It was the curve that had caught her eye, smooth and sweeping like the keel of a model boat. Definitely not natural.

As she chipped, the rough rock fell away and revealed more of the smooth line of jaw. She took a regular small brush from her pocket and swept it over the bone. Small crumbs of rock still adhered to the jawbone and had not been dislodged by the brush—that’s why she needed something stronger.

She took a scalpel from her pocket and pulled off the protective metal cap, shielding the blade. Now she scraped at the top edge of the jawbone. The rock broke up into smaller pieces and some crumbled away. As it did so, her heart leapt as she suddenly saw the glint of a brighter substance. Could it be …? She was a novice still but … were those the remains of some teeth? She looked over her shoulder. Jack was nowhere to be seen, just Aldwai, the guard, with his gun. She bent back to her work.

She dislodged more rock. Yet more teeth came into view, their shine catching the sun, and she gave a short, involuntary grunt. She could now make out not one but three teeth. She didn’t know much about the shape of teeth—that was Eleanor’s speciality. But… but… Natalie tried to stop herself from thinking that she was in the middle of a major discovery. Her job was to excavate properly, carefully, making notes as she went along, taking photos as often as she thought necessary, and making drawings where that helped.

Could this jawbone and teeth be
that
important? she asked herself. There were no rules about who made the discoveries, save that Daniel had made more than anyone else. She had already found the
Pelorovis
fossil, and the “wall,” as she thought of it. If she really was in the middle of an important find, and it was written up in the newspapers, would her father read it, would Dominic read it? If they did, they would know that Africa was not just an escape for her, as they might have thought. The Ndekei business apart, she was being strengthened all the time by what she was turning up in the gorge. Once her articles had been published, she would be more than a newly minted Ph.D., of which there were any number, especially in a place like Cambridge. She would have her own
form
at last.

In her excitement she had forgotten the heat but the sweat oozing down her back, the wet hair at her temples, never went away for long. She stopped scraping, sat back, and wiped her face with her sleeve. She reached for her bag, which held the camera. Once she had that ready, she took the six-inch ruler from her jacket pocket and laid it below the jawbone, for scale. Then she took a dozen or so pictures, varying the view slightly each time and moving closer and then further away.

“These should do the trick.”

She hadn’t heard Jack return. She put the cap back on the lens of the camera and pointed. “Look. Teeth.”

Jack kneeled down and peered forward. For a full minute he held his gaze on the jawbone, then he whistled again. “Jesus, Natalie,” he said at length. “You could have a whole skull here.” He turned. “Look, I think we need my mother in on this, and Christopher—we need the best pictures we can manage. Do you mind?”

“No, no … not at all. You think it’s that important?”

“It could be. You’ve done a good job here, but this
is
your first jawbone. My mother has lots of experience with this sort of discovery—in particular, where other fossil bones might be in relation to this one. Having that experience is almost a skill in its own right. We need to bring her in and you need to watch her. You’ll still get the credit, for making the discovery, I mean. But Eleanor and Christopher, and Daniel of course, will know the best way to proceed from here on in.” He stood up. “You wait here. Don’t do any more excavating for the moment. I’ll leave Aldwai with you, so you’ll be safe, and go and get the others. You need to watch how my mother proceeds from here on in. She and Daniel have devised special excavation techniques, so as not to destroy other evidence nearby. We’re looking at another all-day session here. I’ll bring you some water, a sandwich, and some fruit.”

And he hurried off.

Natalie stared down at the jawbone. She supposed that Jack had acted properly, in bringing in the others. Eleanor and Daniel certainly had much more experience at excavating than she did, as Jack had reminded her. And that was what counted, that the excavation be properly completed. And yet … she couldn’t help but feel just a little disappointed. If she hadn’t told Jack about what she had found, he might never have noticed and she would have had this find to herself for a while longer. She might have found an entire skull all by herself, a discovery that might have made her famous throughout her profession. The skull might even be named after her. As it was, she couldn’t excavate any more on her own without going against the general ethos of Eleanor’s dig. She told herself again that that was as it should be. But, dammit, yes, she was disappointed.

She heard a noise behind her and turned.

On the lip of the gorge, about a hundred yards to the east, stood four men, carrying spears and wrapped in dark red cloaks. They stared down at her.

Now the anger rose inside her again.

Maasai warriors.

•   •   •

“What a beauty! Or should I say four beauties? A jaw, and three exquisitely curved sections of skull. Once again the gorge has delivered the goods. Champagne tonight, mother?”

They were all gathered around the table outside Daniel’s tent. It was two afternoons later. Careful excavation of the jaw, and associated fossils, had gone on throughout the previous days, until dusk had made further work dangerous. Aldwai and two other guards had spent two nights in the gorge, to protect the site from animals and, maybe, the Maasai, since Natalie had told Eleanor about the warriors who had been watching her.

Their work orchestrated this time by Eleanor herself, they had finished dislodging the fossils just on lunchtime and had in fact foregone lunch. Eleanor had spent some considerable time showing Natalie how to excavate a jawbone and, Natalie had to admit, she had a lot to learn. They had used a contraption not unlike a toothbrush but with metal wires at the end. The main point was to proceed slowly, keeping an eye out, as Eleanor counseled, for curves. Curves indicated either jawbones or skull bones, equally invaluable.

And three more curves had turned up, three sections of skull bone, each not much bigger than a stamp. Natalie had to admit to herself, secretly, that had she not told Jack about the jawbone, and had he not brought in Daniel and his mother, she might have missed the skull bones.

They were now nibbling strips of dried kudu meat that Naiva had left out for them. The fossils were displayed on the table in front of Daniel’s tent, being photographed and measured in their new surroundings, so that other scientists would be able to judge for themselves when the pictures were published later.

“How far were these bones found from the knee joint discovered by Daniel, Richard, and Russell?” Eleanor spoke generally, addressing no one in particular.

“Fifteen feet,” replied Daniel.

“And at the same level?”

“Yes.”

Eleanor turned to Jonas. “It’s your turn in the spotlight now, Jonas—you’re the anatomist. We need to know what the chances are that this jaw and cranium come from the same skeleton as the knee bones.”

Jonas nodded.

She took off her spectacles and rubbed her eyes. “When you’ve made up your mind, we’ll have to tell Russell. That’s only fair, but if your opinion is ‘yes,’ he’s not going to like it. He anticipated that something like this might happen.” She sucked the end of one arm of her spectacles. “Now that we have some teeth, that will help us decide what this creature ate. Arnold can help there. We have some skull bones, which will help us work out the size of his, or her, brain. Skulls are Jack’s speciality. A knee joint, some teeth, and some skull bones is quite a lot in paleontological terms, if it’s all one skeleton. This looks like a new species among man’s ancestors.” She looked around the table at each one of them. “If true, that’s big news.”

“Homo nelsoniensis
, how does that sound?” Christopher looked at Natalie and smiled. “You found it, so it’s your right to name the thing.”

Natalie colored. “I think it’s a bit soon to be thinking of that, don’t you? In any case, how can you tell brain size from the few bones we have found?”

“By comparison with bones from the skulls of other discoveries, which are more complete.” Eleanor put back her spectacles. “I have the necessary books in my tent, so we can make a preliminary inspection tomorrow, once we’ve done all the measuring and photographing.”

She fixed Natalie with a glare. “If this discovery turns out to be what we think it is, and if your shelter idea stands up, you are going to be an overnight sensation—in the profession, I mean. And to think I was against you joining the dig, Natalie.” Eleanor smiled. “But surely you can see now how important the gorge is, how the situation is changing all the time. You’ve helped transform paleontology, my dear, in just a few weeks. This gorge is as much yours now as anyone’s.”

Eleanor’s words were meant as a compliment but they cut into Natalie, as both women realized. Natalie’s good fortune, in the discoveries she had unearthed, only made the threatened destruction of the gorge harder to bear.

•   •   •

“Shoo, Jack. Go away. I want to talk to Natalie.”

Dinner was over for the night, Jack had let Natalie choose some music, and they had planned to sit by the campfire for a few minutes listening to Schumann’s
Carnaval
.

It had been Jack’s idea. About three nights before, knowing that Natalie liked her late nights to herself, he had suggested a post-dinner music session, when they talked music, ate chocolate, listened to whatever that evening’s choice of entertainment was, and then went their separate ways. Christopher watched these encounters from a distance but made no attempt to get involved. He hadn’t approached Natalie in anything other than a professional manner since the evening she had been in bed and he had withdrawn in silence. If it
had
been him.

This evening, however, Eleanor made Jack move. “Go on,” she insisted. “Well away, please. I want to talk to Natalie—out of earshot, Jack.”

“Going, going,” he grumbled, but grinned. “Let me just put some logs on the fire.” Then he disappeared.

Eleanor sat down next to Natalie and for a moment neither spoke. They stared into the fire and listened to the Schumann to the end. One by one, the others drifted from the campfire, to their tents.

“I can’t help but notice, Natalie,” said Eleanor softly, “I can’t help but notice that you still receive next to no post. I can’t do anything about the man you split up with—a cellist, wasn’t he?—but what about your father? Are you still estranged? Is it something I could help with perhaps? Would you like me to write to him, tell him what a success you are being here?”

Natalie didn’t know what to say. These sudden lurches into intimacy on Eleanor’s part were disconcerting, to say the least.

“Am
I being a success, Eleanor? Yes, I’ve made some discoveries but the Mutevu business puts everything under threat.” She paused. “I hope you are not suggesting a quid pro quo—that you will write to my father, if I change my mind over Mutevu?”

Eleanor pushed up a strand of her hair where it had fallen from her chignon. “No, my dear, that’s not my plan at all. I’m sure you are torn every day about whether to give evidence or not. I’m not raking over those old coals, not tonight anyway.”