Free The Clouds Beneath the Sun by Mackenzie Ford Page A

according to the book, according to the rules, they should survive. It’s harder here because local traditions are so strong, and so different from ours. You’re not a doctor, so it’s hit you harder. Pity there’s no hard liquor on this dig—otherwise, I could prescribe a shot of brandy for you.”
    He smiled.

3
WITNESS
    N atalie looked at the packet of cigarettes she held in her hand. The moonlight was so bright tonight that she could read the writing without the aid of the hurricane lamp. The campfire was alight—just—but its crimson glow was dim. She took a cigarette from the pack and slipped it into her mouth. When she flicked open her lighter, the flame jumped up and caught the tobacco. She didn’t know which she liked more, the first taste of her first cigarette of the day, or the first sip of whiskey.
    She put the cigarette pack in the breast pocket of her shirt and leaned forward to light the hurricane lamp. After it had caught, she turned the flame down low and savored the tang of kerosene in her nostrils. In the distance she could just make out the skyline of the Amboseli Mountain, its smooth shoulders sinking into the maroon gloom of the plain.
    She knew that as soon as Russell saw the glow of her lamp he would be over. Tonight, she definitely needed company. Odnate’s death had upset her. Having, as she thought, rescued him, she felt as if part of herself had died with him. She felt partly cheated and partly foolish for thinking that it was so easy to save a life, and she also felt naive that she had been so ignorant of the local customs that, in the end, had won out.
    Naïveté. It was the curse of her life. It was her naïveté that had got her involved with Dominic and had, in the end, been responsible for his moving on, moving on without her. For the umpteenth time she relived that last afternoon, by the river in Cambridge, against the backdrop of Trinity and King’s College Chapel. By Cambridge standards it had been a sunny day, gloriously warm but with clouds too, blotting out the sun from time to time. They were walking but both wheeling bicycles, planning to ride into the countryside, as they sometimes did. She still wasn’t sure whether what had come next was sophisticated or cruel, or both.
    Dominic would often hum or softly whistle tunes and it had become their private game for Natalie to guess what he was humming or whistling. If she couldn’t guess the tune, she would try for the composer.
    “Oh, I know that,” she had said enthusiastically that day. “It’s from that new musical … what’s it called? … that’s it, West Side Story . Leonard Bernstein, that’s the composer.”
    “Well done … and the tune?”
    “America.” She sang the words, “I-want-to-be-in-Ame-ri-ca, Okay-by-me-in-Ame-ri-ca …”
    Dominic had smiled and said, “Bernstein’s asked me to play with him.”
    She had stopped in her tracks. “Dom! That’s wonderful! When? Where?”
    “New York. Just before Christmas.” He had stopped too. “It’s part of a tour I’m going on. A year on the road … Canada, Mexico, twenty-seven of the United States.”
    “A year?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Starting when?”
    “I leave for Vancouver next week.”
    A plane droned by, overhead.
    “How long have you been planning this?”
    “A few months.”
    It was a warm day and the skin on Natalie’s throat felt clammy. But she had shivered. This was the first she had heard of any tour.
    “Vancouver couldn’t be further away.”
    He had nodded. “I like it that way. I’ll be there a month, rehearsing and giving master classes, before moving on. A fresh city every three or four days, for months on end. A complete break.”
    The last three words were spoken as the clouds cleared the sun and his face was suddenly on fire. But she could see that it wasn’t just the sunshine.
    “A complete break?” she had repeated.
    He nodded. “Susan and I are getting divorced. I need to devote myself to music for a year, at