Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor Iron Bars a Cage.

"Come in, come in Mr Simpson, Karibu, welcome to the madhouse," said Grace, holding out her hand to shake. He stepped over the threshold and  the uniformed askari ostentatiously pulled the mosquito screen door closed, then the security gate and locked them each in turn from a large bunch of keys secured to his waist by a chain. "What time do you need to leave Mr Simpson?" Grace asked, "It's really up to you, there are no set visiting hours."

"I told the driver to come back for me at 11pm, if that is convenient Mrs Armstrong?" he said,

"Well, if you can stand our company till then, you're very welcome, I'll tell Francis. She turned to the askari, now on the outside and talked to him in rapid Swahili.

"OK Madam, T'ank you, Asante Sana".

"He's been having a difficult time at home with an ill child who I've dosed with chloroquin and the man needs to sleep, but if we want to be unlocked earlier we can always shout or Paul can sneak you out the kitchen. Now then, what would you like to drink?"

"What do you have?".

"Well, I'm having a g and t, Rose will probably have a glass of rum and coke and Guy looks as if he's dreaming of a cold Tusker, though it might have to be a White Cap Pilsener as Mr Khan was out of Tusker when I called on Weds, sorry darling".

"A cold beer would be great," he said. Guy, a well built lad of over 6ft tall and 18 years stood up to get the drinks.

"Thanks, cheers." Nairobi was not a hot and dusty capital like Dar nor yet a hot and sweaty town like Mombasa where he had been this morning, but it was a stressful place, at altitude and with  real traffic issues and too many people, so  a cold beer, Tusker or White Cap, no matter, was a good way of  washing away the strains of the day and starting an evening.

"That's good" Simpson exclaimed. "That's surely not prison issue?".

"No, Mum goes out shopping once a week. She always comes back, so no one gets too uptight. My brother and I were at the International school when this whole thing blew up and the school were keen on us staying on, mainly I think because of Mr Bonehead over there's  sporting prowess, rather than my brains and beauty, So the gate guards get quite used to our old Peugeot with us in it chugging in and out. When GrandPa and Grannie were with us we would sometimes go out for dinner in town of an evening and no one seemed to mind,"said Rose.

"God! but she was good looking,"thought Simpson,  all her Mother's good looks but without the wrinkles, Mrs Armstrong had been through the mill but she wore her year's well. He tried hard not to look at Rose, whose delightful neckline was lower than  should have been allowed. She stood and walked towards the kitchen, surely understanding that Simpson's eyes would have been glued to her rear end. At 17 she had the looks of an adult but lacked the discretion of an adult, revelling in her sexual power. Simpson looked away. It was too much! She came back with a tall man who  had the bearing of a Maasai, both of them carrying food,  and the meal began.

"Everything's home grown from the chicken to the passion fruit dessert," boasted Grace with a deprecating smile. "We run a free range mini poultry farm for chicken -meat and eggs. That along with the fruit and veg goes mainly to the prison kitchens. The flowers go to the Governor's and the Minister of Justice's tables and a small flower stall in front of the Hilton. Depending on the new prisoner intake, we might start our own dairy herd and commercial rose business next year. Do you know that Kenyan horticulturalists dispatch a jumbo jet full of roses to Europe, every evening?"

"And another one full of green beans," said Guy, "Jet propelled all the way to Schipol. But never the twain shall meet, as the beans would shrivel the roses and vice versa.".

 "We have applied to supply a big British supermarket chain in the new year and if we are accepted, it should be good money and even better training for the inmates, giving them job opportunities on the outside at discharge and more reason to go straight thereafter. The supermarkets are very good at instructing you on the amount of irrigation you need and what additives to use.Our problem is that you can't just pop down to the local garden centre and pick up a sack of dried blood pellets, you have to go down the  local meat market with a bucket. Though it helps to take a Maasai with you who can bleed a bull in his sleep. More beer Mr Simpson or would you like to change to wine?"  Mr Khan had an offer on last week and  the Friuli Pinot Grigio was good value. Now then are we done with mains? We need to get Paul off up the road within the hour and there's extra washing up to do tonight."

Rose wiggled her way to the kitchen, carrying plates, with Simpson paying wrapt attention to the flowers"Rather fine aren't they?" said Grace, presumably referring to the flowers rather than her daughter's legs, thought Simpson. "Magnificent"he replied, covering both options.

 "Bougainvilleia grows particularly well in Nairobi and as it has rather unpleasant thorns, it is favoured as a hedge by the security services. I have been working on breeding a variety resistant to frost which would be a best seller in Britain, Central Europe and North America".

"Another five years Ma and you'll have got it right," said Guy.

Dessert was another triumph, a confection of meringue and passion fruit. (all home grown and made, of course!)

"Paul, we'll take coffee on the verandah please."

"Mum's a bit of a coffee snob," confided Rose to Simpson, in a stage whisper, leaning forward before he had  a chance to avert his gaze. Hope you like it."

"Oh I do", he replied, once again covering all options, " delicious I'm sure."

"At this point in the evening we revert to Settler tradition," said Grace, "the gentlemen wander out into the garden while we ladies powder our noses inside, Guy, lead the way." Guy ushered Simpson through the kitchen where  Paul, the Maasai cook was manfully attacking the pile of washing up. The two men stood on the lawn and solemnly peed into the vegetation.

"Ooh argh, that'll mek the roses grow Zur", said Guy in a passable imitation of a West country accent  which sounded even more bizarre accompanied by the chirping of African cicadas. As they returned to the mosquito netted verandah to join the ladies, they passed a desk with a lap top open and buzzing, piled high with paper.

"Mum's working desk. She still writes or edits just about every bit of puff you'll read in English about Kenyan tourism. She's got one heck of a way with words and her knowledge of the place is encyclopaedic, and it allows us to pay our way. Mum pays all the servants as well as training them. our last cook walked straight out of here and into The Serena when he was discharged and there's a waiting list of jobs open for Paul" said Guy.

"They tell me that Nairobi is malaria free but there are plenty of non malarial female Anopholes mozzies ready and waiting to bite any bit of exposed skin, so this fishing net of a verandah is a luxury but has become a mecca for us of an evening. Despite having lived here for nearly twenty years, I'm still suprised by the sharpness of nightfall. I think long drawn out evenings are the only things I really miss about Europe". said Grace

Guy like a well trained barista, poured them all an inch of cognac, the perfect end to an excellent meal, then Rose and Guy, the epitome of discretion withdrew inside to watch videos and to conduct their electronic correspondence to allow Simpson to conduct his interview with their mother.

"Chagga grown cofee from the slopes of Kilamanjaro: superb", Grace said, as Rose had predicted, "Now then Mr Simpson, you said you had some questions to ask for your article?

"To tell you the truth Grace (if I may?) I've had such a fine meal that I have forgotten all my clever, probing questions. Tell you what, why don't you tell me what you would like to be known and I will take notes, I'm a man afer all and I can't be expected to do two things at once".

Grace sat back in the overstuffed armchair, crossing a very shapely pair of well tanned legs. Once again Simpson was caught on the hop and did not have time to avoid seeing most of the most elegant pins he had ever seen on a woman of nearly forty.

"Well let me start at the very beginning, I was a young, impressionable Welsh teacher, fresh out of Teacher Training College, hired by a Settler school in the Highlands to teach English. On my first leave in the capital, I met Hugo, a handsome bonde, blue eyed.white Kenyan safari guide in the bar of the Norfolk Hotel. Gosh it was a romantic whirl! and we were married within a six month. Guy and Rose came along, we started our own safari business. Then one evening I came back from escorting a party round the Mara and caught Hugo shagging the Secretary in our marital bed. I simply unlocked our old .303  and shot them both. I'm sorry I killed Miss Hernandez. Hugo could really turn on the charm and he was mouth wateringly good looking. I had fallen for him hook line and sinker, why shouldn't she? Anyway, I've made my peace with her"

Simpson raised his eyebrows.

"Oh, she visits me from time to time. I smell her lavender perfume, hear the swish of her sari and after she has gone, there is a small indentation on the coverlet made by a slim bottom. I think she was more embarrassed by it all than even I was. The Judge wanted a verdict of Manslaughter, a crime passionel, but the jury reckoned that the time it took me to find, unlock and load the gun made it a rational, premeditated act, so the Judge had to give me ten years. I think it was pretty fair, in fact even lenient and in an odd way I am glad I got ten years. I had killed two people after all. The problem remained however, what to do with me? I had dual British and Kenyan naionality, I really didn't want to spend ten years in a British women's prison, with all my contacts and friends in Nairobi, two young children to look after,I still had a lot to offer.

It was Sir Joscelyne Henderson, the British High Commissioner at the time who had the brainwave.He suggested to the Minister of Justice that they refurbish some staff quarters on a prison compound and treat it like an open prison. Sir Jos found a bit of money from somewhere for the refurbishment,of which no doubt a small percentage stuck to the Minister's hands. Lady Henderson raided the High Commission furniture godown, Rose and I plus some ladies we borrowed from Nakasembe Women's prison made up the soft furnishings. and this is the result. The dining room  and lounge has featured in various tourist magazines but we have to be a bit careful not to be seen  as receiving too many favours. There are plenty of newspapers here and in the UK which would be happy to blow the racism whistle. It's not racist, just practical. Very Kenyan. I think if you took an audit of the cost benefits of the Armstrong family to the Kenyan economy I am sure it would be positive, unlike most prisoners anywhere else in the world who can be a major cost factor. I suppose I could apply for a transfer to a British gaol, but I would be separated from my children and I wouldn't be able to work at what  I'm good at. I could abscond, but where would I go? It would be easy enough to hop on a plane to Heathrow, I'd be down the Great Western Railway to my parent's place in Cardiff, before the Governor had noticed I had gone, but that would mean breaking my word and abusing the trust of good people. Worse still, unless I dyed my hair and grew a moustache, I'd be back here in a month, trust in me shattered. I could go north to Somalia, to the Shifta Warlords or down to South Africa where we know no one. Madness! no thanks, Kenya is where I belong.

A car headlight swung across them and a car pulled up on the murram road beside the house.

"May I come again?" He asked.

"I'd love that," she said, come tomorrow for afternoon tea, say three o clock and see something of the garden, with any luck you will see some birds."

She showed him the place in the bougainvilleia hedge where the three horned chameleons lived and one obligingly poked his ugly head out and was bold enough not to run away as Grace put him on her shoulder and then posed  for a photograph.

"There is a local belief that chameleons are highly poisonous, Silas the gardener has now plucked up sufficient courage  to entice them onto a stick to bring to me. Paul has faced a pride of lions armed only with a spear but he will not touch a chameleon. I think my reputation among the inmates is due to the aura of me handling these poor inoffensive animals. Certainly the fear that one may be lurking in the house is better security than a doberman". Jointly holding the chameleon was a gentle way into holding hands and very soon they had kissed.

They took tea on the verandah, served by the attentive Paul.

"Paul, these are excellent scones, and the jam is pretty good too", exclaimed Simpson

"T'ankyou Bwana," Madam she teach me."She good cook."

"And a good teacher too it would seem."

They sat together in silence, then Simpson took her hand in his, looked into her eyes and...

"Don't say it Ian " she said, "I'd love to, but it wouldn't work. I couldn't leave Kenya and your work is in Britain. I live in a cage it is true, but it's a gilded cage. No matter how nice you are, it would mean a different cage in Britain and I'm not ready for change yet. Come and visit me here as often as you can. Let me take you to Ngorogoro, the owners owe me a week for two, but don't take me away. And of course if I ever caught you in bed with another woman.......... Oh look, three Hadadah ibis have just arrived."

Simpson was no ornithologist, but he had to admire the ibis through Grace's binoculars. Coloured brown with an irridescent streak on the leading edge of their wings, they were the same size and shape as the more recognisable black and white Sacred ibis.

"Kenya is the second best place in the world for bird spotting, after Colombia apparently, and whatever anyone says, it's a lot safer here. Those finches have a lot to say for themselves" laughed Grace as they watched a score of tiny zebra and fire finches squabbling over grain on the bird table and splashing in the bird bath.

"More tea Ian? There are plenty of good trees for them on the compound and we reckon there are only two species on Bill Harvey's "Birds of Nairobi Gardens" list which we have yet to record. Can you imagine me being happy looking at sparrows through my binoculars in Tunbridge Wells and getting excited by a family of blue tits? I'd try, I really would, but my heart would be in Africa."

Francis King worked for the British Council for many years around the world but now lives with family in South Oxford UK.