43

THE PACE PICKS UP

‘WE NEED HIM.’ PALESA JERKED A THUMB AT DR ULRICH, who had slumped down again. ‘The baby’s heartbeat is fluctuating. We may have to do a Caesarean.’

‘Oh, no.’ Sister Dineo’s hands flew to her mouth.

‘Oh, yes. Try to sober him up.’

Sister Dineo crossed herself, muttering, ‘Ma-Jesu, help us.’

Between them, she and Greg manhandled Dr Ulrich up the steps and into the kitchen, where they sat him down at the table in front of a mug of black coffee. ‘Drink.’ At the mumbled resistance, Greg said more loudly, ‘Drink, man! My wife’s in a bad way. I think the baby’s stuck. We need your help.’

The doctor shook his head. ‘Not in a fit state.’

‘You’re all we’ve bloody got. Drink.’

‘Find someone more compos, ja?’

Sister Dineo bent forward so he could see her worried face framed by its white veil. ‘There isn’t anyone. You’re it, Doctor.’

‘It?’ He gave her a boozy grin. ‘But I’m a condom dispenser. You don’t hold with me.’

‘Oh, God.’ Greg wanted to hit him, and couldn’t.

‘Not God, though I feel an affinity with the Almighty tonight. Bless you, my son—’

He began to slide sideways, but Greg dragged him upright again, then tilted his head back in the crook of one arm and poured a slug of coffee into his mouth. ‘Swallow!’

As the doctor spluttered and tried to push him away, Sister Dineo hurried through to the bedroom to whisper in Palesa’s ear, ‘The doctor’s even more drunk than we thought.’

‘He’s all we’ve got. The baby’s struggling. Listen.’

Cassie lay there ashen with pain and exhaustion. Sister Dineo bent her ear to the narrow metal trumpet pressed to the drum-tight swollen belly. The baby’s heartbeat was a faint hesitant stutter. She said, ‘Sorry, I can’t really tell.’

‘Distress. We need Sis’ Diliza too. She knows what to do if—’ Palesa left the threat hanging.

‘Shall I run and beg her?’

‘There may not be time.’

‘I’ll try.’

Sister Dineo headed for the kitchen, where Dr Ulrich was upright again, his head lolling against Greg’s arm and the mug pressed against his mouth. Thin streams of coffee trickled down his chin onto his shirt, but he was swallowing. As she opened the back door there was a boneshaking metallic judder and wheels skidding on the gravel. Baptist Jolobe left the minibus ticking over and hurried towards her, calling, ‘Taxi!’

‘Ma-Jesu, thank you,’ she said under her breath, beckoning him inside before running to the bedroom to tell Palesa.

‘We can’t move her now. The contractions are too close.’ Palesa spoke over her shoulder as she massaged Cassie’s back. ‘Go with Baptist and fetch Sis’ Diliza. She must come now. Tell her it’s life or death.’

Even a chief’s wife nursing a grudge could not withstand the urgent pleading of a taxi driver and a nun who believed that prayers could be answered. Grumbling at the lateness of the call, Sis’ Diliza put on her uniform with maroon shoulder epaulettes, tied on a starched white apron, locked the door on her sleeping husband and stalked out to the taxi. Fifteen minutes later, she was handing a sealed injection kit to a chastened, but now functioning, Dr Ulrich, who had sent Greg to his dispensary for Ergotrate to accelerate the contractions.

Greg sat holding Cassie’s hand, muttering encouragement, while Palesa stood by with clean towels and a receiving blanket. In the kitchen, Sister Dineo hovered over a steaming pot, boiling forceps and surgical scissors. Baptist Jolobe was on his way to town in a rolling thundercloud of kwaito, heading for the hospital to fetch a portable incubator.

The battle to deliver Baby Ingram alive had begun.

As dawn broke, the first 4x4 came tearing down the gravel road, jounced through the donga where the tarmac began and thrummed into the village. Benjamin woke out of a profound sleep to the sound of hammering on the hotel door and a voice calling, ‘You guys open for breakfast? I’ll need a room too.’

By the time he had dressed, booked in another journalist and called in more help, more vehicles were parked in front of the hotel.

Within an hour, it was a hive of activity. The cleaning women were airing and making up the remaining bedrooms. Philomena had arrived after calling in at the café for bread, eggs, bacon and sausages, together with Tsietsi and a silent Sweetness, whose eyes were still swollen. Raylene and Rod joined them in the kitchen to help with the breakfasts, joking about the flick knives and homemade guns found on the floor. Nobody could find Obadiah, so Tsietsi was inspanned to help Benjamin wait on the tables, jubilant at the prospect of being paid for the first time in his life.

Father Alboreto, alerted to the journalist bloodhounds in the dining room, hurried Sweetness out through the back door and along a side road for breakfast with the nuns. Father Liam sat between her and Sister Immaculata, who had made such a fuss about the morning’s display of hair butterflies that Sweetness had taken them off and hidden them in the folds of the silver lamé on the altar.

When Sister Nokwe repeated for the fourth time, ‘This is so wonderful! A joyous morning. We are blessed,’ the senior sister’s irritation burst out again.

‘Nothing’s been decided yet. Right, Father Alboreto?’

‘Right,’ he conceded. ‘We have investigations to make. Sweetness may have to come to Joburg with Mr Barker and me.’ He didn’t add that she would be scrutinised by a team of priests in a procedure called discernment, for fear of frightening her.

‘Joburg,’ Sweetness whispered. ‘I can’t, Father.’

‘And why not?’

‘My mother. I’ve never been away from her.’

‘Your mother will come with you, of course.’

‘We will need to provide new frocks and so forth.’ Father Liam said, noticing Sister Immaculata’s disparaging sideways glare. ‘When does the Beijing Bazaar open?’

‘Eight o’clock. I’ll take her,’ Sister Hilary volunteered.

Father Alboreto put in swiftly, ‘I think not. The press is here and it’s vital to protect her from them. Rome is in a rage that Greyling got to her before we did and sensationalised her unchecked story. We’ll have pilgrims pouring in before the week’s out. He’ll make a packet too.’

‘The worst sin of all,’ Father Liam murmured.

‘Cut it out, brother. I’m stating facts. It would be better if someone fetched new clothes for Sweetness. Enough for a week at least.’

‘I will,’ Sister Hilary tried again. She loved shopping in the Beijing Bazaar, though it was usually for bare necessities.

‘Thank you, Sister.’ Father Alboreto reached for his fine-tooled leather purse from Florence. ‘Will four hundred rand be enough? Five?’

‘Five should be ample,’ Sister Hilary beamed, hoping there would be enough change to buy a new enamel kettle to replace the old aluminium one with the black heat-distorted bottom that rocked and hissed on the stove. ‘I’ll ask Mrs Ming to let us have a selection for Sweetness to try on.’

‘Can I come with you? I need more seeds: runner beans and carrots.’ Sister Nokwe’s green fingers produced all their fresh vegetables.

‘Of course. We’ll go together. Come and tell us what you fancy, dear.’ Sister Hilary scooped Sweetness out of her chair before Sister Immaculata, in shock at the amount of money to be spent, could rally herself and object.

Girlie Ming had been alerted by the increasing number of vehicles driving into the village and opened the Beijing Bazaar’s doors early, at half past seven.

‘You might like to make more pies than usual, Mommy,’ she said to Old Mrs Ming, who preferred suggestions to orders. ‘These drivers will need to eat, and Tex won’t be in the best mood this morning. Those dogs had a good go at his leg last night. Serves him right for kicking them.’

‘He’s a bad man.’

‘But a fantastic baker. His jam doughnuts are poetry.’

‘Not for you any longer,’ her mother warned. She was already on medication for diabetes, with high blood pressure and cholesterol lurking.

‘No,’ Girlie sighed, ‘no, I realise that. It’s one of the crosses I have to bear. Also, Egon beat me twice last night.’

‘Losing your touch, maybe?’

‘A temporary hiccup.’

‘He was in good form.’

‘Passable. I wasn’t concentrating. When I’m at my peak—’

She broke off and turned to greet the young woman who had dashed in the door demanding, ‘Got any AA batteries? Mine are finished.’

‘Sure, Madam.’ As she reached for a pack of Duracells, Girlie made a mental note to telephone the wholesaler in town to rush her more stock of everything. By courier. There were now four dusty cars and a doublecab bakkie parked on the gravel verge outside the Beijing Bazaar, and more stretching down the road.

Tex limped round the café in a foul mood, an hour late starting his bread so the vanilla cupcakes (always popular at weekends) were late too. His calf was swollen and bruised, though the skin was not broken, thanks to the thick jeans he’d been wearing when the dogs attacked him.

‘You’re lucky,’ Dr Ulrich had said after he had examined the injury by torchlight. ‘Puncture marks would mean a tetanus injection.’

‘Thanks, Doc. Pay you in the morning.’

‘A few doughnuts maybe. And don’t go kicking any more pi-dogs, eh?’

‘People call them something worse here.’

‘It’s a word I don’t use on principle.’

‘Me neither,’ Tex said, surprising the doctor.

This morning, as Tex bent to massage his calf, the driver of the giant articulated SA Breweries beer truck parked outside the bottle store came into the café for Russians and chips for his crew. Tex straightened up and turned to the deep-fat fryer thinking, Another day in hell.