A Pride of Lions (21 page)

I wriggled with embarrassment. “So am I,” I growled. “And anyway,” I added, “I’m not your mother!”

His delighted laughter filled the tent. “Indeed you’re not!” he exclaimed.

“Well then?” I said grudgingly.

“Well then, there are other possibilities I can think of,” he retorted, “but I’ll leave you to work them out for yourself! You’ll not get away from here easily until the rains are over, Martin or no Martin, so there’s plenty of time!”

But time for what?

He finished bandaging my arm, pinning the end neatly on the outside where it wouldn’t rub. “There you are!” he said. He picked up the used dressings and the bowl of water and went outside into the gathering darkness. “Be seeing you!” he called out. And then he was gone.

Karibu had already been shut up in her stable for the night. I half thought, while I was waiting for dinner, that I would go and visit her, but sheer fatigue made me think again. The morning would be soon enough. In the morning, I would take her down to the river with me when I scrubbed the filters. There was nothing the elephant loved more than to bath in the muddy waters while I looked on. If I was not very careful, she would spray me with water too, until I was as wet and muddy as she was herself.

I wouldn’t allow myself to think of Hugo at all. It took a certain amount of resolution to dismiss him from my mind, but I was not a deJong for nothing. If I failed completely to dismiss him from my heart, that was something I could keep to myself. Pride is a mask that many a woman has worn with honour, and I was proud, proud to the backbone. If I had not been, I would have gone then and there to Hugo and told him that I wouldn’t have minded if I had never seen Martin Freeman ever again.

It was something of a relief to find that Hugo had not come over from his house for dinner. Katundi beat the gong with relish and I walked slowly through the darkness, rather enjoying the sensation of the heavy rain beating down on to my waterproof. Abdul Patel was already there. He had left his turban behind in his tent and his black hair glistened with water.

“What a night!” he said.

“We only just got across the river,” I told him. “By tomorrow, no one will be able to cross at all.”

Abdul shrugged, smiling. “It will keep the
Mzee
on the other side!” he remarked.

I went cold inside. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing. But he might have thought he’d come along, in case we’d brought the other lions here. We brought him here that first time.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?” I asked him tremulously.

“Not really,” he agreed. “Anyway if we can’t get across the river, neither can he!”

I wasn’t much comforted by this assurance. I had never heard of a lion swimming, but if determination was all that it took, the
Mzee
would swim across no matter what the river was like. But he wouldn’t come! I thought of him as I had last seen him, shepherding the rump of his pride along the top of the dam at Aruba. The cubs were too young to go far in a day and he would hardly leave them to fend for themselves.

I sat down at my place at the table and filled my glass with wine. The noise of the rain on the thatched roof was like a whisper, punctuated by the thunder that burst at intervals overhead.

“Is anyone else coming to dinner?” I asked.

Abdul Patel looked surprised. “Johnny isn’t back yet,” he said. “I don’t know where the others are.”

I motioned to Katundi to serve the soup. He came forward with the steaming bowl, carefully ladling some first into my plate and then into Abdul’s.

“Shall I ring the gong again, mama?” he asked me.

I shook my head. “They’ll come when they’re ready,” I said. Hans Doffnang came first. We could hear him outside the mosquito netting, shaking the worst of the wet off his mackintosh. When he came into the light, I could see that he was laughing. He sat down beside me in a businesslike way, unfolding his napkin and peering at my plate to see what I was eating.

“So you’re back!” he greeted me.

I nodded. “I’ll be back at work tomorrow,” I assured him hastily.

“Good.” He patted my hand with one of his. “I have something to tell you,
meisje!”

I sat up very straight. It would be just my luck, I thought, that something would have gone badly wrong on the site while I had been away.

“Yes?” I prompted him.

“Do you remember that we talked about Kruger the other day?”

I nodded, wondering what on earth could be coming next. “I remember,” I said.

He thumped his chest with his two open hands. “I, too, am a great man!” he announced. “In a minute you will see it for yourself!”

I stared at him. “I think you’ll have to tell me—” I began.

“No, no! Clare, it is
good
that you went away! Never shall I be sufficiently grateful to you!”

“Then everything is all right on the site?” I asked him cautiously.

“I’m not talking about the site!” he replied, vaguely irritated by the suggestion. “Who cares about the site?”

I chuckled. “I thought you were a great architect,” I reminded him.

“So I am,” he confirmed, totally without conceit. “But now I am talking about my being a great man!”

“Oh, I see,” I said, not seeing at all.

He chuckled happily to himself as he refilled my glass with wine and then filled his own. “Life is very good!” he exclaimed with a sigh. “Very good!”

There was a scraping noise outside as Janice fought with her umbrella. Katundi went to her aid, holding the mosquito netting apart for her to come in. She blinked as she came into the light and it was easy to see that she was faintly put out that we should all be looking at her. She looked different, older, more mature, and lovelier than ever. And then I saw what it was that was different about her. She had braided her hair!

She sat down at the table with a quaint air of embarrassment.

“Did you take any decent photographs?” she asked me quickly, before anyone could mention the change in her.

I managed to look suitably guilty. “I forgot,” I said. “I’m awfully sorry. I took the camera with me, but when it came to it, I was too busy to take any photos.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said.

Hans Doffnang dug me in the ribs with his elbow. “You see!” he said in triumph.

Janice blushed. “I wish you’d tell him, Clare, that I haven’t changed my hair for him. I find it more—more convenient, that’s all!”

Obligingly, I translated this into Dutch, but Hans Doffnang only laughed.

“That is what she says now!” he smiled. “But last night it was a different story!”

“Was it?” I asked Janice, frankly intrigued.

“Well,” said Janice, “there was no one else to talk to with all of you away.” She sounded extraordinarily unsure of herself. “Who does he think he is, anyway?” she demanded.

“Paul Kruger,” I told her. “He had very strong ideas about modesty in women’s dress.”

“I know that!” said Janice.

“And so she braids her hair and gives up playing poker!” Hans Doffnang put in with a satisfied air.

“But I don’t want to live in some puritan-minded village in Holland!” Janice wailed.

Hans Doffnang rushed round the table towards her. “You shan’t do anything you don’t want! We shall live anywhere you please! Anywhere!”

Somehow or other, Janice seemed to understand every word he said. “Oh, Hans!” she exclaimed. She stood up too and faced him, Abdul Patel and I completely forgotten. “Oh, Hans, I don’t care where I live so long as it’s with you!”

“Mijne liejde,
my life, have you ever been to Holland? You will like it very well,
ja
! Married to me, we shall both be very happy all our days!”

Janice looked as astonished as the rest of us. It was clear that marriage had never occurred to her.

“But—” she said faintly.

Hans kissed her warmly. “We will have a celebration at once! I have some excellent wine in my tent. I will fetch it and we shall drink it together with our friends.” He shot off into the darkness, completely forgetting his raincoat. Janice sank back into her chair, looking pale and lovely.

“It’s impossible!” she said weakly. “I don’t even understand what he’s saying!”

I grinned. “I have a feeling he will teach you excellent Dutch,” I said.

She gave me a horrified look. “No! I can’t! I’m no good at learning languages! ”

“That’s true,” Abdul put in, in his soft, distinctly Indian voice. “Her Swahili is very odd and quite difficult to understand.”

I quelled him with a look. “You won’t find it so bad!” I said encouragingly. “You already understand each other very well!”

“The language of love is universal,” Abdul couldn’t resist saying.

“Oh, shut up, both of you!” Janice pleaded. “I don’t even
like
him!”

“You’ll never convince him of that!” I chuckled. “You should never have tied back your hair! You
know
how he felt about your long, flowing hair!”

Janice made a face at me. “I know, Memsahib Golden Syrup, as the Africans call me! And I wouldn’t have done anything, only you’ve no idea how dispiriting constant disapproval can be! ”

“Is that why you did it?” I shot at her.

“I
think
so,” she said doubtfully.

“Then what are you going to do?” I asked her.

She gulped, blushed, and bit her lip.
“Marry him
!” she said faintly.

Hans Doffnang came back soaked to the skin. He triumphantly waved aloft two bottles of wine, which he handed over to Katundi to open. Not even our silence could dent his happiness.

“My lovely wife!” he said in Dutch.

Janice smiled at him, regaining much of her usual confidence. “Clare says I shall have to learn Dutch,” she told him.

He waved away any such suggestion. “No, no, it is I who will learn to speak English,” he promised her.

“But if we live in Holland—” Janice argued.

Mr. Doffnang interrupted her with a loving kiss. “What a night! Here I am, soaking wet, just when I should like to walk you back to your tent in the moonlight. Why else should one come to the tropics?”

Katundi brought back the wine and served it with all the dignity that the occasion demanded. He cleared away the soup plates and brought in the next course, grinning happily to himself while we ate the chicken and sweet potatoes he had brought from the kitchen. Neither Janice nor Hans were hungry, I don’t think either of them had the remotest idea what it was that they were eating, and I envied them. Now that the first excitement had died away, my own sadness seemed all the sharper. I ate the food Katundi had set before me mechanically, wishing that the evening was over. And then, when it was, I was afraid to be alone, to remember my quarrel with Hugo.

Abdul placed my waterproof over my shoulders and glanced out at the rain.

“No need of a shower tonight!” he commented. “Can you see? Or shall I come with you with a torch?”

“I can see, thank you,” I said.

We shook hands with careful formality and then I made a dash down the pathway to my tent. As I ran I could hear the thunder still rumbling overhead. It was queer, but it sounded very like the voice of the
Mzee,
roaring his defiance, and threatening some new revenge. A flash of lightning lit up the flooding river rushing past the higher land of the camp, and another crack of thunder rent the sky. I zipped up my tent with care and hurried into my bed. Surprisingly, I had hardly lain down before I was asleep.

When I awoke, the sun was already peeping through the trees and the gossamer threads of the webs of trapdoor spiders shone silver in the grass by the river. I wriggled my arm experimentally and found that it hardly hurt at all. It was an encouraging start to the day.

I dressed in clean clothes, after spending a long time in the makeshift shower, and hurried along the path towards Hugo’s house before anyone else was up. It was an easy thing to find Karibu’s stable, for she had heard me coming and her trunk was sticking out through a peephole in the door, trumpeting wildly in her excitement.

“Have a care, love,” I bade her as she pounded on the door. Her trunk fondled my neck and she rumbled happily as she explored my body to make sure that all was well with me. “Come, Karibu,” I whispered in her ear.

She came willingly enough. Grabbing a bundle of food from her stall, she came pounding down the path after me, much excited by this unlooked-for treat.

Katundi was lighting the charcoal fire in the kitchen
boma.
He was clearly surprised to see me up and about so early.

“I thought I’d clean the filters before breakfast,” I told him. “Karibu can come with me.”

“I shall come also,” Katundi insisted. “It is necessary to be very careful by the river today.”

“All right,” I agreed. I wasn’t sorry that he was coming too, for the river was considerably higher than it had been even the night before and the crocodiles were more difficult to see in the muddy water that was busily carrying yet more of the topsoil from upstream away for ever.