read over them. My great-grandfather also hunted and collected in
Ethiopia in the last century. I know he crossed the Blue Nile near Debra
Markos in 1890something. I'll get out his notes as well. They are
preserved in our archives. The old boy may have written something there
that could help us.'
He walked with her to the old green Land Rover in the car park, and as
she started the engine he told her through the open window, 'I still
think that you should stay over here at the Hall. It must be an
hour-and-a-half's drive across to Brandsbury - each way that's three
hours a day. We are going to have a lot of work to do before we can even
think of leaving for Africa.'
'What would people think?' she asked, as she let out the clutch.
'I have never given a damn about people,' he called after her. 'What
time will I see you tomorrow?'
I have to stop off to see the doctor in York. He is going to take the
stitches out of my arm. I won't be here before eleven,' she stuck her
head out of the window to yell back at him.
The wind tossed her dark hair around her face. His fancy had always run
towards dark-haired women. Rosalind had had that mysterious Eastern
look. He felt guilty and disloyal making the comparison, but the memory
of Royan was hard to shake off.
She was the first woman who had interested him since Rosalind had gone.
The admixture of her blood drew him.
She was exotic enough to pique his taste for. the oriental, but English
enough to speak his language and understand his sense of humour. She was
educated and knowledgeable about those things that interested him, and
he admired her spirit. Usually Eastern women were trained from birth to
be self-effacing and compliant. This one was different.
eorgina had phoned her doctor in York to make an appointment to have the
stitches removed from Royan's arm. They left after breakfast from the
cottage in Brandsbury. Georgina was driving and Magic sat between them
on the bench seat.
As they turned into the village street, Royan noticed a large MAN truck
parked down near the post office, but she thought no more about it.
Once they were out in the countryside they found there were patches of
heavy fog that in places reduced visibility to thirty yards, but
Georgina made no concessions to the weather, and sent the Land Rover
rattling and whining through it at the top of its speed, which Royan
reflected thankfully was on the right side of sixty miles an hour.
She glanced over her shoulder to check the road behind them, and saw
that the MAN truck was following them, Only the cab rose above the sea
of low mist that surrounded it like the conning tower of a submarine.
Even as she watched it, a bank of fog intervened and swallowed it up.
She turned back to listen to her mother.
'This government is a troop of incompetent nincompoops.' Georgina
squinted her eyes against the smoke from the cigarette that dangled from
her lips. She drove singlehanded, stroking Magic's flowing silken ear
with her free hand, 'I don't mind ministers boiling themselves into a
stupor, but when they start fiddling around with my pension I get really
