Chapter 9

I drove back to the bungalow, collected my luggage and Jerie’s bike and loaded them into the back of the Land Rover. I told Kabero I was going to leave my luggage at the hotel and asked if he would accompany me to collect Jerie’s father when I returned. Kabero agreed. I drove to the hotel, registered, had my luggage and the bike unloaded, then returned to the bungalow.

After I collected Kabero, I drove to the camp and stopped outside Jerie’s family shack. Kabero looked at me.

“What I say Bwana?”

“Tell him I want to take him to Jerie, she is living on a shamba.”

Kabero nodded and disappeared into the dark interior. I watched the grinning black faces of the youngsters climbing over the Land Rover. I grinned back. How could they look so happy? How could they look so healthy? I wished I could buy a farm for every family in the camp.

Kabero appeared with Jerie’s father and an older youth. The father had a panga hanging from his hand. They huddled at the door of the Land Rover. Kabero opened the door looking apprehensive.

“They want you to come out.”

I felt my stomach knot but kept my face composed and stepped out. The father ran his hands over my shirt, then felt around my waist and trousers. He poked his head into the interior of the Land Rover and rummaged around. He signalled for me to get back in. He asked Kabero a question and Kabero answered. He poked around the back then jumped in followed by the youth. Kabero signalled we could leave.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

“He looks for weapons, he not trusting you,” Kabero replied. I was shocked.

It was only a twenty-minute journey to the farm, but I felt a prickling in my back all the way. We passed the dukha then the farms. The two in the back spoke to each other for the first time, pointing to the farmsteads.

I stopped outside the farm, feeling the tension and suspicion like daggers behind me. Jerie’s father jumped out and raced round to be beside me when I opened the door, the panga gripped at the ready. He walked slightly behind me to the gate. There was a cry and Jerie came racing past the house to greet her father. He asked her a question in Kikuyu. She answered, and her father relaxed. He spoke to the youth and gave him the panga.

I opened my mouth but felt an inner warning. The postures, the very atmosphere was electric. Jerie could handle this far better than I could. Holding her father’s hand, the two walked a little ahead. Kabero and I followed. The youth stayed beside the Land Rover. Jerie spoke to her father, and he turned to look at me, then bent down to lift a handful of soil. He sniffed it then tasted it. He looked around the garden, then up the hill at the goats. His back straightened and his head went up proudly. He looked at me again and his eyes were now clear as if he was remembering the man he’d once been. Jerie led him by the hand past the house and the foolish thought flashed through my head that I hoped she’d remembered to take my underpants off the fence. I turned to Kabero.

“There are two cows behind the house.”

Kabero’s mouth gaped open. “All this for one little black girl?” I knew that cattle were prized more than women among the Kikuyu.

We sat in front of the house. Eventually I heard raised voices inside. Jerie’s father came storming out and waved his fist under my nose, shouting in Kikuyu. He grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me to my feet. I was shocked at a blow to the side of my head and I staggered. He came for me again swinging his fists. I dodged and slammed him on the side of the head. I heard Jerie screaming and the youth from the car came running up waving the panga, but Jerie’s father shouted and waved him away. We went for each other again. I remembered the weal’s on Jerie’s back and hardly felt the punches on my face. I slammed my fist into the father’s jaw. He fell. I waited for him to get up. He came off the ground in a rush, his head taking me in the stomach and I fell, gasping for breath. The father circled me. I clambered to my feet and ducked under a roundhouse swing and caught my opponent with a punch to the stomach, feeling my fist sink into the slack muscles. The father doubled up. When he got to his feet we traded punches until we both collapsed on the ground, exhausted, breathing in great heaving gasps.

Jerie started screaming at us in a mixture of English, Swahili and dialect. We sat up and looked at each other. She shook us each in turn, looking at our faces. I staggered to my feet and wobbled into the house. When I came back, Jerie’s father started to rise, then subsided when he saw the two bottles of beer I was holding. I presented one to him and we eyed each other. I took a swig, and he did the same.

The youth returned to the Land Rover. The father rose and gave me a glare. Jerie took his hand and spoke earnestly to him. He shook his head angrily and said something to her. Jerie sat down, lifted her skirt and took down her pants. She pointed between her thighs. Her father touched her and seemed surprised and I remembered my feeling of being at a nexus when I’d found Jerie was a virgin. I felt dazed, as if I was acting a part in some surrealist drama, a play where everyone knew their lines except me and I was having to improvise, but whatever I said or did the play was moving towards some inevitable conclusion with the various scenes clicking into place.

Jerie pulled her pants back on. The rigidity left her father’s posture. He looked at me, the anger had left his eyes. He spoke to Kabero. Kabero translated.

“He says he not sell his daughter.” The father spoke again. Kabero said, “He say would you sell your daughter?”

I began to get an inkling of how I’d hurt a father’s pride, giving her clothes and a bicycle, and the promise of a life, he could never provide for her. I felt shallow.

I told Kabero. “Tell him I am sorry, I did not consider his feelings.” Kabero translated.

I took the title deed from my breast pocket and gave it to Kabero. “Tell him the farm is already his, ask him to look after Jerie. I’ll pay to send her to school.”

Jerie cried, “No!”

Kabero translated my speech to Jerie’s father. I sighed and started to walk away, Jerie ran after me.

“I come with you Bill.”

I turned back, and it was as if time stopped. We all stood motionless. Jerie’s father asked her a question. She took my hand and answered. He gazed into my eyes with a probing stare, then looked at Jerie and gave a sigh then spoke as if reciting a formula. Kabero translated. “He say I give you my daughter.” I breathed a sigh of relief.

Jerie left me to throw herself into her father’s arms. He ruffled her hair and spoke to her in Kikuyu, his voice gentle. She took his hand and led him to me. She spoke to him again. He held out his hand. I took it. We gazed into each other’s eyes as we shook hands. I felt humbled. This man was no less human than myself. There was a steadiness and a pride in his eyes. This was a man, a brother. I felt a rapport, as if having fought and felt each other’s blows and rage, it had brought us close.

We walked back to the house where we sampled a few jars of Jerie’s beer. A discussion took place, mostly over my head. Jerie was to stay to look after the goats while I took the others back to the camp, where Jerie’s father would collect his family and their belongings and return. When Jerie went to the kitchen, I followed her through and pressed a fistful of notes into her hand.

“Your father might need to hire a van and get supplies, it might be better if you gave it to him.”

She smiled gratefully. “It would be better Bill.”

I left to wait in the Land Rover. The rest joined me shortly. “Where to?” I asked.

Kabero turned to speak to his uncle. “He want you to leave him in Nairobi, then you take me to camp.” I nodded and drove into the centre of Nairobi, dropped Jerie’s father off near the native quarter, then was guided back to the camp. I was in a daze. I followed instructions like an automaton. I felt as if I would wake up soon and find myself back in bed in Scotland.

I waited while Kabero and the youth went into the hovel. The woman appeared. She looked at me then went back in. Soon strange bundles started to be thrown into the back of the Land Rover and shouting children were running about everywhere. A crowd gathered. Kabero and the youth appeared, carrying a chest. After a bit of heaving and removing bundles from the back, they got it loaded and reloaded the bundles. Kabero jumped in beside me.

“We go now,” he instructed. I drove slowly off, through the excited throng.

We arrived at the farm and I stopped at the gate. We unloaded and carried the heavy chest to the house and got the bundles stored in the bedroom. I collected Jerie and leaving Kabero with a couple of bottles of beer, in charge of the goats, we drove to the dukha, where she filled the back of the Land Rover with supplies and cardboard boxes filled with jars of the native beer.

“Jerie?” I asked.

“Yes Bill.”

“When can we go?”

She gave me a puzzled look. “We have to have …” she searched for a word, “a party.”

I felt apprehensive. “What do I have to do?”

She laughed. “You do not have to do anything, you just get drunk.”

“Why do I have to stay?”

She gave me an astonished look. “You are …” again she searched for a word,

“the bridegroom!”