The Bonds of Matrimony Page 5

  She shook her head. ‘I thought we’d go to the farm tomorrow. I thought you might like to see the animals in the National Park. Nairobi is the only city in the world that has wild animals living in the suburbs. But it was only an idea. I mean, you may not be interested—’ The sentence died away into silence. She knew that she ought to tell him that they couldn’t possible drive the whole distance between Nairobi and the farm in a single afternoon. He obviously didn’t understand the distances involved in travelling round Africa. But somehow she couldn’t bring herself to say the words that would upset the plans he had made.

  ‘What about tonight?’ he said.

  ‘I could stay with Betsy.’

  ‘I think not,’ he answered shortly. ‘I’ll book you a room at my hotel. But we go to the farm tomorrow, Hero, whether you like it or not. Is that clear?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow will be quite all right.’ She sighed with relief, glad that she had been able to persuade him so easily. She sat back in her seat, leaning her head against the padded back. ‘Home is a long way away — you don’t know how far!’

  ‘Tired, Liebling?’

  ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘More baffled, I think!’

  ‘Never mind. One of these days you’ll find that home is where the heart is—’

  ‘In England!’ she decided with a renewal of spirit.

  ‘Maybe,’ he agreed.

  Hero enjoyed that afternoon as she had not enjoyed anything for a long time.

  Benedict knew more about watching animals than anyone Hero had ever known. He paid their entrance fee and exchanged a few remarks with the ranger-guides who were waiting to escort their various parties round the Park. When he came back to the car, he told Hero that some lions had been seen quite close by only that morning and he thought they would probably come across them, asleep in the warm afternoon sun if they went to the same spot straight away.

  Testing the wind, he was able to park a few years away from a mother and her cubs. He turned off the engine and let the car glide the last short distance, breaking silently when they came to a full stop. And he didn’t spoil it all by trying to talk as so many other people might have done. He just sat there, letting her look her fill and think her own thoughts, apparently quite content to do the same.

  When they were both ready to move again, Hero suggested they should take the Kalembi Valley Circuit, south of the main gate. ‘There may be some leopards in the forest,’ she said. ‘I’ve only ever seen two in my life, they’re getting so rare, but I feel lucky today! Besides, they’ve imported some new white rhinos, and I want to see them too.’

  They saw the first leopard, sitting up in a tree, watching over his larder of food with lazy yellow eyes. She had never been close enough to really look a leopard in the eye before and she was a little surprised to find him smaller than she expected, and his fur was yellower too, though quite as beautifully marked as any animal she had ever seen. Benedict touched her arm and pointed into another tree, where the leopard’s mate had taken up her station, relaxed and fast asleep, looking so exactly like a household cat stretched out in a good position in the sun that Hero wanted to laugh.

  It was almost dark when they left the Park.

  ‘It’s been a glorious afternoon!’ Hero exclaimed. ‘Thank you for taking me, Benedict. I’ll remember it as long as I live. I wish Papa—’ She broke off, remembering too late that she would never be able to tell her father about it. ‘We’ll have to start very early in the morning,’ she said instead. ‘But if you get tired, I can drive some of the way.’

  Benedict glanced across at her and then back at the road. ‘We’re flying up - I thought you realized that. It’ll be much easier, Hero, and I don’t want to leave my plane at Embakasi Airport for longer than I have to. I picked it up second-hand in England and flew it out here myself—’

  Hero’s stomach jolted upwards and then plunged downwards with a sickening sensation. She thought for one terrible moment that she was going to faint, but even that release was denied to her.

  ‘I think I’m going to throw up,’ she advised him.

  He stopped the car so fast that she almost went through the windscreen and had her out of the car and was holding her head with a firm tenderness that she appreciated more than she could say.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she said when she could, beginning to shiver.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked.

  She leaned against him as though it were the most natural thing in the world, not minding at all when he ran his fingers through her hair, scraping it back from her forehead.

  ‘I can’t fly!’ she exclaimed. ‘I can’t! I can’t!’ And she burst into tears.

  He pushed her head down against his shoulder, waiting for the storm to abate with all the patience he had shown in the Park.

  ‘Because of your parents?’ he asked, when her sobs had muted.

  ‘I’ve never flown!’ she declared violently. ‘Nothing would induce me to set foot in an aeroplane! If you’re going to fly, I’ll go up by train.’

  ‘If that’s the way you want it, but will you do something for me first?’

  She nodded, blowing her nose as she did so. ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘Will you drive out to the airport and take a good look at the aeroplane first: the controls, everything. Then, if you still want to go by train, I’ll take you to the station myself.’

  She looked at him with a dawning respect at his method of coping with the scene she had made. She had to admit that he had succeeded in arousing her curiosity about his beastly plane. How could he be so sure she would change her mind at his say-so, when she had been quite adamant only a few minutes before? ‘Do you always get your own way?’ she asked him. He smiled easily. ‘Almost always,’ he said.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The noise from the band made it practically impossible to hear a word that was being said. Hero felt heavy-eyed and unattractive and she wished she had not come down for the meal.

  ‘I didn’t mean to make a fuss about nothing,’ she said to Benedict in the short pause between two numbers.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t think you’d ever do that.’

  She felt warmed by his words. ‘I thought you coped rather well,’ she went on shyly. ‘It was the shock as much as anything, I think. Anyway, I’m sorry you had to be there.’

  His eyes twinkled appreciatively. ‘Are you by any chance thanking me?’ he queried. ‘I thought that my being there might be the one thing you wouldn’t be able to forgive?’

  ‘On the contrary,’ she said. ‘I was very grateful to you.’

  ‘For making you face up to flying?’

  ‘No.’ Her hands shook, despite her efforts to control them. Benedict covered both her hands with one of his, smiling across the table at her.

  ‘I won’t force you to come with me. I thought you understood that?’

  ‘Yes, but you’ll think me very poor-spirited if I don’t!’ she retorted. ‘And it would be much more convenient, I can see that. I’m sorry. I can do most things, but I don’t think I can go in an aeroplane.’ ‘There’s always the train—’

  ‘But you’ll fly anyway, won’t you?’ she said.

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Why should you mind that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I shan’t crash easily,’ he told her. ‘By the time you

  arrive, I’ll be there at the station to meet you.’

  She attempted a smile. ‘It’s hardly a station! The train stops in the middle of nowhere and takes on more water. You won’t know where to come!’

  She didn’t know what to make of the way he was looking at her. Still less could she understand herself, making him think that she wasn’t perfectly capable of getting back to the farm all by herself! Why, when she thought of the dozens of times she had done it, she was quite upset by her own audacity.

  ‘I shan’t lose you so easily as that!’ he promised with a wry smile.

  ‘No,’ she stamm
ered. ‘Of course not.’

  What a strange man he was! She studied him covertly all through the next course, pretending to eat the luscious steak that had been put in front of her. The band was playing at full pelt now, the vocalist singing a local number that was heavy with the beat of Africa but had very little actual tune to recommend it. It was a good excuse, though, for not talking, and Hero made the most of it, busy with her own thoughts.

  She knew then that she wasn’t going to travel up by train by herself. She would have to get in that plane with him no matter how she felt about it.

  She flung down her knife and fork, no longer even pretending to eat.

  ‘I’d rather go with you! Only don’t talk about it anymore. I don’t want to think about it!’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  She nodded. Her mouth was dry. ‘Oh, look!’ she exclaimed with blatant relief. ‘There’s Betsy, and - and Bob. Do let’s go over and speak to them!’

  Benedict rose to his feet and went over to the other two and she could see him gesturing towards their table as though he were asking them to join them. Betsy came over at once.

  ‘My dear, I thought you’d be back on the farm by now!’ She dropped one eyelid in an elaborate wink, a gesture that Hero had once longed to be able to copy, and sat down beside Hero. ‘Did you talk him into a honeymoon after all?’

  It wasn’t her fault that the music should have come to a shattering conclusion just at that moment, so that her words rang round the dining-room, clearly audible from one end to the other. Hero blanched.

  ‘Betsy, it isn’t funny !’

  Betsy shrugged a pair of creamy shoulders. ‘But it’s a marvellous opportunity for you!’ she protested. ‘He’ll be too busy on the farm to take a good look at you, but here you can present him with a charming, romantic image of yourself. He’ll see you with new eyes!’

  ‘I couldn’t!’ Hero said flatly.

  ‘Well, you certainly won’t make him like you if you trail round looking like a sick ghost!’ Betsy provoked her. ‘If you don’t want him, darling, there are plenty who do!’

  Hero looked her in the eyes. ‘I wish you wouldn’t pretend to be so hard-boiled! Benedict isn’t the sort of person to play the fool—’

  ‘All men are,’ Betsy said dryly.

  Hero shrugged her shoulders. When Bob asked her to dance, she stood up and turned into his arms, determined to show Betsy that she didn’t care what she and Benedict did. There wasn’t much room on the floor and she didn’t much care for the slack way in which Bob held her, and she wondered why she had never noticed how he danced before.

  ‘Betsy’s in a funny mood,’ Bob told her.

  ‘She likes to make you grouchy,’ Hero answered. ‘You know she does!’

  ‘She doesn’t like me anyway,’ he told her. ‘Look at her now! She much prefers that husband of yours!’

  Hero preferred not to look. ‘Then why did you agree to join us?’ she asked him.

  ‘I didn’t have any choice. She shot across the diningroom like a bat out of hell! I don’t like the way she looks at Mr. Carmichael either. I’ve seen it all before. She picks up

  men as easily as she breathes!’

  ‘Why shouldn’t she?’

  ‘She ought to take a leaf out of your book and settle down. Hero, don’t you care when she makes eyes at Benedict?’

  Hero shrugged her shoulders. ‘She wouldn’t,’ she said at last. ‘Betsy may like to flirt but not with married men.’

  ‘But she does! She is!’ Bob looked more and more indignant. ‘I think we’d better go back to the table!’ The singer, a black version of Liza Minnelli who plainly saw herself as a second Ella Fitzgerald, bumped her way into another number. Walking past her, Hero was surprised to recognize her as a girl she had known up country and she half-smiled at her, afraid that the other girl wouldn’t know her. But the girl did. She flashed a wide smile, her ear-rings jangling against her neck, and pointed to her own finger to show that she had noticed the wedding-ring on Hero’s, casting an inquiring look at Bob. Hero shook her head and waved a hand in Benedict’s direction. The singer’s face showed a rapt approval that startled her out of her complacency. Was Benedict really so attractive to other women?

  He was certainly doing well with Betsy. She was sitting so close to him that their thighs were touching, and she was making good use of her eyelashes. She looked up when Hero sat down on the other side of Benedict and smiled across at her.

  ‘Benedict has been asking me to come up and visit you in a few days,’ she volunteered. ‘He’s afraid he’ll die of boredom up there on his own!’

  ‘He won’t be on his own,’ Hero pointed out. ‘I’ll be there.’

  ‘Don’t be stuffy!’ Betsy said without animosity. ‘You know quite well what I mean.’

  Hero thought of the many times she had asked Betsy to stay on the farm in the past and the long list of excuses that had been made as to why she couldn’t. And now, for the first time, she didn’t want to have her friend anywhere near the farm and she had coolly invited herself as though it were the most natural thing in the world!

  ‘I think you’re the one who might be bored,’ Hero remarked, struggling not to look at Benedict to see what he was thinking about all this.

  ‘Me?’ Betsy’s astonishment was well done. ‘When have I ever been bored?’

  ‘Your track record reports at least more than once, Betsy.’ His tone was easy, but Hero began to wonder about the extent of his knowledge of Betsy’s ‘track record’. ‘Hero’s quite right - we should have thought of that for ourselves. You’d better bring a friend along with you, Betsy, and then everybody will be happy.’ Except me, Hero thought. Nothing seemed to please her that evening. She sat very still in her seat, letting the conversation of the others drift round her without paying it any attention. She had never wanted to be alone on the farm before. On the contrary, she had always been rather lonely there, for her parents had been complete in themselves and had had no real need of her company. Always before she had been only too glad to be anywhere else, especially in Nairobi, staying in Betsy’s home. And yet now she could hardly bear the thought of the other girl staying on the farm with her. Was it - could it possibly be - because of Benedict?

  ‘Bob can come too,’ she said. ‘If you can get leave. Can you, Bob?’

  Betsy actually yawned. ‘We’ve already decided all that!’ she said.

  ‘Have we?’ asked Hero.

  Benedict smoothed the situation. ‘She’s been in a dream ever since we spotted a pair of leopards out in the Park this afternoon,’ he told them. ‘I gather it’s rather rare to get such a good sighting.’ Then Hero was conscious of a mocking look in his own eyes as he added deadpan, ‘The leopards got a good sighting too!’

  It took a minute to remember where she was. Hero slipped out of bed and went to look out of the window. A long trail of cars were locked into a queue waiting to get into the centre of the city. It was the same every day now as they flooded in in the mornings and out again in the afternoons. People had told Hero that it was far worse in London these days, but despite being able to talk knowledgeably about Oxford Street, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and a hundred other landmarks well known to all Londoners, Hero had never been there and she couldn’t really imagine any city being very much larger than the ones she knew.

  She glanced at her watch, a little reluctant to get dressed just yet. The jacarandas that lined the road caught at her imagination. Since the rains had failed the last time, nothing had flowered on the farm. The last few weeks she had spent at home she had felt starved of any colour. There had been nothing but dust and the sight of dying trees, and skinny animals eking out their existence with the help of the river that ran at times through the property, but which had been practically dry for nearly two years now. When she had come back to Nairobi, she had been devastated by the colour that had met her eyes. The jacarandas hadn’t been out then, but the bougainvillea, frangipani and hibiscus had been everywhere, lending their g
lory to the wide streets of the town that had come into being almost by accident with the building of the railway.

  A knock on her door sent her scuttling back to bed. A second later an African entered in response to her call and laid her early morning tea tray on the table beside her.

  ‘Hujambo?’ he said formally.

  ‘Sijamb of’ Hero replied, watching him fiddle with the cup and saucer to make sure that the handle was facing her.

  ‘U mzima?’ he went on with the caution of one who had been surprised to get an answer the first time. Hero supposed there were not many people who stayed in the hotel who spoke anything else but English.

  She suppressed a smile. ‘Ni mzima/

  She was rewarded by a broad grin. ‘The bwana says he is eating breakfast in half an hour,’ he told her. ‘He will be at the same table you had last night.’

  ‘Asante/ Hero murmured.

  The African gone, she swallowed down the orange juice that came automatically with the tea, and went back to the window. It was then that she remembered

  Benedict’s book. She hunted in her suitcase, hoping that Betsy had remembered to put it away there, and came up triumphantly with it still wrapped in the paper from the shop. Unwrapped, she thought it looked impressive. There was even a picture of Benedict on the back of the cover, a list of his degrees, and a short piece about a series of lectures he had given on land reclamation in desert lands, and a few facts about his past life: that he had been born in London thirty-four years before; the school he had gone to; and finally a list of the universities where he had either studied or taught at one time or another.

  Hero thrust the book back into the bottom of her suitcase. She felt unsettled by the unexpected knowledge she had acquired about him. She felt she would have to get to know him all over again. This wasn’t the work of the Benedict that she knew. This came from a man who was an expert in his own field and who, for some reason best known to himself, had said nothing about his own achievements in any of the conversations she had had with him. And she hadn’t asked him about himself either! She hadn’t been sufficiently interested, she told herself with unwonted humility, and he had known it.