easing of the crisis there, invoices declined sharply. Frantic to meet Adid’s targets, Douglas hustled a contract with World Vision to deliver aid to Somalia. The G1 was taken to Nairobi to fly those missions. The Hawker and the G1C, meanwhile, continued to make runs into the Nuba mountains for IPA and the Friends of the Frontline, but not frequently enough to compensate for the shortfall. Douglas then decided to attempt once more to get the other independent agencies to commit to the Nuba. He devoted his not-inconsiderable mental energies to figuring out how to sell them on the idea and asked Fitzhugh to help him, but Fitzhugh wasn’t of much help because he was preoccupied.
He was required to go to Nairobi once a month to deposit Knight Air’s receipts and contrived reasons to send himself to the capital more often. He would arrive at Diana’s Karen estate with a briefcase, pretending he was there on business, to avoid scandalizing her staff. They would talk and take tea in the room where he’d met Douglas and Barrett for the first time, the open windows admitting a perfume of frangipani, bougainvillea, and hibiscus that doubled the light-headed feeling her nearness induced in him. He was amazed and gratified, how comfortable they were in each other’s company, talking about her work and his, about Africa’s plight, about books and politics; but there was a tension in every conversation, for they were eager to touch and kiss but had to restrain themselves, what with the presence of the servant, the cook, the housekeeper, the gardener, the driver, the groom, the askaris at the gate, and the restraint heightened their need until it became almost unbearable. Diana got some relief by riding after their conversations. Poor Fitzhugh had no outlet as he stood by the steel fence and watched her, cantering around and around in boots and a jacket pinched at the waist, her legs sheathed in jodhpurs. It was more than he could stand, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of her, thrilled by her mastery. When she took a jump, leaning forward in the saddle, her thighs and hips forming a delicious curve, woman and horse looked like one mythic being, poised in midair.
She wouldn’t allow him into her bedroom, again in the interests of propriety, but put him up in the guest house. She came to him there after her staff had gone to bed. Diana made love with an intense but bridled passion, her legs flung over his shoulders, her back arching at her orgasm, her head thrown back and her gasps becoming one long, muted cry that fell off into a silence in which he swore he could hear his blood and hers, flowing through their veins. In the early morning, before dawn, she would leave him and creep back into her own room. He never felt so lonely and desolate as he did then, with her scent impregnated in the sheets and on the pillow. After his third visit he was sure they weren’t fooling anyone, but it seemed the housekeeper, the cook, etc., would tolerate their mistress’s liaison so long as she respected their sensibilities and kept up appearances. How he resented them, forcing him and Diana to sneak around like adulterers. He wanted to sleep beside her in a mutual bed and wake up with her in the morning. He wanted them to have dinner together without a lot of strained dissembling. The thought of marrying her had slipped into his mind, though he knew that was impossible; knew as well that not all the impediments to it arose from the conventions and prejudices of the society she lived in but from himself. He would like to be a father someday, and although Diana had not yet undergone the change, it couldn’t be far off. Nor could he picture what a future with her would be like. When he reached her age, she would be seventy. Seventy! How would that work out? They couldn’t give any serious thought to the future. Rowers in a tide too strong for their oars, they could only go where it took them, out to sea or to an unknown shore.
He returned from one of their trysts to discover that another odd love affair had caused a crisis. The day before, Tony had marched into the office to announce that if Douglas didn’t get rid of Dare and Mary, he was going to quit. Said he’d rather starve than suffer