He starts to pack up the house. From the supermarket he gets a few old boxes and puts his belongings into them. He has thought of it as a big job, one that will take days or weeks, but is soon reminded, all over again, of how little he owns. In a couple of mornings his life is disassembled and ready for removal.
Nevertheless, he doesn’t call Cape Town and tell his brother to expect him. He’s not quite ready yet to leave. There is nothing to stay for, exactly, but now that it’s on the verge of turning into the past, this phase of his life takes on a sentimental glow. None of it has been too bad, really. Even staying here on his own has been something of an adventure.
So he drifts around from room to room, gazing out of the windows, saying goodbye to the furniture. He occupies himself with little missions to the municipality, giving them a month’s notice to disconnect the telephone, the electricity. Preparing the house for its emptiness again. He spends a lot of time sitting out on the back steps, gazing over the valley.
Winter is ebbing away; spring is sweeping in. Each day feels a little warmer, as the earth tips its face toward the sun. On the branches of the trees outside the front door, tiny buds and shoots are showing. The first swallows have come back into the sky. And in the yard, the new weeds are growing with a fresh infusion of pace and power. They are knee-high in some places already, and each day the green carpet is discernibly taller, thickening and rising like some insidious ambition. But Adam only watches them indifferently, knowing that somebody else, at some other time, will have to clear them.
On one of the evenings that he’s sitting out there, enjoying a mug of coffee, the telephone rings. In his pleasant lethargy he almost doesn’t answer it. But the ringing goes insistently on and on, and in the end he gets up.
The voice on the other side is low and panicked. ‘Adam,’ it says. ‘We have to meet.’
So distanced does he feel from recent events that it takes Adam a few seconds to recognize who’s speaking. Then he’s instantly furious again. ‘No, Canning,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to see you.’
‘You don’t understand. This is very important.’
‘Important to you, maybe. But not to me. There’s nothing to discuss.’
A pause, a faint burr of static. ‘You’re wrong, Adam. You need to hear this.’
Something in Canning’s voice disturbs him, a note that carries down the line and plants itself in his head, like a tiny seed of disquiet. He hesitates for a moment, then says, ‘All right. Where do you want to meet?’
*
The sun is going down as he drives through town and up to the highway, and the scarlet drama of the sky adds to his sense of intrigue and unease. Why the intense urgency of this meeting, and why at this time of day, when the long, attenuated shadows are all joining into one? And why at the old road, with its air of dereliction and decay, away from any observing eyes? When he’s turned off and parked behind a line of trees, the traffic passing on the main road seems very far away. He is alone in a shadowy half-circle of gravel, littered with plastic bags and beer cans and used condoms, smelling of urine.
The old road is a curious feature. It leaks sideways off the new highway and goes under a set of barricades before disappearing into the landscape. It is recognisably still a road, but the markings and signs have faded almost to invisibility, and the tar has been cracked open by bushes and tussocks of grass pushing through. In the last light, as the afternoon tapers away, it looks like nothing so much as a ghost-road, only half-present, through which the earth is showing. It’s hard to imagine that any traffic ever travelled on its surface.
While he waits, Adam walks around the parking area, kicking at gravel. The rush and roar of passing trucks carries through the trees, and the leaves vibrate. He is full of paranoid thoughts by now, and he has almost made up his mind to leave, when Canning finally arrives. He parks the SUV some way off from Adam and in just a few seconds he comes hurrying over.
Both of them, as they approach each other, are reserved. In keeping with the furtive nature of their encounter, Canning is wearing some kind of cloth cap on his head. Dressed like this, with his head pulled down between his shoulders, he reminds Adam of a tortoise. His flesh is pale and soft: like tortoise-flesh, hidden from the sun.
He says, ‘Did anybody see you come?’
‘I don’t think so. What’s this all about, Canning?’
‘Let’s walk. Do you feel like a walk?’
There’s nowhere to go, except along the old road itself. Under a bleary half-moon hanging low in the sky, in the greenish glow of twilight, the road is a luminous stripe across the darker land. They steer over the crumbling tar, avoiding the clumps of foliage in their way. They pass an old traffic sign, listing to the left and rusted away. There is the stridulation of insects, the call of some night-bird up ahead.
‘I heard you were having some trouble with the golf course.’
‘Yes,’ Canning says impatiently, ‘but it’s just a little setback. We’ll get around it very soon. Contacts, contacts – it’s all about who you know.’
‘Well, you seem to know some powerful people.’
‘Yes, yes. Actually, that’s the reason we’re here. I hope you realize,’ he says sententiously, ‘that I’m talking to you at great risk to myself. I would be in a lot of trouble if they saw me with you. I’m doing this because of what you mean to me. From the old days.’
‘Well, thank you, Canning,’ Adam says dryly.
‘Oh, don’t mention it. You’re my oldest and closest friend, after all.’ Their metronomic footsteps skip a beat as they skirt around a bush sprouting in the middle of the road. ‘If only you didn’t insist on being honest,’ he says with sudden bitterness. ‘If only you didn’t insist on speaking up. I told you it would make him upset.’
‘Who?’
‘Who? Mr Genov, of course. He’s such an unreasonable man. I’ve tried to talk to him, I’ve tried to explain, but he won’t listen. It’s just to be on the safe side, he says. I can’t stop him, Adam. I have no power.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘What? Don’t you understand anything?’ Canning stops and faces him, spreading his plump palms in appeal. ‘I’m trying to warn you.’
‘About what?’
‘Listen to him! They’re going to kill you, of course.’
Only now does the conversation become real to Adam. His knees go weak, a white light flashes behind his eyes. The notion of murder is suddenly like something tangible, hovering close by in the air. He has entertained the idea of it himself. He has, in a theoretical way, contemplated what it would be like to kill the man he’s speaking to now. But murder has a life of its own; he has sent it out into the world, and it has boomeranged back towards him.
‘Why?’ he says.
‘Because you know too much. Because you made the payment to the mayor.’
‘But I didn’t understand what it was.’
‘Yes, but that doesn’t matter. I’m sorry about it, Adam, it’s my fault, really, I suppose. But no use crying over spilt milk.’ Canning gives a little shrug, as if they’re talking about some minor oversight. ‘Oh, it’s all been so stressful,’ he cries. ‘I wish this phase of my life was over!’
They resume their walk with incongruous calm, as if none of the preceding talk has happened. And their voices, as they go on speaking, also have a disconnected composure:
‘Talk to him for me. Tell him I’m no threat.’
‘I told you, I tried. But it’s too late. And anyway, you are a threat.’
‘Am I so important?’
‘You don’t understand. It’s because you’re not important at all.’
‘Poor Mr Genov, you said. So misunderstood. Such a bad press.’
‘I suppose I misjudged him. But I’m going to cut my ties with him. I want you to know that. When this is finished, I won’t see him again. Which is no consolation to you, obviously. But I’m just saying.’
He is almost curious. ‘How...?’ he says.
‘What do you mean? Oh, yes, I see... with a gun, I think.’
‘And who...?’
‘I don’t know exactly. They send somebody. There are people who do this sort of thing. For a living, as it were.’
‘And when is this supposed to happen?’
‘Tonight, of course. That’s why I insisted on a meeting.’
‘Tonight? But it’s almost dark already. What am I supposed to do?’
‘Well, you mustn’t go home. Not under any circumstances. Leave right away. Go to Cape Town.’
By now, they are perhaps a kilometre from the main road, with deserted countryside around them. They go over a rise and in front of them is a ruined bridge, half-projecting over a gorge. On the far side the road continues, but they can’t walk any further. Canning stops at the edge of the bridge, but Adam takes a few more aimless steps. He feels reckless, a little crazy. Space opens out below him; the metal struts whine in the wind. Without thinking, he lifts a foot and stamps and the sound echoes down the gorge – half-clang, half-crack.
‘Er, I wouldn’t do that,’ Canning says. ‘It doesn’t look safe.’
‘Safe?’ Adam says. The word has become ridiculous. He stamps again; the echoes peal away. He’s choking on all the pent-up emotion from the past months, some of it secret even to himself. He wants to laugh and weep at the same time. Is this really going to be his fate: to die because of a golf course? Tragedy and absurdity mix into a venomous cocktail and he suddenly lunges at Canning, grabbing and pulling with no clear intention. ‘This is all your fault,’ he shouts, ‘you lying, pathetic, little... chemical salesman!’
In a moment – unexpectedly – Canning is screaming back. His bloodless face is distorted. ‘Who... are... you... to accuse... smiling and talking... while you’re fucking my wife!’
They are fused together for a moment in a furious embrace, balanced on the edge of the bridge, an ungainly quadruped emitting high, hysterical cries. But the huge landscape absorbs their frenzy like a sponge. Eventually they quieten down and separate themselves, finger by finger, becoming individual and apart.
They can’t look at each other.
‘You knew all the time,’ Adam says. He’s breathing heavily, while he smoothes and tucks in his shirt. He’s lost some buttons in the scuffle.
‘What did you think? That you were subtle?’ Canning is flushed, his rapid breathing close to tears. He has a graze on one cheek. His cap has fallen off the bridge, and he keeps running a hand anxiously over the top of his head. He says, ‘She’s the most precious... the most precious thing I have. I notice her all the time.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Adam says. He has to fetch up the words from deep inside, and even then they mean nothing.
While they stand there for a long time in silence, the last sun disappears and the night takes hold. Patches of cloud drift over the moon and the earth wells up and disappears in the intermittent light. Canning says eventually, ‘I don’t mind you so much. With Baby, I mean. It was like sharing my good fortune with you. It’s him that eats away at me. I keep thinking about his horrible hands all over her...’ He gives a shudder.
Adam says quickly, ‘But then why don’t you cut him off?’
‘Business is business,’ Canning says. He jiggles his pockets, giving off the emphatic clink of loose change. ‘Got to keep your eye on the fox. My personal life is separate. I would never cross the line, but he did. No, if she had to betray me with someone... I’d much rather it was you, Adam. Rather you than anybody else!’
‘Thank you, Canning. I suppose.’
‘Shall we walk back?’
They retrace their steps without speaking, both of them sunk in introspection. It’s only when they come back in sight of the main road, with the headlights of cars sweeping past, that something else occurs to Adam. ‘How does he know about me?’ he asks. ‘How does he know I paid the mayor? How does he know where to find me?’
‘Because I told him, of course. I told him where you live.’
‘But I don’t understand – if I’m your friend – why you would do that. If you knew what he would do...’
‘Don’t you get it?’ Canning says. ‘I had to stop you. This has been my one big dream for half my life. The golf course must happen. I can’t have you messing things up with your silly principles.’
‘So you told him everything. And then you call me out here to warn me.’
‘Yes,’ Canning says sadly. ‘It’s weird, I know. But I couldn’t decide what was more important, you or the golf course. I wanted to save you both.’
‘Maybe you have.’
‘I hope so.’ He takes hold of Adam’s fingers and squeezes them. He doesn’t shake his hand so much as vibrate it, a tremor that seems to come from the core. ‘I suppose we’re not going to see each other for a while.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘It’s strange, isn’t it? How things work out. You think it’s all going to be a certain way, and it turns out to be utterly different.’
‘Yes, it’s strange.’
‘Take care of yourself, Adam.’ He lets go of his hand at last.
‘You too, Canning. Take care.’
He gets into his car and sits there for a few minutes after Canning has gone down the road. He’s not thinking about anything; just trying to calm his heartbeat and his breath. He knows what he has to do, but he doesn’t feel like proceeding in a rational way. Instead, he has a primitive, visceral urge to flee. Into the landscape, under the ground. He feels like a hunted animal, the focus of a carnivorous intent, that must run blindly for its life, stumbling across rocks, tearing itself on thorns. He has at last become part of nature, which he’d wanted to sing aloud in poems, and there’s nothing Beautiful about it.
He forces himself eventually to take control. He starts the car at last and turns out of the dark knot of trees. Back on the road, he sees the direction ahead and begins to gather speed. This is what he must do, he tells himself: drive like this, all the way down to the city, not stopping anywhere. He’ll be okay among buildings and lights; no harm can come to him there. He has almost begun to believe it. But as he comes to the turn-off that leads into the town, his mind returns to him in the form of a memory – a rootless, irrelevant fragment, which insists on being considered. Till it hardens into realization.
It’s a blinding moment. He takes his foot off the accelerator and lets his momentum drop away until the car judders and stalls. In the stark wash of the headlights he sees the fork in the road floating just ahead of him, like the embodiment of a choice. He sits and stares, but he doesn’t know which way to go.
A truck roars past, horn blaring, rocking the car turbulently in its wake.
‘What now?’ he says aloud.
Don’t be a fool. Keep on going, don’t look back.
‘But I can’t. I have to... I don’t know, warn him, stop them, do something.’
What for? It’s got nothing to do with you.
‘But he’s an innocent man.’
Hardly. Remember what he told you. Doesn’t any of that matter?
‘Innocent of my crimes, then.’
What crimes have you committed? You were in the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s all. It was fate.
‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.’
Do nothing.
A hand extended on the cliff-face: a choice, entirely his.