gates.
When they arrived at the manor, the chauffeur released Ronald into the custody of a maid, who was far more polite. She curtsied and gestured him through the large wooden doors into a tall, dark vestibule, a single skylight piercing down from above. They mounted the marble stairs and walked along a corridor, the walls of which were covered with oil paintings of aristocratic ancestors. His suite was enormous, with floor-to-ceiling windows through which you could see the flat green lawns and in the distance, a glowing haze of bluebells at the edge of the woods. Everything in here seemed drowned in heavy cloth: blankets, curtains, pillows, thick rugs. Even the washroom was carpeted. Amongst the jumble of decor, he noticed two ebony busts of African slaves, a man and a woman carved in European style, their profiles thin caricatures of negritude.
The maid left him and he unpacked, hanging his two thin suits in the armoire, and stacking his four thick books by the bed. Then he took himself on a tour. As usual, he fell immediately into a fever of class anxiety as he wandered around, peeking into the countless rooms. Torn between envy and gratitude, he compared this estate with the last, then compared both to the incomparable original, Shiwa Ng’andu. Sir George was apparently an MP – was that different from a baron? How was he to be addressed? Ronald always worried he would neglect some custom or another: English etiquette was as rigid and inconsistent as English grammar.
At least this estate had a well-stocked library, he thought as he strolled around a gloomy room with a tomb’s worth of tomes. The books were in variable states of wear, their pages either leathery with use or so brittle they crumbled at the touch. It looked like mostly legal theory with the occasional glance at ancient history: Pliny, Thucydides, Herodotus. There was no modern science, which was a relief. Ronald often felt obliged to read those books first, less out of interest and more because his hosts, knowing that he studied engineering, would inevitably quiz him on the only science they knew. He finally found a trove of novels and a few translated works of mythology – Greek, Roman, Norse – in a corner. These proved to be Lady Carolyn’s – was that her title? – which was rather less useful to him.
At dinner that evening, his hostess demurred his efforts at conversation, offering him endless dishes instead, accompanied by apologies – ‘must be…taste so different…wish we could…well…suppose…best we can.’ Ronald knew by now to thank her profusely and pretend that the rich sauces did not cloy his taste buds, that the overboiled vegetables did not caulk every cranny of his mouth. Sir George seemed to have a cold. He kept clearing his throat, hmming and hrghing. He spoke just once and then only to say: ‘Our daughter. She’s…ill, or rather, hrmm, indisposed at the moment. She sends her regards.’ Ronald expressed his best wishes for her health, then wondered if he had been too forward in alluding to her body at all. He gave up on conversation altogether and for the rest of the meal took recourse to smiling and nodding at Sir George, a great nodder himself, their bobbing heads as if on either end of a scale.
* * *
When Ronald finally set eyes on this indisposed daughter, he was reading on a bench by the side of the tennis lawn – the best place, he had discovered, to avoid the strenuous labour of being a guest in a British manor. He had just turned to a chapter on aerodynamics in his textbook when he heard an insecty hum followed by a hollow pock, like a drop of water falling down a drain. He looked up and saw a ball bounce off the low wall beside him. He stopped it with his foot and smiled and waved at the tall girl in white holding a racket on the other side of the lawn. He was a little offended when she didn’t wave back.
Instead, she tilted her face up to the sky and took a long sniff. The sunlight hit her eyes, turning the lids translucent, and that’s when he saw that they were closed – she hadn’t seen him. Was she winking now? No, just a flash of light from the edge of her racket as she raised it and pressed a ball against the strings with her other hand. Eyes still shut, she tossed