One or two girls may have gone there because they were pregnant. But more often it was because they felt overworked at home or harassed by an unkind stepmother. They might go planning for a certain object, like Lois, who went with Wairimu and had been baptised as a baby far down the mountain where her father was working at the time. She was engaged to a Christian and was determined to buy herself a white dress and a pair of shoes to be married in. Even those who did not specially mean to save, she told Wairimu, would buy themselves a yellow cloth to replace the leathers they walked in, and new ornaments. So they slipped away one misty morning, leaving the water-skins by the path, and before midday they were written on for the coffee.
Nobody thought of going for good. If you came home with your money and your experience it would be as a chooser and a doer, able to send your younger sisters to the river and have food brought from the kitchen. But in fact not many went home. When Wairimu left Lois there she had still not got her white dress and they heard that the fiancé was not pleased with her running away. There was more to being a Christian wife, he said, than dresses and shoes.
Wairimu was a strong girl, though not tall, and used to working hard. She was not shy – ever since that morning on the river path she had known that she could not go back to childish behaviour again – so she got along with people, sang about her work, joined in the evening dances, held her own against the men’s demands. The golden haze had never come back. None of them could put a spell on her and she always said no.
She had got her yellow cloth and an extra wrapper for cold days and a few more bangles, but she also kept some of her rupees. For the coffee had not brought her what she wanted, except just for avoiding the wedding day. She would have to go to Nairobi.
One day the young master was walking round inspecting the berries. The old master did not often do that: he left it to his foremen. The young man sometimes came for a couple of months. They said he was still at school in England, though he looked grown-up and dressed like a man.
‘How are you getting on?’ he asked in good Kikuyu, looking into her basket.
‘I want to go to Nairobi,’ she answered, taking the chance.
‘It’s a long way to Nairobi,’ he laughed.
‘But I want to go there. There is something I can do for you if you take me.’
She looked hopefully into his face and danced a few steps.
His colour changed as she did not know white people’s colour could change. He became red like the pinky-red in the ear-coils. Then he slapped her hard.
‘Keep your place,’ he shouted, and hurried away.
Well, she had made a mistake. Fortunately no one had seen it. But the next time she saw a rainbow pointing outwards and downwards she knew she must go.
You could walk it easily in three days – to Mbiri one day, Mbiri to Thika the second, Thika to Nairobi the third. But people did not walk alone. Besides, you were not supposed to leave your work without being signed off. You could be brought back, and that would be worse than a slap. She began to lay her plans.
The coffee was taken by bullock cart from various parts of the estate to the factory. There the first processing was done, but it had to be worked over again in Nairobi, so it was packed into enormous bags, twelve to a ton, and sent out by lorry to the railhead, near Fort Hall. She could not even lift one of the bags, a bitter humiliation, since she considered herself grown-up and as strong as her granny. Her mother, always fussing over babies, was not quite in the same class. The men would lift the bags, two working together, on to the lorry which would take them to Nyeri town, where a coffee transporter would combine the loads from the different estates and deliver them all to the railway. The little estate roads were not in good enough condition for the big lorry to collect direct. The foremen grumbled at the expense of all this changing over, and the better profit that could be made if you were near the railway.
Wairimu made herself agreeable to the Kikuyu driver of a local lorry. She had once before got a lift of a few miles from him when she had taken a day off for shopping in Nyeri: that was her first experience of wheeled transport. He agreed, on certain conditions, to speaking for her to the long-distance transporters and telling her which day they would be travelling. She must go near the beginning of her ticket so as not to lose too much pay: if she asked to be signed off she would be questioned about her plans and perhaps laughed at again.
She slipped out of the lines early one morning, wearing her yellow cloth and ornaments, a small kiondo slung on her back. She was almost as excited as she had been when leaving home that first time. The air was cool and crisp, the earth road still damp and chilly beneath her bare feet. She had decided not to go home first. They would only try to detain her. They knew where she was, for her brother had been to see her once on his way to look for casual work in Nyeri town, so the whisper must have spread. At that time her father was still trying to avoid having to return the first goats paid to him towards her dowry. But he would not so demean himself as to come and wrangle with her away from his own homestead.
She waited by the roadside, out of sight, for the lorry to drive up to the estate, load and start its return journey. She climbed up among the huge sacks and enjoyed the jerky movement and the wind whistling by. In Nyeri town the driver introduced her to the turn-boy of the regular service, with whom he shared a room. She agreed to cook for them both that night, but the turn-boy had to negotiate with his Indian driver, so she had to part with one of her precious rupees as well. She had been paid three rupees for each thirty-day ticket. They rested on Sundays and could take other days off for sickness or visiting provided each ticket was completed within forty-two days. She had completed ten tickets in about a year and had managed to save about ten rupees – only now they were talking about changing the money.
It was a big climb into the high lorry and she did not see much of the countryside because she was half-hidden among the bags, but she had the sensation of going down and down, and when she stood up at an occasional halt everything looked familiar. The roads looked wide and smooth to her, though not to the driver. These were the same, she realised, on which the women had been forced to work until Harry Thuku had got a telegram from London saying they must stop. She did not quite know what a telegram was, but all the women praised Thuku and they were already singing songs about him as the Chief of Girls.
At Fort Hall there were a few stone buildings, a boma, donkey carts, a motor car or two. These must be what had made it Fort Hall instead of Mbiri. The driver told the turn-boy to put her off before they came to the railway, in case he were asked awkward questions, but the turn-boy had a better idea. He stopped another lorry just outside the town and consulted with his opposite number. Then he dragged Wairimu out of her hiding-place and over to the other vehicle.
‘You’ll have to put up a good story,’ he whispered to her, ‘but it will be better for you than waiting for the train.’
She had to confront the Indian driver herself, but found he spoke excellent Kikuyu: his father had a shop in the small town and he had grown up there, only going to Nairobi for a few years of primary schooling. She told him that she had a sick brother working for the railway in Nairobi and her aged father was not able to travel that far so had sent her to look after him. The Indian looked sceptical but he told her to hop up so long as she agreed to take care of herself in Thika where she was going to change loads and spend the night. She joyfully agreed and made the most of the ride, seeing the country grow flatter and more fertile as they passed. At Thika the turn-boy took her to a tiny shack beside the market and brought her a bowl of maize and beans to eat.
Next morning there