There’s normally a day in September when you go outside first thing in the morning and you know the summer has arrived. I can’t describe it. It’s a feeling, that’s all. Something about the light quality perhaps? A smell? A haziness? All of these things in some ways, as well as the soft mauve shroud in the jacaranda trees that heralds the coming of their blooms. Not today though – not yet – but it’s still a good day. School’s out and summer’s just around the corner. It’s a sparkling spring morning and we’re going to Rainbow Ice Rink and I’ve got Danny.
Danny. He’s a gentleman (he opens car doors for me and helps me put my jacket on) and he’s charmed my mother (polite, neat and witty). He was keen to meet my family and I’m going to meet his at the weekend. He held my hand under the stars on our patio after dinner last Saturday and we agreed that we want to keep on seeing each other. I’ve arrived. I’ve got a boyfriend and a part of me (a very small part) wishes it wasn’t the holidays so that everyone at school would know and be amazed that I managed to catch him. Now I can talk about what we’ve done and where we’ve been, like Jess does. None of this sticking with Mum and Dad’s outings anymore and, what’s more, they approve of this. I’ve become part of a group of boys and girls, with Jess, and they’ve always liked Jess.
She’s sitting there in the front of the car and giving off the impression that she and Gordon are the only couple in the world, but now there’s me and Danny Proctor.
“Good thing we did manage to get going so early, hey,” she says, fondling Gordon’s knee. “I’m telling you, it was worth it. Some of those boots are getting a bit crappy and if we’re like the first ones there we’ll get good pairs.”
I get the feeling Gordon’s not a morning person. He hasn’t said a word since I got into the car apart from a mumbled “Hi.”
“You should be able to park right outside the place at this time,” Danny adds and Gordon grunts. Jess removes her hand from his knee.
She’s right about getting there early. The novelty of having an ice rink in town hasn’t worn off yet and it’s only the start of the third week of the holidays.
“We’ll stay till just before lunchtime, ja, coz it’ll be unbearably packed this afternoon, don’t you reckon?” I suggest. “Go somewhere for lunch in town?”
Gordon’s mood lifts visibly. He sits up a little straighter, blinks a few times and goes, “Oh yes! Wimpy? I fancy going to Wimpy,” turning his head to look at us on the back seat. “Ice creams after? Dairy Den?”
“Gordon,” says Danny, pointing ahead. “Food is important in our lives, but please can you look where you’re driving us?”
We spend the morning skating in endless circles to disco music, holding hands, talking, drinking Coke, skating again and laughing at the antics of anyone who fails to remain on their feet. I’m confident now, but I can’t help feeling too much confidence is a dangerous thing when it comes to balancing on ridiculously thin blades of steel on a sheet of ice. I have a go at backwards skating, tentatively at first and then faster, crossing one foot over the other at the corners. Inevitably, eventually, it happens. The rear of my left blade was always going to collect the front of my right boot at some stage and it’s a soggy thump – the rink is pretty wet by now. Danny’s right here of course, blocking other skaters in an attempt at traffic control to clear a space for me so that I can get to my feet again. He takes my arm and looks into my face, pushes my hair aside, says, “Are you okay? Does it hurt anywhere? Shall we go and sit down?” and I wonder if I should kiss him. This could be The Relationship. Jess reckons he’s told Gordon he’ll be eternally grateful to the two of them for introducing us but she might well be just congratulating herself for making a successful start in the matchmaking business. I better not lean in and kiss him because I can’t let him think I’m too forward. But I do want him to know I want to kiss him. Oh, stop dithering – the moment’s gone anyway.
I throw myself back into the challenge with, I think, a more stylish technique even if it’s just to avoid having to put up with Jess and her lover snogging each other in the tiered seating at the far end of the rink. At least they weren’t watching and all they’ll ever see of my fall from grace is a wet patch on one leg of my jeans. I’m monumentally well pleased with myself.
In accordance with Gordon’s earlier suggestion, we go to the Wimpy where Danny buys my lunch and on the way home we stop at the Dairy Den on Second Street Extension. The slightly crisp morning has turned very warm and it’s all just simply perfect. Life can’t get much better than this.
As we’re arranging ourselves at one of the outdoor tables, Danny says to Gordon, “Liverpool apparently trounced Tottenham on Saturday. I’m going to get a paper. They might have a report on the match.”
Jess pulls a face. “English football? Tessa, I feel for you.”
I don’t mind. I don’t get football, but if Danny enjoys keeping up with it I’m happy. He ignores her and disappears into the adjacent grocery store. Jess starts telling Gordon about the last time she was at Mermaid’s Pool and how her cousin managed to tear his swimming trunks halfway down the rock slide and then lost them altogether when he dropped off the zipline.
Gordon stretches his legs out and yawns.
“When was that? Closed now isn’t it? Hot area.”
Danny reappears in the doorway of the store, a copy of The Rhodesia Herald in his hands.
“Eighteen months ago I guess,” Jess replies, linking her right ankle around Gordon’s left.
At this point I glance up because Danny hasn’t joined us yet. He’s stopped in his tracks and is staring at the front page. Sports results are always at the back of the paper, so that’s odd, but what’s even more odd is the expression on his face.
“Danny?” I wave my purse at him. “What sort of ice-cream cone do you want? We’re going to order now.”
He approaches, holding the paper out towards me so that I can see the headline. I give up trying to interpret the expression and switch my eyes to the paper. The words “VISCOUNT FROM KARIBA MISSING”, are spanned across the top of a photo of one of the Air Rhodesia Viscount fleet. There’s a sub-headline too: “Search centres on Karoi area”.
I take it from him and place it on my lap; I can feel Jess lean towards my right shoulder. Gordon gets up from his chair and shuffles round to stand behind me. There’s a moment of quiet.
I skim through the article. The aircraft disappeared on its routine flight from Kariba to Salisbury yesterday and the last message received from the Captain was a report of the failure of both starboard engines. It’s thought that the Viscount crash-landed somewhere in the bush, but no-one knows where for sure. To pick up on the inference that the loss of both engines simultaneously on the same side is a highly unusual occurrence doesn’t require much intuition.
Jess takes in a quick, sharp breath and Gordon says, “Oh. My. God.”
The heroes in ghost stories often have to put up with the indignity of having their hair stand on end. The words “It was a hair-raising story” once prompted me to draw pictures of startled people with the hair on their heads reaching straight up for the sky. It was funny. It made me laugh. I didn’t believe it.
Now I know it really happens, and it’s horrible. Creepy. My hair’s not literally reaching for the sky of course, but I get this cold prickling along the back of my neck and on my arms, then it starts on my scalp, like my hair has literally lifted. This all comes with the emergence of a crystal clear knowledge that something dreadful’s happened and that there’s no way to escape it.
A plane crash. Yesterday. So here we are in the middle of a war, surrounded by death and disregard for life – troops here, villagers there, farmers and Internal Affairs personnel in all the outlying areas – but I can only ever remember hearing of one major civilian disaster in Rhodesia. That Wankie colliery. 1972? When some four hundred miners died in a series of explosions. This sort of human tragedy only occurs somewhere else in the world. Aircraft and trains full of mothers, fathers, sisters and boyfriends crash and burn in other places. Not here. I keep my eyes open and focus on lines of print because I don’t want to see the picture my imagination is determined I should – bits of broken fuselage and a tail in the distinctive shape of the Vickers Viscount, lying scattered in the tangled bushveld.
It’s not just a crash though, is it? Like all the other ones I hear of on TV, predominantly during take-off or landing? Planes rarely just fall out of the sky in mid-flight unless maybe they get caught in a bad storm. Or they get shot down. I’m not a pilot and I know diddly squat about aero engines but a little voice inside my brain is whispering to me that it knows why the two engines failed together and I’m telling the little voice to shut up and not be stupid and not to upset me and that it can’t possibly be true.
We go home without ordering any ice-creams.
Mum and Rosie are not in and I go to lunge Induna because it’s the only way I can slam the door on those damned images. Makuti Park is quite deserted, which is fairly unusual. There’s no sign of Gill, Moira or Charles and there’s only one groom in the tack room cleaning saddles. Nathan, of course, is off somewhere in the bush so he’s never around now. I think he was back on a pass two weekends ago but that day I didn’t ride so I only found out afterwards.
I’m actually pretty thankful there’s no one here. I don’t want any more news today.
*
I manage to beat Rosie to the phone for once, and it’s Danny. We talk a bit of nonsense stuff, then he says, “I’ve heard there are survivors from the crash. Eighteen, I think. That’s great news, isn’t it? A group of them were able to set out to fetch help.”
I’ve already heard this from Dad, who was buzzing with the news when he came home from work earlier, and now I’m finally climbing out of the ditch I’ve been in all day just by the sound of Danny’s voice and the way he’s called to reassure me. Survivors. Good. Some passengers and maybe some of the crew survived. He talks me through what he’s heard.
I lie on my back on my bed for a while, dreaming up things to do when he comes over on Wednesday afternoon (a bit of swingball, or we could walk up to the granite dwalas and take in the view – I could get Mum to buy us a pack of biltong to take up there – or, of course, we could go to Jess’s for a swim?) then pick up the Alistair MacLean I got from the library yesterday, open it at the first page and get wrapped up in it.
Survivors. Shocked, defenceless and undoubtedly injured people out there in the middle of nowhere with the crashed aircraft. They’re waiting for the rescuers. They’ll be taken home or to hospital but in the meantime they have to stay put. The small team that left them to search for help knows where they are; the authorities don’t.
It’s a ghastly little notion, like a deformed black, demonic imp, and it’s wriggled out of the part of my brain that’s not focussed on the story in front of my eyes, upward and upward, whispering, scratching at my consciousness until it obscures the words I’m reading. What if? What if someone else – some others – know exactly where they are? Those who saw their prey go down?
I actually say “No!” out loud to myself, shove the book towards the wall, prop up on one elbow and squeeze my eyelids down. How can I even think such a thing? It’s absolutely not possible. Not ever. Go away.
There’s nothing wrong with Alistair’s writing but I can’t stay in here on my own with that demon intent on whispering in my head. The bookmark’s fallen onto the carpet but I’ll find my place again. I bolt for the lounge, and discover Mum, Dad and Rosie watching Hawaii Five-O.
Damn, forgot it was on. Danny doesn’t know I’m head over heels in love with Steve McGarrett. This is good. If I focus on Steve, I can’t think of anything else. Book ’im, Danno. Danny – ha ha, sorry.
Afterwards. The Combined Operations communiqué. The rescue team has reached the site of the crash. During Sunday night, the ten left behind were murdered by Joshua Nkomo’s soldiers, who had watched the Viscount go down after taking out the two engines with a SAM 7 missile.
Nkomo openly admits responsibility. His excuse: he’d been informed that there were important military personnel and equipment on board the Hunyani and he was only carrying out his duty as an army commander.