The Clouds Beneath the Sun (46 page)

He leaned over his chair and held his face very close to Natalie’s. He looked at his watch. “It is now two minutes to midnight. I think it only fair to warn you that at midnight I intend to kiss you—and not a measly peck on the cheek, either, but the real thing, a proper Hollywood-style, no-holds-barred, all-guns-blazing, fully orchestrated, fifteen-rounds affair.”

“I think I’d rather be stung by a sea urchin.”

“In that case, I won’t wait.”

His mouth was on hers. He smelled of whiskey. He could have shaved more closely. But he knew how to kiss, he knew how to hold her, he knew where to put his hands so she would respond.

And she was ready to respond, she wanted to respond, it had been
months
since she had responded, and her body suddenly seemed alive as it hadn’t been for ages. She had all but forgotten that feeling. With Russell it had been over before it started, with Christopher there had been no spark of any kind. She pressed herself against Jack and held him tight. She recalled his hands on her breasts when he had rescued her from the wildebeest in the Mara River.

There were no lights on the balcony. There was one dim street light about fifty yards away; apart from that the only illumination came from the stars.

Jack was a mass of shadows; so was she.

She felt his hands moving over her. That was what she wanted and she cried out softly. But not yet. She had let Dominic make love to her on their first real evening together, but that was after how many lunches and dinners, how many concerts, how many weeks?

She gripped Jack’s wrist with one hand, to stop him going where he was going, but pulled him closer with her other arm, kissing his neck, biting his ear with her lips.

He stopped and put his arms around her, holding her tight. He kissed her again.

He rolled her off the chair she was on and they slid to the floor, the wooden boards of the balcony. The smell of polish was not unpleasant and the boards were almost warm to the touch. It had been a hot day.

He lay on top of her as he kissed her again and again. She felt him stir as he placed his mouth on her breast.

Her body said one thing, her mind another. She squirmed free from under him.

“Sorry,” she said after a moment.

He took her hand and kissed it. He rolled away from her and they lay, on their backs, on the warm boards, breathing heavily, then less heavily. When they were both more or less calm, he whispered, “Let’s get some sleep. We’ve got a big day tomorrow—”

“Oh? Why? What are we doing?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

•   •   •

“How many times has this bikini been in the water today?” Jack was rubbing sun lotion into Natalie’s back.

“You tell me. You’ve been ogling me every time.
Reluquant
, the French call it.”

“I haven’t been ‘ogling’ you, that’s a horrible word. I’ve been admiring you.”

“Nonsense. I haven’t been wearing very much, I agree. I only wore it because it’s Boxing Day, and you asked. But you’ve taken off what little I am wearing with your eyes.”

“That’s a form of admiration.”

“No it isn’t. Is your Swahili any better than your English?”

He patted her bottom. “You’re all done.” He lay down while she started on him.

“I never thought I’d be so good at doing nothing. All I’ve done for hours is lie on the sand, sleep, and swim.”

“You’d make a good hippopotamus.”

“I’ll snap at you like a turtle, if you’re not careful. And I don’t think I’ve ever been on such a beautiful beach so devoid of people.”

“And you’ve still got my Christmas present to come.”

“Why are you making me wait?”

“It’s a test of your character.”

“You tested my character last night, on the floor of the balcony. I came through with flying colors.”

“You mean you rebuffed me.”

“You misread the situation.”

“Meaning?”

“No, no. It was a test of your character as well. You have to work it out for yourself.”

He turned over, on to his back, and pulled her to him.

“Jack! We’re all lathered in sun lotion, and everyone can see.”

“Sun lotion isn’t lethal, and you yourself said the beach is deserted.”

He kissed her and she kissed him back. Then she turned him over again and resumed spreading sun lotion on his back.

“What time are we leaving tomorrow?”

“No hurry. Sometime in the morning, so we get to Nairobi around lunchtime. We’ll spend the afternoon preparing for the press conference.”

“You’re done,” said Natalie, lying back down on her towel alongside Jack. “The press conference,” she said, breathing out, “and then the trial. This little bit of paradise will soon be over—and then the real tests of character begin.”

•   •   •

“I’ve eaten too much.” Natalie patted her stomach in the darkness.

“Dinner was only fish. You’ll be hungry again at four in the morning.”

“Oh no. After all the sun and sea we’ve had, I’ll sleep like a baby tonight. With any luck, four o’clock will pass by as silently as that ship out there.”

They were sitting on the balcony that linked their rooms, as the night before. Again, only the solitary street light, and the stars, offered illumination.

“Where do you think that ship is going?”

A constellation of lights on the horizon was moving slowly right to left.

“What’s the most romantic place north of here?” Natalie stretched out her legs in front of her.

“Mogadishu, Djibouti, Suez, Karachi even.”

“Suez isn’t romantic, my father’s been—he says it’s a dump. Let’s imagine Mogadishu.”

“And
I’ve
been to Mogadishu. It’s more romantic here.”

“Hmm. So what cargo is it carrying? Slaves? Wild animals for a European zoo? Are they smuggling ivory?”

“It could be ivory, if it’s come from Zanzibar. That’s the center of ivory smuggling in this part of the world. More likely, it’s spices—Zanzibar is Africa’s leading exporter of cloves, also nutmeg and cinnamon. I don’t like cinnamon, and I can take or leave—”

“I don’t like those two men standing under the light, down the road.”

“What do you mean?” Jack sat up.

“There are two men, just beyond the light. They keep moving in and out of the shadows.”

He got to his feet and went to stand on the edge of the balcony. “Why should two men …? It’s Boxing Day, Natalie, you had too much whiskey at dinner. There’s a lot of unemployment in Lamu.”

She let a moment elapse as he sat down again. “I saw them yesterday, too. They were watching us as you were administering first aid, after my encounter with that sea urchin.”

“You’re making this up!”

“They were there again today, watching us on the beach. I haven’t mentioned it before because I couldn’t be certain it was the same two men—they were too far away, and there are a lot of men on Lamu who seem to have nothing to do. But, seeing them there again tonight, near that street lamp …”

“I can’t believe it. You think they are planning to rob us?”

“That’s one possibility. I can think of another.”

He looked at her.

“Maybe they are the mysterious friends of Richard Sutton Senior.”

“No! I’m going to ration your whiskey consumption.”

“Maybe they’ve established contact with someone on the staff at the camp in Kihara, who told them we were flying off here for Christmas. Maybe they think I was making a discreet bolt for it, stopping off here and then smuggling myself north and away, ahead of the trial.”

He shook his head. “All this sun, it’s gone to your head.”

“Look, now!” She pointed. “By the light.”

He stood up quickly. “Yes, yes, I see now. Two men. Two shapes anyway, two shadows. But you don’t know that they are the same as the men who watched you earlier today, or yesterday. I still think you are being … I can’t believe Richard Sutton would go to such lengths, or have such a reach as to have you followed to Lamu?” He shook his head. “It’s a crazy idea. You’re overreacting.”

“You weren’t there when he threatened me. You don’t know, at first hand, as I do, how … unpleasant, how
crude
, he can be.”

Jack sat down again. Both of them were breathing heavily. The ship, out to sea, had moved on, almost out of sight.

“Are you … are you frightened?”

She didn’t reply straight away. “A bit.”

“I can sleep on this chair, if you want—right outside your door—if that will make you feel safer.” He moved his chair closer to hers. “Of course, you’d be safer still if I was in the room
with
you. Think of it as my gift.” He grinned, lifted her hand, and kissed it.

“I thought you might say that.” She put her hand on his forehead. “I think the sun’s got to you, too.” She ran her fingers down his cheek. “But as it happens, on this occasion, I agree with you.”

10
WOUNDED

“G
ood morning, everyone, and thank you for coming. I think we are about ready to begin, if you’d all like to sit down.”

Eleanor stood on the low stage in front of the gentle rake of seats in the main lecture hall in the Royal College in Nairobi. With her silver hair in the tightest of chignons, her crisp white shirt, and her wrap-over khaki skirt, Natalie thought she looked more French than ever.

The lecture hall had no windows, so it was cool. Huge saucer-shaped lights hung from black cables anchored in the wooden ceiling. A silver-white screen stood behind the stage. There were already fifty people in the room and more were still arriving.

Eleanor sat down at a long table, with microphones at the center. Natalie sat on her left, Daniel on her right, with Jonas Jefferson on his right. Most of the people in the room—though by no means all—were white. Jack, Christopher, and Arnold were in the front row. And in the second was—Russell North.

The evening before, Natalie, Jack, Christopher, Eleanor, and the rest of the team had eaten dinner together at a restaurant near the Rhodes Hotel after their meeting to discuss how the press conference should proceed. Natalie and Jack had just flown in from Lamu, Jack once again parking his Comanche where he could get a good look at the private jets on show at Nairobi International. Christopher and his mother had stayed behind with Daniel to discuss the slides they were going to show. Arnold and Jonas had gone off in search of a late-night beer, leaving Natalie and Jack to stroll back together to the hotel. In the lobby they had bumped into Russell.

“My God,” Natalie had said. “This is a surprise.”

Russell hadn’t replied immediately. He towered over them like a bear. “I’m here for the press conference,” he had said at length. “Was anyone going to tell me? Or has my contribution been forgotten already?” His face was flushed.

“California is twelve thousand miles from Kenya, Professor North,” said Jack. “No one imagined you would want to make such a long journey for a two-hour press conference. But you don’t need to worry, your part will get its proper due. I wrote the words myself.”

“Hmm,” grunted Russell. He addressed himself to Natalie. “You look more lovely than ever. Are we going to get a chance to talk?” He pointedly ignored Jack.

“Yes, of course,” said Natalie.

“When?”

There it was, the same directness, the same edge, the same stampede. Russell hadn’t changed.

“Sometime tomorrow? After the conference?”

“Dinner?”

She glanced at Jack.

“Do you need his permission now?”

“Steady—” Jack put his hand on Russell’s arm.

“I’m talking to
her!”
Russell shook it off.

He stared at her, unflinching. “Well?”

Natalie slowly looked from Russell to Jack. “When do we fly back to the gorge?”

“Not for a day or two, not till we have seen the press reaction to the conference.”

She had nodded, and said to Russell, “Then I’d love to.”

“Good, let’s meet here in the bar, at seven. We can have another whiskey session.” He had smiled but disappeared without saying anything more.

Natalie and Jack had stood awkwardly in the lobby for a moment.

“Nightcap?” Jack had said eventually.

“No,” she replied softly. “We all have to be at our best tomorrow, the future of the gorge may depend on it, on how we perform. Your mother said she wants me up there on the stage with her, so I’m going to bed now. I’m going to brush my hair for a couple of minutes, as I always do, and then I’m going to sleep. I want the full eight hours tonight, so I’m spick and span in the morning.”

“I get the message,” Jack had said. “I’ll have a nightcap and try to relive last night.” He kissed her on the cheek and went in to the bar as she took the stairs to her room.

When she let herself in, the overhead fan had been turned on and it was cool. She kicked off her shoes, flopped onto the bed, and stared up at the whirring blades. Natalie had surprised herself on their last night in Lamu and she was still adjusting to … to what she had done. She couldn’t explain it exactly because there had been no one reason why she had behaved as she had. Perhaps the oddest thing about the whole business is that although she had surprised herself, she hadn’t really shocked herself.

Jack was the third man she had slept with. Dominic had been the first and she always counted herself lucky that she’d had that experience. The second man had been a disaster, though it wasn’t really his fault. She had agreed to go out with him on the rebound and had agreed to go to bed with him, half convincing herself that the best way to forget Dominic would be in the oblivion of sex. Of course, the exact opposite had happened and afterwards she had felt cold and lonely and unclean.

Sex with Jack had been different again. When he had rescued her during the wildebeest stampede, and folded his hands around her breasts, it had—involuntarily—brought back the erotic times she had shared with Dominic, the afternoons in her rooms at Cambridge, hotel rooms in London, once or twice in other cities, when they had veered between tenderness and near savagery, when her sheer
greed
for sensuality had exhausted her and, yes, surprised her. It was a side to Natalie that she had never expected to satisfy in the gorge and which, now that it had begun to reassert itself, she hadn’t really welcomed.

But then had come the physicality and sensuality of Lamu—the swimming, the colors of the fish, the rhythmical swaying of the underwater vegetation, Jack touching the skin on her legs when he was extracting the sea-urchin spines from her knee, his frank appraisal of her body when she had worn her bikini, their rubbing sun lotion over each other, the warm blackness of the hotel balcony, the warm wood, its comforting smell. Jack had not pressed himself on her before, he had not crowded her in any way, but she was twenty-eight, dammit, and she had needed a man, she had needed his hands, his mouth, everything, on her, over her, around her, in her, and she had needed the release, she had needed to
be
released, to experience that release
with someone
, so she could also experience afterwards—afterwards was as important as all that went before.

He had not disappointed her. If he was not Dominic, his body was firmer, his muscles harder, his skin smoother, the stubble on his chin less brittle, the sounds he made were wilder. His appetite, his performance—there was no other word—had matched hers.

•   •   •

“Can you close the doors at the back, please? That will tell latecomers we’ve started.” Eleanor waited while the doors were closed. Then she said, “Good morning again, everyone. My name is Eleanor Deacon and I am the director of excavations at Kihara Gorge, here in Kenya. You see with me here several of my colleagues who will be introduced to you in a few moments, as we go through the story we have to tell you.”

She took off her spectacles. “Many of you are journalists out from Britain, here on a fact-finding mission ahead of the independence conference that is to be held in London in the middle of February. My colleagues and I apologize for breaking into your busy schedule, but we think our story is almost as interesting as independence and shows an important side to Kenya which, once it is a sovereign state, will set the country apart.”

She paused, to let a few latecomers find seats.

“First, a little orientation. Can we have the lights out, please, and the first slide, Christopher.”

The lights went down and a map became visible on the screen behind the stage. It was a map of Kenya with the location of the gorge highlighted. Eleanor briefly explained the history of the gorge, its geology, its wildlife, the Maasai. Then the lights went up again.

“My late husband, Jock Deacon, and I have been excavating in Kihara for decades. Some seasons have been better than others, but the reason we have asked you here today is to announce that this season, the 1961–62 season in Kihara, is the best ever. We have made half a dozen very important discoveries which, when taken together, enable us to make a major announcement today about how early man, two million years ago, first emerged here in Kenya, in the Kihara Gorge.”

Natalie, sitting on Eleanor’s left, noticed how the journalists had begun to write in their notebooks. Eleanor now had their full attention.

“I will now talk you through the discoveries and what they mean. The actual objects will be available at the end, for you to inspect for yourselves, and we have prepared photographs of the discoveries, which are free for you to take away. I will describe the objects in the order in which they were discovered, so that you can get some idea of how our understanding of early man arose, which will also help convey some of the excitement of excavation.”

The lights were lowered and a slide of the knee joint was shown.

“This was the first discovery, made by Daniel Mutevu, seated here on my right, and by the late Professor Richard Sutton, of New York University, and Professor Russell North of the University of California at Berkeley, who I see is sitting in the second row this morning. The significance of this configuration of bones is that they indicate that this creature, whoever he or she was, walked upright. As you may know, the rest of the great apes walk on all fours, or else walk with their knuckles on the ground. Charles Darwin, in the nineteenth century, was the first to suggest that walking upright freed early man’s hands to use and manufacture tools and it was this which became the basis of culture and eventually separated man from the other apes and set humans apart from all the other animals. We now know that this all-important process first occurred two million years ago, right here in Kenya, in Kihara Gorge. As I say, we can discuss these bones in more detail afterwards if any of you are interested.”

And so, Eleanor pressed on, introducing the jaw, teeth, and skull bones that Natalie had discovered, Natalie’s shelter, Kees’s hand axes. She didn’t hurry, and it took a good fifty minutes before she began to wind up.

“It is an amazing story when you stop to reflect on it. Kenya, the Kihara Gorge, is the cradle of mankind. Humans first evolved right here in this part of East Africa and then spread out to populate the globe, as we see around us today. In honor of this phenomenon, this great story, this romantic idea, we are calling this new species of man’s ancestor
Homo kiharensis
. The Kihara Gorge should become one of the wonders of the world. To us, it already is. Thank you.”

The lights went on and a ripple of applause spread around the assembled audience.

Eleanor stood up. “As I said, copies of the press release and photographs will be available at the back of the hall afterwards. We will now take questions. Please identify who you are and which publication you represent.”

There was a short delay before a small, balding, rather fat man stood up. “I’m Tom Jellinek, from the
Daily Telegraph
in London. I found your presentation very interesting but I am a political reporter out here from London, so forgive me if my question is naive. Would this early form of humanity—if I can put it that way—have been able to speak? Did he or she have language?”

“No, that’s a good question,” said Eleanor, “but we have no information on this, one way or another. If we had found the hyoid bone as part of the skull, its shape might have told us about the structure of the creature’s throat, which would have enabled us to say something, but we haven’t found it yet. Some people might think that, in order to construct stone tools of the kind we have found, early man would have needed language, so that parents could explain to their children what to do, but that is conjecture, indirect argument, and we have avoided speculation. I hope that helps.”

Another man stood up. “Curtis Vallance, Reuters.” He had an American accent. “Can you say something about these stone tools. Why is the change in style so important?”

“Yes,” said Eleanor. “The first use of stone tools was important because those tools enabled early man to pierce the hide of other animals. That indicates a change in diet, from one made up predominantly of vegetables to one rich in animal flesh—or protein, meat. Protein, we know, aids brain development, so the use of tools increases the difference in intelligence between humans and other animals. The change to smaller tools means two things at least. One, the tools are getting more efficient and, two, they can be carried farther, they are less bulky. Early man could go looking for food, rather than have to wait till it came to him.”

Vallance nodded his thanks and scribbled in his pad.

Eleanor’s gaze raked the room but before any other journalist could speak, Russell stood up. He didn’t bother with who he was, but just launched into what he had to say. His size meant that everyone could see him well enough.

“You paint a very cogent and exciting scientific picture but, speaking as a scientist myself, isn’t there something rather odd about the procedure you are following, this very press conference itself, for example?” He had half turned, so the rest of the room could hear him better. “What I mean is: so far as I know, you haven’t published any of your most recent discoveries in the scientific press, which normally would take priority. The scientific press—the scientific
community
—take a dim view of colleagues who announce their results at a jamboree like this one, so why have you gone down this route?”

Natalie was stiff with nerves; what was Russell playing at? But Eleanor kept her tone relaxed as she said: “I would have thought that was obvious, Professor North. A contingent of British journalists is here in Nairobi, on a fact-finding mission ahead of the independence conference due to take place in London in mid-February. It presents a golden opportunity for us to make known our results to a wide public and to show Kenya at its best when the eyes of the world will soon be upon her. We are of course planning scientific publication at a later date.”