The Dust Diaries Read Free Page A

and dazzled in the sea beyond them. Through the trees he’d been able to make out the dhows coming home from the evening catch, each with its single sail, a white wing of wind. Beyond these the reef turned on itself like a seam in the sea, while on the beach he’d caught a glimpse of a boy and a girl playing under a stranded dhow’s dropped rigging. Even the swirls of dust thrown up by the pony’s hooves had appeared to turn and wheel as part of a greater synthesis with which he was in tune. For the first time since departing from England he had felt he was no longer leaving, but going somewhere instead.
    But that was before the dinner. The dinner which had, for some reason, so unsettled him, and sent him off kilter as easily as the pieces of driftwood he’d seen that afternoon caught up against the harbour wall, turned and swayed on the wilful motion of the waves.
    The British Governor’s residence was a large coral limestone house on the coast a few miles north of Stonetown. Again, Frank fulfilled the role of guide as they rode out there, explaining that the building had once belonged to Princess Salome of the Omani.
    ‘Quite a woman apparently, marvellous gardener. You’ll see when we arrive, extraordinarily beautiful,’ he said, shaking his head in admiration as he spoke.
    Walking through the Princess’s gardens, with the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle in the air and the evening light of a sinking sun, Arthur saw what Frank meant. The house and the grounds were both of a remarkable, exotic beauty. A long, open veranda ran the length of the ground floor, with only a few potted plants and one large round table occupying its generous space. At the centre of the back wall a pair of dark wooden carved doors stood open, giving a view into a large room with a window open onto the sea. White drapes beat over the window, blown pregnant by the wind off the water. The first floor was also open on the front of the house: a long covered balcony on which Arthur could make out an African in a white robe walking the length of it, lighting the candles that stood in tall holders around its edge. He could also see that a wooden table occupied the centre of this balcony and that a group of Europeans stood at its furthest end, holding drinks and talking. One of them, wearing the white uniform of the Colonial Service, saw them approaching and came to the balcony railings. ‘Father Weston! Good evening! Do come up and join us. If you hurry, you’ll catch the sun!’
    The company at that dinner comprised Arthur, Frank, the British Governor, his almost silent wife, Mr Beardsley, a merchant from Essex, Charlotte, his timid and much younger female companion, and a man who introduced himself to Arthur as’S. Tristam Pruen, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society’. As they watched the sun sink into the sea a servant brought a tray of pink gins and a bottle of quinine. Arthur declined the gin, but still took his five grains of quinine. The medicine was bitter on his tongue and he wondered briefly if he wouldn’t rather suffer malaria than this taste lingering in his mouth every evening.
    They ate at the large dark wood table, its surface softened by the touch of hands over time, and were served crab, red snapper and rice by wordless, effortless Africans dressed in the same simple white robes as the candle-lighter. Ol the guests, Mr Beardsley, the merchant, was by far the loudest. When he laughed Arthur watched the tips of his ginger moustache tremble and he thought he saw the girl by his side visibly wince at his volume. She looked worried, her strained smiles failing to convince Arthur of anything other than her anxiety. The merchant, however, seemed oblivious and was having far too interesting a time quizzing S. Tristam Pruen to notice his companion’s apparent distress.
    S. Tristam Pruen (he never said what the S. stood for) was a writer of some repute among the European community in Africa, though the party only had his word to