The Life and Death of Lord Erroll: The Truth Behind the Happy Valley Murder. Errol Trzebinski
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‘interest’ involved a collection of classic French pornography, paintings and books, many of which were eighteenth-century originals.41 Next to the library in his new house was a small locked room where he housed his ‘secret library’, ‘a very special collection of books and highly erotic pictures by Boucher, Lancret, Fragonard and Watteau from the collection of the Duc de Richelieu’.42
Ramsay-Hill would live to regret his impulsive invitation by the water-splash, for it was thus that Molly Ramsay-Hill was introduced to Joss, the man who would ‘remake her world’. Their affair, which began some time later, was managed very discreetly and, just as Joss had kept his parents in ignorance about his intentions towards Idina, so here no one guessed at the outset that there was anything other than Joss’s habitual flirtation and charm in his conduct with Molly, who was nine years older than he was, the same height as Idina and ‘petite and quite a beauty, Titian-haired with green eyes and a flawlessly pale skin’.43 In contrast to many women of her age in the colony, whose faces were devoid of any artifice and weatherbeaten, Molly’s face was ‘deadly white as if it had been dipped into a flour bag; she wore dark red lipstick and dark red nail lacquer to match. Everyone thought her terribly exotic.’44
Kiki Preston, who had been part of the American glamour set in Paris, came back to her splendid house Mundui at Naivasha some time in 1926, having been persuaded to stay by a friend who had given her land on the lake. Frédéric called Kiki and Gerry Preston ‘Black Laughter’. The Paris clique was beginning to re-form around the shores of Lake Naivasha and along the Wanjohi Valley.
When Frédéric and Alice came to live in Kenya at the end of 1926, as before, their daughters were left behind in France. At this time the Wanjohi Valley was inhabited by less than a dozen Europeans, including the Hays and the de Janzés. Since their arrival the Hays had held court here and, with Frédéric and Alice, they would form the core of an exclusive set. As with all groups of intimate friends they developed certain rituals and habits which marked them out from others. Idina frequently held hands with Alice in the garden at Slains, illustrating how relaxed they were in their shared passion for Joss, which seemed only to bring them closer together. Alice would often sing for her three friends, accompanying herself on the mandolin.
They would go on safari together. The fact that Joss chose not to hunt, fish or shoot did not prevent Idina from doing so. Joss seemed content to be out in the field. Every evening on safari they would gather by the fire between seven and eight, before bathing and changing for dinner, to devote an hour to composing limericks and storytelling. Each took it in turn to recite to the others. This was Frédéric’s idea. He had moved in literary circles in Paris, keeping company with people like Maurice Barrès, Proust and Anna de Noailles; his standards were high. Frédéric’s creations were the cleverest, Joss’s the funniest, Idina occasionally cheated, and Alice always tried to outwit the men. A typical contribution from Joss ran:
There was a young lady from Nyeri
Whose lusts were considered quite eerie,
On the night that she came,
And we both did the same,
It was fun, until I said, Kwaheri.’45*
Rules were strict when it came to the stories. First, a round of ‘cold hands’ at poker was played, to determine who should start. Whoever won must begin with ‘Once upon a time, Kenya was not Kenya but British East Africa …’ and follow with any subject except shooting.46 Sometimes Idina, in her low throaty voice, would declare Kenya taboo: ‘Let’s be jolly and think of Paris tonight.’ They would all shut out Africa and everyone in it until the Swahili servant interrupted their reveries – ‘Chakula tyari’ – and they would go into the camp tent for dinner.
The foursome also enjoyed jaunts to Nairobi, usually confined to race week four times a year when they would make merry like everyone else, staying at Muthaiga Club. The visits involved a drive of a hundred miles, taking six hours. The de Janzés had a Buick and they would race the Hays to Muthaiga Club, testing the qualities of the Hays’ Hispano-Suiza against the Buick.47 The de Janzés frequently won, which is perhaps why Joss favoured Buicks later himself.
Fernside and Reliance Motors Ltd, the garage in the ‘tiny dorp’ of Naivasha, looked after the Hay vehicles for Joss all his life. Its European mechanics would lay bets with him on whether he would break his own record time to Nairobi. ‘Bwana Hay was no remittance man, cheerful when he lost, and bills were always paid eventually, if spasmodically.’ Robert Creighton serviced all the Hay engines, including the Hispano-Suiza. Joss was the only man Creighton had ever met to leave a Rolls-Royce in a ditch after it had skidded off the road in the rains and turned over. Joss’s ignorance of car engines left Creighton baffled. ‘How could so intelligent a man learn nothing about motor-car maintenance?’48
The murram road from Naivasha to Nairobi formed easily into corrugations, shaking vehicles mercilessly and making travel for farmers with heavy loads very laborious; the Hay – de Janzé races cannot have been comfortable. It was always a relief to arrive in Nairobi. Alice, ‘in grey slacks and green jumper, and wide-spaced grey eyes’, would calmly defy all the club rules, gliding into Muthaiga Club and daring anyone to stop her bringing in her animals – ‘a tiny monkey, an Airedale and a lion cub’.49 Even when she was persuaded to leave them in the car, each was brought indoors to her for regular inspection.
By now Nairobi had street lights, so fewer citizens were likely to fall into the open drains at night. Rickshaws plied their trade along Government Road between graceful blue gum trees, lining both sides of the wide thoroughfare between Nairobi Station and the Norfolk Hotel. In the mid-twenties Government House was rebuilt on the orders of Sir Edward Grigg, who was Kenya’s Governor until 1930.* Joss, who had barely set foot in the old black and white ‘Tudor’ residence, would frequent this stately new building often in the 1930s. The cost, an astronomical £80,000, would be made much of by taxpayers, who ‘squealed indignantly and spoke of folies de grandeur’.50
Idina, coolly defying the harsh African climate itself, would appear at the Nairobi races in one of Molyneux’s latest innovations, on one occasion a brown hat covered in oiled ostrich feathers.51 Because Joss liked black and white, he had hit on the idea of Idina wearing unmatching earrings as a pair – one white pearl and one black pearl – a fashion she made her own.52
Joss always paid one visit to his barber Theo Schouten’s whenever up in Nairobi – men tended to visit their barber every three weeks then. His only alternative, meanwhile, was to get Idina to trim his hair. Theo Schouten was a ‘cheerful little man’ who, having been in Nairobi since 1911, was already looked upon as one of the town’s characters, running his Government Road establishment with ‘West End staff’.53 Schouten’s catered for both sexes in a humble wood and iron building with a corrugated roof and, like the best barbers everywhere, knew everyone and everything that was going on. Joss and Schouten came to know and like one another, and the barber’s was conveniently near to Joss’s and Idina’s lawyer, Walter Shapley of Shapley, Schwartze & Barratt. In London Joss had always used Truefitt & Hill in Bond Street, including their range of lotions known as CAR, and eventually he would persuade Schouten to stock this exclusive range. Joss’s dance partners were always aware of the pleasant scent. Men noticed it too – the distinctive aroma would pervade