The Clouds Beneath the Sun (6 page)

Both were a long way away now.

Would her father ever come back from the locked-away place he now inhabited? She knew he still went through the motions as organist and choirmaster at Gainsborough. In fact, she had heard from the bishop that Owen Nelson “poured himself” into his playing, his grief at his wife’s death colored every note, modulated every key his fingers touched. But when he stepped away from the organ, when choir practices or performances were concluded, as Natalie knew all too well, the shutters came down, her father grew smaller. Did he imagine Violette still in the choir, did he still hear her mezzo soprano above all the others?

He had rebuffed all attempts by Natalie to approach him, and she was secretly fearful that she knew exactly why. Natalie could barely put her fears into words, but when the sweat broke out on her throat, what went through her mind was the dreadful possibility that her mother’s death was no accident, that she had deliberately set fire to her camp bed because her daughter was having an affair with a married man, and that Owen Nelson
knew it
. Her father blamed Natalie, his daughter, for the death of his wife. How terrible was that? That was why he inhabited his locked-away world, locked away from his daughter in particular, and that was one reason why she had had to get away, far away.

She had hoped that, being so distant, and in such different surroundings, she would have thought about her father—and her dead mother—less, but the sweats on her throat kept coming.

“Natalie?”

It was Russell.

She was expecting him. He slipped into the other chair as he had done before.

The flask of whiskey and its cup were where they always were at this time of night, on the small table, next to the ashtray Natalie used. She pushed the whiskey across and he took it.

She smoked as he swallowed.

They sat in silence for a while.

“Not a good day,” he said at length.

She didn’t look at him. “No.”

Another pause. Insects buzzed at the glass of the hurricane lamp.

“Are you as mad at us as Eleanor is?”

She rubbed her tongue along her lips. “I’m upset, yes. How could you be so … so
crude?
Blundering into a burial ground, robbing graves. I don’t know whether it’s juvenile or like something out of a nineteenth-century horror story.”

He slid the whiskey cup back across the table and massaged the back of his neck with his hand.

“We didn’t think it was such a big deal.” He turned his gaze towards her. “Is it really? The tribal goats are always grazing on that burial ground, kicking up the soil with their hooves and snouts. With any luck, no one will notice.”

She inhaled her cigarette once, twice.

Go slow, she told herself.

“Are your parents alive or dead, Russell?”

“My mother’s dead.”

“Buried or cremated?”

“Cremated.”

“Well,
my
mother is buried in Lincolnshire. In the local churchyard, next to the church where my father learned to play the organ. He is a very religious man, Russell. How do you think he would feel if someone dug up his wife’s bones, just to prove or disprove some …
theory
, something that could be settled in a few weeks anyway without … without doing that sort of damage?”

“I know, I know. It was wrong.” He rubbed his neck again. “But Richard was so … so persuasive. He’s terrified someone else will beat us to the punch. He convinced me it was no big deal—”

“Don’t hide behind him, Russell. You played your part. If you didn’t feel as strongly, you should have stopped him.”

“I know … I know. I keep saying that. I’m not hiding. I’m doubly in the wrong, yes. I should have stopped Richard and I didn’t. I shouldn’t have gone, but I did.”

They sat for a long time without speaking. Natalie finished her cigarette. The whiskey—that night’s ration, anyway—was gone. The noises of the bush carried on around them.

After a while, Russell said, “All you hear is animals. You never hear the people of the bush, do you?”

“That doesn’t mean they’re not there,” replied Natalie.

Another long silence.

Russell stood up. Natalie remained seated. He stood behind her chair, leaned down, and kissed the top of her head. “I’ve been wanting to do that since the moment I first saw you.”

She didn’t move or respond. He put his hands on her shoulders but at this she squirmed free and stood up.

They faced each other.

He moved forward. In the darkness, the freckles on his face all ran into one another.

“Good night, Russell,” she said firmly.

•   •   •

“Water?”

Natalie straightened up, pressed her hands into her back, then wiped her forehead with her sleeve. It was four mornings later and every able-bodied member of the dig was in the
korongo
, trying to fulfill Eleanor Deacon’s aim of finishing this part of the excavation by the end of the week. This morning, at least, there was a wind getting up. Warm, but it helped ease things a little.

Natalie took the bottle from Christopher Deacon. “Thank you.”

In front of them, the wall of the gorge, all around where the tibia and femur had been found, was being attacked. The soil-sand, newly exposed, was darker than the surrounding surface, which had long been bleached by the sun. Everyone who was able to was picking away at the soil. Arnold Pryce was sifting soil through a sieve. A little further along, Kees and Jonas were stooped over another stretch of gorge. Today there were a few clouds beneath the sun, which occasionally provided shade. So far, however, there had been no new discoveries.

“How are you settling in?” Christopher had hitherto kept his distance from Natalie. He was normally polite but … not formal exactly, but reserved. He had a slightly clipped accent, almost but not quite South African.

“I’m loving it,” replied Natalie. “I didn’t enjoy all the excitement about the burial ground, of course. I hadn’t anticipated such … high drama. At Cambridge, when you study archaeology you also study anthropology. No one who’s studied anthropology could have done what Richard and Russell did.” She sighed. “But the discovery’s exciting, isn’t it?”

“Very. What a pity it had to be marred by that silly prank. Though prank is hardly the word.”

Natalie handed back the water bottle. “We’ll all get over it, I suppose. Especially if there’s another major discovery.”

“It’s not us I’m worried about,” said Christopher. “As you say,
we’ll
get over it. Meals will be a bit sticky for a few more days but as we unearth other bones,
if
we do, we’ll gradually put this behind us.” He looked down the gorge, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand.

“What are you worried about, then?”

He breathed out. “The Maasai. They are very proud, very fierce when they want to be. Richard and Russell may think they covered their tracks, but it was dark when they raided the burial ground, so how they can be one hundred percent certain of that I don’t know. We can’t go back and inspect, that would just draw attention to the matter. My mother’s spent so long making friends with the Maasai—arranging medical help, educational scholarships, employing some of them, like Mutevu Ndekei … she’s very sensitive on their behalf.”

“Maybe that will help, if the tribe is upset.”

“Maybe. But they can be tricky, the Maasai. They’re supposed to be converts to Christianity but many of the men still worship their traditional gods, the fig trees, and the women give sacrifices at those local sand dunes that I showed you.” He turned towards her. “See what I mean? The Maasai are the Maasai. I wouldn’t like to predict how they will respond to this incident.”

She had never known Christopher to say so much.

“What’s that noise?” she said, after a pause.

“That moaning sound, you mean?”

She nodded.

“It’s the whistling thorn.”

When she frowned, he added, “Come on, I’ll show you.” He waved to the guard, Aldwai, to show that he was making a move, and stepped over to some acacia bushes. He pointed. “Whistling thorn, Latin name
Acacia drepanolobium
. Look, see these spikes growing out of the branches? They are two to three inches long and very sharp. But look also at these bulbous bases.”

He pointed to a brown-red bulb about the size of a golf ball, also with a thorn growing out of it. “In themselves, these are quite succulent, but watch.” He pressed the narrow neck of the water bottle he was holding against one of the bulbs. After a very short delay, swarms of ants emerged from a series of holes in the skin of the bulbs.

“Ughh!” breathed Natalie.

“Yes,” said Christopher with a chuckle. “Whistling thorn is a perfect example of symbiosis—which is why the Maasai revere it so much. The plant allows these biting ants—and believe me they
are
biting ants—to live in its bulbs because when herbivores, giraffes especially, feed on the bulbs, in next to no time they get a mouthful of biting ants, and then they don’t come back. The thorn provides a home for the ants and the ants provide protection for the thorn.”

They watched as the ants disappeared back inside the bulbs.

“When the ants burrow into the bulbs, they make tiny holes in the skin. Then, when a wind gets up, the holes make a moaning sound. As the wind gets stronger, they then produce a higher-pitched whistle. Which is how they get their name, ‘Whistling Thorns.’”

He drank some water.

“Then there’s the fact that this thorn wood is very hard and resistant to termites. That makes it useful for spear handles, tool handles, and building. It makes good charcoal and its sap can be used as a gum. Very useful, whistling thorn.”

He poured water into the palm of his hand, then slapped it on the back of his neck. A cooling maneuver.

“Turn round,” he said.

She did as she was told and, again using his hand, Christopher slapped water on her neck.

“Mmm. Thank you,” she whispered. “What a treat.” Having Christopher do what he was doing reminded her that Mgina had failed to bring her shower water yesterday. In fact, she hadn’t seen her all day, now she thought of it. Not more trouble at home, she hoped.

“Jack will be here soon. Maybe he will be able to help out.”

“What do you mean? What does Jack have that you don’t?”

“He’s an honorary Maasai. He’s a bit older than me and when he was growing up, there were some Maasai boys in the camp and he and they became firm friends—he speaks Maasai as well as Swahili and as well as he speaks English. One of the boys he grew up with was Marongo, who is now head of the local village, Ndekei’s village. Jack used to stay with Marongo and his family, in their hut, and took part in a celebrated battle when another tribe tried to steal their cattle. That’s when they made him an honorary Maasai.” Christopher pointed to his own forehead. “Jack has a famous scar where he was hit by a lion cub. He was lucky not to be blinded.”

“Where is this hero now?”

“Nairobi. He’s always been more politically involved than either my mother or me. There’s a lot of pre-independence maneuvering going on, a lot of black–white tension, as you can imagine and he’s—look!” he cried. “Richard is waving. They seem to have found something.”

Natalie followed the line of Christopher’s outstretched arm. Sure enough, about a hundred yards away, Richard was waving, beckoning them.

Natalie set off towards him. Her own shirt was just as stained with sweat as everyone else’s.

Christopher went with her.

As they approached, they could see Russell and Daniel gently lowering an animal skull on to a sheet on the ground.

“This is just up your street, Natalie,” said Richard warmly. “Do you recognize it? I think it’s some sort of horse, or zebra.” He smiled.

She knelt down. Russell and Daniel crowded round. A cloud obscured the sun and, temporarily, the temperature eased.

“Richard, you’re right,” she breathed after a moment. What they had was almost half the skull of a horse-type creature, even containing a few teeth.

“I’ll have to check, back at camp,” she said eventually. “But it looks to me like a skull of
Equus plicatus
, an early form of zebra.”

“So it’s not new?” Richard sounded disappointed.

“What’s the level here?”

“Same as the tibia and femur. Two mill.”

“Then if I’m right, it is nice confirmation of what we think we know, which is that the zebra moved into Africa from India about two million years ago—and then went extinct in India. We’re not talking hominids here, but this is an important discovery. A letter to
Nature
maybe.” She stood up and smiled at Richard and Russell. “Well done.”

“I told you I have an eye.” Russell turned. In the heat of the day, with his pale skin, he was well covered up against the sun. But that only meant he was sweating more than most. “And Dick here has the hands. Look at how beautifully he carved that out of the rock. And what a pity it isn’t new.” He smiled at her and put his hand on her shoulder. “If it had been, Dick suggested we name it after you:
Equus nelsoniensis
. It’s big, isn’t it?”

She nodded, wiping her brow with her sleeve. “You’re right again and that’s an interesting theoretical issue. We now know extinct species of hippo, of giraffe, of pig, of horse, of zebra, and of elephant. They all have one thing in common: the extinct forms are larger than the modern forms. Why should that be? What evolutionary significance does that have? And why is the opposite true for hominids? Modern man is larger than the extinct forms. It doesn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t make sense to discuss such a heavy issue in the baking sun,” said Russell. “But let’s explore that at lunch. It will help break the ice with Eleanor. We can include that in our theoretical paper. Maybe you’d like to draft that part, Natalie?”

“Yes,” said Richard. “Good idea.”

Natalie was flattered. Then, again, she checked herself. What did a prehistoric zebra have to do with an early form of man? And why should it be named after her? Was she being dragooned on to their side, and against Eleanor? Were Russell and Richard still intent on publishing their paper quickly, despite all that had happened? She couldn’t believe it.