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Authors: Nicholas Drayson
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have
agreed to once more organize the annual Asadi Club safari. This year I have arranged a
surprise, but I will need some help to set it all up.’
Benjamin was not sure about surprises. There
was, he thought, a lot to be said for a life without surprises.
‘I’ll show you what to do, then
I’d like you to go on ahead to the campsite and get it ready. It’s in the
garage.’
Benjamin had indeed been wondering what was
inside the two large crates that had been delivered the day before.
‘I realize that this will mean working
on Sunday, but I thought that in exchange you might be willing to take Monday and
Tuesday off – and Wednesday too, if you like. Perhaps we could drop you off at Embu on
the way back. Then you’d be able to get the bus from there to your village and
visit your family. How does that sound?’
Benjamin’s mother and father – not to
mention anynumber of brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts and
both grandmothers – still lived in the village where he had grown up, and he never
seemed to get home often enough. A few days with his family was a tempting offer.
‘But, Mr Malik, what about the
wedding? I must get the garden ready.’
‘Benjamin, the garden is as ready as
it possibly can be. You have been working very hard all month. It has never looked
better.’
‘Thank you, Mr Malik,’ he said.
‘In that case, I think your idea is a very good idea.’
‘Excellent, Benjamin. You have eased
my mind.’
And he took Benjamin into the garage and
showed him exactly what he wanted him to do.
Rose Mbikwa flicked through the stack of
LPs, still in the box beside the sofa. The house was just as she’d left it. For
most of the time that Rose had been away it had been let, staffed and furnished, to a
Canadian entomologist researching army-worm control in maize crops. The woman seemed to
have spent most of her time in her laboratory or in the field – so the staff had had
little to do, except keep things just as they had always been. Elizabeth polished and
dusted, Reuben pruned and mowed, and the three askaris took turns to guard the house and
garden from thieves and rascals. Now Rose was home again, and all that remained of her
tenant was the faintest smell of naphtha and balsam.
Elizabeth had said dinner would be ready in
an hour. What would it be – Chet Atkins, Anita O’Day, Peggy Lee? Rose paused,
pulled a vinyl disc from its sleeve and put iton the turntable. The
orchestra swelled, and from the stereo speakers came a sweet, slightly breathless voice.
Rose flopped down on the old sofa and looked up at the portrait hanging over the
fireplace. A handsome black face smiled back at her. It was her husband Joshua.
Rose Macdonald had been twenty-five when she
first came to Kenya from Scotland and twenty-six when she walked down the aisle of the
Holy Family cathedral in Nairobi to wed the handsome aspiring politician Joshua Mbikwa.
Those were turbulent years. Just before their only son Angus turned eighteen and was due
to start university at St Andrews, Joshua was dead – killed when the light plane he was
in fell out of a blue sky. By now on the Opposition front bench, he had been returning
to Nairobi from a political meeting in Eldoret to vote on a censure motion against the
government. Though the Prime Minister (who, by a single vote, survived the motion)
ordered an immediate and thorough enquiry, the Minister of Aviation was unable to
deliver a definitive result to parliament. The cause of the crash is still officially
unknown.
One of the many surprises awaiting the young
bride Rose Mbikwa when she moved into the house in Hatton Rise with her husband was to
see that his record collection contained every disc that Doris Day had ever recorded.
Doris Day? That American epitome of all things nice and normal? That blonde-haired,
pink-lipped, tightly corseted symbol of fifties domestic womanhood?
agreed to once more organize the annual Asadi Club safari. This year I have arranged a
surprise, but I will need some help to set it all up.’
Benjamin was not sure about surprises. There
was, he thought, a lot to be said for a life without surprises.
‘I’ll show you what to do, then
I’d like you to go on ahead to the campsite and get it ready. It’s in the
garage.’
Benjamin had indeed been wondering what was
inside the two large crates that had been delivered the day before.
‘I realize that this will mean working
on Sunday, but I thought that in exchange you might be willing to take Monday and
Tuesday off – and Wednesday too, if you like. Perhaps we could drop you off at Embu on
the way back. Then you’d be able to get the bus from there to your village and
visit your family. How does that sound?’
Benjamin’s mother and father – not to
mention anynumber of brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts and
both grandmothers – still lived in the village where he had grown up, and he never
seemed to get home often enough. A few days with his family was a tempting offer.
‘But, Mr Malik, what about the
wedding? I must get the garden ready.’
‘Benjamin, the garden is as ready as
it possibly can be. You have been working very hard all month. It has never looked
better.’
‘Thank you, Mr Malik,’ he said.
‘In that case, I think your idea is a very good idea.’
‘Excellent, Benjamin. You have eased
my mind.’
And he took Benjamin into the garage and
showed him exactly what he wanted him to do.
Rose Mbikwa flicked through the stack of
LPs, still in the box beside the sofa. The house was just as she’d left it. For
most of the time that Rose had been away it had been let, staffed and furnished, to a
Canadian entomologist researching army-worm control in maize crops. The woman seemed to
have spent most of her time in her laboratory or in the field – so the staff had had
little to do, except keep things just as they had always been. Elizabeth polished and
dusted, Reuben pruned and mowed, and the three askaris took turns to guard the house and
garden from thieves and rascals. Now Rose was home again, and all that remained of her
tenant was the faintest smell of naphtha and balsam.
Elizabeth had said dinner would be ready in
an hour. What would it be – Chet Atkins, Anita O’Day, Peggy Lee? Rose paused,
pulled a vinyl disc from its sleeve and put iton the turntable. The
orchestra swelled, and from the stereo speakers came a sweet, slightly breathless voice.
Rose flopped down on the old sofa and looked up at the portrait hanging over the
fireplace. A handsome black face smiled back at her. It was her husband Joshua.
Rose Macdonald had been twenty-five when she
first came to Kenya from Scotland and twenty-six when she walked down the aisle of the
Holy Family cathedral in Nairobi to wed the handsome aspiring politician Joshua Mbikwa.
Those were turbulent years. Just before their only son Angus turned eighteen and was due
to start university at St Andrews, Joshua was dead – killed when the light plane he was
in fell out of a blue sky. By now on the Opposition front bench, he had been returning
to Nairobi from a political meeting in Eldoret to vote on a censure motion against the
government. Though the Prime Minister (who, by a single vote, survived the motion)
ordered an immediate and thorough enquiry, the Minister of Aviation was unable to
deliver a definitive result to parliament. The cause of the crash is still officially
unknown.
One of the many surprises awaiting the young
bride Rose Mbikwa when she moved into the house in Hatton Rise with her husband was to
see that his record collection contained every disc that Doris Day had ever recorded.
Doris Day? That American epitome of all things nice and normal? That blonde-haired,
pink-lipped, tightly corseted symbol of fifties domestic womanhood?
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