Page 165 of The Sun Sister

‘Maybe because you love it?’

‘Maybe,’ he agreed. ‘I certainly can’t see myself working nine to five in an office, that’s for sure. Joss was saying that if war does come, they’ll be wanting as many men as possible to help out. He’s got an idea to join the Kenya Regiment himself, and I think I should do the same if and when the time comes.’

‘Surely you’re too old to fight?’ Cecily was horrified.

‘Not so much of the “old”, young lady,’ Bill chided her.

‘Do you really have to do it?’

‘I rather think I do, yes. I can hardly sit out in the plains chewing the cud with the local elders while Blighty and my fellow countrymen are under attack, can I? Anyway, it hasn’t happened yet, so let’s wait and see.’ Bill rolled over. ‘Goodnight, Cecily.’

Cecily and Bill finally moved into their new home at the end of June. Perhaps it was the nesting instinct that had taken hold of Cecily, but she had spent the past few weeks choosing paint colours for the walls, as well as curtain fabric (albeit from the paltry selection in the haberdashery shop in Nairobi). She was elated when Bill arrived home in early June to tell her a container of furniture from America had arrived in Mombasa and was being brought out by truck to the farmhouse in the next week.

At least with everything to do for the house, Cecily had noticed Bill’s regular absences less; he was either away checking on his cattle and moving them back up the mountains now the rainy season was over, on a game drive, or disappearing to commune with his Maasai friends.

‘I must bring a couple of them up to the house at some point to meet you, Cecily,’ he’d said in passing. ‘The way they live is fascinating. They go where their cattle go and simply rebuild their homes each time they settle.’

‘Then they’ll find Paradise Farm very strange, I’m sure,’ Cecily had said.

The name for the farmhouse had come about one evening when Bill had arrived back unexpectedly and they’d taken a trip out to see their soon-to-be finished home. Cecily had sat on the steps leading up to the front veranda and sighed as she gazed down at the valley laid out beneath her.

‘It’s paradise here, it really is,’ she’d said.

‘LikeParadise Lost,’ Bill had said, coming to sit next to her. ‘My favourite poem; it’s by John Milton. Heard of it?’

‘No, I’m afraid I’m just not very good with English literature.’

‘Well, the poem is actually in twelve books and contains ten thousand lines of verse.’

‘Wow, that isn’t a poem, that’s a story!’

‘It’s actually a biblical epic, reimagined by Milton. It follows the story of Satan, who is determined to destroy God’s favourite new creatures: humans. Perhaps we should name the farmhouse “Paradise”? It can mean different things to both of us.’

‘Umm, okay, but I hope you won’t feel that paradisehasbeen lost when we finally move in here,’ Cecily had said.

‘Oh, don’t worry about that – the poem that comes after is calledParadise Regained,’ Bill had smiled. ‘Come on.’ He’d offered her his hand and pulled her up from the stoop. ‘Let’s leave paradise and go back to our temporary digs.’

Cecily had subsequently had a carpenter fashion a sign that said ‘Paradise Farm’ to hang on the gate, just in case anyone came to visit them.

‘And I remain optimistic about that,’ Cecily said to Katherine, who was helping her hang curtains in the sitting room.

‘Of course people will come and visit you, darling; they’re all far too nosy to stay away.’

‘Then they might also notice that I’m awful large for what’s supposed to be less than three months of pregnancy.’ Cecily rolled her eyes.

‘Perhaps, but they’ll just assume that the two of you simply couldn’t keep your hands off each other before you got married,’ Katherine shrugged. ‘Seriously, if you’re going to live here in the Valley, or at least on the edge of it, you absolutely can’t be worrying about what people say. Anyway, it’s certainly stopped the rumour that Bill batted for the other side.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Oh, you know,’ Katherine said, lowering her voice, ‘that he is a homosexual.’

‘No! Just because he never married they thought that?’

‘Cecily, the women round here in particular have far too much timetothink. Now, that’s the sitting room done,’ said Katherine as she climbed down from the stepladder and surveyed her handiwork. ‘And isn’t it starting to look lovely?’

The curtains swayed in the breeze from the fan that had been installed in the centre of the high-ceilinged drawing room, and Cecily looked around at the surprisingly pleasing mix of Kenya and New York she had created. She had asked her parents to send over all their old furniture which had been gathering dust in the basement of the Fifth Avenue house, and the sturdy mahogany pieces gave the farmhouse a certain gravitas. Cecily had arranged the chaise longue and leather armchairs around the fireplace, with a large oriental rug between them. She had stowed Bill’s books in the bookcases that lined the room and the air was filled with the smell of polish.

She tried her best not to look at the leopard-skin rug in the entrance hall – Bill’s contribution to the proceedings – fashioned from the animal he’d brought home a few weeks ago.