5 of 62

Write now Article Tools

The opening of A Fool's Knot, a novel set in Kenya

August 1976

England is smaller now. The sky is smaller. Daylight is softer, paler than memories of the harsh brilliance of tropical sun. There are people everywhere: there is no space here. There are no mountains, no heavy clouds, flat bottomed in the sky and stretching to the horizon as if floating on the surface of a lake covering the earth. There is no distance here. The horizon is near and the sun does not shine.

A tremble of regret, an emptiness born of shock, passed through Janet's body. Her eyes stared blankly as mile after predictable mile passed by unnoticed. She was glad to be home again, but this happiness could not override the sadness she felt at leaving the place where she had lived so happily for two years. Though Migwani already felt a long way distant, it had perhaps felt more of a home than any other place that bore the name. Already it had become no more than a phase in her life, transformed by the hours of flight into a memory, outlived and outmoded. It was over and finished forever. How long will it be, she thought, as the drumming of the road filled her mothers' car, before I begin to live facing forwards instead of looking back to a destroyed past? How long before it is really over?

She looked down at the seat beside her on which rested the jumble of a parcel she had made up so carefully the previous morning. Protruding from beneath the string-tied newspaper wrapping, which had been torn during her long wait in queues after disembarking in London, was a strange array of barbed arrow heads, polished cow horns and the three unvarnished legs of a stool. Tied to one leg, and now swinging over the edge of the seat was a small gourd, a simple treasure, which meant more than all the other souvenirs and all the photographs with which she had returned. Of all the things she had brought home, this was the strongest reminder of everyday life in Migwani, an exact replica of those used in every household for carrying and storing water. She would polish it and use it as a vase for dried flowers. But protruding above and below the other trinkets and artefacts was the crudely fashioned but beautiful walking stick that had been Munyolo's personal present for her. Surely this was something to treasure.

Her eyes were heavy with sleep. For two days life had been hectic. It seemed that time had passed too quickly to be noticed, like an immense dream half-remembered between two clear memories. One was the joy she

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• next page >>

Add your voice

Know something about Novel excerpts: Pain in life?
We want to hear your view. Write now!