‘Theo?’ My mother’s voice floated down to me. ‘Where are you?’
I turned to face the house. They’d lit the lanterns now and hung them on the porch. Beyond, everything was in darkest shadow, but the house itself was bathed in a flickering orange glow. It was a yellow-stone bungalow with tiled roof, like the houses I’d seen in Nairobi on Market Day. Remembering them led me to thoughts of Sylvie, and I wondered how far we were from her and Freddie at that moment.
I walked back up to join the others as they rattled the key in the lock. Behind us, there was a splashing sound, and a chorus of frogs and ducks set up a complaint. Ramsay was chattering away about the area, pointing into the darkness.
‘The cleft over there, that’s known as Hell’s Gate,’ he said. ‘Red cliffs. And you’ll see Mount Longonot as soon as there’s any light. It’s a dormant volcano, over nine thousand feet high.’
‘Charming,’ my mother murmured.
Maud was leaning against one of the pillars on the porch with her eyes closed. Her face was white.
‘Tired, Spanish?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘We’ll be in soon,’ I said.
The key made a grinding sound and the front door swung open. Ramsay stepped forwards and held up his lantern. We peered inside. The door gave way straight onto a large cream sitting room with an open stone hearth in the middle and two corridors leading off the room at either end of the far wall. Our furniture had been sent ahead, and now it was all in place: the mahogany secretaire bookcase, the Windsor chairs in elm and ash, the oriental hardwood coffee table, the oil paintings of ships, all looking incongruous in their new surroundings.
Ramsay took us through an arched opening on the left and into the dining room – same proportions and decor – and the small kitchen, where Ramsay’s wife had left us a cold meat pie and some bread and apples. Behind these rooms was the left-hand corridor, with three of the bedrooms and one of the bathrooms. My bedroom was cell-like, with white walls, a small chest of drawers and single cast-iron bed. Next door, Maud’s was exactly the same. At the end of the hall, our bathroom had a claw-footed tub, toilet, sink and a wall-hung medicine cabinet. Mosquito screens were fitted over all the windows.
Off the other corridor was another small bedroom, another bathroom, then the master bedroom, with two large walnut beds, and silks and drapes on the wall. At the end of that corridor was a small study for my father.
‘Excellent,’ he said.
‘I’ll bring the luggage in,’ Ramsay said. ‘When will your maid be arriving?’
‘Maid?’ my mother asked.
‘Most families bring one with them,’ Ramsay said. ‘That’s who the extra bedroom is for, on your corridor.’
‘Ah,’ my father said. ‘I thought you might have arranged that already, Jessie.’
I saw my mother’s jaw tighten.
‘Nae matter,’ Ramsay said, cheerfully. ‘I’m sure I can find one for you – one of the Nairobi families is bound to leave soon. And cooks and drivers and other staff you can hire from the natives. They’re able to do that much.’
‘Well,’ my father said, after a pause. ‘We can make do tonight, anyway. Thank you so much for all your help.’
‘I’ll get the bags,’ Ramsay said.
‘Theo, you go with him,’ my father said, and I followed Ramsay out onto the porch.
By the time I’d carried my suitcase into my bedroom, sweat gathering in the small of my back, he’d already moved all of the others.
‘I’ll be seeing you,’ he said. ‘Watch out for the hippos. Meanest creatures alive. And leopards – if they come prowling round at night, turn on the lights and make plenty of noise, scare ’em off. And never leave your windows open.’ He nodded at me and went back to his car, whistling.
The next few days were spent exploring the house, the lake and the garden, which was lush with jacaranda trees, lawn and flowerbeds. The gardener had planted scarlet canna, frangipani, bougainvillea, and, probably as a nod to potential homesickness, English roses. Our water came from a stone well sunk into the ground one hundred feet from the house. Further away still were the Africans’ buildings, round mud huts with thatched roofs where our staff would live.
In the end Ramsay couldn’t find us a maid, but he did find Abdullah, who served as ‘head boy’. My parents hired a cook, a driver and some low-level servants known as ‘totos’, who wore kanzus, long brown cotton robes that were the typical uniform for servants in Kenya. None of the totos had their bottom two front teeth. When I asked why, Ramsay said they all had them removed as a preventative measure, so if they developed tetanus – rife in Kenya – and therefore lockjaw, they would still be able to take food in through the gap. The boys walked hand-in-hand, or with arms wrapped around each other. There was something intimate about it that I didn’t like to watch, and I turned away whenever a pair came into sight.
My father bought a second-hand Buick that broke down at every opportunity. We broke down on the way to Gilgil, Nakuru and N’Joro, as the road wound in and out of sight of the railway line. We broke down in Gilgil itself, a dusty station that doubled up as a post office, with one Indian duka, as the small retail shops were known, and nothing else. We broke down next to the Kikuyu settlement where African children ran away screaming that the mzungu had come to eat them. But east of Gilgil were the Aberdares, the easternmost mountain range of the Great Rift Valley, and there the car ran as sweet as honey. Climbing up into the hills, we looked down on the valley, with its cliffs and boulders, burbling streams and gushing waterfalls, its silvery forests of figs and olives, and vast, dark green pastures that stretched between our escarpment and Mau escarpment, tens of miles to the west. The soil beneath the car was red, and volcanic, but good for farming, our father told us, which was why so many Europeans had settled there.
The air was cold on the Aberdares, and brilliantly fresh, but descending, we drove through a mist that filled the car with the smoky, pine-like smell of cypress trees.
‘It feels like Scotland,’ Maud said.
The whole time we were playing and exploring and settling in I was thinking of Freddie and Sylvie, wondering what they were up to, and whether they were expecting us to call on them, as my parents had promised to do. When we went out in my father’s car, I kept a sharp eye out for Hispano-Suizas, and one dark-haired passenger in particular.
After two weeks in the new house, Freddie’s car pulled up outside as I was reading at the veranda table. Freddie whistled, and I got up, moving forwards as he opened the door for his passenger. An elegant ankle appeared, then a perfectly formed leg. I felt my excitement rising until her mousy-brown hair; it wasn’t Sylvie.
The new woman was very small and slight, with a weak chin, small mouth, large nose and high forehead. She was wearing a fashionable drop-waisted silk dress and strings of pearls, and her bare feet were dainty. She was a carrying a pot of geraniums, and shifted them to the crook of her arm to wave at me in a friendly way. She looked a little older than Freddie, who seemed almost boyish next to her.
‘Theo,’ he said, ‘meet Edie, my wife. She insisted on calling on you.’
‘I’m the friendly one,’ Edie said, and flashed her teeth at me in a smile.
‘Theo?’ my mother called from inside the house. ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s Freddie,’ I called back.
My mother appeared in the doorway.