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Annamari’s knuckles whitened. She ground the Nokia into her ear, trying to stop her hands from trembling.
‘Ma? Ma – are you still there?’
Arno’s voice was distant, muffled by the roaring in her ears. ‘Ja, I’m here.’
‘Ma, did you hear what I said? Isn’t it fantastic... Ma?’
‘Yes.’
‘What? Ma this is a really bad line. What did you say? I can’t hear you?’
‘Yes, Arno. I heard you.’ She sucked air into her lungs. ‘It’s wonderful news, seun. I’m... I’m happy for you – I’m...wait, here’s Pa. You tell him.’ She thrust the phone at Thys who had just walked into the lounge.
‘Hello?’ she heard her husband say as she tore open the French doors and stumbled out on to the stoep. She rested her hand on the wood pillar next to the steps leading down to the garden, absently picking at the tiny flakes of fading white paint. She gazed across the fields towards the poplars. They were still there. The sky was blue. Not as blue as in summer, but still blue. Fluffy white clouds were dotted here and there. Not rain clouds, the other kind. Cumulus. The late autumn sun was shining brightly. Steyn was pretending to be a jet taking off and landing as he charged up and down the lawn. Nothing had changed. The world was still turning. But her world was falling apart. As she had been waiting for it to do ever since she’d cheated on Thys, and then lied about it.
How could she have thought she would get away with it? She should have insisted that Arno give up his dream of making it in Jo’burg and come home to Steynspruit where he would be safe. Despite the land claim. This was their home. He would be safe here. She would be safe. They would all be safe...Especially now she was sure that Beauty was no longer interested in Arno. In any of them. Beauty had made that abundantly clear. She hadn’t phoned back about the land claim. Instead, she had posted a detailed letter to Petrus with instructions on what to do, what to say. Annamari pressed her fist into her stomach to stop the gnawing hurt.
But right now, Beauty’s strange behaviour was the least of her worries. She could even handle losing Steynspruit if the land claim went against them. But she’d die if... she couldn’t lose Arno. Or Thys. She couldn’t lose her family. Everything she had tried to build, everything she had achieved, everything... it was all about to come crashing down.
‘Liefie?’ She heard the concern in Thys’ voice.
She felt his hand on her shoulder, but she kept her eyes glued to the poplars, blinking furiously. His hand tightened.
‘Annamari, come on! Talk to me. I love you, you know that. Talk to me... please.’
She swallowed, brushed her hand over her eyes and turned, burying her face in her husband’s chest. She felt his arms go around her, holding her, loving her, protecting her – like he always did. What would she do without him? When he found out. As he was sure to, now... now that...
‘Oh Thys, I’m....I’m... I’m okay. Really. It’s just that Arno’s news – I’m so happy for him. What a fantastic opportunity. He’s lucky to get such a good job. Really. It’s wonderful. It’s just... I was hoping... maybe I was just being selfish, you know? I was almost hoping he wouldn’t get a job and would come home. I mean, just another week – he’d said if he hadn’t got a job by the end of the month, he would come home. And now... well, now he won’t. Oh Thys, I hope I’m not going to lose my...our son.’ She couldn’t help it. She sobbed.
‘Shhh, shhh, shhh,’ Thys rocked her. ‘You won’t lose him. We won’t lose him. He’ll always be ours. Yours and mine. No matter what.’
Annamari pulled back. She tried to read his eyes, his thoughts. But all she could see was his dear, dear face creased with concern and love.
‘Liefie, this will always be Arno’s home. Our home. I promise.’
‘Really?’
‘Look, Arno is a sensible boy. He won’t allow himself to be seduced by ... you know. The big city and all that. I think – I know – he loves Steynspruit. But Steynspruit, Driespruitfontein – it’s too small for him. He has such a lot to offer the world and, well, we should be grateful that Alan is willing to give him the opportunity.’
Annamari shuddered. She knew Arno had applied for every job he possibly could, but that didn’t make it any easier that he had gone and applied for a position at – what was the name of his business? Arno had told her but she hadn’t heard. She hadn’t known Alan Silverman was back in the country, let alone the owner of some big, fancy schmancy company that was even listed on the stock exchange. What on earth had made Arno apply for a job as a salesman, for heaven’s sake? He hadn’t studied for four years at university – he hadn’t graduated with cum laude in marketing – to be a salesman! So why had he? And why had that man, that... Alan Silverman, himself – why had he interviewed Arno? She didn’t know much about business, but she knew enough to know that the big boss at a big, fancy company like that didn’t interview salesmen. Did they? Alan must have realised. She and Thys – they were the only van Zyls in the Driespruitfontein district. If there was one thing she knew about Alan Silverman, it was that he wasn’t stupid. He must have seen Arno’s date of birth, his ID number. He must have figured it out. So what was he playing at? What did he want? She forced herself to listen to Thys’ soothing voice.
‘Alan Silverman is a good man, liefie. He will take care of Arno. I’m sure of that.’
Annamari stiffened but Thys didn’t seem to notice and rubbed his hand up and down her back soothingly.
‘It’s incredible, really, when you think of it. How well he’s done for himself,’ Thys said. ‘I’m sure he gave Arno the job – not that Arno didn’t deserve it, of course. But I’m sure he gave Arno a chance because of ....well ... our friendship, I suppose, although I could have been a better friend to him. I should have been a better friend.’
‘You don’t think he’s going to take it out on Arno?’ she asked. ‘You don’t think he’s going to ... I don’t know ... be mean to Arno because of the way ... because of how he was treated in Driespruitfontein?’ Because of what I did, she thought.
Thys shook his head. ‘No way. Alan isn’t like that. We’re the ones who treated him shamefully, all of us. I don’t blame him for leaving the country like he did. And I’m so proud that he came back and has done so well. He deserves it. Arno will learn a lot from him.’
Annamari swallowed the bile in her throat. How like Thys to believe that Alan Silverman had been a good friend to him. But she knew better. Oh boy, did she know better! Good friends don’t go around seducing their best friend’s girlfriend. And Thys was such a good man. Such a good, good, stupid, blind, trusting man. She prayed that his naive faith in his old friend wasn’t about to be shattered.
‘Well, I don’t suppose Arno will have much to do with Alan Silverman,’ she said, crossing her fingers behind her back. ‘I mean, he’s just going to be a salesman and they probably have dozens of salesmen.’
Thys beamed at her. ‘No. Didn’t Arno tell you? He’s going to be Alan’s assistant, and Alan is going to teach him the business from the ground up.’
The horror Annamari felt when Arno had broken his exciting news to her slithered like a python up from her bowels and squeezed the air out of her lungs.