“Oh, ho!” says Charles by way of a greeting, eyeing up my uniform. “Back to school already?”
“Well done. Full marks for detective work.”
He was half in, half out of the Mercedes when I arrived at the gate – now he extracts himself fully and opens his arms to me, gives me a peck of a kiss on my nose. “Don’t be sarky. You hacking with Gill this afternoon? I didn’t see you yesterday.”
“I couldn’t come over yesterday. First day back and we got told we have chemistry practical lessons on Tuesday afternoons this year. I was pissed off, I can tell you.”
His big, delighted grin lights up his face under the sunglasses.
“I can believe it. Chemistry? What year you in now?”
“Form Four. O Levels in November. That’s, like, eleven very short months away.”
New year, new form classroom, new timetable, new worries.
Gill comes flying out of the back door, two laundered numnahs in her hand.
“Ah. You’re here. I was just going to tack up. How’s school? Got any new students then? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.”
Charles leans an elbow on the top of the car door and flicks quickly back and forth between me and Gill. He isn’t quite sure where she’s coming from, but I am.
“We’ve only got two in our class. Alice Chifamba and Chipo Makoni. They’re nice. Alice is a quiet mouse, but the sporty girls have already found out she’s a damned good basketball player. She was in the First Team at her mission school near Karoi. They’re determined to cajole her into going to the basketball trials so she can try for a place on one of our teams and I think they’re going to persuade her to have a go at hockey too. And as for Chipo – she’s a real chatterbox. She talks a lot and sings – off-key – and shrieks when she laughs. She kept talking to herself and made us all laugh. She said things like, ‘Now Chipo, you’ve done it all wrong. Do it again.’”
I tap the side of my head with a forefinger. “She’s hilarious.”
I knew he and Gill would enjoy the anecdote for its own sake, laugh with me, picture the scene, warm to a girl they’ve never met without questioning what she even looks like because I said she’s funny and likeable.
Not like Mum.
It was just a story, an anecdote. Like, hey, this is what happened to me at school today. And of course she saw straight through it to a problem. I should’ve known. I didn’t even get a “Oh that’s nice/interesting/funny/strange.”
Just the Bothered Tone: “So where has this girl come from then?”
Me, failing to spot the Bothered Tone and setting off on a helpful explanation: “Um, I think she said her father taught maths and geography at a mission school near Wedza, so she’s been there all her life so far. Her mother’s a nurse. Mr Makoni has now got a job at Allan Wilson School so they moved to Salisbury. Chipo’s got one older sister who’s already left school and is…”
The frown, stopping me in mid-flow: “Allan Wilson? So they’ve started putting black teachers into the white schools? I wonder how many others there are?”
My confusion: “Hey? Well how should I know? He was teaching O Level at the other school. There’s no difference in the syllabus. They’re not ‘white’ schools any more though, are they?”
The irritated frown: “You know what I mean. It’s a sign of things to come. Eventually all the white teachers will leave and you’ll only have blacks.”
Me, wanting to yell at her, something like: “Why are you being so negative? We have to live with all these changes whether you like it or not. Things might not turn out to be as bloody bad as you think!”
Instead, chickening out and going for sarcasm: “But of course they can’t be as good as the white teachers.”
Wasted on her, of course, in her fog of worry. She only heard the literal words, relieved that I’d finally understood: “Yes. Yes, you’re right. They think differently to us. They won’t be able to… um, shall we say, impart knowledge so well.”
Why did I even start the conversation?
I should stop being so angry with Mum and Dad and try to understand it from their point of view. They’ve got our futures to think of, as well as their own. But I won’t allow myself to accept and condone that sort of prejudiced view. I will not consider my schoolmates, or anyone else, in terms of colour or race. It serves no purpose. I’m moving on.
“As far as my mother is concerned, the planet is going to self destruct any day soon. She says to me, when I get home yesterday, she says, ‘Tessa! Do you know Rosie’s class is fifty percent black! Fifty percent!’ It’s not even fifty percent anyway. Rosie told me there are ten black girls in her class of twenty-eight. Overall it’s two thirds of the Form One intake this year though.”
They’re in serious danger of being totally irrational over this. Rushing off to parent meetings and debates three evenings a week, arguing in the lounge about what to do if seventeen-year-old black girls who, in their view, might not know how to use the toilets properly, join Rosie’s class of thirteen-year-old white girls, thrashing out the pros and cons of setting up a Community School and then panicking and chucking in the towel altogether and investigating the ultimate sacrifice of sending us to a private school. Even more irrational, that is, because the private schools have taken in black, coloured and Asian pupils for years now. And the toilets thing?
“Not surprising. And of course the bloody Rhodesia Action Party’s stirring as usual by trying to convince the RF supporters who they think are showing signs of weakness that the entire world is moving too fast in the wrong direction. Like, come on guys, you’re being forced to accept the fact that blacks can now buy property in your road, and now on top of that you’ll have the uneducated black masses mixing with your children at school. This cannot be allowed to happen, etc, etc, you have to vote no in the referendum etc, etc. You know how it is. Resulted in the mass Exodus last month. And if whites keep leaving, these percentages in schools are only going to go the wrong way for those that don’t leave. And believe me, the RF is and always has been very concerned about numbers.”
He holds up his left wrist and tilts it so that his watch doesn’t flash the sun straight into his face.
“Look, my darlings, I’m going to have to get back to the office. Have a nice ride. And enjoy your new classmates, Tessa.”
I leave Gill to close the gate behind his car and head for her bedroom. Moira’s voice floats down the corridor when I’ve just removed my skirt, shoes and school socks and am in the act of shaking out my jodhs. I don’t catch all of her words, just, “… with Charles tomorrow?” from somewhere close.
Then Nathan’s voice: “I guess so. I’ll talk it through with him when he gets home again.”
He’s in the study. I’m so used to never wondering where he is that I haven’t wondered where he is. And here I am in the next room, half undressed, with the door wide open. Got to be more careful now he’s likely to be in the house most of the time, recuperating. I reach out a foot and give the door a push, wriggle into my jodhs, pull on the school socks again because my old riding ones must be right at the bottom of the duffel bag, whip off my shirt without undoing all the buttons and replace it with my T-shirt, all in one smooth action, then stuff my school things into the bag and take off for the kitchen. Once there, I’m in my riding boots, unlaced admittedly, and out of the door in about five seconds.
*
The light level’s altered; it’s fractionally darker in here. I tuck the saddle cover around the knee rolls and turn around, expecting to see George or Justice in the doorway, but it’s Nathan. No footfalls, no scraping of a boot on the step, he’s just there.
“Hmm, you riding?” asks Gill, hanging Star Point’s bridle on the ceiling hook so George can clean it later.
He folds his arms and stares at her.
“No. I thought I’d put my jodhpurs on and mosey on down to the Alexandra Sports Club for a game of squash.”
I snigger and Gill rolls her eyes but he doesn’t react to either of us.
“Okay clever-clogs. You’re not bloody capable of playing squash at the moment, are you? Do you want me to be with you?”
“No thanks.”
Bravo’s saddle is next to mine. I slide away and he steps through the space I’ve just vacated, favouring the right leg.
“I’ll make this fucking leg work if it kills me,” he says.
“We’ll leave you to it then. Come on Tess.”
She stalks ahead of me back to the house. I just remembered that I wanted to ask her about teaching Induna counter-canter but now doesn’t seem to be the right time so I keep schtum. Once in the kitchen, she hitches herself up onto the table next to where Moira’s sitting with one of her recipe books and kicks her heel hard against the table leg under her.
“Oh God Mum, this is such an awful thing to say, but although I’m over the moon that he’s riding again, a part of me doesn’t want him to recover too soon. I can’t bear the thought of him going back into the bloody army again. And they will take him back. He might get given some kind of desk job at first but they’ll shove him back out on the frontline the instant they think he’s capable. Or what they fucking think is capable.”
“Gill darling…” Moira closes the book and takes off her glasses.
“Can’t you send him away, Mum? To England, to Uncle Richard? Or even to the States, to stay with that guy Dad knows who set up a business over there?”
“You know we can’t do that. He’s not allowed to leave.”
A pause. Then Gill gives the table leg another kick and Moira closes her eyes.
“I didn’t tell you, but Madeline Watson’s son died last week. He was a chopper pilot. Flying troops into a contact zone, he came under fire and they think both he and his tech got shot from the ground. The chopper crashed and they don’t know if the guys were dead before or if they were killed in the crash. It’s getting worse. If this settlement and the elections and the new constitution don’t solve anything, it will go on.”
Moira looks as helpless as I feel. There’s another pause.
“We’ll have to hope the elections do result in a ceasefire,” I suggest. It’s just for the sake of saying something. I don’t think either of them has heard me.
Gill looks up at me and swings her legs without touching the table this time.
“So. Tessa’s got two black girls in her class now. Tess, tell her about the new girl who talks and sings.”
Moira arches her fine eyebrows at me.
“Oh Chipo? She’s brilliant. Yes, she and Alice joined us for the first day yesterday. I felt sorry for them in form registration because Mrs McGovern got them to sit together at the front and then just left them alone while she ferreted around in the stock room at the back. They were self-conscious enough as it was, without being made to be even more conspicuous. At least Rosie’s class is nearly half and half, and they’re all new girls together anyway.”
*
Gill walks with me to the main road to continue telling me about her competition plans for the year. We must keep on planning, she says, as if everything will carry on as normal.
“Heaven knows, we’ve lived with all manner of unknowns for ever now and this year is no different. No-one can possibly predict the outcomes of the referendum or the elections. Whether we get international recognition of the settlement or not is anyone’s guess. Smith’s attempting to get us to vote ‘yes’ by insisting that the constitution must be good for the whites because the rest of the world’s rejecting it! We have to say yes though. There’s no going back.”
She stops walking as we reach the gateway.
“The only certainty seems to be this crazy name we’re going to get. I mean, have you ever? Seriously Tess, they must be nuts. Dad says it’s absolutely the most nonsensical mouthful anyone could’ve dreamed up.”
Her black mood of half an hour ago has evaporated; my upbeat, optimistic Gill is back.
“He got it in one,” I agree. “They should just go for Zimbabwe. Why’s Smith so determined to hang onto the Rhodesia bit?”
“Trying to please all of the people all of the time and failing miserably. Ah well, what can you do? Hey, I meant to say to you – we’re celebrating an Owen Family First this weekend, d’you realise that?”
I go, “No, really? What’s that then?” just like she wants me to.
“Actually having an event for Nathan’s birthday, no less. He turned nineteen on Monday but we’ve persuaded him to go with us for a posh meal at Tiffany’s on Saturday. He told us in no uncertain terms he wouldn’t take any gifts but that he’d love to go for a family meal.”
Shit, I’d forgotten he had a birthday in January. I should’ve remembered. I should’ve said something. Mental note.
“We’ve decided we’ll all get real dressed up in our posh togs for the occasion. Me and Mum are going to buy new dresses tomorrow and Dad and Nathan will be suited and booted. Oh God, Tessa, you can’t believe how much I’m looking forward to that. Or maybe you do?”
“I do, Gill. He deserves it. You all deserve it. I can’t imagine Charles, or Nathan for that matter, in a suit!”
I’ve never even contemplated Charles in a suit and tie.
She chuckles and says, “Oh, Nathan has one, I think. Probably outgrown it. Maybe he’ll have to go shopping as well. That’ll be another Family First. Dad grudgingly wears them when he meets clients or sub-contractors. He’s just got a contract for some excavation works and concreting as part of the rebuilding of the fuel depot. He’s taking Nathan over there these next couple of days to help with some setting out stuff.”
“He’s ready for that, do you think? He’s still quite lame.”
That doesn’t sound quite right, does it? Too much talking about horses over the years.
“I reckon he’s up to it, yes, while taking into consideration the fact he’s not as agile as he should be and gets tired easily. It’s a level site, and the more walking about he does, the better for the damaged muscles. I know I went off on one earlier about him riding but I do want to see him doing stuff he enjoys and benefitting from it. And now he wants to enjoy, he wants to participate and I cannot let this new positiveness die. It started when he was in the hospital and beginning to get back on his feet.”
“There’s something… I can’t really explain. It’s not like I’ve ever interacted that much with him.”
She folds her arms and pokes the toe of her boot at a couple of stray pebbles that are lying on the macadam surface.
“You are right. He and my father had words, you know. In the hospital. Neither Mum nor I know what was said and they’re not telling and we figured it’s best left between them. But it has had an effect on Nathan’s whole outlook. He said virtually nothing after this discussion happened, then a couple of days later it was clear he was trying very hard to lose that impenetrable shell. If it keeps up, you may find him wanting to hack out with you again.”
This is a novel idea that occupies me for a few moments on my ride home. Hacking with Nathan? He’ll be fully fit again one day for sure and I don’t reckon he’s into asking for help if it can be avoided, so I doubt it. He’s definitely been riding pretty regularly but he’s never asked to go with me since that time back before Christmas. When we got caught in the deluge. Karen Melton and her mates were there near the shopping centre. Karen Melton, yesterday, plonked down next to me and interrogated me not ten minutes into form time. Nudged me in the ribs and whispered, “So come on, who was that you were with when we saw you? At the bus stop? Remember? Just after Christmas? You were sitting on a horse? It was chucking it down, remember?”
She has no idea. Sitting on a horse?
I was thinking, yes, I remember it well. Two miserable, sodden riders hunched against the driving rain, one behind the mini Victoria Falls coming off her riding cap and the other with the brim of his felt safari hat beginning to droop over his ears.
Clearly Nathan’s name didn’t ring any bells with her. Perhaps the last tendril of the junior school grapevine that used to bear his name, along with the labels so many attached to it, has died. She fired questions at me, like, “Who’s he?”, “How do you know him?”, “Where does he live?” and “When did you meet him?” then, when I told her, she went, “Oh! Ah! I thought as much. So he’s not your boyfriend then? Well if he ever wants to meet a nice girl, you know where I am!”
She got fed up with watching me trying to process this request and said, “Oh Tessa. You are just… Wet shirt? No? Oh never mind.”
So she fancies him. But then he’s male, isn’t he? She’ll be disappointed. I don’t think he’ll be the least bit interested in knowing where she is.
That old hat of his really was in a sorry state by the time we got home. And apart from the downpour and the hat, I recall an odd thing. He’d called me Tessa. I don’t remember him actually referring to me by name before.
I must tell Danny about Chipo when I call him tonight.