A Pride of Lions (23 page)

“Yes. Yes, I do,” he said.

It was a comforting thought.

Hugo’s house was deserted when I got there. The sun was just setting and, when I arrived, an African was trying to persuade Karibu into her stable. The elephant, however, refused to go inside, despite bribes and threats.

“Perhaps she’ll go inside for me,” I suggested hopefully.

The African was only too pleased that I should try. He had no ambition for Hugo to come home and find the elephant on the loose. But Karibu had quite other ideas. She refused to set foot in her stable. She flapped her ears and waved her trunk in the air, kicking out at the door that the African was trying to shut behind her. “You’d better let her go,” I said.

Karibu blew down her trunk and set off at a great pace round the house. The African shrugged and went off himself, muttering imprecations into the night that was rapidly closing in around us. When he had gone, I plucked up my courage and went into Hugo’s house. Karibu was plucking at his banana trees in his garden just beyond the verandah, but I hadn’t got the heart to stop her. Her method was simple. She stripped the hands of green bananas off the tree, knocked it flat, and then ate the lot, leaving only the bananas behind.

Katundi had left everything ready for me in the kitchen. I found an apron hanging behind the door and tied it carefully round my waist, while I considered what I was going to cook. I settled for a local dish called Sukumu Wiki, consisting of

saffron rice, minced meat, and sukumu leaves, which taste much like spinach and are the same dark green in colour. It had the other advantage that it was easy to cook. By the time all the pans were steaming, a quite appetising smell was coming from the food, the first signal of success to any cook.

Although I had been expecting Hugo, I was quite unprepared for him when I heard him walk into the sitting room. I came to the door of the kitchen, unsure of my welcome. It was a long time since I had felt so shy of anyone, but, I reasoned to myself, if I was going to spend the rest of my life with him, the sooner I got over it the better.

“Hullo,” he said. He was smiling, a little surprised.

“Hullo.”

He raised his eyebrows, making me blush. “Where’s Katundi?” he asked.

“I—I sent him home,” I said in a rush.

He sniffed the air appreciatively and I began to feel better. “And did you also tell Karibu she could demolish my garden?” he asked conversationally.

Not exactly, I managed. “We couldn’t persuade her to go into her stall.”

He gave me a look which I couldn’t fathom. “I suppose she knew you had come to dinner,” he suggested innocently.

“She knew I was here, yes,” I said.

“And why?”

My courage disappeared with the suddenness of a pricked balloon. “S-something is boiling over!” I exclaimed, and bolted into the kitchen.

He came after me and leaned nonchalantly against the wall by the doorway. The silence was quite unbearable, made more so because it was obvious that nothing was boiling over, or showing any sign of doing so.

“I didn’t know you could cook,” Hugo said finally.

“I don’t often,” I admitted.

“But you are tonight?”

I busied myself with testing the rice to see if it were cooked. “Yes,” I said.

“May one ask why?”

I gave him a harassed look. This was proving much more difficult than I had anticipated in my own mind.

“Are they bringing the lions back?” I countered, sounding unexpectedly aggressive.

“Thanks to Duncan Njugi,” he said wryly.

I was immediately interested. “Was he furious?” I asked.

“He wasn’t very pleased. But there was nothing to be done. He could hardly blame Karibu for saving your life, could he?”

“No,” I agreed doubtfully. “Katundi says that the
Mzee
came to die,” I added with difficulty.

His expression was surprisingly kind. “Did he? He chose a gentle executioner.”

“Karibu?”

“I don’t think he realised that Karibu was there,” he said.

I stared at him.
"Me?
But I would never have killed him! He would have killed me! There was nothing I could do about it. I wouldn’t even have struggled.”

He laughed. “All he knew was that it was you who knocked him unconscious the last time he tangled with you,” he suggested.

“But was he clever enough for that?”

“I think perhaps he was,” he said.

“Oh,” I said inadequately. I thought that he had been right all the time. He had refused to be sentimental about the lion, but he had given him the respect due to any living creature, and a little more, because this had been a lion in a million.

“Well?” he said at last.

“Well what?”

“Are you going to tell me why you’re here, cooking dinner, instead of eating with the others at the camp?”

“Yes,” I said.

He waited patiently for a long moment while I tried to bring order to the chaotic emotions that surged within me.

“You see—” I said, “even Duncan Njugi said it was a good idea to bring some of the old customs up to date.”

There was another long, expectant silence.

“It was something Katundi suggested, a long time ago,” I went on desperately.

The silence dragged on.

I turned and faced him. “And you said that if I wanted you to kiss me again, I—I should have to ask you.” I swallowed hard. “I’m asking now,” I said in a rush.

His face softened dramatically. “Oh, my darling Clare! You didn’t have to do that!”

I took a faltering step towards him. “Didn’t I? I think I did. I couldn’t go on being at odds with you!”

“Couldn’t you?” He looked as though I had handed him something precious and that he couldn’t believe his luck. “What about Martin Freeman?”

“Nothing about him. I don’t care if I never see him again!” I stamped my foot, suddenly angry. “He never did matter—only to you!”

He took my hands in his, spending a long time just looking at me. I could feel my heart thumping within me, for I thought that even then he might reject me. But he did not. He took me into his arms and kissed me slowly and thoroughly, on my mouth, my cheeks, and my amber-coloured eyes.

“Is that better?” he asked in my ear.

“Much better!” I agreed.

“Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me what Duncan Njugi had to do with all this?” he suggested lovingly, kissing me all over again.

I blushed. “I think we’d better eat first,” I said.

“I’m not hungry!” he retorted.

“Well, I am!”

He let me go very reluctantly. He was much handier in the kitchen than I was. He drained the rice and served it neatly on two plates, while I was still struggling with the sukumu leaves and the meat. In the end he took the pans away from me and dealt with them with the same casual air that he did everything else.

When the meal was set on the table, my hunger had gone. I played with a few grains of rice and meat, watching Hugo as he finished up his plateful with gusto, despite his claim not to be hungry.

“Very good!” he complimented me. “Though Katundi could probably have done as well!” His eyes rested curiously on my face.

“That isn’t the point!” I said.

He grinned. He was enjoying himself. “What is the point?” he asked me.

“You
know
what it means when a woman cooks a man’s food for him,” I accused him flatly.

His grin grew broader. “Of course,” he admitted. “But I don’t quite see what it has to do with Duncan Njugi—or Katundi either.”

“N-no,” I agreed, and fidgeted with my knife and fork, seeking for inspiration. “I don’t think I want to explain,” I said at last.

“You disappoint me!” he said agreeably.

I gave him an awful look. “Anyway, you know perfectly well!” I accused him in goaded tones.

“I might hazard a guess,” he conceded, “but as I can hardly imagine that you don’t expect
any
man to ask you to marry you, I confess I am rather baffled about that.”

“But I don’t want
any
man to ask me!” I complained.

“Then—?”

“I couldn’t think of anything else to do,” I admitted. “And I don’t think you’re being at all kind! You could do some explaining yourself! ”

He chuckled. “I love it when you get cross,” he told me. “I love the way your eyes change colour!”

“Do they?” I exclaimed, much interested.

“They do. Are you going to finish that rice?”

I shook my head. “I wasn’t hungry after all,” I said. He rose from the table and went and sat on one of the deep leather chairs that looked out across the verandah. He patted the arm of the chair invitingly, his eyes smiling up at me.

“Darling,” he said in an amused voice, “don’t you know that we don’t practise
Kuheera
or anything like it in our tribe?”

I sat down on the arm of the chair with dignity.

“I thought you’d understand what I meant,” I said hoarsely.

“Anyway, it isn’t at all the same!”

He shouted with laughter, while the colour slowly travelled up into my cheeks.

“Not at all the same!” he agreed dryly. He pulled me down on to his knee and held me captive, amused by my confusion. “How far did you intend to go?”

“I didn’t intend anything!” I assured him. “I thought that if I— if I sent Katundi home and cooked your dinner, you wouldn’t ask anything else. I don’t see why you have to go on about it!”

He kissed me on the nose. “I can’t resist it! My love, did Duncan really suggest that you should do such a thing?”

“He was very nice to me. He knew I was in love with you and— and he thought you might be with me too—”

“I should have thought that was obvious!”

“Well, it wasn’t! I wouldn’t let myself even
think
about it But everyone knew how I felt. It’s a humiliating thought, but it seemed to me that the whole world knew!” I wailed.

“Darling,” he said warmly. He kissed me again until I didn’t care what anyone thought about anything. “It was only because they’re interested in you,” he said. “If they hadn’t liked you, they wouldn’t have bothered.”

“That’s what you think!” I said comfortably.

He chuckled. “Clare deJong, are you going to marry me?”

I nodded, unable to answer. It was a dream come true and I had never been happier in my whole life.

The amusement in Hugo’s face died. If I had ever doubted how he felt about me, I would have known in that moment. “Soon?” he pressed me.

‘Yes,” I said. “Very soon.”

Hugo was very gentle with me. It is, after all, a traumatic experience for any girl, declaring one’s love to a man, without any assurance that this is what he wants. Apparently he understood this, for he more than made up for it in the minutes that followed.

“Actually,” I told him when I could, “I have it on the very best authority that you have absolutely no choice in the matter!”

He sighed. “Katundi again?”

I nodded, smiling. ‘Your ancestors picked me out for you a long time ago,” I teased him.

“And you believe that?” he mocked me.

I kissed him on the chin. “Why not? We, too, are African born and bred!”

He dumped me off his knee and back on to the arm of the chair. “I refuse to have my own words quoted back at me!” He stood up, pulling me after him towards the verandah.

“Hugo, you do indeed want to marry me?” I asked him.

He turned and smiled at me. “I do indeed want to marry you!” he agreed.

I sighed with relief. “Because I couldn’t leave Tsavo now,” I confided. I pointed out into the garden. “I couldn’t not have that at my doorstep every day now that I know what it’s like!”

He chuckled. “What about me?”

My heart stopped within me. “You, my dear, are the sun and the stars, both night and day, to me. Everything!”

He looked at me for a long time. ‘You’re very generous to me,” he said at last.

“But I want you to know!” I insisted. “Tsavo is only your shadow to me. Surely you know that!”

“I’m beginning to,” he said.

We stood side by side, looking out across the moonlit plains. The sounds of the night were very busy that evening and we were beyond the need to talk. It was more than enough that we were close to one another and very much in love. Then suddenly Hugo stiffened beside me.

“Just look at that elephant!” he said in scandalised tones.

I hardly had to look, for at that moment Karibu got scent of our presence and ran straight up the nearest flower bed towards us.

“Her feet!” Hugo moaned.

I laughed heartlessly. There was something very funny about Karibu’s unerring instinct for destruction. There was scarcely a rose-bush left.

“Perhaps we could entice her into her stall,” I suggested. “She’ll be more amenable when she realises that I’m not going to leave her.”