When Sidi finally packed up his bags and rode into Selkirk to catch the London coach, an uneasy peace settled over the Park household. Ailie held her breath, and drew back. Mungo was contrite. He had given his promise, finally and irrevocably. Yes, he had lied to her — he admitted it. His ambition had gotten the better of him and he had lied to her. But he would lie no more. Could she forgive him? She could. She clung to him, mad to demonstrate her love, ease his burden, show him how much she valued his sacrifice and the vow he’d given her. The subject of Africa lay buried — even if the grave was a shallow one.
Things were quiet for the next several months, though it became increasingly apparent that Mungo was restive and dissatisfied. He was short of temper. Uninterested in the children or the workings of the household. Reclusive, silent, morose. The stomach disorder he’d contracted in Ludamar came back with a vengeance, and half the time he merely picked at his food or sipped a cup of broth and barley and called it a meal. When he was free of the grind of tending his ignorant, carping, accident-prone patients, he sat brooding over his books and maps or handling the artifacts he’d brought back from Africa, almost in a trance, his fingers tracing the outlines of a bone knife or wooden mask as if it were a fetish or the relic of a saint. Each morning, at dawn, he mounted his horse and rode thirty-five or forty miles across the moors to oversee births and deaths, treat sore throats and imaginary discomforts, look on helpless as a leg dissolved in gangrene or a cancer ate out an old woman’s intestines. This was his reward. This is what his daring and fame had got him. He was sick to death of it.
In May of 1804 he told Ailie he was selling everything — the house, the furniture, the practice. They would move in with his mother at Fowlshiels. He needed time to think.
“Think?” she echoed. “About what?”
He held her with his eyes. “About what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.”
They were in the kitchen. Surrounded by potted herbs, crockery, wooden utensils, knives. A basket of freshly culled eggs, brown and white, sat on the table in a puddle of sunlight. Suddenly she pushed back her chair and swept the eggs onto the floor. “I know what you’re doing,” she said, her voice low, cracked with emotion. “You’re loosening the binds.”
“No, Ailie. Honey. I’m not. I’ve just got to have some time to think, that’s all.”
He was sincere. Or at least he felt he was. The confrontation over Sidi had left him feeling debased and low. He was a home-breaker, an irresponsible father, an egotist out to swell himself up at any expense — even if it meant lying to his wife like a common jack. This wasn’t Mungo Park, hero, conqueror of Africa and unveiler of the Niger, This wasn’t decent, clean and noble — it was despicable, and he despised himself for it.
There would be no more deceit. He was sure of it. The move to Fowlshiels was in no way connected with the expedition the government had promised him. It had nothing whatever to do with tying up his affairs, settling Ailie and the children comfortably and under the watchful eye of his mother, nothing whatever. No, it wasn’t the sort of thing that made him feel free and untrammeled, ready to hop a coach for London at the drop of a hat. No, no, no. He just needed time to think. That’s all.
♦ WATER MUSIC (SLIGHT RETURN) ♦
There was a premonitory chill in the air the day Mungo left for Edinburgh, a foretaste of the bitter nights to come. It was mid-September, just after his birthday. The leaves were changing and in the mornings a cold gray mist fastened on the river like the spread claws of a cat or bear. There had been a party of course — Ailie had insisted on it, though the explorer seemed embarrassed by the whole thing, as if it were foolish or undignified, as if when you got down to it there was really no cause for celebration at all. “But Mungo, it’s your thirty-third birthday,” she’d argued. “Doesn’t that strike you as auspicious?” He looked up from his dog-eared copy of Leo Africanus’ geography. “Auspicious?” She was grinning like a clown. “After all,” she said, “it was a big year for Christ, wasn’t it?”
Twenty-two guests turned out to drink the explorer’s health, Walter Scott, The Reverend MacNibbit and Thomas Cringletie among them. Scott had just settled in at Ashestiel on the Tweed, though he’d been sheriff of Ettrick Forest for the past five years and knew every farmer in the area — including Mungo’s brother Archibald. When Mungo moved down from Peebles, Archie brought the two together, and by the end of the summer Scott and the explorer had become fast friends. Mungo would mount his horse, cross the ridge that separates Yarrow and Tweed, and while away the long afternoons at Ashestiel, or Scott would show up unannounced to spend the evening out on the porch at Fowlshiels or down by the river, casting a fly and watching the midges hover over the shifting surface. They took long walks together, heads down, rapt in conversation; they fished, rode, drank and philosophized. Scott had published the three-volume edition of the Border Minstrelsy the previous year, and Mungo was drawn again and again to the old ballads, contrasting the poet’s versions and the ones he’d grown up with, pointing out inconsistencies, delighting in correspondences. He was even moved to give his friend the benefit of his own observations on the oral tradition among the Mandingoes and Moors. For his part, Scott never tired of hearing the details of Mungo’s travels — especially those the explorer had suppressed. He would pour out a cup of claret and prod Mungo to tell him about Dassoud’s excesses, for instance, or Fatima’s appetites and Aisha’s soothing, supple ways. About eating dog and groveling before Mansong, King of Bambarra. About the strange rites he’d witnessed, the unspeakable acts and unnatural practices.
Ailie was glad of the friendship. Scott was a man of culture and learning, Mungo’s coeval, and he seemed to have the ability to draw her husband out, to cheer and energize him, keep him from mooning about the house all day. But there were limits to everything. Mungo practically shut himself off from the other guests at the party, cloistering in the corner with Scott and Zander, their heads down, voices low. His mother and Archibald had to jerk him by the arms before he would get up, blow out the candles and start the dancing. And then it was right back to his corner, right back to Scott and Zander. Their voices were lost in the skirl of the pipes, and from time to time Ailie would glance across the room to see them mouthing phrases, gesturing, debating something, their faces as flat and serious as the faces of a clutch of ministers at tea.
That night, when they went to bed, Ailie gave him her present. It was a compass, set in cork. “So you can always find your way back to me,” she smiled. “From Edinburgh or Ashestiel — or even London.” She hesitated, her face lit with the glow of some burgeoning secret. “There’s something else,” she whispered, drawing close to him. He looked up at her, his face bland, the blond stubble of his cheeks transparent in the glare of the oil lamp. “We’re going to have another baby,” she said. “In the spring.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Mungo left for Edinburgh the following morning. On business. He’d been in and out of town all summer, consulting with Saltoun, the solicitor, on matters relating to investment and contingency funds for his family.
“Contingency funds?” Ailie had asked.
“One never knows,” he said, solemn as the patriarch of the lost tribes.
“But you’re a young man yet, Mungo — it’s foolishness to think of, of such things at your age.”
“I could be thrown from a horse tomorrow. Or tumble into the Yarrow and hit my head on a rock, or—”