The Hunters

These streets were mostly empty, but after a while I started to pick up a buzzing sound and, turning a corner, I stumbled on an open-air market. Stalls had been set up displaying all manner of produce: carnations, violets, tomatoes, large brown eggs, limes, courgettes, green bananas, aubergines, sacks of flour and dusty potatoes. People were thronging the aisles, squeezing and weighing the vegetables, and swatting away the flies that hovered at face-height. I hesitated, overwhelmed for a moment, but when I finally ventured in no one paid me any attention until I reached a crossroads in the market and paused, trying to decide where to go. A few shoppers knocked into me, and I felt a tap on my shoulder and smelled amber and peach. ‘You’re a lone beast, aren’t you, Theo?’

It was Sylvie. She was wearing a loose-fitting black blouse with a plunging neckline that ended just above her bellybutton, and black velvet trousers. Roderigo was wrapped around her neck, nibbling her earlobe. I got the impression she was laughing at me in a friendly way, although she wasn’t actually smiling. I felt a rush of panicked excitement at being alone with her.

‘I see you’ve found Mr Sand’s market,’ she said. ‘Here every Tuesday and Friday.’

‘Oh?’ I cursed myself for being so tongue-tied.

‘And what are you up to?’ she said, with that bubble in her voice again. ‘Buying provisions for The Norfolk kitchen?’

‘Just looking.’

‘Mm-hmm?’

It was hard not to stare at the apricot-coloured skin stretched taut over her stomach. She was still watching me, her head cocked to one side. I tried for the most grown-up conversation I knew, ‘Would you like to have a drink?’

Now she laughed for real, throatily. ‘Are you asking me on a date?’

Blood thrummed in my ears. ‘I’m …’

‘I’d love to have a drink with you.’

She fell into step with me. My body moved automatically, steering a path through the crowds and towards a bar on the side of the square. Despite all the people around, it was empty, and several of the tables had dirty glasses or overflowing ashtrays on them.

She sat in a chair on the porch, and I sat opposite her. When she leaned towards me I saw that she wasn’t wearing a brassiere, and her small, firm-looking breasts had dark nipples. My hand was on the table, and for a moment I thought they might brush against it. I bit my tongue, desperately trying to distract myself.

Roderigo scampered onto the table between us, exploring the ashtray, picking up the butts and tasting them before spitting them out onto the floor.

Sylvie folded her hands neatly in her lap and smiled mischievously. ‘I’ve never been taken here for a drink – I hear it’s quite unwholesome.’

I jumped up, my face burning. ‘We can go somewhere else.’

‘I want to stay here.’ She laughed at me again and signalled for the waiter. ‘I’ll have a whisky sour,’ she told him. ‘And this gentleman will have some wine-and-water.’

The waiter went away without saying anything, but I thought I saw him sneer at me. Freddie would have known exactly where to take her, I told myself, and he would have done the ordering.

Sylvie took out her cigarette case and lit a cigarette. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now I can get to know you properly.’

‘There’s not much to know.’

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. People are talking about you already, you know.’

‘Why?’

‘You’re absurdly handsome, Theo.’

I felt my heart beating violently in my throat. I’d never been made to feel handsome by people my own age – it seemed too manly a word – but maybe adults had a different idea of beauty to children and I thought how wonderful it would be to be part of a world where I was appreciated rather than laughed at.

Sylvie gave me her special smile and breathed blue smoke out of her nostrils. ‘Freddie noticed it,’ she said, ‘the first time we saw you at the hotel. He said “Who’s that beautiful boy over there?” You were like a wild animal, the way you were watching us with your big eyes. Then you ran away as soon as we’d spotted you.’

Knowing that Freddie thought that made me feel hot and cold at the same time. I flailed around for something to say. ‘Sorry.’

‘For what?’

‘For running away – it’s rude.’

‘I wouldn’t say that.’ She leaned back again in her chair. ‘Now, I know you were born in bonny Scotland, but have you lived anywhere else?’

‘No. Have you?’

‘Born in Buffalo twenty-five years ago,’ she said, pulling on her cigarette. ‘Mother died when I was seven, father remarried.’ She parted her lips slightly to let the smoke curl out of her mouth. ‘I actually liked my stepmother, but my father was a bit of a kook, so I went to live with Aunt Tattie in Chicago when I was thirteen. Then she decided I was running with some unsavoury characters so she took me to Paris, where I met my husband, the Comte de Croÿ.’

The Comte de Croÿ; I rolled the title around in my head – he was probably old and rich and fat.

Our drinks arrived and Sylvie waited until the waiter had gone before continuing, ‘We lived for a little while in Beaufort, his castle in Normandy, but I felt … trapped. So he agreed to bring me out here.’

So he was some provincial Frenchman who didn’t speak a word of English and ignored her. I remembered Lady Joan’s disapproving face when she mentioned Sylvie, and felt a surge of protective anger. Why should she stay with her husband if she was unhappy? If someone younger came along who could make her laugh, and look after her, then why shouldn’t she be with them?

Sylvie dropped her cigarette on the floor and ground it out, then scooped Roderigo up in one arm. ‘And that’s the potted history.’ She held her glass up and I chinked mine against it. ‘Salut. Your turn.’

‘Born in Scotland,’ I said, shifting in my seat. ‘Lived there until a month or so ago. Both parents alive. One sister.’

‘She’s charming. She reminds me of my eldest daughter.’

I took a sip of my wine, but it went down the wrong way and I broke into a coughing fit. Sylvie took out another cigarette and lit it, pretending she hadn’t noticed. I took a second sip of the wine, trying to calm my throat. ‘I didn’t know you had children. You don’t look old enough.’

‘I’m not,’ Sylvie said. ‘I wasn’t. I should have waited.’ She drained her whisky sour and gestured to the waiter for another. ‘They’re both living in France with Aunt Tattie. Great Aunt Tattie now.’

‘Oh.’

‘They’re adorable, but they’re …’ She leaned back in her chair, resting her head against it. ‘People. Human beings.’ Roderigo climbed back up to his perch on her shoulder and she scratched him behind his ear.

‘I suppose so.’

She smiled. ‘I mean – they’re real. And they’re so small and they need you so much, and I couldn’t be sure I wasn’t going to mess up their lives.’

She looked so beautiful and fragile. I knew I should say something, but I didn’t want to disturb her, either.

‘I’m sure you wouldn’t. You’re very nice.’

‘I’ll give you a tip.’ She pulled on her cigarette. ‘That’s not really a word that women want to be called.’

‘Sorry.’

She was laughing at me again, but I didn’t mind.

The waiter brought over her second cocktail and we clinked glasses again. I was suddenly, idiotically happy.

‘To Africa,’ she said. ‘And new friends.’

‘To new friends.’

When we finished our drinks I tossed the money down onto the table and hurried over to pull out Sylvie’s chair for her. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her tip the contents of the ashtray she’d been using onto the floor, and slip the ashtray into her purse. I stopped just beside her, feeling my cheeks flare up.

‘Well,’ she was saying. ‘Now I can cross this bar off my to-do list.’

‘Yes,’ I mumbled.

She looked up at me expectantly. My mind was racing – maybe her husband controlled the money and wouldn’t give her any. Maybe she was keeping it as a souvenir of our drink together.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I can’t get up with you standing there.’

I looked at her properly and she smiled. I felt her perfume envelop me.

‘Let me,’ I said, and moved her chair back for her as she stood.

‘You’re a rarity, Theo,’ she said. ‘Beautiful people don’t usually have beautiful natures.’

My breath caught in my chest, making me feel dizzy. Without thinking about it I offered her my arm, as I’d seen young men do to young women before. Sylvie considered it gravely, then slipped her arm through mine. I knew I would be late back to the hotel, and my mother would probably be angry, but it didn’t seem to matter any more.

‘Where shall we go?’ I asked.

Chapter Four

Christmas arrived a week later. I woke with the sunshine falling across my face. ‘Auntie’, the white-haired proprietor of The Norfolk, had arranged for stockings filled with oranges, nuts and chocolate to be hung on each guest’s door, and we ate the food with the shutters and garden doors wide open, the sky blossoming above us into a rich, cloudless blue. Ten feet away a group of white-bellied-go-away-birds gathered, bleating to each other on the branch of a mango tree. It was a world away from Christmas at home.

Down in the lobby, the staff had decorated the Christmas tree with bells and coloured candles, and guests were drinking glasses of champagne, fanning themselves in the heat. My parents joined them while we went for a swim, staying on the edge of the other groups of children, then we took a rickshaw to the Carlton Grill on Government Road.

By the time we arrived the place was almost full. Other families were already seated and pulling crackers, and the smell of herbs and woodsmoke billowed through the room. My father ordered us mutton chops cooked on an open fire in front of us, the juiciest meat I’d ever eaten. Afterwards, we had Christmas pudding, then climbed back into rickshaws for a ride around town. Coloured lights had been strung up along 6th Avenue, and a man dressed as Father Christmas was standing on the corner, handing out candy canes to passing children.

‘Take one for me, Theo,’ Maud said. I stretched out my arm as we passed and Santa threw a cane to me.

It was dark by the time we returned to the hotel. A pianist was playing carols in the lobby, and glasses filled with port stood in rows on the bar. Auntie moved between the various groups dotted around the room, smiling, asking after relatives and telling stories of her own. Maud and I gave our mother a tortoiseshell comb, and our father a book. Our presents from them were a pair of new shoes and a whistle each, and when Maud wasn’t looking, my father slipped me a few banknotes.

‘Isn’t this fun, children?’ he said, and winked at me.

Maud hung her whistle around her neck. ‘It’s so shiny.’

‘It’s not a toy,’ I said. ‘It’s to scare away animals if you come across them in the wild.’

‘They won’t hurt us,’ she said. ‘Animals only attack if they’re frightened.’

‘Quite so,’ my father said, looking around. ‘Can you see if they’ve run out of the port?’

‘What if they’re angry?’ I asked Maud.

‘Animals don’t get angry. Only people do.’

I shrugged, looking away. Several of the other boys staying at the hotel had been given airguns, and were running around the garden with them. I watched them out of the corner of my eye, trying not to give away how much I wanted to join them. My mother must have noticed however, because she took my chin in her hand, digging her fingers into my jaw.

‘I hope you’re not going to leave us,’ she said. ‘Christmas is family time.’

‘Oh good,’ my father said, holding up his empty glass. ‘They’re bringing it round now.’

The next few days were hot and humid, with no sun in sight behind a wall of clouds. The flowers were already wilting at the breakfast table when Freddie appeared beside us. He smelled of pomade and oil, and I guessed he’d just driven into town. He shook hands with my father and me, and kissed my mother’s and Maud’s hands.

‘I hope you’re still in the market for a guide,’ he said. ‘I hear the first race today is a good one.’

‘Actually,’ my mother said, folding her napkin on the table. ‘I’m not sure we can attend. We’ve been invited to lunch by the Griggs. I’m very sorry to put you out.’

‘Ah – our illustrious Governor,’ Freddie said. ‘Well that’ll certainly be a more dignified afternoon.’

There was a silence, and in that moment I hated my parents, and the dull way they lived their lives, even in Africa. If they’d driven him away, I’d never forgive them, I told myself. I wanted to tug the tablecloth off and break everything on the table.

‘I’ll leave you to your breakfast then,’ Freddie said after a while. ‘But you’ll come and visit when you’re settled in Naivasha, won’t you?’

‘Of course,’ my mother said.

‘Well that’s something.’ He winked at me, and I realised with relief that he wasn’t angry. He said goodbye and we went back to our breakfast, although I’d lost my appetite and I pushed my porridge away.

‘Can I go into town?’ I asked my mother. ‘I want to see if the market’s open.’

‘Don’t you want to go swimming?’ she asked.

‘No.’

She narrowed her eyes at me.

‘I won’t be long.’

‘Why not?’ my father said. He leaned closer to me. ‘Maybe you can go to the bank, too? Look into some investment opportunities?’

‘I’ll do that,’ I said.

‘If you’re only going that far you should be back in two hours,’ my mother said. ‘I don’t want a repeat of last time.’

I looked at a point just past her left ear. ‘I told you I got lost.’

‘Don’t get lost again.’

As I was turning left out of the hotel gate, I heard someone call my name. Freddie was sitting in his car a few yards down the road, smiling at me. The car was huge: a dark green, open-top Hispano-Suiza with a long shiny body at the front and high wheels.

‘I thought you might change your mind,’ he said, when I reached him. ‘My old man was always trying to force me into that world too. Foreign Office engagements with lots of government bores. So …’ He smiled at me. ‘Still keen to see the races?’

‘Yes please.’ I took a deep breath. ‘I’ve never been before.’

‘And your parents? They approve of you attending with me?’

‘Yes.’

He looked at me closely, and I tried to keep my face neutral. He laughed. ‘Hop in then.’

I climbed into the passenger seat as Freddie started the engine. The leather was blood-red and soft as butter. As he pulled away from the kerb I turned to face him. Close up, and in the daylight, his skin was smooth and creamy. I had an urge to reach out and run my finger along his cheek, feel the smoothness for myself.

‘I like your car,’ I said, raising my voice above the noise.

‘A wedding present from my wife.’

‘It’s a very nice present.’

‘She’s very rich.’

He pressed his foot down on the pedal and we shot away. I leaned back in my seat and felt my body relax.

The sky was a steel grey by the time we arrived at Kariokor race course, although it was still bright and Freddie shaded his eyes as he searched for rain clouds.

‘It almost flooded the first time we came,’ he said. ‘Thank God they built the grandstand a few years ago.’

‘I thought it never rained in Africa,’ I said.

‘In the rainy season it rains a lot,’ Freddie said. ‘As a farmer, I’m very thankful.’ He looked down at me. ‘Would you like to see the stables?’

I nodded.

He led me to a wooden shed with five stalls within. A stable boy looked up from sweeping the yard and nodded at Freddie. ‘You want to see the horses, Bwana Hamilton?’

‘Who’s the favourite in the first race?’

‘Chongo.’

‘We’ll see him,’ Freddie said, then stopped. ‘Is Wiley Scot running?’

‘Yes, Bwana Hamilton.’

‘We’ll see him then – he’s a distant cousin of mine.’ He kept his face completely straight when he said it and the stable boy didn’t react. I wondered if he’d understood, or if he just thought that Bwana Hamilton was mad.

It was gloomy in the stall, with only a small window high up in the wall, and it smelled like damp and a mix of leather, grain, sweat and peppermints. I felt suddenly trapped, being in such a close, dark space, and I closed my eyes for a moment. I could still hear a rustling, snorting sound, and when I opened my eyes and peered around Freddie’s back I could make out a dark chestnut stallion picking restlessly at straw in a feeder. He was tall, with an extremely broad, glossy chest and a heart-shaped patch of white on one thigh. I knew horses were designed for speed and grace, but I found it hard to imagine as we stood in the stall – all I could see was the mountainous torso, the knobbly knees and delicate ankles, and I wondered how his legs didn’t snap underneath all that bulk.

Freddie moved forwards and patted Wiley Scot on his muscular neck and the horse threw his head back and began stamping his legs. My heart was hammering.

‘Be good now,’ Freddie said quietly. The horse breathed out loudly, then stopped stamping.

‘He’s a beauty,’ Freddie said. ‘Do you ride?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Never?’ He looked back at me. ‘I wouldn’t have taken you for a city boy.’

‘I’m not.’

Freddie laughed. ‘You’re very mysterious.’

He turned to face the horse again. He looked so natural in these surroundings, but then he’d looked easy and confident wherever I’d come across him. I could picture him at school, mobs of admiring boys following him down the lane and laughing at his jokes. I felt a smile form on my face – I would never have got within five yards of him there, and here we were now, alone as friends.

‘Introduce yourself,’ Freddie said.

I went to stand next to him, and ran my hand along the horse’s flank. I could feel his muscles trembling under his coat, and smell something coming off him that was almost bitter, like the taste in the back of my throat when my mother was on the warpath. The phrase, ‘His blood is up’, was circling my brain – this must be what that means, I told myself, and realised I was trembling too.

I placed a finger on Wiley Scot’s nose, between his wet, dilated nostrils, and stroked downwards. He rolled his eyes until they were mostly white, then shook me off.

‘He’s nervy today,’ Freddie said. He pushed his hat back on his forehead, and I followed the bead of sweat that trickled down from his temple to his collarbone, until it disappeared beneath his shirt. I felt sweat start to form in sympathy on my upper lip, and brushed it away quickly with the back of my hand. ‘Let’s leave him to it.’

As we were leaving the stables, a few jockeys were walking in our direction, and they greeted Freddie, slapping him on the back and nodding in my direction.

‘Better watch out, Freddie,’ one of them said. ‘You might have a contender here for the ladies in a few years. He makes you look as ugly as the rest of us.’ Little flecks of spit hit my face as he laughed.

A second one prodded me in the stomach. ‘What sort of little gentleman are you then, sonny? Baron? Earl? Little lord?’

‘I’m not a gentleman.’

‘Good to hear it – a new order for a new world.’ He grinned at Freddie. ‘No one’s told the toffs yet, though.’

‘Don’t mind them,’ Freddie said to me. ‘All the jockeys out here are Englishmen, God save them, so they’re not very bright.’ He was smiling, but his voice was cold. I kept quiet, and the jockeys went on their way, cackling to themselves. When they’d gone Freddie looked me up and down. His expression made it seem as if he’d just thought of something unpleasant.

‘Have you seen enough yet?’ he asked eventually. ‘Not everyone gets to come back here, you know.’

‘Thank you.’

Freddie looked irritated, and I wondered if he’d started to find me dull. I was reminded again of school, and suddenly wanted to go back to the hotel and crawl into my bed.

Freddie shrugged. ‘Let’s go inside,’ he said.

The race course was two miles in circumference, with a rickety grandstand near the finishing line, and a small, peeling bandstand in the middle. A band was already playing – the King’s African Rifles Band, Freddie told me – and people were mingling in front of them. As the morning wore on the air became increasingly damp and sticky. Small insects darted through the grass, biting whatever exposed flesh they could find, until I felt as if my ankles were on fire. Freddie found us two glasses of pink gin and I had to stop myself from pressing mine against my forehead to cool down. I was amazed that no one was passing out from the heat.

We drank the gin as Freddie pointed out the officials – the timekeeper, the clerk of the scales and the clerk of the course. The drink was less refreshing than I’d hoped, and following what Freddie was saying became quite difficult. His good mood had disappeared completely, and his eyes were constantly scanning the crowds as if he were looking for someone more interesting to talk to.

‘There you are, Freddie,’ someone said after a particularly long silence between us. ‘Edie left – she said to tell you she was too hot and too pregnant.’

A tall, blue-eyed man wearing a beautifully cut suit had appeared at Freddie’s elbow. He had a gentle face with slightly prominent ears and his voice was gentle too, with a hint of an accent.

‘Nicolas,’ Freddie said. ‘This is Theo Miller – I believe you’ve heard of him.’

Nicolas bowed, and I wondered, sluggishly, why he would have heard of me.

‘And where’s your charming wife?’ Freddie asked.

‘Sylvie? She’s been captured by that brute, Carberry.’

I had to look down at my feet to stop myself from staring wide-eyed at him; so this was the Comte de Croÿ, my fat, old Frenchman who spoke no English.

‘Another admirer?’ Freddie said. ‘Theo, you’ve got company.’

My cheeks burned to hear how obvious I’d been. I wished I could laugh it off, but I couldn’t think of anything to say.

‘More accurate to say we all do,’ Nicolas said.

‘You French are so damn philosophical.’

Nicolas bowed again and I caught sight of Sylvie over his head.

She was walking in our direction. A dark-haired couple were walking behind her, the man looking at Sylvie’s behind. I didn’t like his expression, or his skull-like face. His hairline was receding, and his eyes were small and close-set. The brunette with him had a rather large nose and pointy teeth, but nice eyes and an open smile, which she turned on me as they approached.

‘A word of warning,’ Nicolas said quietly to me, ‘John Carberry is the devil. Don’t listen to a word he says.’

‘Hello, boys,’ Sylvie said, and I got a wave of her perfume.

‘Hello, darling,’ Nicolas said.

‘Hello, trouble,’ Freddie said.

Sylvie shook her head. ‘It’s hard to be troublesome when you’re sober.’

‘Surely not?’

‘Surely yes.’

‘Let me save you,’ Freddie said, but Nicolas held up his hand.

‘That’s my cue, Freddie. You stay here and look after Sylvie.’

‘Thank you, darling,’ Sylvie said.

Nicolas gave the dark-haired couple a half-bow and left. I was sorry. Freddie and Sylvie were smiling at each other now in a way that felt exclusive, and when he kissed her hand I felt a shiver run along my neck.

I looked over at the two strangers. The man had on a mocking smile.

‘Another husband bites the dust, Freddie?’ he said. His voice was flat and had an unusual accent.

Freddie straightened up and Sylvie rolled her eyes. Neither of them looked at all embarrassed.

‘I didn’t expect to see you here, Carberry,’ Freddie said, then turned to me. ‘John and Bubbles, this is Theo Miller.’

‘Maia Anderson,’ Carberry said. ‘Bubbles is a stupid name.’

Sylvie turned away with an angry expression on her face, and I guessed she had the same reaction to Carberry that I had.

‘Where’s Roderigo?’ I asked her.