Her first sight of Lottie’s garden at Langani Farm never faded from Sarah’s mind. The house was long and low, built from local stone with thick walls and tall chimneys. A sloping roof of corrugated iron was supported by stone columns camouflaged by tangled bands of honeysuckle and bougainvillea. The deep verandah overlooked a velvet lawn and bright, curving flower beds, but beyond the lovingly tended trees and shrubs lay open plains, speckled with thorn trees and shared by herds of zebra, giraffe, gazelle, elephant and buffalo. A clipped hedge was all that separated the garden from the wilderness, a fragile rampart against the encroaching bush and marauding wildlife. Beyond the flat plains the distant snow peaks of Mount Kenya rose, glittering, into the dome of the sky.

On that first visit to the farm Jan van der Beer made a barbecue lunch outside under the trees, and then Lottie drove them down to the river. The water was indeed icy, rushing headlong from the melting snow peaks of the mountain. Sarah shrieked as she jumped recklessly from the bank, into the shock of a pool beneath the waterfall. Hannah was laughing from the safe retreat of the bank while Sarah fought for breath, splashing hard to thaw her freezing limbs.

‘You were warned, but you weren’t listening,’ Hannah called out.

‘Well, don’t just stand there laughing like a baboon. Get into the water if you think it’s such a huge joke. You too, Camilla. You can’t just lie there in the grass, trying to look like a film star.’

Hannah was scrambling down the river bank when they heard another voice.

‘Come on, you pathetic little women! Get in there or I’ll help you in and it won’t be gradual.’

Piet van der Beer, tall and gangling, appeared on the bank and stripped off a khaki shirt, boots and socks. There was a shout as he leapt into the air, caught his knees up close to his chest and cannoned into the water. Seconds later he surfaced beside Sarah, shaking the water from his skin, smoothing his blond hair with tanned fingers, grinning at her through eyelashes spiked with drops of water. Her chilled body felt warm. For the first time in her life she was aware of her small breasts beneath the plain school swimsuit, of her slightly pudgy arms and legs. He squinted through the sunlight, and then he winked at her. Laughed out loud, with his head thrown back in the hot sunshine. It was a moment of revelation that changed her life for ever.

Chapter 2

Kenya, November 1962