Black Mischief (6 page)

‘Remember those times in Wiaki Way? No kids. Not much money.'

‘When we always shared our secrets.'

‘Always told each other the truth. I'm glad you made me go up to the McCall place.'

‘Made you? Nobody makes Abel Rubai do anything.'

‘I learned more than I expected, ‘specially about this forgiveness stuff and about myself.'

‘At last, Abel. I knew it could happen. Those people in the meeting are so right. President Abel Rubai! Hey, that means we will get to meet the queen! All this and a new baby. If only our Julius could see this. Oh, forgive me, Abel. But I am so excited to have you back.'

‘Julius. See, I can say his name without it bringing on the dark thoughts, the bad temper. The pain is there, but the wound is healing. Anyway, what was that you said about …

passing on? Our boy is not far away, just in the next room. I think I'm ready to buy that now.'

To Abel, Sally was the dearest thing in the world. From the very first he had been protective of her. They had met when they were children. They began their working careers together with Neisland, Kapper and Reed, the most successful accountancy firm in the country. When the new president himself invited Abel to join his staff, they shared their new prosperity. At just about the same time Julius was born and things changed. Sally willingly became a full-time mother and wife. Abel was drawn along a new and private path. As financial adviser to the main man, Abel became a power in the land and soon the power. Always he kept his family and public lives separate. In Sally's eyes, Abel continued to be the upright, enthusiastic idealist of their shared youth. But the dreamer had become the realist. It was safer for both of them that she was not invited into his new world. He had been more than ready to embrace the truth that to play a winning game often meant playing a dirty game. She would never have understood that.

The death of Julius knocked him sideways for a time, but he recovered his poise. He came back to the fray more ruthless, more shameless. Get in his way at your peril. Yes, he had spoken the truth about his visit to Londiani. He had learned a lot. Sally believed him and for Abel her innocence, her trust were important. What need was there for her to be bothered about the cauldron of hot anger that burned deep in the hidden places of his being? When the time came, the McCalls would learn the truth the hardest possible way. They would never see it coming.

‘Sally, how would you like it if you had a son for an MP? Nakuru South is open this time.'

‘You mean Reuben?'

‘Yeah, we had a talk on the way home. You know, I don't believe we ever got that close before.'

‘Can he win?'

Abel was highly amused. ‘I think I can say that the people of the district will be falling over themselves to vote for the son of their president.'

‘But isn't the McCall boy …'

‘Woman, he would be lucky to get a hundred votes, all from his white farmer friends, Europeans who stole good African soil to make their fortune.'

homas, I am afraid.'

A day had passed since the visit to Londiani of the whole Rubai family. Tom McCall had returned to Big House after a morning in the fields. He had been grateful that it had been a busy time for him. Workers came to the young bwana with problems from the moment he had set foot in the farm office. The hours had passed quickly. One of the refrigerated trucks that transported the farm produce down to Jomo Kenyatta Airport needed a service and the foreman mechanic was off sick. In one of the flower tents a fight broke out. Two of his best young apprentices were rolling around on a patch of rich brown earth that was ready for replanting. There was some serious hitting going on and Tom had been forced to march the pair of them down to the lakeside for a stern chat. The hour he spent with those bright eighteen year olds had been the highlight of his morning.

He was home early for lunch. He did not go straight in for a beer with his father on the veranda. Instead he went ‘round to the back of the house, intending to spend a few minutes in the laundry garden. It was a favourite place where, sitting on a warm, sunny bank of mown grass he had often watched Rebecca and Angela working at the washing troughs.

On one of those days, when her mother had gone into the kitchen to help the memsahib to prepare lunch, a delicious thought ran through Rebecca's mind.

‘Thomas, when we are married, you won't mind if I want to help out with the laundry sometimes?'

‘As long as you don't ask for special pay rates.'

He had not expected her to be there that late morning. It was her day for helping out in Hippo House, the play school on the Buckles' land just beyond the parkland of Sanctuary Farm. He heard her before he saw her. She was singing ‘Broken Hearted Mama', a favourite blues song written by Tony Wajiru. Tom waited behind the screen of the cei-apple hedge until she had finished.

‘Thomas, I was just thinking about you and suddenly, how does your father say it? “Bob is your uncle.”'

‘So, thinking about me, you sing a sad song.'

She hesitated before answering, absently squeezing the white piece of washing she held in her hands. ‘You know that is not true.'

‘But what happened about Hippo House? Are you feeling all right? Usually I can hardly drag you away.'

There was another hesitation before she spoke, longer this time. ‘Thomas, I am afraid.'

In a long silence they looked at one another across the sunlit garden until Tom said quietly, ‘Something that happened yesterday, isn't it?'

‘I wish they did not come.'

Tom smiled wryly and shook his head. ‘Big mistake.'

‘Sally wants good things. She loves her husband so much. She cannot see any fault in him. Their children loved it by the lake. When the hippos showed their faces above the water, they thought they had come ‘specially to say hello to them. They were happy and excited nearly all the way back. We were close to Big House when they heard their father shouting angrily. Straight away the fun went out of them.'

”Becca, there wasn't a whole lot of fun stuff going on back here. Papa Rubai is a scary one, but the son and heir, I think he is crazy, bonkers, nuts, take your pick.'

‘Thomas,' she looked down at her washing and sighed, ‘that one, Julius's brother, he looks at me so strangely. It makes me shudder. I think he would like me to be dead. He blames me, I am sure of it.'

Tom moved quickly to the washing trough. He put his arm around her shoulder and led her towards the path that took them to the top of the bank. No words were spoken until they were standing under their acacia and looking out over the big waters of the lake. The afternoon haze hung down from the sky like the finest gauze so that Old Longonot and Suswa had lost their sharp edge and taken on a vague, mysterious outline.

‘Thomas, how many times did we meet at this tree, when we were afraid to speak? Hiding here in the darkness, those nights seem so far away now. There was hope then and all our little dreams. Fear has come now. I thought the bad things were gone.'

‘There is a dawa for all this.'

‘Dawa for cleaning the mind?'

‘Yep.'

‘When we were in New York Monica and the other girls laughed about Freddie, Toni's drummer. He was going to see, I think they called the person a shrunk. Monica said, “No wonder. Banging those drums every night has fried his brains.” So, was that a doctor of the mind?'

‘Well, sort of. I remember Freddie. We got on really well. He was missing Nyeri. That was his problem. Like I was missing this place when I was over there. New York was too noisy for him. “This crazy place is driving me nuts.”'

‘I do not think that there are any shrunks in Naivasha.'

‘Wrong!'

‘Thomas, you are laughing at me. This is serious. You know how it was with Julius and now …'

‘I'm not laughing. I'm telling you the truth. Lots of shrinks around this lake. Matter of fact we are going to see one this afternoon. Going on the Harley. Bertie's getting her ready. Sometime after three.'

‘You say “shrinks”. When am I going to learn to speak proper English? Perhaps you will teach me.'

”Becca, There is not a single thing in the world that I could teach you.'

* * *

The washing on the lines was ballooning, puffed out by the warm breeze. Tom arrived early.

‘I have to gather in the clothes before we go and I want to change my …'

‘Rebecca, I've always wanted to help out here. Your mother would never let me. “No, Bwana, if the mehmsahib saw such a thing.” This is my chance.'

‘But I will be quicker on my own.'

He compromised. She took the washing down, but he slowed her progress by following along the lines and, every few yards, grasping her around the waist.

‘Just checking you haven't strained a muscle or something. All this stretching can be dangerous. And just one more kiss, to keep your spirits up.'

They walked the couple of hundred metres over to Rusinga. On the way, they paused on a piece of raised ground where they watched builders pouring concrete into the foundations of what would be a large bungalow.

‘Won't be long now. Mister Sawyer says in three months we can move in.'

‘Then we will start our garden, Thomas.'

‘No flowers, please.'

‘But we will have a vegetable area, an orchard and I would like a very large English lawn. Can we have jacaranda and a cei-apple hedge like Londiani …?'

‘Don't forget the date palms, the small coffee plantation, the paddling pool!'

‘Thomas McCall, if you are not careful …'

‘And if you are not careful, Madam, we will be late for our appointment.'

‘You mean there really is a mind doctor …'

‘Would I lie to you? Look over there. I hope you've brought sunglasses. Solomon's been polishing the Harley. Come on.'

* * *

Bertie Briggs was the McCalls' nearest neighbour. He was waiting for them near the gate to his farmhouse. Ewan was almost three and he was perched in front of his father and reaching out for the handlebars of the Harley. The fair-haired boy's birthday was not far away, the anniversary of the day when Bertie had gained a son and lost his soul mate on the same bloodstained bed in Nairobi Hospital. Ewan was Bertie's most precious treasure and his greatest worry.

‘Tom, can I come with you? I know how to hang on. Dad and Solomon have been teaching me.'

‘Next week. I promise you. Today I have to give Rebecca a lesson. Big ladies have to learn how to hang on, too, you know.'

‘But Rebecca is not a big lady. She's my teacher in Hippo House. She knows everything!'

Bertie slid from the saddle and lifted Ewan off with him.

‘And we have to go over to Londiani to see another big lady who knows everything as well. We're having tea with Rafaella. Remember? Pizza and chocolate cake. She told me it's your favourite.'

‘Yes, but Tom could take me on the bike and you could follow us.'

‘Talkative boys don't get chocolate cake for tea. Tom, Solomon filled her up in town this morning.'

Bertie moved in on Tom and hugged him. ‘Bless you, boy.'

‘That's a new one, Mister Briggs! Why for?'

A flustered Bertie blinked sharply to hold back a tear. ‘Oh, lots of things. I just saw you again at Ewan's age. It's the time of year. You two look after each other out there. Don't bother to bring back the bike tonight. Solomon will come over in the morning.'

Within minutes Tom was travelling at a sedate speed down South Lake Road in the direction of Hell's Gate. Clinging close to his back, Rebecca was enjoying her first ride on the Harley. The breeze they created caused her scalp to tingle and played with her long, black hair, making it dance about erratically. Progress was slow and not only because Tom wanted it that way. The workers on the flower farms had finished for the day and on both sides of the road hundreds of them were walking and chatting their way into Naivasha town. There was not a single one of them who did not know the young couple going in the opposite direction. In six months Rebecca had become the most famous woman in the country, an international singing star with the Toni Wajiru band. Tom had miraculously survived two violent attacks on his life. It was not only the local kids who had given him the nicknames of Superman and Lazarus.

So there was a great deal of smiling and waving and calling in their direction. It was Tom's first outing on the bike since the day, nine months before, when he had taken Lucy, a friend visiting from England, on the same route, with almost fatal consequences to himself. He needed to try to regain his equilibrium after the visit of the Rubai family. It was not only Rebecca who needed to see the mind doctor. Abel Rubai who had supposedly come for some kind of reconciliation and his son, Reuben, had caught him unawares and, without realising it, unleashed the demon. Julius was dead. How much guilt did he bear for this death? Stephen, the pastor father of Rebecca, had almost succeeded in leading him out of this dark forest of his own creation. Rebecca could help him take those last few steps.