‘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