AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My neighbour walks me to the appropriate check-in desk and waits with me while I queue and deposit my over-stuffed bag. Then we have a quick coffee together at a scruffy, crowded Starbucks to calm my nerves before I go through to the departure lounge.
We stand at the last security barrier – the place where Mike has to go home and I take my first step alone into uncharted territory. I get my plastic bag of toiletries out of my hand luggage in preparation for the tedious security checks.
‘Well,’ Mike says. There is a catch in his voice. ‘I’m going to miss you.’
‘I’m going to miss you too,’ I agree. And as I say it, I realise how much I really am going to be lost without this reliable man who’s always close at hand for me.
The crowds push around us. ‘Don’t worry about Archie,’ he says. ‘I’ll look after him.’
A tear springs to my eye and it’s not just for my stroppy cat.
‘Maybe when you get back,’ Mike says tentatively, ‘I could take you out for a nice dinner or something.’
‘That would be lovely.’
‘I mean properly,’ he adds shyly, in case I’ve missed his meaning. ‘Not just as neighbours. Not just as friends.’
‘Oh,’ I say, having completely missed his meaning. ‘Oh.’
With that, he grips me awkwardly in a bear hug and squeezes me in his arms. ‘Come back safely to me, Janie Johnson,’ he whispers in my ear. ‘Come back safely.’
‘Yes,’ I hear myself say in a dazed way. ‘Yes.’
Mike breaks away from me. Holding me at arms length, he gazes at me as if trying to record every contour of my face, and they must surely be registering surprise. He kisses me soundly on the cheek, turns and after a final wave, walks away, leaving me slightly gobsmacked at the gate.
It seems that my friend, Nina, might well be right. Mike fancies me. I smile to myself. And it feels quite nice.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The sun, which is stronger than I’ve ever known, is already flaying strips off my skin. It’s just past nine in the morning and the temperature is climbing steadily. The air tastes different here – of dryness and dust. Eight hours after leaving London and two hours after leaving Nairobi, the robust four-wheel drive minibus I’m in stops at a roadside curio shop called, rather optimistically, Harrods Africa.
This African version of the world-famous department store is a shack made of rough planks of wood, nailed haphazardly together in the approximate shape of a garden shed. The walls are laden with wooden carvings for sale – scary African masks, slender giraffes, bowls in gleaming olive wood, blue gum and ebony. The floor around the shack is stacked with more carvings, this time made from smooth soapstone in delicate shades of cream and green and pink. Brightly coloured woven blankets in scarlet reds, lurid pinks and shades of orange are strung up on a wire that’s hanging on the door alongside small goatskin shields.
The group pile out of the minibus and we all buy cups of sweet milky chai and stand on the balcony – also randomly created from bits and pieces of wood – that precariously juts out from the escarpment. We look out at the stupendous view of Africa’s Rift Valley, a vast geological fissure that stretches all the way down from the Red Sea to the Zambezi river. The place that’s often known as the cradle of man, the place from where all human life is said to have begun. I feel that this is my first proper glimpse of the Africa I had envisaged. The landscape is immense, ancient. In all of my life, I’ve seen nothing quite like this before. Nothing so vast, so primal. It’s a million miles away from Nashley and its twee little cottages and neatly trimmed hedges. The cerulean sky is all encompassing, the ochre plains stretch out to infinity and beyond. In the far distance, enormous mountains rise up to meet the rare powder puff of clouds. A long weary sigh escapes my lips. I’m here. I’m finally here. I want to laugh and cry at the same time. I’m both exhausted and excited.
After a few minutes of rest, the driver ushers us back onto the bus. We still have a long, long way to go before we reach the Maasai Mara. Another five hours or more, dependent on the condition of the road, the driver tells us. I settle back in my seat and let the scenery pass by me.
As we travel through shanty-town villages, ramshackle houses, shops painted in bright colours to advertise mobile phone networks, zebras and gazelles graze by the side of the road and herds of goats wander aimlessly into our path, risking the wrath of our driver who toots his horn furiously but doesn’t slow down. The further we go, the bumpier the road becomes until, at the bustling touristy town of Narok, we turn off to the only road which leads into the Maasai Mara.
