The man at Kambala (19 page)

Gradually the farms were left behind, replaced by fenced ranches and then eventually the open uplands beyond the Great Rift Valley with their view of far distant mountains. Wild life began to appear upon the scene: giraffe, antelope, the occasional small herd of zebra grazing peacefully, and once a sounder of warthogs trotting away into the grass, tails rigidly erect. They made a brief stop for a packed lunch of cold meat and fruit about one, and by two had reached the trading post, which was Narok, the last settlement of any kind between here and Kambala.

There was a small group of Masai sitting on the grass outside the store happily sorting cowrie shells. Steve stopped to greet them, shaking hands solemnly through

the opened window, responding to the warmth and smiling gaiety of these people to whom Mara was home. By the time they were on their way again he seemed to have relaxed from the phlegmatic stranger of the morning to something approaching affability.

`Not long now,' he commented when they were inside the gates of the reserve. 'Another couple of hours should see us through.' He glanced round when he received no answer. 'Tired?'

`A bit,' she acknowledged. 'It will be nice to get home . . .' She stopped abruptly, chopping off the end of the word. 'There,' she amended.

`It's still home until you've actually moved out,' Steve returned evenly. 'And for today at least we're not going to give that another thought. I hope Maswi is having one of his good days, or I suppose it will be fish balls and curry for dinner.'

Sara laughed. 'Left to him it would be that all the time. They're easiest to manage. I don't think it's that he's lazy exactly, just that their own diet is monotonous and he simply can't see the reason why we should be so mad keen on variety. I hope they stay out the full six months for you, but I have my doubts. They're both eager to see their families again.'

`They're wanting their women,' he said bluntly. `Hardly surprising. A pity there's nowhere handier we could recruit our domestic staff from.'

The road dwindled to little more than a track and dropped to run along the foot of the Escarpment. From here the plains stretched for ever, a golden sea rolling southwards, forming shifting patterns in the wind. The sun was slanting fast by the time they reached the river,

the Escarpment behind them dark and forbidding against the bank of cloud piling up from the east. Then they were through the trees and Kambala lay before them, unchanged and familiar.

Ted came round the corner of the house as they drew up in front.

`Good journey?' he asked.

`So-so.' Steve got out and stretched his arms, lifted an inquiring eyebrow in Sara's direction as she came round the bonnet. 'Drink?'

She shook her head. 'I'd rather get cleaned up first.'

`I'll get your bags out. Ted can give me a hand with the rest of the stuff later.'

It was Ted who brought her cases along to her room some few minutes later, hoisting them on to the bed and standing back to grin at her cheerfully.

`Time was when you could have got all your stuff in a small size grip,' he remarked. 'Been learning how the other half lives at last?'

`You might say that.' Her smile lacked sparkle, and she saw his eyes narrow thoughtfully. Hastily she changed the subject. 'Have you decided what you're going to do yet, Ted?'

His shrug was careless, but she knew him too well to be fully deceived. 'Depends on the boss. We haven't always seen eye to eye this last few weeks, and you need harmony to live in a place like this. I might mosey down to the coast and pick up a cheap boat, do a bit of trading round the ports. There's money to be made in that game if you play your cards right.'

`You've always been a land man,' she exclaimed.

`You don't know anything about the sea!'

`I don't need to know about it to chug along the coastline, and I've plenty of experience in trading, even if I am a bit out of touch. I'll manage.'

A bit out of touch was an understatement, thought Sara when he had gone. He never seemed to spend much on himself so it was more than possible that he had enough put by to buy himself the boat he had spoken of, but she was quite sure the rest of his so-called plan had been a spur-of-the-moment idea to waylay her fears. Her lips firmed suddenly. Ted couldn't be allowed to leave the only real home he knew, and Steve must be made to see it. He must !

Kiki appeared at the open window chattering wildly. Next moment Sara had her hands and arms full of monkey as the animal launched itself across the intervening space to cling like a limpet to her shirt. Laughing, she collapsed on the bed, fending him off as best she could until his excess of zeal had exhausted itself and he sprang away to curiously examine the contents of her shoulder bag which had spilled out on to the spread.

Watching him handle a lipstick case with frowning intensity she realized for the first time that Kiki was one of the things she was going to have to leave behind when she went to England. Even if it were allowed, she could hardly take a monkey on board ship with her for such a length of time, to say nothing of the difference in English climate. Tears prickled behind her eyelids and she blinked rapidly to disperse them. It was no use giving way to emotionalism; she was going, and that was that. For the coming two weeks she must put a brave face on it and pretend that it didn't matter to

her, because she couldn't bear to have Steve know how she really felt. He was too astute, too capable of realizing that Kambala wasn't the only reason she so desperately wanted to stay in Kenya. He might have been aware of his attraction for her in the first place, but he had made it clear that he had no suspicion at all of any deeper involvement. She intended to keep it that way.

Maswi was apparently in one of his better moods, and had excelled himself by producing a very fair meat pie garnished with bright green peas and asparagus from the stores they had brought through with them from Nairobi, followed by fruit flan and cream. Steve opened a couple of bottles of wine in celebration, suggested brandy with the coffee and expressed the hope that fish balls and curry had been stricken from the menu permanently.

`You might get around to making out a list of dishes he can manage as easily,' he suggested to Sara. 'It would make life round here infinitely more worth living.'

`I hadn't realized you were all that interested in food, providing there was enough of it,' she responded. `Neither Dad or Ted seem to care what they eat.'

`Beggars can't be choosers,' remarked the latter on a dry note. He pushed his cup to one side and got up, looking suddenly old and tired. 'Hope nobody minds if I turn in early.'

There was a long pause after he had gone. Sara lay with her head against the back of her chair, eyes on the stars which gleamed fitfully between the patches of cloud. The baboons were having a field day, their

anguished barks drowning out most other sounds. Yet even they could not disturb the particular quality of peace which lay in the high plains. Nairobi had been enjoyable, and she had learned a great deal about herself, but nothing could touch this sense of belonging, of completeness. Eventually her feelings for Steve must start to fade, but no matter where she went a part of her would always remain here at Kambala.

`More brandy?' he asked, and she started, coming out of her reverie to find him holding out the bottle towards the glass she had been unconsciously twisting between her fingers.

`No, thanks,' she said quickly. 'I think I've had enough. Between the coffee and the brandy I doubt that I'll sleep much as it is.'

`It's barely ten,' he came back. 'You've time to get over both.' He surveyed her slender form stretched in the chair. 'I half expected you to go back to your old habits now that there's no one around to impress.'

Something in his tone hardened her. She answered lightly, 'Habits change more easily than people, I've found. I got used to wearing a dress in the evening. It's as simple as that.'

His mouth became sardonic. 'With you nothing is simple. Not these days. There was a time when you were fairly straightforward, before you learned civilized ways. Now, you're like all the rest of your sex.'

`Well, I should hope so !'

`I wasn't referring to your physical attributes.' His gaze slid over her again, this time with cool deliberation. 'Although you're in no way lacking in that department either, as I should know.' He watched the

warmth rise in her cheeks mercilessly. 'Nice to know you haven't become blasé about everything.'

`Did you say something about civilized ways?' she queried in a tight little voice. 'You've obviously been out of contact too long yourself.'

`You could be right. Which makes me an uncertain bet in the predictability stakes.' He half raised his glass to her mockingly. 'Peace.'

That they would never have, she thought. Not for long, at any rate. They seemed to have proved it these last few minutes. Whenever they talked together the same thing happened, the same ding-dong battle. She wasn't sure whose fault it was, or even that it mattered. They were incompatible, and that was that.

`What are you going to do about Ted?' she asked into the pause, and then caught at her lip with her lower teeth, wondering what on earth had prompted her to bring that subject up at such a time. She hadn't meant to say it; it had just come out.

Steve's expression was unhelpful. 'What am I supposed to be going to do about him?'

Having begun it she had to continue. 'He thinks you might be intending to replace him.'

`Does he?' He poured himself another brandy, re-stopped the bottle and lifted the glass again. 'Are you supposed to plead his cause for him?'

She caught back the heated retort. 'No, I'm not. He wouldn't ask anyone to do that. I simply thought that he was entitled to know where he stood.'

`He is.' His voice was deceptively quiet. 'You're not — until he can tell you himself.'

He was in the right, of course, and knowing it didn't

help at all. She hadn't studied that particular aspect of the matter, but jumped in as usual with both feet. 'I'll try to remember,' she said coolly, and pressed herself up from the chair. 'I'm sure you won't mind if I leave you. After all, you do have the rest of the brandy for company.'

She was half-way to the door when he said her name in a voice which was quiet but authoritative enough to halt her footsteps and turn her slowly back to look at him. His own 'eyes were on the glass in his hand, his mouth a taut line.

`There's a limit to all feats of endurance,' he said without moving. 'And you've almost reached it. I thought there was a chance that we might come to understand one another this next week; right now it seems a pretty remote one. Perhaps if you stopped trying to see a personal slight in everything I say we'd do better.'

Sara swallowed thickly, fighting the overwhelming longing to throw caution to the winds and go to him, to lay her head against his chest and beg him to let her stay. How could he hope to understand her when she didn't even understand herself? She loved him, yet overriding that was this need to reach out and hurt. Civilized. Compared with the human race the wild life out there were streets ahead.

`I think you were right the first time,' she heard herself saying with a sense of fatalistic acceptance. 'The chance seems remote.'

He made no answer as she went on indoors.

By morning Sara had reached a decision. The way things were between her and Steve another week

would be hard to take. If she set about it with a will she could easily get things sorted out in a few days, and then there would be nothing to keep her here. There was still a fair amount of cash in her name at the bank in Nairobi — enough to keep her in a hotel until the ship sailed. And it could only be a relief to Steve to have her out of his hair at last.

Not that she had any intention of telling him of her change in plans — or anyone else, for that matter. He would only try to stop her. No, she had to plan this very carefully and secretly if she wanted to succeed. And she had to succeed. She had to get away before she gave herself away. She could bear anything but that.

Steve had already left when she got outside, but Ted joined her for a cup of coffee from her fresh pot. He looked infinitely more cheerful this morning, almost his old self.

`You've got into bad habits while you've been away,' he commented. 'Normally you'd have been up and about a couple of hours or more before this.'

`I was tired,' she said. 'The journey yesterday, plus too many late nights, I suppose.' She eyed him speculatively across the table. 'Have you thought any more about what you were telling me last night?'

He shook his head, and grinned. 'Seems I was crossing my bridges before I came to them. The way Steve was talking this morning he's counting on my being around for some time yet. Maybe we'll hit things off better now that he's not a temp any more.'

But he is, Sara started to say, then caught herself up. She didn't know, did she? Steve himself wasn't sure yet. She wondered if he had allotted himself a certain time

lapse before he made any move towards Diane again, or whether he would simply sit back and wait for her to contact him before deciding on what extent of compromise he was prepared to offer her. She thought probably the latter. His kind of male pride would never sink below a certain level.