Kekopey was an estate owned by Berkeley’s brother, Galbraith Cole. It stood on the western edge of Lake Elmenteita, near a natural hot spring. In Masai, the name meant “the place where green turns white,” and soda ash bubbled up steadily there to drift sideways, like snow. It caught in your throat and could sting your eyes, too, but the waters were supposed to be medicinal. People often bathed there, fending off snakes and scorpions. I wouldn’t do that, not for any amount of hot water, but I happily rode to Kekopey with D for Boxing Day for a change of scenery, and because I thought it would be fun.
When we arrived, Denys and Berkeley were camped out with cocktails by the fire. Apparently they’d turned up in the middle of the night having hacked from Gilgil in the dark after their car broke down. Karen had stayed at Mbogani.
“We tried to mend the springs with rawhide first,” Berkeley explained, “but it was too dark to see anything. Finally we loaded ourselves down with the ducks and got on with it.”
“Fifty pounds of duck,” Denys said.
“It’s a damned miracle you weren’t set on by lions,” D said.
“That’s what I was thinking,” Berkeley said, “or trying not to.”
As Denys said hello to us, he kissed me on the cheek. “You look well, Beryl.”
“Doesn’t she?” Berkeley said.
“Berkeley has a special sense about what women need to hear,” Galbraith’s wife, Nell, said. She was small and dark in the way Karen was, but without the powder and kohl, or the sharp intelligence.
“Beryl already knows she’s beautiful,” Denys said. “She was beautiful when she looked in her glass this morning. What could possibly have changed?”
“Don’t be difficult, Denys,” Nell chided. “All women like a little flattery from time to time.”
“What if they didn’t? What if they simply liked themselves and no one needed to bend backwards to flatter them? Wouldn’t it all be simpler then?”
“We’re only talking about compliments, Denys,” Berkeley said. “Don’t be so dramatic.”
“I see his point,” I said. “And honestly, how far will beauty get you anyway? What about strength? Or courage?”
“Oh dear.” Berkeley laughed to Nell. “Now they’re ganging up on me.”
In the dining room, Nell had set up lines of filled champagne flutes. I drank a glass down quickly, feeling the bubbles sting my nose, and then took two back to Berkeley and Denys. “Champagne is absolutely compulsory in Africa,” I said in my best impression of Berkeley.
He laughed, his eyes crinkling. “And all this time I thought I was talking to myself.”
I shook my head. “Happy Christmas.”
“Happy Christmas, Diana,” Denys said softly, and the word flickered through me like a living thing.
—
For dinner, a suckling pig had been roasted over smoked wood, and there were other delicacies I hadn’t seen in ages—cranberry relish and roasted chestnuts and Yorkshire pudding. I sat across from Denys, who couldn’t seem to stop eating.
“I’ve got a special permit for ivory and will be three months out on safari after the New Year,” he said. “I might line my pockets with these chestnuts.”
“Poor Denys,” D said.
“Poor Denys nothing. He’s going to make a fortune,” Berkeley said.
“Where are you headed this time?” I asked.
“To Tanganyika.”
D said, “That’s Masai territory.”
“Yes. Not much there in the way of roads, but the game should be good if my lorry holds out.”
“You might pack the rawhide, just in case,” I suggested.
“Ha. Yes. I’ll do that.” And then he filled his plate again.
There were games after dinner and then smoking by the fire, and then brandy—all of it moving at two different speeds for me, stretching out like something frozen, and also half gone already. I couldn’t properly explain it, even to myself, but I couldn’t imagine leaving or missing the slightest opportunity to be near Denys. Something was gathering in me, pushing up from under my skin—a feeling I couldn’t name.
When D got ready to leave I had three different excuses for why I had to stay. I don’t think he believed any of them, but he fetched his hat and said his good nights, giving me only a last dubious look before heading off into the night. I’m not doing anything rash, I wanted to tell him, but of course that wasn’t true.
It was rash to sit alone with Denys by the hearth after everyone had gone to bed, and to puzzle over how to get closer to him when he belonged to Karen. Rash and wrong, and yet it was all I could think about. A pair of charred logs smouldered in the grate. Reddish light caught the strong planes and ridges of his hands in a mesmerizing way.
“You talk about safaris as if something essential can be found there,” I told him. “Maybe only there. I used to feel that way about my father’s farm, near Njoro.”
“Beautiful country.”