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“It’s like hunting,” Stan said, “but a different kind.”

*

He started to have bad dreams and there was no reason for it. All day long he was fine, except for the feeling that came over him every once in a while and which was so hard to explain but unmistakable as soon as it happened. It wasn’t like tiredness or a suspicion that things were wrong. It was more like an apprehension of horror somewhere, although nothing was to be seen and there was no object or event that could have given rise to it.

One afternoon he took a nap and had a dream that he thought at the time was a good one: he dreamt that he was climbing into a large wicker basket like an enormous picnic hamper. A pretty girl and a young man got in with him. Above them, like the base of a giant rose, spread the swelling shape of a balloon. The man took out a pocket knife and cut a rope at the side. They started to go up. It was like being in an elevator. Then they began to travel horizontally. Stan looked down and saw the tops of trees speeding away from him. The balloon bobbed to left and right in a zigzag path, the air bounced lightly under them a few times, and the movement stopped. They were suspended. Everything was held in a state of abeyance, and silent. Later on, when they drifted high over herds of animals, noises came up to them made very small by distance, yet clearly audible; but right at the beginning, he was impressed with the complete hush and a beauty of motion that seemed effortless, almost without impulse. He felt his heart lift. The young man wrote in a notebook, the girl hummed a song; he wore a striped sailor’s jersey, she had on a dress made out of some kind of sparkling material. They were both about the age of Stan’s college students. He began to feel very happy and the balloon
started to rock gently, like a boat. The young man leaned back against the rigging and said, “This is the life, Stan,” and he answered, “This is the life.” The girl gave him a big magazine-cover smile, beautiful. She put out her hands and touched him. He woke up with a jump and laughed a little. He felt terrific. But later in the day he remembered how young the two had been—he was really old enough to be their father. And for a few minutes he was overcome by fury and remorse at the thought that he had never had the chance to do anything exciting with his life when he’d been young. Going up in balloons, fooling around with new adventures and experiences—he should have done all that long ago, and finished with it, and moved on.

*

When the next batch of letters arrived, there was another note from Nicholas, to say that the Whiteacres were finally on the road, with every last piece of the tremendous load of stores, machines and baggage. Their four friends were in the safari and it was like being in charge of troop movements.

Pippa handed the letter to Ian when she’d finished with it. “Nick says so far they’ve been spending most of their time behind their binoculars, spying on lion servicing the pride. Except when the Whiteacres are trying to outshoot each other and coming close to blowing their heads off. It seems Jill’s had a bit of a setback, too.” She shook her head. “He always says less than he feels.”

“He’ll be all right,” Ian told her.

“How do you know?”

“She’s the one who’s the problem.”

Millie said, “It’s too bad she was in such an isolated place.”

Ian agreed. “The worry,” he said. “The fear. And being alone there when Nick was off on safari. Thinking she had no protection for herself, and certainly wouldn’t be able to protect the kids.”

“Was she really all alone?”

“Of course not. Dozens of boys working round the house, on the farm.”

“Oh, I see. No women to talk to, that kind of thing.”

“That’s it. No community life. Her kind of community. One other person would have kept her on the rails. It was all right when old Mrs Hastings was still alive.”

“Mad as a hatter,” Pippa said.

“But not bad company. Frightfully funny, sometimes. All that makes a difference.”

“But this is her home. She grew up here. It isn’t a case of some young wife in the foreign service who’s never seen a black face. I still think that last baby took something out of her.”

“That could be. Not denying it. I don’t think it’s the only reason.”

*

This is crazy,
he thought.
I’m not even approaching it the right way. I’ve hardly taped anything except the sounds of the animals at night. I don’t know why I’m still pretending there’s a publication in it. It’s become something entirely different. I think I’m right on the track of it, and the next minute it slips through my hands and there’s nothing. I feel the way I used to when I was a child, obsessed by questions of why we die and where we go afterwards and is there a God, is there a limit to the universe and if so, what’s beyond that: if I could only solve the mystery, everything would be perfect.

“The mystery is about yourself, Stan,” Jack had said in London. “It’s always about yourself.”

And when he woke up in the middle of the night, he seemed to hear an echo saying, “What are you scared of? Afraid you’ll like it?”

*

They changed their campsite again, this time finding a lush spot near trees and not far from a small stream. There were large numbers of animals in the vicinity because of the water; they would even wander into camp. And there was a wide range of good views to paint.

On the third day after their arrival, Millie and Pippa saw a green-and-white checked balloon riding low in the sky and coming slowly towards them. They left their paints and ran to meet it. Robert and his friend Odinga went after them, shouting and whipping their arms in the air.

They reached the road and waved. The balloon drifted along as lazily as a leaf on a slow-moving current. One of the men in it gave them a friendly sweep of his arm, the other had a telescope to his eye and wasn’t looking in their direction.

“It’s the London team,” Pippa said. “One of them is English and the other’s a New Zealander, I think.” Millie stepped forward to begin making her way through the long grass of the field beyond the road.

“Don’t go out there,” Pippa said sharply. “Anything could be out there.”

Millie stopped. “It’s just a field,” she said.

“It’s just a field where at least twenty lion could be snoozing with their cubs, or leopard, or anything. Even a warthog can turn nasty.”

Millie continued to look sceptical.

“And the ticks,” Pippa added, “and those ants, I told
you about them, the sort that leave their heads under one’s skin—”

“All right, you’ve convinced me.”

They went back to their paintings. Millie said it was a shame the balloon hadn’t landed. It would have been fun.

“More fun to go up in it,” Pippa told her. “But Ian’s right; they’ve their work to do. They can’t be giving us rides all the time, more’s the pity.”

“You know them?”

“I met them once, but only to shake hands. They were in a tearing hurry to start off on one of their trips. The other balloon is the one I went up in.”

“Not the group-sex love-nest?”

“No, no. Good heavens. The pink-and-white one you saw with Ian the first day out. That’s an official one. The government department. It’s the one surveying this territory now. There’s another one somewhere. We know Archie and Colin best.”

“I’m very intrigued by the skyborne eternal triangle.”

“Oh my dear, so am I. I’ll tell you if I see them.”

“What colour is their balloon?”

“I’m trying to remember. No, it’s gone. I do hate forgetting things. It’s happening more and more.”

They talked while they worked on their pictures; Pippa about her grandchildren and about the past, when her own children were small and Ian was working for Odell. Millie spoke, when asked, about her family. She thought of them suddenly at a great distance not just of miles but of time. She caught herself thinking about them sometimes as if they had died long ago. The idea struck her as disconcerting, rather than sad.

*

Stan started three different letters to Jack and tore them up.

The fertility rites of a primitive religion were one thing. And deliberately staged erotic games from the big city were another. Of course they were. And of course it had been different, without a doubt; especially at the end. But none of that mattered.
Forget
all
that
—that was one of Jack’s favourite sayings and he was right. What was important was that he and Millie should be able to draw a line across their lives together and move away from the unhappy past.

He went on a two-day hunt with Ian and came back in a good mood. They cleaned up, had a drink and joined Pippa and Millie for the evening meal.

They talked about the game and about how well conservation methods had succeeded in certain areas but not in others; poaching, disease, the amount of rainfall, were all important factors. Ian had a lot to say on the topic of illegal hunting. And Pippa told a long story which didn’t follow from the rest of the conversation: about the famous Curse of the Pharaohs, which might really have been a virus similar to one found on the walls of caves in South Africa, or so she had been informed by a friend of hers back in town. The friend had read it somewhere.

“Rubbish,” Ian said.

“No, she was very good on the details. I forget how it worked. The virus is carried by bats.”

“I thought they all just died normally,” Millie said. “More or less. Pneumonia and things.”

“That was the bat virus. It took different forms.”

Ian threw up his hands. Stan had no fixed opinions about ancient Egypt. He thought that when they were alone later, he would tell Millie he’d missed her while he
was away.

Ian said, “Come on. It’s time for us to go hang
upside-down
.”

Pippa yawned and Millie stood up. Stan put down the empty glass he’d been holding. They all said goodnight. On the way to the tent, Millie said she felt that they had known the Fosters for a long time. And Stan, not meaning to put it the wrong way around, said, “Did you miss me?”

She hadn’t. She said, “We didn’t have the time to miss anybody, either of us. You saw all the paintings we did.”

“I missed you.”

They went inside the tent. He said they’d probably be moving camp again in two days, and after that the next stop would be the Whiteacres.

“Then,” he told her, “we go on to the real country.”

“This isn’t real?”

“This isn’t connected with my work.”

“Of course. That’s the yardstick reality is measured by.”

He started to laugh and felt uncertain. Now that it was important to him to know, he’d lost the ability to tell what she was feeling. He used to know and not care. Perhaps she was deriding him.

Her lips shaped a non-committal smile, her eyes looked nowhere in particular, and not at him.

She was only teasing. She was fond of him again now, but she often found him very silly. And amusing. He no longer got on her nerves. Nothing did any more. And she would be leaving him soon.

“Ian is afraid of illness,” she said. “Especially afraid of women becoming ill. It’s odd for a man whose life is so concerned with violence and death.”

“Maybe that’s why.”

“Maybe. Nicholas has the same kind of life, but I don’t think he’d disapprove of Jill. He probably just feels terrible for her because he can’t understand what’s happened.”

“You think Ian disapproves?”

“Yes. He thinks she should have had the guts to bring up those kids on her own out there and not crack up, because that’s what Pippa would have been able to do.”

“Yes. And in a way he’s right, isn’t he?”

“Of course not. People aren’t all alike. And speaking as a woman who fended off an induced crack-up for many years, I’m a little sensitive about it.”

In all their years of married life, she had never opened her mouth to tell him. Now it was said:
It’s
your
fault.
Induced crack-up. And now that she had spoken, he felt helpless. He had no position prepared and he didn’t know how to respond.

He said, “Goodnight,” and pulled the covers over himself.

Their new camp was in a clearing by a good-sized stand of trees and behind the trees were bushes. A light breeze played through the branches all day long and most of the night. The hours of painting were never without the sound of leaves rustling, touching, blowing against each other.

We're
so
glad
to
hear
you
are
having
such
a
good
time,
Millie read.

She thought about her mother, who had tried to be tactful in asking about children. During the first two years of her marriage with Stan, her mother had warned her not to become a baby-machine. Millie's sister, Betty, had had three children right in a row. One summer morning, when
she was expecting the fourth, Betty had a long talk with Millie, said she hadn't wanted any of the children, she'd give anything to get rid of this one, and as far as she was concerned they weren't children; they were unwanted pregnancies, all of them, but their mother thought it was the right thing because she wanted other women to be as miserable as she was herself. The first child, Betty said, broke her—because she was married, so there was no reason she could give why she didn't want it. She had thought to begin with that of course they'd have children, but after a few years. Not straight away. She'd been sure he knew what he was doing—he'd said he did. So, with the second one, it didn't matter. The damage was done. It was too late. One day she would realize that her whole life had been just this: putting up with things she didn't like, because they were forced upon her. All these unwanted pregnancies would grow up and she would never be given the chance or the time, or maybe after such a long wait, the desire for her real, wanted children.

“I despise him. I despise myself,” Betty had said. “And if he knew, he'd despise me too. Everybody would.”

“I don't despise you,” Millie had said. She had put her own hand over her sister's, where it rested on the table. Betty's hand was without response and she stared ahead of her as if waiting, or stationed there by someone else, a statue standing behind a wall.

Even in the early years, Millie's attitude had changed at least three times: longing for children because it would mean she was a success, it would please Stan and keep him to herself; revulsion against the idea of children, thinking that she would then not only be betrayed but also saddled with the offspring of a man who didn't care about her at all; hoping again, because even if she could prevent herself
from wishing for love, she needed someone to touch and to hold in her arms.

She had gone to a doctor at the beginning, had had a thorough check-up and been told there was no reason why she shouldn't be able to have children. That meant, of course, that something must be wrong with her mentally. It never occurred to her that a similar examination of her husband might show some physical reason. She didn't want to hear any more from Stan about the subject. For the first time since he'd known her, she had shouted. And, a few years later, at the stage when she was pretending to want children but didn't, she was using two different methods of contraception simultaneously. She only gave them up because he had stopped wanting to make love. He had his hands full outside the house, she knew that well enough.

One day after she'd been to her parents for a visit, her father drove her home. She had never talked about her marriage and had finally made it plain that she didn't like being questioned. But before dropping her off at the
apartment
, he had asked, “Millie, are you happy?” Her father, who was so charming and agreeable; and it was just the kind of asinine thing he would say. Was her mother happy?

She didn't talk to Pippa about any of that. It came across her mind like veils, like curtains, sometimes like a form of speech, as though she were talking to herself while her brush outlined antelope and crocodile, elephant and bouquets of flowers copied from the photographs in a seed catalogue that had arrived in one of the mail deliveries.

Darling,
she wrote.
I
think
about
you
all
the
time,
I
never
stop.
I'm
waiting
and
waiting.
I
love
you
forever.

*

Stan and Ian set out in pre-dawn darkness for the village they had been told about. Ian talked nearly the whole way about Nicholas. It seemed probable to Stan that, as Millie had said, Ian blamed Jill; he was ready to find excuses for someone who made a mistake in work—even a stupid or dangerous blunder—but there was no excuse for anyone who made a private mistake, committed an error of emotion or suffered a collapse of psychological strength, a confusion of the personality. He appeared to believe that that was a matter of choice and if you gave in to a failure or a weakness, it was because life was made easier for you that way.

They sat in a shaded hut: circular, roofed, with supporting poles down the sides but no walls. Stan couldn't tell whether the building was unfinished or the walls removable and perhaps put back at night for protection against the cold and the night-hunting predators.

Four other men sat with them, one young, one old, and two middle-aged. The most important man was in his late forties. He had a leisurely, matter-of-fact way of indicating who should speak next, although also a slight air of menace, which might have been unconscious. Maybe it was an effect he had found useful as someone who was in authority over others. It could mean people wouldn't waste his time as much as they might have if he'd had a sympathetic manner.

“Remember, now,” Ian said as they went in, “I don't know any of these men. I've only got a sort of letter of recommendation from my friend.” He translated.

From the old man: “I heard it said when I was a child that a lion would come into the country one day that had the powers of a witch. I took this to mean a great man who
would lead the people in battle, who would make us rich and happy and bring back the health we have lost.”

From the young man: “I hear the children singing new stories about the lion. But songs change after a time. The songs I sang with my friends aren't all the same as the songs my father and his friends sang. Some of them were new to us because they were ours, not from our fathers. This is the way new songs are born. First the singers, then the song. These new ones are about the wedding of the lion and the feast of the guests who make welcome for the bridal pair. The songs don't come from my village. They come from the East.”

From the middle-aged man who was not heading the talk: “I heard such songs when I was passing through the country near the red rocks. The Bwana knows it. These songs all come from one village. They are not about a lion; they are about a man who is their witch. He kills the lion.”

From the leader: “I too have heard the songs, most of the time sung by children, in a few cases by young girls or boys. But I have also heard of men with masks and dressed in lion skins, who hunt elephant and rhino and sell ivory and horn against the law. I have heard these men don't like anyone to talk. They know boys in many villages who will work for them, make money, go to the city, live like a rich man. I've heard last year six boys, who wanted to talk, died.”

The leader didn't sum up, or indicate which explanation he thought should be accepted. He had included his own opinion, not pushing it, and that was enough for him. He turned to Stan, having realized without being told, that all this was for his benefit. Or perhaps he had been briefed by Ian's friend in the other village. Stan caught an ironic glint
in the man's eyes.
How
laughable
this
is,
the look said.
Food
is
more
important,
infectious
disease
and
all
other
illnesses
are
more
important;
doctors,
guns,
schools,
water,
the
fear
of
the
locusts
coming
back,
of
swine
fever
among
the
cattle.
Or,
if
this
were
a
search
for
an
enemy
—
that
too
would
be
understandable.

Stan moved his head in a slight nod. He turned to Ian. “Thanks,” he said, “that's fine, if you can find out the name of that village. And say I appreciate it.”

Ian asked the name of the village. After that, good manners forced them to stay a while. Ian talked a great deal and drank tea made from some thin, dark shreds that might have been leaves, bark, herbs or even wood. Stan saw that he too was about to be offered some of the drink. He told Ian quickly, “I thought I said it was against my religion to eat or drink anything on these special days.”

Ian explained. The men looked at Stan. He tried to appear staunchly religious without seeming unfriendly.

On their way back to camp, he said, “Well it lasted a long time, but that one man was a winner. If I could get my hands on a witch doctor who's building up his own cult—do you know the village?”

“Not well. I've been there with Harry. He uses a lot of boys who come from there. It's a bit off the beaten path.”

“Lion country?”

“Absolutely. Not the easiest terrain for shooting, but they're there, right enough. Of course it's fairly wild country. Not like this, where you can run slap into a tourist hotel every fifty miles or so, if you want to. Different breed of wildlife, of people. The nearer you go to the towns—you wouldn't credit what we've cut out of the digestive tract of some of the game we shoot: dolls, cameras, plastic washing-up bowls. Incredible. That's civilization for you.”

“Just to settle whether these things might be imported, or a revival. It makes it more interesting if they're connected with something still happening.”

Ian began to talk about lion. He said they were like elephant: once the idea took hold of you, no other animal would do. It could cloud your judgement. He went on to tell a story concerning a hunter who had had a partiality for black-maned lion and wouldn't touch anything else, so a friend of his had caught a lion in a net-trap and dyed the mane. The narrative rambled on, longer and more elaborate than a shaggy-dog story.

“Ian, what did they give you in that tea?”

“Well may you ask, my son.”

“Are you tight?”

“I'm … absolutely blasted. Happens every time. Marvellous stuff, God knows what's in it. Lasts about six hours and then sleepy.”

“You feel all right?”

“On top of the world. Like one of those balloons on a very thin rope. Keep bouncing up, straining away from the ground.”

That night, Stan was full of the new possibilities for proving his theory. Millie was quiet, listening and occasionally saying, “Yes, yes, that would be interesting.”

*

Sometimes she thought she heard a car in the distance and would go wait at the edge of the camp to see if Alistair's driver could be bringing her another letter. She'd stand still and try to will the car into her vision.
Bring
me
a
letter,
she'd repeat to herself.
Bring
it
now.

Whenever she remembered him, excitement and pleasure carried her upwards as if she were moving on a
tide. But she also began to feel lazy and she slept a lot. She thought she might be pregnant.

The next time Alistair stopped at the camp to deliver the mail, she took him aside to ask if he could do a test for her. “Just to make it official. I've never missed before, but maybe the change of climate has something to do with it.”

“I'll need a specimen,” he said. “No end of phials and retorts with me, and nothing the right size. It's always the way.”

“We've got a lot of extra little cans for the paints. I'll find something.”

As he was leaving, she handed him an old jam jar wrapped up in a brown paper bag. “Takes me back to my student days,” he said. “Extraordinary containers I saw. Coffee jars were far and away the favourite.”

“And don't say anything about it, please.”

“My dear lady,” he told her.

“Yes, I know. I'm only asking because it's important. And I want to be the one to break the news if there is any.” She went on to ask him if she could be doing herself or a baby any harm by taking anti-malaria pills. He questioned her about prescriptions and recent vaccinations. After he had driven away, she stood looking at the dust from the road as it billowed into the air. It spread out and hung in front of her for a moment like a piece of veiling across the landscape, then gradually dispersed, leaving only light and heat and the sound of a breeze in the trees nearby.

*

Stan went over his notes and copied some of the earlier jottings into his current folder. He made a recording of a long chapter on possession and the theory of substitution.
He added a footnote about changelings. And he wrote a letter to Switzerland. After lunch he lay on his side with his elbow out and one hand under his cheek. He read. Across from him Millie was curled up on her cot. She looked through magazines and catalogues.

He read about lions; their power, speed and agility. It was amazing what they could do: leap over a high fence to pick up a larger, heavier animal in their jaws and then jump back over with it. Wonderful. The degree of strength in ratio to their size was certainly greater than a man's. They were also stupendously virile. Ian had told him that one of the big zoos in Europe had made a study of how often a leonine courting couple mated in a set number of minutes, and the figures were astounding. But it was the lion's character that interested Stan; that is, the character it had been given. He had studied ballads and epic poems that likened men to all different kinds of creature—no animal was excluded from comparison. And every country or region had its own special types. But lions were universal. Most people knew what they were and everyone who was acquainted with them agreed that they were the fastest, the wildest, the most kingly, strongest, most terrifying, the proudest. And they were never afraid, never.