The Morning Gift

He had walked since daybreak and now stood on the top of the Cheviots looking across at the rolling slopes of blond grass bent by the wind and the fierce storm clouds gathering above the sea. Tomorrow he would do his duty by his parishioners, read the lesson in church, and accompany his aunt to the Rothleys’ annual party – but this day he had claimed for himself.

Yet when he began to apply his mind to the problem which had brought him up here, he found there was no decision to be made. It had made itself, heaven knew when, in that part of the brain so beloved of Professor Freud.

Instead of thought came images. A steamer to Dar es Salaam . . . the river boat to Lindi . . . a few days with the Commissioner to hire porters. And then the long trek across the great game plains on the far side of the Rift. He had dreamt of that journey when he was working in Tanganyika all those years ago – and if Farquarson was telling the truth . . . if there really was an outcrop of fossil-bearing sandstone in the Kulamali . . .

As he saw the landscape, so he saw the people he would take. Milner, of course, and Jacobson from the museum’s Geology Department . . . Alec Younger, back from the East Indies and longing to be off again . . . Colonel Hillborough who’d had his fill of administration and would harness the resources of the Geographical Society to the trip . . . And one other person; someone young to whom he’d give a break. One of the third years, perhaps. It would depend on the exam results, but young Sam Marsh was a possibility.

Africa had been his first love: the bone pits of Tendaguru had set him on his way professionally and if this was to be his last journey it would be a fitting end to his travels. There were other advantages in going to Kulamali. The territory was British ruled and from it one could go through other protectorates back to the sea. No danger then, if war came, of being locked up as a foreigner. He’d be able to make his way back home and enlist.

Another decision, seemingly, had already been made in some part of his mind. This was not a journey to be packed into the summer vacation. He was leaving Thameside, and leaving it for good.

24

‘I must say sometimes I wish the human heart really was just a thick-walled rubber bulb, don’t you?’ said Ruth to Janet, with whom she had stayed behind to draw a model of the circulatory system kindly constructed for them by Dr Fitzsimmons.

Nearly two months had passed since Christmas, and Heini’s passionate plea that they should be properly together was about to be answered at last. Ruth had not delayed so long on purpose. She wanted to be like the heroine of La Traviata who had sung about living utterly and then dying and she knew that in giving herself to Heini she was serving the cause of music. Heini, who was studying the Dante Sonata for the competition, had become very interested in the composer’s private life and Liszt (who was famous for being demonic) had already been through a number of countesses by the time he was Heini’s age, so that it was entirely understandable that Heini did not feel able to do justice to his compositions while in a state of physical frustration.

All the same, it hadn’t been easy. The opportunities for being demonic at Number 27 were nonexistent and they couldn’t afford a hotel. So she had turned to Janet, who had so completely got over being a vicar’s daughter, and Janet had come up trumps.

‘You can have my flat,’ she had said. ‘We’ll have to find out when the other two are away, but Corinne goes home most weekends and Hilary quite often works all day Saturday; I’ll let you know when it’s safe.’

And the day before, Janet had let her know. The very next Saturday, Ruth could have the whole afternoon to be with Heini. Now, looking at her friend, Janet said: ‘You don’t have to, you know. No one has to. Some people just aren’t any good unless they’re married and it seems to me you may be one of them.’

‘It’s just cowardice,’ said Ruth, rubbing out a capillary tube which was threatening to run off the page. ‘If you can do it, so can I.’

Janet’s reply was a little disconcerting. ‘Yes, I can and I do. Someone started me off when I was sixteen and I was ashamed because my father was a vicar and I wanted to show I wasn’t a prig. And once you start, you go on. But I’m twenty-one and I’m a bit tired of it already and sometimes I wonder what the point of it all is.’

It was as they were packing up their belongings that Ruth, looking sideways at Janet, said: ‘Do you think I ought to read a book about it first?’

‘Good God, Ruth, you do nothing but read books! You must know more about the physiology of the reproductive system than anyone in the world.’

‘I meant . . . a sort of manual. A “How to do it” one, like you have for mending motorbikes.’

‘You can if you like. If you go to Foyles and go up to the second floor you can read one free. They’ve got half a dozen of them in the Human Biology section. The assistants won’t bother you; they’re used to it.’