It was with a subdued air that Hero went down to breakfast. She helped herself to a slice of paw-paw from the laden table of cereals and fruits in the centre of the room and slipped into her seat opposite Benedict. He stood up as she approached the table.
‘Sleep well?’ he asked her.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Did you?’
‘Well enough.’ He sat down again. ‘I’ve ordered eggs and bacon and coffee for us both,’ he went on. ‘I hope that’s all right with you?’
She nodded, not liking to tell him that she seldom ate breakfast. ‘I didn’t mean to keep you waiting. I couldn’t make up my mind what to wear.’
He looked her over, that detached look of amusement again in his eyes. ‘I’ll back you for Miss World.’
‘Oh!’ The colour fled up her cheeks again. ‘I wasn’t fishing.’
‘I guess you weren’t,’ he replied dryly, deliberately misunderstanding and looking out of the window at the arid wastes beyond. ‘Water does seem in short supply around these parts.’
Hero swallowed and, looking at his colourful shirt, instinctively said the first thing which came into her head. ‘Were - are you fond of the person who gave you that shirt?’
‘Who said that anyone gave it me, Liebling?’
‘Is she the girl you’re in love with?’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘I didn’t say it was a girl—’ ‘No, you didn’t,’ she admitted. ‘Was it - was it Betsy who gave it to you?’
‘Now I wonder what makes you think that?’ he drawled.
‘It - it just occurred to me,’ she tried to explain. To her relief, the waiter arrived with their bacon and eggs, but even when such an easy let-out had been presented to her she couldn’t resist pressing him for an answer. ‘Was it?’
He laughed easily. ‘Your interest is most flattering.’ Hero shook her head. He was quite at liberty to accept presents from anyone he wanted to - anyone at all! But she couldn’t help it if she didn’t like the idea of his exchanging presents with Betsy. It gave her a lowering feeling that she couldn’t explain. And when had Betsy had the time to get to know him well enough to give him shirts and - and what else had she given him ?
‘If she gave it to you, I suppose you’d better keep it!’ she said shortly.
He smiled at her. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Will this be enough marmalade for you?’
She recognized that the subject was now closed and accepted his lead willingly enough. She simply couldn’t think what was the matter with her, making scenes about nothing in particular, and taking him to task about something that was absolutely no business of hers! She watched him across the table as he poured himself another cup of coffee. He drank it black, piling in the sugar with a liberal hand, and drinking it with a vague, abstracted air that probably meant that he was thinking about something quite different. She wondered what it was.
‘What time do we have to be at the airport?’ she asked him.
He stared at her as though she were a stranger. ‘I’m sorry. What did you say?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll go and pack my things. Does it matter how much I take with me?’
‘I shouldn’t think so!’ His eyes focused on her face. ‘How much do you want to take?’
‘Well, she said, ‘a couple of suitcases. Only the books weigh rather heavily and one can’t take much on a plane, can one?’
‘I don’t think you need worry about that,’ he reassured her.
‘But I do.’
‘So I get the impression. Can’t you leave it to me, Liebling, to see you safely home?’
To her surprise, she found she could. It was a comfortable feeling to know that she had someone behind her. She had been alone for so long. But how odd that that someone should be anyone remotely like Benedict Carmichael!
Sitting beside Benedict in the car on the way out to the airport, Hero tried not to think about the approaching flight. She amused herself instead by wondering about her husband and what it was going to be like to have him about the house, in the rooms that still bore the stamp of her parents’ presence. He would have her parents’ bedroom, she decided, because it was much bigger and airier than any of the others, and it had its own bathroom which he would probably appreciate when it came to shaving and so on. There wouldn’t be much bathing at the moment, the water shortage was far too grave for that.
They left the industrial suburbs behind and crossed over the Kampala-Mombasa road, turning into the road that led to the airport. Hero stiffened as she caught sight of the planes on the runway. They were so small, so impractical in all those miles of space they were expected to traverse, and the one that Benedict was expecting her to travel in was smaller by far than any of these.
‘You can still go by train.’ His voice broke across her thoughts.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’d rather go with you.’
‘Are you beginning to get some confidence in your husband?’ His tone was again deadpan.
When the car came to a stop, she stepped out on to the tarmac as cool as a cucumber. She even managed a smile in the direction of the tiny plane that Benedict pointed out to her as being his. It had some mysterious letters down either side which meant nothing to her, and a badge which meant even less.
It was bigger inside than she had expected, fitted with six comfortable seats, three down each side; a minute galley; and two more seats up in the cockpit, which was separated from the cabin by a heavy curtain.
‘You’d better sit up front with me,’ Benedict advised her.
Hero presented him with a white face. ‘Are you going to drive?’ she demanded.
‘It’s usually called flying.’ His tone was easy. ‘Sit down and I’ll strap you in. You’ll see better from up here and I’ll be able to keep an eye on you.’
‘Is that necessary?’
‘I think so,’ he said. He clicked the heavy buckle in place, shortening the straps to fit her slender form. ‘There’s not much of you, is there?’
‘Enough.’ She didn’t dare look up at him. Besides, she was too busy watching his scarred hands as they worked around her, adjusting the various straps. They fascinated her. She felt a little shiver of pleasure when they touched her. She was glad when he took a step away from her, satisfied that her belt now fitted, and took his place in what she still thought of as the driving seat, fastening himself in with neat, efficient movements.
A few minutes later he had obtained clearance to take off and the engine sprang into life. Hero didn’t have time to be afraid. All she could do was stare at his hands while they moved about the controls, taxiing the plane across the apron and down the runway ready to turn round and take the final run up to the moment of flight. They were up before she was aware, climbing steadily upwards into the clear blue sky.
‘It’s beautiful!’ Hero remarked.
‘It’ll get better as we go round Mount Kenya,’ he said.
‘Why don’t you make us some coffee?’
‘Perhaps I’ll feel more like it in a little while, if - if you don’t mind waiting?’
He turned towards her and looked into her eyes deliberately. ‘I can wait,’ he said, and Hero was very conscious that he intended a double meaning.
CHAPTER FIVE
The sunburned, almost blackened, tough grass of the plains gave way to the majesty of Mount Kenya, that most beautiful of mountains, where the old gods of Africa took up their residence and promised the highlands to the tribes of their choice, only to be defeated at the hands of the white man despite the rumours that their time was still to come. Perhaps it was, Hero thought, as she stared down at the changing land below, and she could not entirely regret it. The land made its own demands on the people who worked it, forming them to its requirements as much as they did it, and who were the gods if they were not the personification of the land and its most prominent features?
‘There’s Embu down there,’ she said aloud. ‘We must be about half-way there.’ ‘Feel like that coffee yet?’
Hero wished now that she had got it when he had first suggested it. Near the mountain, there were spirals of air and frequent pockets that made the plane rise and fall without warning, doing disastrous things to her stomach. She unbuckled her seat-belt and stood up uncertainly, pausing to see if she could detect any difference in the plane’s performance when she moved about. It didn’t seem to make the slightest difference after all, but that didn’t stop her being infuriated by Benedict’s grin as she slipped past him, thrusting the curtain aside to go into the tiny galley.
When she came back with the coffee, he was studying the map.
‘Lost the way?’ she asked.
‘I was looking for Nanyuki,’ he answered.
‘It’s on the other side of the mountain,’ she said. The aeroplane flew through another pocket and dropped several feet, making her fall into her seat with more haste than grace. ‘Must you do that?’ she demanded.
‘It must be your added weight up here in the nose.’
‘I thought you said it didn’t matter!’ she exclaimed.
‘It doesn’t. Did your mother teach you to cook as well as make coffee?’
‘Of course,’ she said, re-fastening her seat-belt just in case he should be wrong and it was she who had caused the sudden fall in height.
‘There’s no of course about it. I know many girls out here who can’t boil an egg for themselves!’
He would! He certainly hadn’t wasted his time in Kenya, she thought, darkly. But then he knew Betsy, and one didn’t have to look any further if one wanted a girl who couldn’t cook or do anything but enjoy herself. Betsy had been waited on, hand and foot, all her life.
‘My mother had other ideas,’ she said. ‘She didn’t approve of asking anyone else to do what one can’t do oneself.’
‘And her daughter?’
Hero strove to keep the note of reproof out of her voice. It wouldn’t do to criticise Betsy. ‘I agree with her. I prefer to do things for myself.’ ‘And for your husband?’
Hero took a hurried sip of coffee. ‘When I have a husband - a proper one, I mean - naturally I’ll cook for him and—’ She broke off, not liking to think what else she might do for him.
‘And?’ he went on.
‘And—’ she began. ‘Well, naturally, I’ll serve him as best I may. Wouldn’t you expect that from your wife?’
‘Possibly. You’re an intriguing mixture, Hero Carmichael. Mostly, you’re as English as I am, but then you come out with something delightfully old-fashioned and Greek like that.’
‘My mother was Greek. Naturally I have some of her ideas—’
‘Naturally!’
She sat up very straight. ‘If you’re going to be beastly—! But I suppose you’ll marry somebody modern, someone you can show off socially, and I wish you joy of her! If you stay out here, she won’t need to be able to cook!’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘There may be servants to be had at the moment, but life is changing, even here.’
Hero disdained to answer. She drank her coffee down at a single gulp and gasped as the hot liquid burned her inside as it went down.
‘Serves you right!’ Benedict said easily. ‘You’re so sure you know all that there is to know about me-‘
‘I do not! I know you’re ever so clever, and I know now what you’re doing in Kenya, but I don’t know anything else about you.’ She added, ‘And I don’t want to!’
‘Then don’t keep fishing for information! It isn’t seemly to go on about my future wife, when I’ve only been married to you for twenty-four hours!’
‘Then you shouldn’t have told me about her.’
‘Perhaps I don’t mean what I say, any more than you do,’ he said blandly. ‘You once told me you were never going to get properly married because you much preferred being on your own!’
Hero swept him a speaking glance and turned her attention back to the scenery outside, trying to hide the inner turmoil his words had evoked. It was true that she
had never considered marriage for herself before she had known him. She had thought that she would never want to marry, that no man could stir her emotions sufficiently for her ever to want to marry. But now she knew that the right man would sweep her off her feet and she wouldn’t be able to help herself.
She turned her head to find him studying her with a speculative air, as if he had every right to look his fill at her. Her eye kindled. She tossed her head in the air to show him she didn’t care what he did.
‘I wish you’d look where you’re going!’ she exclaimed.
He laughed. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘There’s Meru now. It won’t be much further to Isiolo and home. Are you looking forward to being back?’
‘In a way.’ She thought of the state of the farm as she had last seen it. ‘You did say you wanted to make the desert blood, didn’t you?’
‘Is it as bad as that?’
She nodded. ‘Worse!’
‘Oh well, I expect we’ll be able to knock it into some kind of shape—’
‘I didn’t think about misleading you then/ she tried to explain. She took a deep breath. ‘I misled you badly, but I didn’t mean to - at least, in a way, I didn’t. I’m afraid you’re going to be very disappointed in the farm.’
He did not seem put out. ‘I already knew about the effects of the drought. In fact, I wouldn’t have wanted the farm if it hadn’t been affected.’
She wondered if he really had an idea of the exact state of the farm. But he would soon know. She leaned forward in her seat and caught her first glance ever of Isiolo from the air. She recognized immediately the Sacred Heart of
Jesus Church and the extraordinary pink fort-like building that was the local branch of Barclay’s Bank, standing out like something out of Beau Geste amongst the small corrugated-iron dukas, the shops that supplied most of the needs of the huge area they were expected to serve.
‘You’ve been here before, haven’t you?’ she brought out quickly, unable to resist the temptation of questioning him any longer.
‘To Isiolo? No, never.’
‘To Kenya?’
‘Yes, I was here last year. I came as a tourist and did all the usual things, like the game reserves. The drought had already bitten pretty deep and I had some ideas about the problem which I wanted to put into practice. That was easier said than done. I thought UNESCO might back me, but their resources are severely restricted. They were prepared to send me to Kenya, they’ll even allow me to combine my own project with their work, but I had to find the land for myself.’
‘And now you’ve done so?’
‘Yes, and got a wife into the bargain,’ His tone was mocking. ‘But my time will be so restricted. I have to do their work too. That’s what the plane is for, and most of the other equipment I shall be using.’
The plane began to lose height, preparatory to coming down on the landing strip her father had laid out beside the dry bed of the river.
‘If you tell me what to do, I can help you,’ she offered, a little afraid he would think she was being merely impertinent.
‘I thought you wanted to hurry on to England?’
She hesitated. ‘Well, yes,’ she murmured, ‘but I don’t have to go yet. There are lots of things I can do. I can do the accounts, and I know about the cattle and everything. I’d like to help.’
For a moment she thought she saw a look of satisfaction cross his face. Was this what he had intended all along?
‘It’ll only be for a year,’ she put in quickly, in case he should get the wrong impression of her offer.
‘But of course,’ he agreed, as though he were not too concerned, which somehow nettled Hero. ‘I never thought anything else!’
The effects of the drought were worse than Hero had remembered. The trees her parents had planted round the house drooped, red with dust, over the remnants of what had once been the garden. Even the roses, her mother’s favourites and therefore the recipients of special care, had died and were reduced to a few
sticks poking out of the ground.
Hero did her best not to look at the devastation, knowing how much the sight would have hurt her mother, but strode resolutely on to the verandah that ran along the front of the house.
‘I’ll show you your room,’ she said to Benedict. She led the way through the darkened hall, throwing open a door at the far end of the passageway. Her heart banged against her ribs as she raised the blinds and the sunlight flooded into the room, revealing the king-sized double bed her parents had shared and the shabbiness of the few other pieces of furniture that had once housed her parents’ clothes.
Benedict came to a full stop in the doorway, frowning at the saccharine-sweet ikons that decorated the walls. Following his glance, Hero flushed. She had grown used to the stylized representations of Our Lady of the Sign and Christ Pantocrator over the years. They were a far cry from those ikons painted on wood of which they were the pale imitations, turned out by the thousand on cheap, shiny paper, and probably printed in Italy and not in Greece at all. Not even her father had been able to share Hero’s mother’s devotion to these holy objects, but he had put up with them because it was seldom indeed that his wife had seen the inside of the Greek Orthodox Church in Nairobi, and because she was fond of them.
‘She only had one real ikon,’ Hero tried to explain.
‘I’ve got it in my room, but I’ll bring it back if you like?’
‘Wouldn’t you prefer to have this room yourself?’ he asked her.
She shook her head. ‘It’s the best room,’ she said shyly, ‘but I prefer mine. I have all my things there, and I chose the curtains myself - things like that.’
‘Don’t you like the curtains in here?’ Hero never had liked them, even badly faded as they were now. ‘I see what you mean,’ he went on. ‘It isn’t the sort of thing I notice unless it’s pointed out to me.’
‘I’ll bring back the other ikon,’ Hero offered.
But he wouldn’t have it. ‘You keep it. It’s yours anyway.’
‘It isn’t really. Everything here belongs to you now. That’s what we agreed!’
He stared out of the window. The dead and dying grass went on and on into the distance as far as he could see, broken only by the occasional flat-topped acacia tree, the yellow bark and branches turning the same blackened grey that was creeping across the whole land.