she felt the tension ease from her shoulders. Then she sat up straight and kicked the pony into a walk, stirring up the dust from the peppery red earth as they moved towards the starting gate of the show-jumping ring that had been set up on one of the fields of the Wanjohi Valley Polo Club for its 1926 gymkhana.
The girl’s eyes were fixed on the fences scattered at apparently random points around the ring. And a single thought filled her mind: I am going to win!
A loudspeaker had been slung from one of the wooden rafters that held up the corrugated iron awning over the clubhouse veranda. The harsh, tinny sound of a man’s amplified voice burst from it, saying, ‘Now the final competitor in the twelve-and-under show jumping, Miss Saffron Courtney on Kipi-pipi-piri …’ Silence fell for a second and then the voice continued, ‘Awfully sorry, few too many pips there, I fear.’
‘And a few too many pink gins, eh, Chalky!’ a voice called out from among the spectators lounging on the wooden benches that were serving as spectator seating for the annual gymkhana the polo club laid on for its members’ children.
‘Too true, dear boy, too true,’ the announcer confessed, and then continued, ‘So far there’s only been one clear round, by Percy Toynton on Hotspur, which means that Saffron’s the only rider standing between him and victory. She’s much the youngest competitor in this event, so let’s give her a jolly big round of applause to send her on her way.’
A ripple of limp clapping could be heard from the fifty or so white settlers who had come to watch their children compete in the gymkhana, or who were simply grasping any opportunity to leave their farms and businesses and socialise with one another. They were drowsy with the warmth of the early afternoon sun and the thin air, for the polo fields lay at an altitude of almost eight thousand feet, which seemed to exaggerate the effect of their heroic consumption of alcohol. A few particularly jaded, decadent souls were further numbed by opium, while those who were exhibiting overt signs of energy or agitation had quite likely sniffed some of the cocaine that had recently become as familiar to the more daring elements in Kenyan society as a cocktail before dinner.
Saffron’s mother Eva Courtney, however, was entirely clear-headed. Seven months pregnant, having had two miscarriages since her daughter’s birth, she had been forbidden anything stronger than the occasional glass of Guinness to build up her strength. She looked towards the jumps that had been set up on one of the polo fields, whispered, ‘Good luck, my sweet,’ under her breath, and squeezed her husband’s hand.
‘I just hope she doesn’t have a fall,’ she said, her deep violet eyes heavy with maternal anxiety. ‘She’s only a little girl and look at the size of some of those jumps.’
Leon Courtney smiled at his wife. ‘Don’t you worry, darling,’ he reassured her. ‘Saffron is your daughter. Which means she’s as brave as a lioness, as pretty as a pink flamingo … and as tough as an old bull rhino. She will come through unscathed, you mark my words.’
Eva Courtney smiled at Leon and let go of his hand so that he could get to his feet and walk down towards the polo field. That’s my Badger, she thought. He can’t bear to sit and watch his girl from a distance. He has to get close to the action.
Eva had given Leon the nickname Badger one morning a dozen years earlier, soon after they had met. They had ridden out as dawn broke over the Rift Valley and Eva had spotted a funny-looking creature about the size of a squat, sturdy, short-legged dog. It had black fur on its belly and lower body and white and pale grey on top, and was snuffling round in the grass like an old man searching for his reading glasses.
‘What is it?’ she had asked, to which Leon replied, ‘It’s a honey badger.’ He told her that this unlikely beast was one of the most ferocious, fearless creatures in Africa. ‘Even the lion gives him a wide berth,’ Leon had said. ‘Interfere with him at your peril.’
He could be talking about himself, Eva had thought. Leon had only been in his mid-twenties then, scraping a living as a safari guide. Now he was just a year shy of forty, the look of boyish eagerness that had once lit his eyes was replaced by the calmer assurance of a mature man in his prime, confident in his prowess as a hunter and fighting man. There was a deep groove between Leon’s brows and lines around his eyes and mouth. With the frustration felt by women through the ages, to whom lines were an unwelcome sign that their youth and beauty were fading, Eva had to admit that on her man they suggested experience and authority and only made him all the more attractive. His body was a shade thicker through the trunk and his waist was not as slender as it had once been, but – another unfairness! – that only made him seem all the stronger and more powerful.
Eva looked around at the other men of the expatriate community gathered in this particular corner of Kenya. Her eyes came to rest on Josslyn Hay, the 25-year-old heir to the Earl of Erroll, the hereditary Lord High Constable of Scotland. He was a tall, strongly built young man and he wore a kilt, as he often did in honour of his heritage, with a red-ochre Somali shawl slung over one shoulder. He was a handsome enough sight, with his swept-back, matinee-idol blond hair. His cool blue eyes looked at the world, and its female inhabitants in particular, with the lazy, heavy-lidded impudence of a predator eyeing its next meal. Hay had seduced half the white women in British East Africa, but Eva was too familiar with his type and too satisfied with her own alpha male to be remotely interested in adding to his conquests. Besides, he was far too young and inexperienced to interest her. As for the rest of the men there, they were a motley crew of aristocrats fleeing the new world of post-war Britain; remittance men putting on airs while praying for the next cheque from home; and adventurers enticed to Africa by the promise of a life they could never hope to match at home.
Leon Courtney, though, was different. His family had lived in Africa for two hundred and fifty years. He spoke Swahili as easily as English, conversed with the local Masai people in their own tongue and had excellent Arabic – an essential tool for a man whose father had founded a trading business that had been born of a single Nile steamer but now stretched from the gold mines of the Transvaal to the cotton fields of Egypt and the oil wells of Mesopotamia. Leon didn’t play games. He didn’t have to. He was man enough exactly as he was.
Yes, Badger, I am lucky, Eva thought. Luckiest of all to love and be loved by you.
Saffron steadied herself at the start of her course. I’ve simply got to beat Percy! she told herself.
It was Percy Toynton’s thirteenth birthday in a week’s time so he only just qualified for the event. Not only was he almost twice as old as Saffron, both he and his horse were far larger and stronger than she and Kipipiri. Percy was not a nice boy, in Saffron’s view. He was boastful and liked to make himself look clever at other children’s expense. Still, he had got round the course without making a mistake. So she absolutely had to match that and then beat him in the jump-off that would follow.
‘Don’t get ahead of yourself,’ Daddy had told her over breakfast that morning. ‘This is a very important lesson in life. If you have a big, difficult job to do, don’t fret about how hard it is. Break it down into smaller, easier jobs. Then steadily do them one by one and you’ll find that in the end you’ve done the thing that seemed so hard. Do you understand?’
Saffron had screwed up her face and twisted her lips from side to side, thinking about what Daddy had said. ‘I think so,’ she’d replied, without much conviction.
‘Well, take a clear round at show jumping. That’s very difficult, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Saffron nodded.
‘But if you look at a jump, I bet you always think you can get over it.’
‘Always!’
