Girl with the Golden Voice (35 page)

When Stephen Kamau said grace, Toni opened his eyes wide and whispered to his daughter, ‘Now we know where Rebecca got that voice!'

Waiters were serving the second course when four expected guests appeared at the gate. Tom was quick to move to greet Paul Miller and Daniel Komar and their wives.

‘Misty over the top,' was Daniel's explanation. It was not the whole story.

Peter Belengeri, who farmed on the other side of the lake, had landscaped the gardens. He had turned a flat grassy area in front of the original house into a long, wide plateau of lawn studded with acacia and jacaranda. He had brought in thousands of tons of earth to create a steep bank. Guests who stood on the edge to look out were inclined to linger to take in one of the best views in the Rift. The first focus was the lake, but the valley was wide here and the man-made pinpricks of light of Naivasha town were no match for the dense scattering of stars cast across the night sky. The ancient stillness was humbling.

The speeches were all variations on the theme of hope.

Seeing Rebecca and Tom holding hands helped speakers to surprise themselves with their willingness to uncover and reveal thoughts and feelings that were normally kept hidden. There was hardly a cliche in sight.

There had to be a song. Rebecca knew it and insisted that, for once, Tom share the stage with her, Mary and Toni. He gave in unexpectedly easily, knowing that once she was into her song he could slip away out of sight behind the combo from the club.

‘I'm coming home'. Mary was pleased with the choice because it gave her the chance for long stretches of harmonising with her best friend. There were two encores. By the time the second started, the audience had quadrupled. At first, the guests around the tables who were joining in the singing did not notice the black heads popping above the line of the bank. Those heads grew into bodies and by the end of the song a huge choir was in full voice sending the music down the dark hillside and out across the lake.

Paul and Daniel, with their wives, were the first of the official guests to leave. Ten minutes later their car raced back up the driveway. The front doors were flung open, Daniel stepped out and hurried to find Tom.

‘Tom, just one minute …' Daniel motioned Tom to follow him and turned to hurry back to the car, trailed by a puzzled Tom who could not yet understand why Daniel seemed unwilling to speak up even in front of Rebecca.

Paul was speaking on his phone and invited the two men to come close.

‘He's gone, Daniel !'

‘Sure?'

‘David wouldn't make a mistake on a big one like this. But it's not going to be made public till the morning. Just a second.' Paul pressed the phone to his chest. ‘Tom, it's about the president. He's passed away.'

‘Our president?'

Grim-faced, Paul nodded and returned to his conversation with, Tom presumed, David. He repeated everything that was said. Gunfire? An assassination? I thought you said something about a heart attack … Okay, we'll be there in an hour … Oh, don't worry about that. We'll think of some story to tell them at the gate. Do not take any chances. Yes, on this phone, but only in an emergency. Right? Kwaheri.'

Tom and Rebecca were the last to leave the party and it was after midnight when they turned right onto a quiet South Lake Road. Villages and compounds were in darkness all the way home. Rebecca arched her eyebrows as they passed the Londiani turn-off. She looked across, but Tom kept his gaze on the road ahead.

‘Am I allowed to ask?'

‘Not too far now.'

‘Not Nairobi, then? I'm glad … but what did they want?'

‘Um, the president has … died. It's a secret. Well, I wonder about that. After all, if I know … Anyway they're not announcing it until morning.'

‘Tom, you look very weary.'

‘I am a bit cream-crackered. That means tired in English, darling.'

Her face lit up. ‘Thomas, you've never called me that before.'

‘I have, but you never heard me … because I only said it to you when you weren't there. Does that make sense? I used to think it was a bit wet, soppy, but not any more. It's got to be a sort of golden word that's been mucked about a lot, but really you can only use to a special person … I am definitely going soft, but I'm enjoying it.'

Rebecca beamed but said nothing for fear of breaking the touch of magic that hung about the moment. She broke silence when they came to the junction close to the level crossing. He took the left turn towards the town centre and she said, ‘There's going to be trouble when this news gets out. A new sabasaba day, perhaps, but at this moment I don't care. And, darling, where are you taking us?'

They exchanged glances and smiled.

‘Trouble. That's why I thought to come into town before anything starts.'

‘So, you're thinking about it.'

‘Daniel asked me just now if am a Kenyan or a European living in Kenya. That's making me ponder a bit. I can't see most Serena members wanting me to stand. I could never win it for them. I thought I'd have a look around the place in peace.'

‘You can win. I want to help you do it.'

The wide, scrubby verges of the town centre were crowded with trucks on an overnight stop on their journey from the coast to the landlocked interior. By some of the tiny hotels girls were sitting out with their customers.

”Becca, do you know that long-distance truck drivers in this country are more likely to develop HIV than to have a road accident?'

‘You're beginning to talk like a politician.'

‘Politicians, MPs are meant to do something!'

Just at that moment they were climbing the hill past the town hospital.

‘Tom, you've never been in there, have you? It's a bad place. Don't get sick in this country unless you have a purse full of money. Better to go to the pharmacy for dawa.'

They moved on slowly and Tom pointed out another long, low building. ‘St Patrick's Academy. I have been in there. Part of my gap year. Oundle it was not. But the kids were fantastic. I was there a month. It could break your heart if you started worrying about it. KANU will tell you it's the colonials' fault. My grandparents came to Naivasha long before independence and it was a beautiful place. I still love it and I wish I could do something to help. Dad wants me to take more responsibility for the farm. I'm going to be a married man. Then there'll be the kids …'

‘Oh, really? Where did they come from?'

Tom smiled but breezed on. ‘Simon Nyache. He must be nearly eighty. I think he's been the MP since the beginning.'

‘Papa says that, too. He thinks they'll bring up some well-off city man to take his place. He'll win the seat and then disappear. If we want to speak with him, we'll have to go down to the Nairobi Club.'

”Becca, that's it! It's obvious. Stephen Kamau, MP for Nakuru South. He's the wisest man I've ever met.'

‘He loves his flowers too much.'

‘And so do I! Let's go home. We need sleep. Tomorrow, I mean today. Things could get, well, interesting.'

* * *

In the hours of darkness troops had been moved to all the big centres of population and were on full alert. The only places where their presence was unashamedly overt were in the Kikuyu heartlands. There were rumours of minor rioting in Nakuru and Eldoret. Gunfire had been heard but no news of casualties. TV and radio stations were heavily policed and broadcasts consisted of solemn music interrupted by government statements which were mostly expressions of sympathy from world leaders. As the day moved on, programs began to show the comings and goings at State House in Nairobi where the president's body lay in an open coffin.

All over the city there was furious activity. By lunchtime fears that there would be uprisings on the Kibera estate and other parts where the poorest of the poor were crowded had diminished. A few of the braver Asian merchants were opening up their businesses on Kimathi Street and Kenyatta Avenue. In club lounges gatherings of excited men were on edge talking, sometimes heatedly, and speculating at each snippet of news and rumour that came their way.

It was in smaller gatherings where the real business of the country was being conducted and in one meeting in particular. It was common knowledge that for years a group of shadowy figures had been running the country. The president enjoyed the trappings of power, had his share of the pickings but did as he was told. The CIA and a dozen other international snoopers knew all about the vast accounts held in European and American banks. Kenya was being run like an exclusive club. The World Bank understood, reluctantly, that this was as good as they could get in terms of the stability for the region. Flashpoints might erupt when a big player was removed from the scene.

So the big business of the day at the Rubai house in Karen was to make sure that this necessary exercise in democracy did not throw up any nasty surprises.

Twelve men sat at the large, round, oak table. Outwardly they were calm. As long as they stuck together they were safe. The chairman was dead, so long live the chairman, whoever he would be. At these meetings nothing but bottled water or fruit juice was drunk. Nothing was eaten and no one smoked.

Item one on the agenda was to draw up a list of people who might be a danger to them. Rather it was a question of checking off a prepared grading the names in terms of the threat they posed at the time of the meeting. Later all lists were burned in a portable stove set up on the marble hearth. A red spot by a name meant that a very serious threat was posed: possible elimination. A yellow dot signified caution. Green dots said that unknowing recipients were checked out on a weekly basis.

There were eighty-five names on the list. When it came to voting, Asian businessmen evoked long lists of green. Known troublemakers, headstrong activists and leading lights in the opposition attracted a lot of red. Over and over speakers pressed for quick action. The wananchi would not take much notice if the jobs were done before the funeral. The general consensus was that they could get away with two hits, possibly three.

The second and only other item to discuss was, for the moment, less urgent. New lists were passed around with the names of all the constituencies in the country, their sitting MPs and possible replacements. The committee accepted that they would not be able to fix all seats. The bonus here was that they could show the world that Kenya was a well-governed country, a beacon of democracy in a continent of dictatorships. Alfred Koinange reminded the meeting that the Serena Party had been registered only a week before. No one saw a threat in this bunch of intellectuals who thought they were living in Washington or London.

‘Alfred, don't even think about worrying! These people do not like to get their hands dirty. They will be off the map in a year.' George Mgara was ripping up his lists ready for burning.

Robert Ngala put his arm around Alfred's shoulders. ‘It is as Abel says. We are a democracy. We believe that everyone has the right to his opinion. The wananchi know this and this is why they trust KANU to look after them.'

The meeting broke up. No decision had been made about the one who would be their man chosen to be the next president. There was an assumption that it would not be one of those who had been sitting around that oak table. The elite band of brothers was the dominant force in the life of the country. Abel was the dominant force in the brotherhood, not least because he alone was independent in his ability to generate very big sums of money. He understood the international financial scene. He manipulated legitimately. He enjoyed the mechanics of it all but, much more, he enjoyed being a manipulator of people and systems.

Abel returned to his screens for an hour's relaxation. While he scanned the markets, he was meditating on an idea that had first come to him moments after he had watched the old president close his eyes in death. He picked up his lists of MPs and constituencies. He was especially interested in those in the Rift Valley and the north-west. He marked off three then went for a swim. All the time he was in the water he was weighing up pros and cons. He returned to his screen room to finish off dressing and had another look at his lists. Between slipping on his shoes and fixing his tie he made up his mind.

Nakuru South, it needed new blood. Simon Nyache was going to resign, so there would be no question of pushing a man out against his will. Yes, it was a pity that Briggs had changed his mind about selling the farm. The family had no stake in the area, yet. There would be promises about fixing the roads, replacing that slum of a hospital and calling it The Simon Nyache Memorial Hospital. This was going to work!

Over lunch Julius gave his father a surprise. He had some news. He had heard that Tom McCall was going to stand for election to parliament on the Serena ticket, for Nakuru South. Fortunately for Abel, he was holding a glass of wine as Julius shared his news, so it was easy for him to avoid giving any sign that he had been caught off guard. Inwardly a spasm of anger rose out of the depths. That family, that kid again! Vestiges of the youthful religious superstition that had held him in thrall, as it still held Sally, slid under his guard long enough for him to be troubled. Was there something in this mumbo jumbo after all? She talked a lot about sin and retribution, about the danger of entertaining wicked thoughts, harbouring evil intentions.

‘Julius, where did you hear this nonsense?'

‘No, it's true. There was a big table of us in the Carnivore. I was sitting next to Kijo Warge. We were getting at him because he says he's a member of Serena, boasting about the new brush that's going to clean up the stinking mess in the stable that is Kenya today. He thinks he's a bit of a poet, too. He was drunk and he started mouthing off some of the candidates they've got for an election. How could we know what was going to happen?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, there's going to be an election, isn't there?'