‘He was just an old drunk, Han. I can’t believe he would come in and kill your cows for revenge. Whoever it was slit their throats, and cut them open all down their bellies. Then they were left to bleed away in the dirt. Not a pound of meat taken. Old Matui would never have done anything like that.’

‘You can’t make assumptions,’ she said impatiently. ‘You seem to think that they all changed as soon as they became independent. But it will take years before there’s any change. If ever.’

‘Surely there are successful African farmers now?’ Sarah said.

‘Have you seen the Kinangop lately?’ Hannah demanded angrily. ‘Have you seen how it looks now, that place that was so rich and fertile? It’s a desert. Grey and dusty, with tracks that you can barely drive over, and fences that are falling down. The farmhouses have been looted, and the cedar and oak floors and panels and doors chopped up for firewood. Just like the trees that were planted as windbreaks to protect the crops. All you can see now are a few shrivelled maize stalks. And an occasional line of onions and carrots and cabbages lying in bags on the edge of the road, because somebody’s bloody wheelbarrow has broken down and he can’t get them out of there to a market.’

‘Come now, Han, it’s not all bad. They’re clever, the Kikuyu. And ambitious. They’ll get there.’ Piet put out a hand to calm her, but angrily she shook him off.

‘They say we took their land,’ she said. ‘But the Kikuyu only came here a few hundred years ago themselves. They didn’t belong here originally. They were chased out of the area north of the Tana River, by Galla nomads. No one mentions that, of course, or the fact that they killed off the Gumba people who were there before them. The Kikuyu started the Mau Mau in order to get rid of white farmers. They killed a few of us, and murdered plenty more of their own tribe who wouldn’t take their oaths. But historically they didn’t have any more right to the land than we did.’

‘It’s true that tribal wars were just as violent as anything that has happened since colonial times,’ Anthony said. ‘And the British created a truce between most of the tribes, and a legal system to replace their skirmishes. But we did appear out of nowhere to take the best land for ourselves, while the indigenous population were shunted into reserves.’

‘That’s it!’ Sarah exclaimed. ‘We’re supposed to know better, to be fair and democratic.’