The Hunters

I let myself sink to the bottom, holding my breath until I thought I was going to pass out, then clawed my way back to the surface. Maud was sitting cross-legged by the side of the pool. I could tell she’d been watching for my bubbles.

‘One day you’re going to go too far,’ she said.

We stayed for an hour, racing each other, doing handstands underwater, then drying off in the sun. It was early afternoon when we went back into the hotel and the lobby was deserted. The receptionist was talking to someone in the office – we could hear his voice floating out but not the words. We walked through the room, trailing our fingers over the deep armchairs arranged in groups around it. Our footsteps rang differently across the wooden floors, Maud’s slapping as she ran ahead, mine padding softly behind her. I’d been in a grand hotel in Edinburgh before, but that had been stuffy, smaller and darker and filled with elderly people asleep in uncomfortable leather chairs. The Norfolk was nothing like that.

‘We should put some clothes on,’ Maud said when we’d done a full circuit. ‘Someone might see us.’

‘Mm-hmm.’

‘Are you coming?’

‘Later,’ I said. I heard her skidding off, but I was already looking at the covered terrace outside the hotel. The same plush armchairs were assembled out there, but two of them were occupied. I felt myself mysteriously drawn in their direction, not minding that the occupants were in a private conversation, or that I was naked other than bathing shorts.

At first I thought they were a young boy and an old man – since only old men wore brightly coloured African shawls – but then I reached the edge of the terrace and saw that the old man was young and blond, and the boy’s flannel shirt gave way to a long, white neck, and above that a slim face, half-hidden by a cocktail glass, but visible enough for me to see a woman’s painted mouth and elegant nose. More than that I noticed her eyes, which were fixed on me over the rim of her glass; they were the colour of the last moment of an African sunset, when the sky deepens with violets and blackish-blues, and they made me feel hollow. She was the finest, most delicate person I’d ever come across, a living china doll with porcelain skin and wide, doe-like eyes and black hair so shiny it was like an oil slick. When she smiled I felt a surge of energy in my stomach.

He had his hand on her knee, but lightly, as if he didn’t need to keep track of it. Her body was twisted towards him, one elbow resting on the arm of her chair and her face propped up in her hand.

When I didn’t look away she smiled, and dropped her gaze, then murmured something to the man who turned to look at me properly. He smiled too and called me over, and I felt a flush rising through my body that had nothing to do with the sweltering heat; I fled back inside the hotel, leaving them laughing at my shadow.

That was my first glimpse of Sylvie and Freddie.

Chapter Two

A few days later I was sitting at one of the outer tables on the terrace with my mother and Maud. It was nine pm, the hotel busier now, and the moon was out, much lower and larger in the sky than back at home. A few feet away in the dark was the creaking sound of a calling nightjar and the buzzing of katydids. Each table had a flickering candle to see by and waiters moved silently in and out of the shadows, bearing trays of cocktails and olives. A low hum of conversation filled the air.

‘I don’t know where your father’s got to,’ my mother said.

‘Mr MacDonald probably invited him for supper.’

She sighed.

‘Excuse me …’ The voice came from behind me. I turned and recognised the blond-haired man. He wasn’t wearing a shawl this time, but a shirt and dinner jacket. His face was half hidden in the darkness, but I could see a gleaming row of teeth and the whites of his eyes.

‘Yes?’ my mother said.

He stepped forwards. ‘I couldn’t help noticing you’re new here.’ He winked at me as he said it, and I flushed as deeply as I had at our first meeting. ‘I’m Freddie. Freddie Hamilton.’

‘Jessie Miller,’ my mother said warily. ‘My husband is William and these two are Theo and Maud.’

‘Come into the garden, Maud,’ he said.

‘My favourite poem.’ My mother smiled and I realised, thankfully, that she wasn’t going to be difficult.

‘I should congratulate you on two very good-looking children,’ Freddie said, and I felt he was looking at me particularly when he said it. ‘But how could they be otherwise with such an attractive mother?’ He clapped his hand on my shoulder and I started. ‘How old are you, Theo?’

‘Nearly fifteen,’ I said, at the same time that my mother said, ‘Fourteen.’

‘You make friends so quickly, Freddie,’ a woman said, and I felt myself tense under his hand as she came into the light, her eyes even darker and wider than before. I caught a hint of her scent in the air – musky and fruity, and intoxicating, like her voice, which was husky, with an American twang. It was nothing like the voice I’d given her in all the conversations I’d imagined us having over the last few days.

She was so close to me that I could have reached out my right hand and touched her. She was wearing the same outfit as before, with the addition of a small monkey perched on her shoulder. Now she was standing, I could see how long her legs were.

‘He’s called Roderigo,’ she said, and I realised she must have been watching me. ‘I’m Sylvie de Croÿ.’

‘These are the Millers,’ Freddie said. ‘Jessie, Theo and Maud.’

‘Can I hold him?’ Maud asked.

‘Of course you can.’ Sylvie offered her forefinger to Roderigo, who wrapped his paws around it, and swung him off her shoulder into Maud’s lap.

‘He doesn’t bite, does he?’ my mother asked.

‘This one’s tame,’ Freddie said.

‘Freddie bought him for me,’ Sylvie said. ‘He knows a man.’

‘You have to be careful who you buy them from. The locals know we like to have them as pets, so sometimes they wait underneath marula trees and catch them as they fall out, then pretend they’ve been domesticated for years.’

He still had his hand on my shoulder, weighing on me. I’d come across boys like him at school – popular, witty, larger-than-life. In comparison to them I’d always felt smaller and wirier than ever, with big, clumsy hands and feet.

I cleared my throat, trying to get my voice to sound as confident as Freddie’s. ‘What makes them fall out?’

‘Marula fruit gets them soused,’ he said.

‘He’s so sweet,’ Maud said.

‘He’s very naughty,’ Sylvie said, and smiled slowly.

‘And what brings you all to Kenya?’ Freddie asked.

‘That would be my husband,’ my mother said.

‘He’s the new Director of the railway,’ I said.

Back in Scotland, our neighbours had been amazed at my father’s job offer. Freddie and Sylvie didn’t even bat an eye. I shrank back in my chair, embarrassed that I’d tried so obviously to impress them.

‘The “lunatic line”,’ Freddie said. ‘That’s what they call it around here.’

I’d heard the name too. My father didn’t like it.

‘Of course it was going to be a difficult project,’ he’d said once. ‘It was the biggest we’d ever undertaken.’ The line had taken five years to construct, and he’d lost many of his Indian workers, shipped over by the British for the job. They’d been struck down by dysentery or malaria, and, in the worst cases, the malaria developed into blackwater fever, where the red blood cells burst in the bloodstream.

‘You have to know the symptoms to look out for,’ he’d told us. ‘Chills, rigor, vomiting. Black urine was the worst. If we saw that, we knew they were as good as dead.’

Sylvie took a cigarette case out of the pocket of her slacks. Her fingers were slim and delicate, but her nails were ragged and unvarnished. ‘I took the train when I first got in,’ she said. There was a kind of bubble in her voice, like she was holding back laughter. ‘My husband was sick after eating that brown stuff they serve.’

‘Windsor soup,’ I said, surprised. I couldn’t imagine Freddie being ill.

She leaned forwards and lit her cigarette with our candle. ‘I hear it built the British Empire.’ She bowed her head when she was talking, making it hard to tell who she was looking at.

‘Oh, here’s William,’ my mother said.

We all turned to look at my father, who was picking his way around the other tables on the terrace. He knocked into the back of a white-haired old lady’s chair, and she glared at him. I wished suddenly that he was younger, more dashing.

‘I’m sorry I’m late, darling,’ he said to my mother as he reached us.

She tipped her face upwards to receive his kiss. ‘Freddie, Sylvie, this is my husband, William.’

My father held out his hand and Freddie removed his from my shoulder; Freddie’s nails were in much better condition than Sylvie’s – smooth and blush-coloured.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ my father said. He shook hands with Freddie and Sylvie then mopped his forehead with a handkerchief. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Freddie wipe his fingers on his trousers.

‘Would you like to join us for a drink?’ my mother asked.

‘We’d love to,’ Freddie said.

‘Theo, Maud, give up your seats,’ she said, and we hopped up.

The grown-ups ordered drinks and we hovered nearby, Maud busy cradling Roderigo. It was well after our usual suppertime, but I was still brimming with energy somehow, even with an empty stomach.

Freddie sprawled back in my chair, the ankle of his left leg resting on the knee of his right. He was extremely physical, his hands constantly on the move, tapping his fingers on his foot then on the arm of his chair.

‘I can’t believe you’ve never seen Kirlton,’ he was saying. ‘How can you call yourself a Scot? When we were growing up I thought it was more important than Buckingham Palace.’

‘I’ve never seen Buckingham Palace either,’ my mother said.

‘Now you’re just being contrary.’

My mother laughed. ‘So is it still in your family?’

‘No,’ Freddie said. ‘My grandmother sold it, cursed woman. Generations of bad money management. My father even has to,’ he leaned forwards, ‘work.’

She smiled. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘It’s true. For the Foreign Office. He was training me up to replace him, but I married an unsuitable woman and came out here to be a farmer instead.’

I felt a thrill at hearing Sylvie described as ‘unsuitable’ and wished my mother would ask him more about it.

‘Well, you’re young enough to get away with it,’ my mother said.

‘You noticed,’ Freddie said, grinning.

‘You can’t be more than twenty-eight.’

‘Twenty-five in May, actually. But you can’t be more than eighteen.’

‘Now you’re being cruel,’ my mother said.

Sylvie was talking to my father about the railway. People’s expressions, especially women’s, usually started to glaze over within five minutes of the topic, but Sylvie was keeping up with him, asking him questions. Every time she exhaled she turned away so the smoke wouldn’t go in my father’s face. In profile, hers seemed sharper somehow, her nose and jaw clearly defined and her lashes long and sweeping. Her eyes protruded slightly, and she kept her lids halfway down, blinking dreamily. She spoke dreamily too; if Freddie was a torrent, Sylvie was like a slow-moving river.

‘Look, Theo,’ Maud said, appearing at my side. ‘Roderigo’s gone to sleep … I think he’s snoring.’ She put her head down to listen.

‘Maud, don’t get too close to the monkey’s mouth,’ my mother said.

‘Freddie said he was tame,’ I said.

‘Mr Hamilton, Theo.’

‘Freddie, I insist,’ Freddie said. ‘Especially as we’re countrymen. It’s good to hear my name pronounced correctly for once.’

‘Was that meant for me?’ Sylvie asked.

Freddie took her hand and kissed it. ‘You torture it more than the natives.’

‘I’m not surprised if they don’t get it right,’ Sylvie said, withdrawing her hand. ‘They’re all terrified of you.’ She cocked an eyebrow at him and he laughed.

‘Edie’s got you pegged,’ he said, and turned to my parents. ‘Edie’s my wife.’

I felt my stomach lurch – as if I was back at school in one of the rugby games, a bigger boy rushing towards me. So they weren’t married, or at least not to each other.

‘What does she say?’ Sylvie asked, smiling.

‘That you’re a wicked Madonna, slaying the menfolk and defending the vulnerable.’ He stood up and drew her up after him, slipping his arm around her back. She went slack and seemed to lean into him, raising her eyes to meet his and smiling that slow smile. I felt myself prickle with envy and admiration, but also embarrassment at my misunderstanding. They were the two most beautiful, exciting people in Africa. Marriage would have been too ordinary for them. Of course they were lovers.

‘Look at you –’ Freddie said. He lifted his free hand up to Sylvie’s face and ran his thumb across her lips. She made a snapping sound, like she was about to bite it, and he moved it quickly, laughing at her. I looked at my parents. They were both checking their watches, and I hoped it wasn’t time to go.

‘Well.’ Freddie bowed his head at my mother. ‘We should leave you to have your supper.’

My father stood up. ‘Yes – we better eat soon. Paid for the food here all week – don’t want to waste it.’

Sylvie turned away and I had a sudden dread that we’d never see them again. I took a step forwards. ‘Are you staying at the hotel?’ I asked.

My parents looked surprised. Freddie and Sylvie looked amused.

‘For tonight,’ Freddie said. ‘I’m driving back to African Kirlton tomorrow, but I’ll be in Nairobi again for Race Week.’

‘What’s that?’

‘One of the highlights of the social calendar here,’ he said. He looked at my parents. ‘It happens over Christmas. I’d be happy to take you around it if you’re interested?’

I prayed they’d accept.

‘Don’t feel like you have to,’ my mother said.

‘I don’t,’ Freddie said. He kissed her hand. ‘Good to meet you, Jessie, William, Maud, Theo. I’ll call for you in a week.’

My mother stood too and they all shook hands.

‘Very nice to meet you,’ my father said.

‘Nice to meet you too,’ Sylvie said. She came towards me and reached out her hands. For a moment I thought she was going to touch me, and my legs trembled, but she lifted Roderigo out of Maud’s arms instead, then left.

Chapter Three

On Friday morning my father said he’d take the afternoon off to show us around Nairobi. By midday the sun was fierce, and the lobby, where we were supposed to meet, was busy. I escaped into the garden and found my mother and Maud already out there. They were with another couple, a tall, dignified-looking man with thinning hair and a bristly moustache, and a slim, serious woman with dark, bobbed hair and a pretty, oval-shaped face. He was probably a little younger than my father, and she was probably a little younger than my mother. They were all standing on the garden path, and the woman was naming the flowers growing in the beds nearby.

My mother waved me over. ‘This is my eldest,’ she said. ‘Theo, say hello to Sir Edward and Lady Joan Grigg. Sir Edward is the Governor of Kenya.’

‘How do you do?’ I said.

Lady Joan looked me up and down and smiled at my mother. ‘I’m glad we don’t have a daughter,’ she said, which I thought was an odd remark.

‘Joanie’s trying to twist your mother’s arm,’ Sir Edward said to me. When he talked his moustache bristled even more. ‘She wants her to help out with the Welfare League she’s going to create.’

My mother spread her hands helplessly. ‘I don’t know anything about nursing or midwifery. What exactly could I do?’

‘Fundraising.’

‘I don’t have much experience of that, either.’

‘Every woman’s had to extract money from someone at some point,’ Lady Joan said. ‘And it’s a good cause.’ She nodded at me and Maud. ‘You’ve had children of your own. White settlers think the natives don’t feel pain when giving birth, but that’s completely ridiculous. We need to provide proper midwifery training for them.’

Sir Edward made a show of looking at his wristwatch. ‘I think I’ll head back to Government House. Leave you ladies to discuss the … finer points.’

‘No, don’t go,’ Lady Joan said. She turned back to my mother. ‘I won’t force you, of course. Just think about it.’

‘Well …’

‘She won’t leave you alone now,’ Sir Edward said, laying a hand on his wife’s arm. ‘It’s much easier to give in, believe me.’ He looked at Lady Joan as if he admired her and she rolled her eyes.

I felt the sun beating down on my head and shoulders, and wondered how much longer we were going to stand around.

‘You must come over for supper,’ Lady Joan said. ‘I can put my case across properly.’

‘Do you have any wild animals?’ Maud asked.

‘I’m afraid not,’ Sir Edward said. ‘We have lots of dogs, though. Do you like dogs? One of our bitches has just got pregnant.’

‘I like dogs,’ Maud said solemnly.

‘Perhaps we can find a puppy for you,’ Sir Edward said.

‘Then it’s decided,’ Lady Joan said. ‘Come around for supper and choose your dog.’

‘It’s very kind of you,’ my mother said. ‘But we leave for Naivasha in a few weeks, and of course, there’s Christmas before that …’

‘And Race Week,’ I said, suddenly more awake. ‘Freddie’ll be showing us around then.’

‘Lord Hamilton?’ Sir Edward asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Did you know him before you came out?’

‘We met him the other night,’ my mother said, frowning at me.

Sir Edward raised his eyebrows. ‘That might be his fastest work yet.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘The government officials have a name for that crowd,’ Lady Joan said. ‘The Happy Valley set.’

My mother looked helpless again. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

‘The “Valley” is because they live in the Wanjohi Valley region. The “Happy” …’ She glanced at Maud and then me. ‘I wouldn’t really like to say.’

‘Freddie’s a decent sort,’ Sir Edward said. ‘He takes his farming seriously. And he’s going to be High Constable of Scotland when his father dies. That’ll force him to grow up.’

‘I liked him,’ I said.

‘He’s very charming,’ Lady Joan said, ‘and you’re very young. But he’s not a good friend to have.’

I fixed my gaze over her shoulder so I wouldn’t have to look at her properly. I’d changed my mind – she wasn’t pretty at all.

‘He’s her third husband,’ she continued. ‘And I’ve heard bad things about their new guests – the de Croÿs. I don’t believe Madame de Croÿ is a good influence.’

‘You don’t know her,’ I blurted.

Lady Joan gave me an odd look.

‘We shouldn’t keep you,’ my mother said, holding out her hand again. ‘And it’s very kind of you to invite us over. I know William will be delighted to meet you.’

Sir Edward touched his wife gently on the shoulder. ‘Come on, Joanie,’ he said. ‘We should be getting back.’

‘I’ll be in touch about the League,’ she said.

‘Please do.’

They headed off.

My mother turned to Maud. ‘Can you run out to the front of the hotel, darling, and see if your father is there yet?’

She waited until we were alone before beckoning me to her and twisting my ear viciously until it couldn’t go any further. I bit my tongue to stop myself from crying out. ‘Don’t be so stupid,’ she hissed, and shoved me away. ‘Do you want us to have a chance out here or do you want to ruin it?’

I pressed my palm against the ear, trying to stop it throbbing. ‘Why can’t we have a chance with Freddie and Sylvie?’

My mother started walking away. ‘You don’t understand people,’ she said over her shoulder.

My father hadn’t arrived yet, so Maud and I waited on the terrace. I sat with my head against the cool of a pillar, boiling with anger; Maud sat next to me.

‘Lady Joan’s a bloody old witch,’ I said.

‘I liked her.’

‘She’s got something against Freddie and Sylvie, and now Mother’s bound to stop us being friends with them.’

Maud turned her face to me, eyes serious. ‘Mother only ever does something because she thinks it’s right.’

‘She does whatever she wants at the time.’

‘But she loves us, Theo.’

‘I don’t –’

‘There you are.’ Our father appeared before us and I bit my tongue.

Maud was sent to fetch our mother. We piled into the Model T Box Body my father had hired and drove away from The Norfolk, down Government Road and into the centre of the town. After a while, it got too hot with all of us in the front seat, and I switched to standing on the running board, hooking my arm through the door to stay on. Some of the roads had been laid properly, but many were made of a type of crushed gravel and a slight breeze blew its dust into my eyes and mouth. Every time my forearm touched the scorching metal a white-hot pain went through me, but it felt cleansing. My mother wouldn’t look in my direction, and I dreamed of catching her attention somehow – throwing myself off in front of another car maybe – and forcing her to see me, apologise to me.

Nairobi reminded me of the frontier towns in the Westerns I’d seen, with hitching posts outside the buildings and troughs for the horses. Only the people made it clear we weren’t in America. I tried not to stare at the women wearing skirts and nothing else, carrying large earthenware jugs on their heads.

My father showed us ‘railway hill’, where George Whitehouse had built his first house. He’d been the chief engineer of the railway, and my father used his church voice when he spoke about him.

‘The town was founded as a railway depot,’ he said, ‘and now it’s the capital of British East Africa.’

We turned onto 6th Avenue at the corner where the Standard Bank of South Africa stood. Groups of white settlers were standing on the bank’s porch, talking and smoking, and thick blue clouds had gathered around their heads. As we drove past my eyes began to sting.

Further up the road was the post office, with a white flag hanging from the tall flagpole in front of the building.

‘A blue flag means the mail ship’s left Aden for Mombasa,’ my father said. ‘A red flag means overseas mail has been received. The white flag means the mail’s ready for distribution. Not very sophisticated, but the couriers will find you anywhere – even on safari.’

‘Can I send a postcard to Grandma?’ Maud asked.

‘Good idea,’ he said.

The car juddered to a halt in front of the building, and I stepped down from the running board, stretching my back and arms. The sun was almost directly overhead and my skin felt tender from exposure to it. My mother made her way to the shade of a gum tree, fanning herself with the two wide-brimmed, floppy hats that all the women wore out here. She was still ignoring me and I suddenly couldn’t bear to be near her.

‘Maud, choose a postcard,’ my father said, mopping his forehead. ‘I need to send a telegram to the Glasgow office, and then we’ll head back.’

‘Can I stay out?’ I asked him. ‘I don’t mind walking home.’

My father looked to my mother and I felt my heart sink. Out of the corner of my eye, her expression was impossible to read. I scuffed my shoe in the dirt.

‘Don’t walk in the sunshine,’ she said eventually. ‘Here, take some money just in case.’ She held out some coins and I stepped towards her warily. ‘Remember – stay in the shade.’

‘I will,’ I mumbled.

She surprised me by kissing my forehead. ‘And be back at the hotel by four o’clock, or we’ll start to worry. We don’t want to lose you.’

My anger dissolved into gratitude at how quickly my punishment seemed to be over, and I started down the road with no clear idea of where I was going, relishing the opportunity to explore. Leaving the main streets behind me, I ended up in a more residential area, where most of the houses were bungalow mansions with tiled roofs, smallish windows and verandas supported by brick pillars. Perfectly straight paths ran between veranda and white picket fence, where flowers bloomed in pinks, purples, blues and creams, and in front of each house immaculate green lawns lay like carpets rolled out for important visitors. The road was wide, and dappled in the sun. I thought of the red tenements in Edinburgh, five storeys high and always cold inside, and felt a smile forming on my face.