Boss Takes All (9 page)

‘That's enough! I will do what you demand. Now, I want you out of here in five minutes. And don't you think that this matter will end here.'

‘That goes for us, too, Mister Rubai. Now if you will just allow us enough time to collect our ladies …'

‘Just get the hell out of my house.'

It was ten minutes before Abel Rubai returned to the dining room to join his wife who was sitting stony-faced in her chair, sipping from a cup of cold coffee. She looked up as he came in.

‘Why, Abel?'

He was in no mood for gentle apologies.

‘Those two snakes tricked you.'

‘What are you talking about?'

Sally was hurt by the sharpness of his tone. She was bewildered by his reply, but it was obvious that he was deeply upset by something that had happened between him and the two lawyers who, minutes before, had swept in to collect their wives and bring to an abrupt end what had been, for her, a very pleasant reunion with an old friend.

‘Abel, do we need to talk? What have I done to upset you?'

Abel pinched the top of his nose as he released a long, slow breath. In a matter of seconds his expression had changed dramatically. The old, familiar tenderness was back. He shifted a chair so that when he sat down he was able to look directly into her eyes and take her hand in his. He sensed that somewhere deep inside him a massive tension had been released.

‘Sally, we should have had this conversation a long time ago.'

ebecca, I'm so glad you could come.' ‘It's nearly twenty times now. Papa brought me here for the first time when I was three. Mister Freddie was very old then. I remember him playing the piano under the tree next to the veranda. You and your mama were singing.'

‘You know Daddy hated to see the flower farms coming to the lake, but he would have been so sad to have seen all this terrible trouble at Londiani. He and Don McCall were good pals. They had their disagreements, but Don never failed to send us beautiful boxes of roses for birthdays and Christmas.'

‘Ah, here's Papa. He's the one who always packed those boxes. I helped sometimes.'

‘Miss Mollie, no flowers this year. First time Londiani Farm has not sent something to help to decorate the stage for the music festival.'

‘Stephen, you two are here. That's enough.'

Mollie Nash reached up to grasp Stephen Kamau's broad shoulders and pull his face close to hers.

‘I hear we nearly lost you. Please, forgive the tears. Every year you sing for us and every year, as I watch and listen, I think of those thousands of people in opera houses around the world who will never hear that glorious voice.'

‘But, Miss Mollie, you've got Rebecca now. She, we owe you so much.'

‘Listen. I must have told you all this before, but I like repeating this story about the family. Father was barely out of school when he came over the mountains with Delamere all those years go. Saw our beautiful lake, fell in love with it and went back to Britain to find a woman ready to share this paradise. Not many living around these parts then, but ten noisy little Nashes soon changed all that.

‘Mama said, “Freddie, we could form a choir,” and Father said, “Lizzie, we are going to have a festival, every year on your birthday.”

‘I heard about this music making when I was a youngster living on the coast.'

Mollie hesitated about finishing her family story. She was the last survivor of the original Nash ten. The future of the festival was in good hands, but with each passing year, Mollie became very emotional about the past and about the chances of her surviving to see another one.

‘I've never told anyone this bit of the Nash saga. You were just eight, Rebecca. You had sung at the festival. Father was too ill to join us out here, but he listened through that window.'

‘And I came inside the house. Bwana Nash was sitting in an armchair by the fire and I sang two songs. I remember them. ‘Annie Laurie' and ‘The Lord is my shepherd'.

‘After you had gone home, he said to us all. “Today, someone came down from heaven to sing to me. I'm ready to go anytime now.” Three days later he did go.'

‘My heart is beating fast to hear such a thing. Perhaps, if you wish it, I could sing those songs again. Papa …'

‘Stephen.' Mollie hesitated again. This time she was afraid that her words would hurt Stephen. ‘Stephen, you know that there was something my father loved more than his music, almost as much as he loved his family.'

‘I know this thing. We talked about it often. He asked me to leave Londiani. He wanted me to come down here to help with the cattle and the conservation work. One time he asked me to grab a big handful of the rich brown earth and let it run through my fingers. He said, “Stephen, I don't think the good Lord gave us these waters and this soil to grow food and flowers for rich Europeans.” We parted friends. Miss Mollie, cattle, conservation, this is not work that I could understand. I told him that Bwana McCall is a good farmer and that he will never hurt the land. And the farm brings work to many, many people, feeds the children.'

‘Stephen, there will never be such farms down at this end of South Lake Road. Perhaps flowers will never again be grown on Londiani. Perhaps this will be the beginning of a great change.'

Stephen sighed deeply and put his arm across Rebecca's shoulders. ‘Who can know the future? Not a coastie like me, that's for sure. But I do know that many bad things have happened around our part of the lake.'

‘Many of our young people have died. We nearly lost Thomas. We nearly lost Papa. We know where many of these bad things come from. We know this man, but we do not fear him.'

o, Sally, don't call Monica. We can leave the coffee and the other stuff ‘til later.'

‘Abel, you don't look so good. You are doing too much too soon. Give yourself some free time.'

‘Yeah, later, later. I need to clear a few things up first.'

‘Perhaps you could start by explaining why our guests left so fast. Us ladies were enjoying a real good time and then in come Daniel and Paul … What happened out there, Abel?'

‘Yeah, Sally, yeah. It was pretty quick.' Abel was taking longer than usual in organising his thoughts into a ‘case'. Abel was always very careful in his conversations, his exchanges, even with, especially with Sally. It was as if he believed that everything he said was being recorded in some mysterious way and might be played back to him at some inconvenient time in the future. He was an A-one expert in covering his back.

‘Those two fellows wormed their way into this house. It wasn't your fault …'

‘But I'm an easy touch. Is that the way to put it?' Sally was not prepared to take the blame on this. ‘I meet an old friend and I invite her to my home.'

‘True, sweetheart, but … Look. Miller and Komar, smart in appearance but two very slippery customers in their line of business, and I don't just mean in the courts.'

‘So, they upset you in some way and I take the punishment.'

‘Okay, let's start again. Ten, twenty minutes ago I took a big risk with those two punks.'

‘Why punks? Abel, they must have really upset you big time.'

‘Not at all. I'll show you. Bertie Briggs. Remember that name?'

‘His toto was here with Angela, the McCall maid. He's in the lock-up somewhere up-country.'

‘He tried to kill your husband. Damn near did. Well, by sunset tonight he will be a free man. A free man courtesy of this same husband. This was the news I was giving to Miller and Komar. Over lunch here, it came to me. I could give these dreamers a lesson, show them how a real statesman behaves. Do something … spectacular, unexpected. And you know what, Sal, they were not happy. Not happy. I tell you. Like they were upset, yes upset. They would have one less thing to beat me over the head with. That's the truth.'

For a time Sally sat wide-eyed, pleased, amazed, proud. At last, she smiled, patted her belly and spoke a few words to the new Julius.

‘Now, that's your daddy over there …'

‘And your daddy hasn't quite finished yet, boy.'

‘There's more? Now you listen carefully, Julius. When Daddy speaks, you take notice!'

Sally chuckled, wobbled and seemed about to summon Monica.

He raised his hand to stop her. ‘Sally, what was that religious stuff you used to say to me? You know, when I was having a hard time after we lost the boy. “Confessing is …?”'

‘Confession is good for the soul.'

‘Whatever the hell a soul is! However. We've known each other a long time, Sal. We've done pretty well together. You know that you're my jewel.'

‘This sounds like bedroom talk to me. And you know that I'm … unavailable just now.' She smiled, patted her hair and fluttered her eyelashes.

He was too preoccupied with his next ‘case' to pick up on her reaction.

‘Sometimes I have had to hide things from you. You know it's more than twenty years since I started helping the old president with his money problems. Back then I was full of, well, ideals. I was going to be Mister Open Door. Hard knocks can change you.'

‘Can change us all.'

‘And hard knocks can make us hard.' Abel was faltering. As he spoke he began to realise that in ‘confessing' he was not able to go beyond generalities. Confession was also a very dangerous road to travel. Examples of where he could show that he had done some dirty stuff, (dirty in Sally's eyes) passed through his mind and moved on out of sight. Simon Mboya. Would she understand that, for the greater good, Abel had made the decision that this popular but subversive doctor must be eliminated?

Sally saw clearly that he was struggling and moved in to help.

‘Abel, I trust you. I know what this country means to you. And I know that men of good will bless themselves that they have such an honest man guide them. But this is your home. I am going to get Monica bring us some of that coffee you mentioned and for “stuff”, how about a couple of slices of that chocolate cake that Marcel made this morning?'

Sally was no innocent. She understood what Abel was trying to get out much better than he could know. She had learned to live with these things many years before. There were private places in her heart and mind that only she and her God knew about.

nspector John Wambui liked working the Sunday shift. There was never a quieter time in Nakuru, so he rarely had a big case on his hands. Even the many petty thieves around the town seemed to have found places to take time out from their hectic times on the streets.

When the call came through, Inspector John became so animated that Humphrey, his desk sergeant, thought the boss had been at the bottle.

‘Humphrey, great news! We've got some tidying up to do. And get one of the boys to give the car a polish. I just could be going on another official journey… to Naivasha.'

‘Like with that McCall kid?'

‘Correct, young man! Who was the fool who told me you had no brains?'