A Pride of Lions Read Online Free PDF Page A

that?”
    I was silent, unsure where the conversation was leading and not at all sure that I liked the look of it anyway. I was relieved
    when his attention was distracted by our coming into the small township of Voi, where we drew into a garage and opened both the doors wide.
    Hugo glanced at his watch. “We have time for a cup of tea, if you’d like one? Will you order it while I get the Landcruiser filled up?”
    There was a small cafe attached to the garage and I went thankfully inside and sat down at one of the small tables. The paint on the walls was peeling in places and, at my entrance, the flies came rushing to meet me, glad of something new to pester. I pushed them away with the back of my hand, but there is nothing more persistent than a fly, and I knew that it was a losing battle.
    An Indian appeared behind the counter, dressed only in a pair of shorts and a brightly coloured shirt that was flapping loose to give him an illusion of coolness.
    “Ndio? Yes?” he said.
    I ordered the tea and we carefully discussed whether I wanted a mixed brew, or a brand from the slopes of Kilimanjaro, or another from up country in Kenya. I settled for the mixed brew, hoping that it would also be the strongest, and the Indian congratulated me kindly on the extent and use of my Swahili.
    “So you are not touring here?” he deduced.
    I shook my head. “I’m working as translator on the new Safari Lodge,” I told him.
    His eyes lit up. “Will it be near here?” he asked me.
    “Fairly near,” I said.
    His face fell. “I have never been anywhere but here,” he confessed. “My elder brother is in Nairobi, at University there, but I have not even been to visit him yet.”
    I looked at his boyish face beneath the smooth black cap of his hair. “There is time yet,” I said.
    “But everything is happening in Nairobi!” he explained. “Nothing happens here. A few tourists come here, on their way to the Park, or travelling up and down the road, but nothing happens here!”
    He produced the tea, stirring the milk into the cups as he put them down on the counter. I carried them over to the table and then came back to pay him. Happily the tea was hot enough to deter the flies from going too close to either cup.
    “Is it always so hot?” I asked the Indian boy.
    He shrugged his shoulders. “It depends—Not always like this, but it doesn’t get cold either. When the rain comes it will be better,” he added. “The long rains failed and the ground and the animals are very thirsty.”
    I sipped at my tea thankfully. It was hot and very strong, with a delicate fragrance that makes Kenya tea a little more like the Ceylon variety than that of India. I wondered what Hugo could be doing for so long, and I was just covering his tea with his saucer when he came in and threw himself down on the chair opposite me, wiping the sweat from his brow with his handkerchief.
    “One of the nuts had worked loose on the rear wheel,” he said heavily. “The attendant saw it, fortunately, but the nut was cracked through and we had to find another one that would fit!” He made a sour face. “The vehicles round here have to take quite a beating one way and another.”
    He swallowed down his tea, grunted, and rose to his feet. I followed him reluctantly. Even the peeling paint and the flies seemed preferable to braving again the heat outside. In this I was right, for the Landcruiser had been sitting in the full sun all this time and the seat was so hot that I gave a little involuntary gasp as I sat on it, which at least gained me a sympathetic, if wry, smile from Hugo.
    “Only another couple of hours now!” he said with forced cheerfulness. “Hold on to your hat while we low-fly up the metal road for as long as we can!”
    He was as good as his word. We stormed up the road, passing the one or two vehicles we met on the road. But then suddenly we left the main road again, turning off through a large village that had grown up around the railway