Twilight. In the evening, this yields a sense of closing, of retiring at the end of the day into the stillness of the night. At dawn, however, it creates its own special feeling of promise, of coming awake and of an expectancy of the day to come. Some of the bird calls began just before the sky showed any signs of lightening. How do they know when to start? When you think about it, everything is timeless. The earth is merely rotating endlessly but we insist on telling ourselves that the sun sets and then rises again, wherever we live, day after day. The pattern of life repeats itself over and over on a daily and a yearly basis while we humans create our own little problems and dilemmas and our wars and consider ourselves to be the highest and mightiest of all life forms.
As the darkness eases, the tops of the eucalyptus trees at the end of the neighbours’ garden take form. In between the chains of street lights in the valley is the odd single glow here and there, probably a lighted room behind curtains. The population is stirring. Some of it’s already on its way; a vehicle somewhere accelerates through its gears and fades into the distance. These folks are early risers for a Sunday morning, but they are nevertheless getting on with their lives as normal. The pattern of life. The everyday activities. On any other Sunday, I would still be asleep. I would drag myself out of bed at around seven-thirty, drink coffee, eat toast and marmalade and then head off to Makuti Park to enjoy my day.
Instead, I’m here, on the verandah in the chilly dawn. I’m huddled in my tracksuit bottoms, slippers and a thick dressing gown and I probably won’t enjoy my day very much. At least Skellum’s perfectly happy, lying with his back against me. He doesn’t perceive the company of one of his pack at this time of the morning as odd at all. Lucky dog, just living in the moment.
The dawn light is rosy. Almost red, in fact. What was that rhyme about red sky at night and red sky in the morning? I never really got what it was supposed to mean and right now I don’t care. It’s beautiful. The new light reveals strips of cloud low on the eastern horizon. The air smells sweet and unmistakeably of the earth, woodsmoke and Africa.
Yes, this is my decision. My mind is made up. It’s got to be sorted, and now, before anyone else in this house stirs. I’m on my feet and Skellum has scattered aside to make way, his feathery tail sweeping the air behind him, tongue lolling, eyes smiling. I recall with amazing clarity the day we all went to the SPCA kennels to choose him, a dog to be ours for life. A dog is for life, and so is a cat. Cleo.
Hot tears smarting – no, don’t dwell on that now. My plan will resolve that. I need to focus on the ideas forming in the deepest recesses of my mind.
The brass wall clock in the hallway says it’s twenty-past six. I’ll get dressed quickly, quietly, sneak out. Everyone at Makuti Park will be up and about by now. I won’t drive. I’ll ride my bike and wear mittens and ear muffs against the cold air.
But although I manage to get changed into my jeans and a sweater and tackies, brush my hair and clip it back and get out of my room again in less than ten minutes, Dad’s beaten me to it. He’s in the kitchen. How did he get there so quietly? I’m now face to face with him as he fills the kettle from the cold tap.
“You’re up early. Going out already?”
His voice is guarded.
I feel like a child caught with its fingers in the biscuit tin. Trapped.
“No. Yes! Yes, I was going to cycle over to Makuti Park.”
He says nothing while he carries the kettle across to its habitual location, pushes the cord into its socket and presses the wall switch down. I dither on the spot, hating myself for being indecisive. Okay, I’ll bolt.
“I shan’t be long. I’m not going to ride today but I plan to tomorrow after work so I want to set up a jumping grid in the ménage now. To give me more time tomorrow. You know?”
It sounds entirely plausible, if a bit gabbled.
“Don’t you want breakfast first? Remember I wanted to speak to you later.”
How could I forget?
“No thank you. Yes.” And I’m gone, the shed key clutched in one hand, the mittens in the other. There’s a spare key in the drawer if anyone else needs the shed. I’ll just take this one with me. Not going back into the house.
*
Charles is seated alone at the kitchen table with a mug clasped between his great hands. Its liquid contents are dark – his favourite strong, sweet coffee – and steaming in the chilly air.
“Tessa? My goodness!” His features snap to attention. “Find a scorpion in your bed?”
“No! Frankly, a scorpion in my bed wouldn’t have bothered me today. It would’ve got tossed out.”
He laughs, but his brows are still puzzled.
Faced with a situation I’ve created all by myself, now I falter. I haven’t planned what to say. My newly hatched idea filled me with a desperate hoping back at home but now the time has come to put it into words I’m floundering. Bless Charles. His smile is warm and welcoming in spite of my intrusion on his peaceful early morning solitude – and it is a ridiculous time to come calling. It’s been normal for me to turn up here earlier than is considered polite more times than I care to remember, but never this early, and today isn’t normal. I’m freaked out, and the Owens are more than just friends.
“Charles.” I pull out a chair and sit facing him. “I’m so sorry to disturb you so early but I have to talk to you. And also to Moira and, of course, very definitely to Nathan.”
He reaches out to cover the hand I’ve just laid on the table with one of his own.
“You have some sort of problem sweetheart?”
“Yes. I have. You don’t mind? I can wait until everyone’s up. I’ll go over to the stables for a bit.”
“Nonsense. Look, get yourself whatever you want for breakfast and I’ll go and rouse the troops. I’ll be back in five.”
My eyes rove over every darling familiar detail of the kitchen of my second home. Snatches of memory bombard me in a series of running visual effects. Returning home from a ride soaking wet. Casual conversations about anything and everything. Serious conversations about horse-training problems and that bloody nonsensical war. Hysterical conversations about the comedy of life at school. Drinking tea and eating buttered toast after a horse show. Gill’s traditional birthday parties. I close my eyes and squeeze my hands together.
Charles is back in less than five and resumes his chair.
“Hello, love.” Moira appears in the doorway in her gardening gear for the day – a fresh yellow T-shirt, jeans, canvas lace-up shoes. Her eyes flit from me to her husband and back again.
Behind her, entering almost on the run, is you. Fully dressed as well, but with half a face covered in shaving foam, the other half clean, and a razor in your hand.
“What’s up?” you demand around Moira.
It’s a relief to know my sense of humour hasn’t left the country along with half the white population. A fist clenches my heart at the sight of your dear, sweet consternation, but the half-shaved, lopsided, uncombed, dripping image is, I realise in this instant, exactly what I need right now. The stress, which has been enveloping me like a physical thing, like a dense, suffocating blanket, is plucked away. How can I possibly be depressed, worried or tortured by the necessity of making life-changing decisions when you’re looking at me like that?
It’s that tear-squeezing sort of laughter. Charles and Moira are tittering cautiously – they clearly think I’ve completely lost it – and I can’t see your reaction because I’m holding you so tightly. The razor, which must be hovering in the air above me, is dripping onto my left ear.
“Go and finish shaving, for God’s sake, Nathan,” says Charles in a small, strangled voice. “You look ridiculous.”
You lead me away down the corridor to your room and the blue and white luxury of the adjacent en-suite without a word. I sit on the edge of the bath and watch while you complete the job, savouring every move. As you’re chasing away the used water with much swirling and splashing and the cold tap on full bore, you remark, “I wonder if the water really goes down the plughole in the opposite direction north of the equator? It’s one of those things they say but I’ve never seen it myself so I’m not sure whether to believe it or not. My family in England would know, I guess.”
You have no idea how close to the bone you’ve cut. I’m all out of witty or appropriate replies on that one. You dry your hands on a thick navy blue towel then put them lightly on my shoulders and bend down to kiss my nose. You’re shadowed by a puzzled worry.
“You’re very quiet, Kitten. What’s all this then? Charles says you’re in some sort of trouble. It wasn’t to do with the racing yesterday, was it?”
“No. It’s a family problem. Come to the kitchen and I’ll explain. I need all of you together.”
When I tell them all, they’re going to suspect that surely I must’ve had some sort of inkling this was going to happen, that it can’t have come so dramatically out of the blue. If I let on that I’ve been nursing this burden for months, they’ll want to know why I never said anything. And I don’t have an answer, except that I’ve been in classic avoidance mode. That’s over now though, and I’m entering fight mode.
Is this what it’s like to be interviewed on TV? To be set up in front of people and have to talk to them, not knowing what their reaction will be or what questions they’ll ask? Moira has set a plate of fresh croissants from the Greek bakery down the road on the table, along with the butter dish and a pot of strawberry jam. She offers me a side plate and a knife and I take them knowing they will remain unused.
I tell everything in a series of fits and starts and re-groupings. No-one interrupts.
I start with family financial history. 1974, when my father and his brother Harry inherited their parents’ estate between them and Dad had his share transferred over to his account here. Fast forward to 1975, when Mum and her sister Patricia got half shares in their parents’ money. It was the combined windfall of a lifetime because we were going to live in Rhodesia for ever and they could pay off the mortgage and buy new cars and have a fabulous South African holiday.
I lead on to the intervening years and Dad’s political views. His discontent with independence, majority rule, the way forward. His certainty that the country will end up on its knees, that law and order will collapse and that we’ll lose our property and our rights. Charles is nodding as I relate this – he knows, of course. He’s talked to Dad quite a bit over the years and he will have gathered much of it from me.
Then I come to February of this year. Dad’s Aunty Julia, who was a bit of a hoarder of not only her own money but also of what she got from Dad’s other aunt, Barbara, passes away suddenly. Dad and Uncle Harry are lined up to get about two hundred and fifty thousand pounds each. Dad realises this is his chance to get the family established in England and is determined to ensure the funds stay over there.
I conclude with my realisation of how desperate they both are to leave Zimbabwe, the tension and the arguments, the gearing up towards leaving going up another notch when he got an offer of employment yesterday.
I say, “I know they’re only trying to do what they think is best” several times. I say that the parents of so many kids I knew at school have done just that, by seeking out a secure future in another country, paying for it with trauma – the packing up of possessions, the wallowing in incompetent administrative red tape, the attempts to mitigate financial loss – and ending up leaving behind a world they’ve built up over nearly a lifetime. I say that I’m guilty of refusing to play my part.
Charles is the first to speak after I’ve dried up.
“How old are you now, my love? Eighteen?”
“I will be in September. I don’t think they can force me to go with them, can they? But the point is…”
Here, this is it. No backing out now.
“The point is, I’m not asking you all what I should do. I’m not asking you to advise me on whether I should go or not or to commiserate with me because I’m being forced to leave with them. I’ve already made my decision. I’m not going. But I will need your help. Mum and Dad might be reassured leaving me behind if my well-being is guaranteed and they know I’m in safe hands. What I’m asking you…”
“Is can you stay here?”
Throughout my speech you’ve sat next to me and neither looked at me nor moved a muscle but now you reach across and snatch both my hands out of my lap. My train of thought is derailed by the impact of the crushing sense of remorse that comes with the realisation that I’ve brought you to the brink of tears. I’ve done this. I’ve caused you pain. You were always the untouchable soul I could never fathom but now you’re the one who’s penetrated my soul and now here we are, both just about blubbing like babies. What do I do? There’s nothing to say so I just raise and kiss one of the hands holding mine.
Moira and Charles are both studying the top of the table intently. Moira just said something but I’d tuned her out, so now she’s apparently waiting for a response I’m not going to be able to give. It doesn’t matter. I have more to say.
“I wouldn’t want to impose myself on you all. I’d move out as soon as I could find my own flat in town. It’d be a temporary measure until my family has gone. It’s just that I want the folks to be satisfied I’m safely accounted for, and anyway, I’m damned sure I’ll need your moral support because it’s going to be, well, kind of difficult.”
Like I really need to tell them that.
And of course they tell me I can stay as long as I like, all three of them speaking over each other. Why am I trying to shake and nod my head at the same time?
“One thing we don’t want to do is come between you and your family, though,” Charles says when I’ve given up this pointless exercise. “We cannot be seen to be coming down on one side or the other. I can understand your point of view only too well but I respect your parents and their decisions based on the welfare of their family. All I can say is that you are more than welcome to live here and I vouch that I’ll take responsibility for you.”
“You’re absolutely right, and I understand. They’re still not going to like it though.”
“When will you tell them?” Moira asks.
“Dad wants to talk to us all today. Tell us about his plans I guess. I’ll have to play it by ear. Find the right moment.”
There’s no such thing as the right moment for something like this.
“I’d better go back,” I say, more to talk myself into it than to inform the others. “I’m going to say hi to Encore and Induna first though. I can’t thank you enough for what you’re about to do for me, you know that, right? I’ll pay my way of course. I…”
I get told to stop protesting and to go to the stables and to take my man with me before he eats all the croissants.
The horses are still in and the grooms haven’t finished their own breakfast yet. It’s only when I lean on Induna’s half door and watch him munching his hay, his black tail flicking at imaginary flies and his off hind hoof tipped up in rest, that the tears really come.
“How could I leave him behind, Nathan? Do you know what my father said to me? When I asked, ‘What about the horses?’ he actually said, ‘What about the horses? You can sell them can’t you?’ Sell them! Just like that! Because he doesn’t care a toss what happens to them.”
Jumbled up. I’m hopelessly jumbled up. It’s all indescribable relief, blood pumping excitement and blood draining dread in equal measures. Now with you pressing into me from behind like that, it’s the blood draining that steps up and it’s only your arms that are keeping me from dropping to the ground.
“Hey, hey, come on, stop. Listen to me. He shouldn’t have done that. But it doesn’t matter, does it? You won’t be selling them and you won’t be leaving them. And if they don’t think themselves lucky, I sure as hell do. I don’t want you to leave the country and I’ve got you coming to stay here under my roof.”
Then, after a pause, “If you were happy to leave or had made up your own mind to do so, I’d have to emigrate myself. I stuffed up a lot of things in my early life but now I’ve done something right I’m not letting it go. I love you.”
“I’m not going to go. They can’t drag me away from you.”
I wriggle round to face him. Our faces are very close and so are our bodies. The light-headedness has lifted slightly.
“Look, I’ve got to go home now, but will you do me a favour? I want to see Gill later today. Can you phone her for me? I can’t do it from home under the circumstances. Ask her if she’ll be at home. Explain as much as you like. If she’s not going to be in, phone me, but otherwise I’ll just drive out there. Do you mind?”
“Don’t be silly. Let’s go and get your bike. I could go with you to Gill’s but I guess you’d probably rather do it on your own?”
You so know my mind. I’ll go it alone today but thankfully I’m not alone.
*
Dad’s decided on a light-hearted approach.
He needn’t have bothered. Mum’s happy about it anyway and Rosie’s warming to the idea and I have other plans. I sit in unfocussed silence while he gives his discourse on the interview he’s going to attend and the consulting practice from which it’s been offered. He talks a lot about the plans he’s hatching for the purchase of property with Julia’s money. He mentions the names of places near Southampton. They mean nothing to me.
“You know a funny thing, girls? Over here any dwelling is called a house, irrespective of whether it has one or two storeys or is split-level. In England, they call single-storey houses bungalows and what we would call a double storey they call a house. Strange, hey?”
Rosie says “Wow” although I know damned well she knows this fact, as do I. Dad takes my lack of response as an indication that I need further enlightening.
“Bungalow is an Indian word.”
“Yes. I know.”
“Okay.”
He pauses, swallows, carries on. Rosie’s education is set out next. A list of grammar schools has been sent for and arrived and has been scrutinised. My sister’s expression, guarded at the start of the meeting, softens. She’s picturing a new and different environment. She’s thinking A Levels and university and leaving Zimbabwe way behind. With a despair I’ve never encountered before, I sense this as easily as I feel her shift several steps away from me mentally.
“So tell me what you think of all this, Tessa.”
I didn’t want to be asked what I think. I certainly don’t want to tell them what I think.
“Please don’t. There’s just too much to consider right now. How can I take it all in?”
They wait for me. Three times I start to move my hands away from my face, where I seem to have placed them without knowing I’ve done it, but each time I actually only twitch muscles fractionally. Speaking from behind them, I mumble a bit about what I said to Mum – don’t you remember, Mum? – about how you should all take this opportunity to go, a great opportunity, don’t you know I support your decision entirely, you’re right to move back given the circumstances but I’m going to stay.
When Dad eventually sighs, it’s difficult to say whether the sigh comes about through sadness, frustration, anger or helplessness. When I finally put my hands back in my lap, he’s leaning forward in his armchair, elbows on his knees and hands clasped together and he’s gazing absently out of the French doors down the length of the garden.
“I will never regret coming to live in this country. We came here, Sheila and I, with great hopes and we’ve had a wonderful life. We’ve been financially secure, been able to do the things we all enjoy in plenty of space and sunshine, had no heating bills to pay, owned a big house with a big garden and outdoor living area, employed a gardener. In many ways I don’t want to go back to England. I’ve been away for more than twenty years and I’ve no idea what I’m going back to. But the blacks have got majority rule and we don’t know, can’t possibly foresee, what will happen here. I’ve said all this before. You know the reasons why I don’t wish to stay. All I want to say now is, I think I’m doing right by my family.”
Had he erupted angrily, cursed me for a fool, commanded that, as his daughter, I could bloody well knuckle down to obedience or else, it would have been so much easier to turn solidly against him, to use his bitterness to strengthen my own resolve. Instead, I throw myself across the room and hug him with more passion than I’ve done in many years.
“Dad! Dad. You are doing the right thing. Of course you are. All I ask is that you try to consider my point of view. Understand why I don’t want to leave my life here. I’m not a hundred per cent certain I know what’s right. None of us are. I’ve just got together with Nathan and I love him, Dad. He’s the one I’ll always be with. I’ve known him practically all my life but now I’m in love with him. How can I just leave him? D’you know what he said today? He said if I leave with all of you he will have to go to England as well. He loves me too and he doesn’t want this to end any more than I do.”
Mum and Rosie are behind me. They haven’t made a sound and whatever reactions they’ve had to this little pantomime I will never know.
“Look, I can stay with the Owens. I’ve already asked. You must know that. I talked it through with them this morning. They’re not strangers to you either. I’ll be perfectly safe with them and well looked after so you can set your mind at rest about that.”
Only now do I stand up and look around. Rosie’s gone – how did she do that so quietly? – and Mum’s face is an odd shade of grey.
“You know I can live with the Owens,” I repeat to both of them. “I hate to say this, but by the time everything’s sorted out and you go I will be eighteen and you can’t force me to go with you.”
Where’s Rosie gone? Mum bites her lip and continues to be grey.
“You talked to Nathan this morning? Did he persuade you to stay here?”
There’s just a hint of outrage in her tone.
“No! I had already decided. Today I asked permission of Charles and Moira, is all. Charles has volunteered to kind of be my guardian. What Nathan did say, as I told you just now, was that if I was determined to emigrate with you he would be coming with us. I assume you wouldn’t object to that?”
The conflict on her face would’ve been comical under any other circumstances.
Dad doesn’t seem to be listening any longer and has closed his eyes. It’s time to flee. I close the door between the lounge and the hallway as carefully as I can with shaking hands. For a heartbeat, I consider putting an ear to the keyhole to catch any subsequent conversation, but I’ve promised to visit Gill and Nathan hasn’t phoned to say she won’t be at home.
I collect my car keys from my room, hurry to the kitchen, pull open the back door already in flight to launch myself down the steps and there have to skid to a halt, grabbing at the door frame for support as I nearly fall over the crouched form of Rosie. There’s a small sound, muffled and indefinable at first and I glimpse Skellum’s tan-coloured muzzle – nowadays liberally speckled with grey – over my sister’s shoulder.
She’s cuddling the dog and making a low moaning, a keening sound that sets my spine crawling. For a few seconds I hover, poised as though flash frozen, then drop onto one knee behind the huddled pair. Skellum laughs up at me and wags his tail, with some difficulty considering the stranglehold in which he’s contained. Rosie’s face is smeared with her tears and the sticky results of her sniffling, her eyes rimmed with red. She struggles with a great gulping sob and blinks wet lashes.
“My dog. What are they going to do with my dog? I love him so much!”
In the midst of all this emotion, Skellum continues his tongue-lolling smile, although he’s given up with the tail. There’s a soft and gentle bump against my rear end and a questioning “Brrp?” and when we both squint down over our shoulders Cleo is there, curiosity in her intense yellow cat’s eyes. Rosie lets out a howl. She tries to gather the cat up in her left arm but Cleo’s not having that. She wriggles free and is down the steps into the garden in a flash.
“Shhh!” I whisper. “Nothing’s going to happen to them. I can take them to Makuti Park with me, can’t I?”
I have no doubt that if I turn up with my pets – our pets – in tow the Owens will say yes. Love me, love my dog and my cat and my horses. The Owens haven’t had a dog as long as I’ve known them and I know why. Gill refused. She told Charles and Moira in no uncertain terms that although she wanted another dog, she didn’t want to lose another dog. After both Winston and Captain had reached the end of their lives and the family had performed the ultimate act of kindness, she’d decided she never wanted to go through that again. She’s no longer living there though.
Rosie’s staring at me, her eyes huge with pathetic relief, still clutching the dog to her bosom.
“Oh yes!” she gasps, her lower lip quivering. “You see, Dad doesn’t care about the animals. He would do what some other people have done – just take them to the vet and…”
“No, no, no! Shush!” I give her a shake to avoid a fresh flood of tears. “Daddy does care really. He just doesn’t show it.”
I hope I’m right, but in any case it doesn’t matter.
“Skellum and Cleo will be fine. They’ll love it at Makuti Park. There are no other dogs and I’m sure Cleo will get on with Kuti.”
Rosie smears the tears across her face with her free hand and pushes back her dark, unruly fringe. As her hold slackens, Skellum backs out from under her arms, half falls down to the next step and stands like a statue, watching us cautiously for any more odd behaviours. The few ragged clouds I saw on the horizon at dawn have been carried across the sky on a cold wind and have blotted out the sun’s rays in all but a few fleeting areas. Rosie’s clad only in a thin T-shirt and a short skirt and she shivers. She stands, leaning on my shoulder for leverage.
“I’ll put on my tracksuit and take Skellie for a walk.”
She sniffs hard. “Coming, Tee?”
“No thanks. I’m going to Gill’s farm. If I go now I can scrounge some lunch off her.”
I leave her there and, as I close the gates behind my car, I catch sight of her waving the thick leather leash at a deliriously happy Skellum.
*
The sun’s completely disappeared now. This lawn, lush and emerald at the time of the wedding, is now turning brown, dry and crisp in patches. Maryna van Rooyen is there on the verandah in her old wicker chair and she waves at me as I cruise past, pointing at her tea cup, eyebrows raised. I shake my head and effect a sad face, pointing my own finger at the windscreen in the direction of the cottage.
The walls have been lime-washed and the corrugated roof painted black so it doesn’t look nearly as sorry for itself as it used to, tucked away as it is behind the stand of pines, out of sight of the world. New beds have been established along the front retaining wall of the verandah but nothing’s been planted yet. Gill’s Alfa Romeo is parked on the grass under the lounge side windows; there’s no sign of Piet’s pick-up. I ease my car alongside hers and turn the engine off, lean back against the headrest, eyes closed. This quiet garden, the evergreen pines, the dying grass under my car, the irrigated grazing paddocks beyond the hedge, the Hunyani range, the lake behind the hills – none of them give a shit about my woes. I so want to sit here and just let everything be perfect. Forever.
But I would be wasting my time. The car door closing sounds like a gunshot in the stillness.
They’ve made a start, but there’s still a fair amount of work to be done. I hover for a few minutes at the crumbling concrete kitchen doorstep, dredging up memories from eons ago of conducting explorations around the derelict farmhouse at the far end of the vlei with Rosie and Jess. Like this place, it was probably built in the 1920s. It was most likely a farm manager’s home on the old Woodford Estate, which had been sold off and subdivided around the time of the Second World War, but the old house fascinated us because its real history was a complete blank. We wasted hours poking around all the nooks and the remains of the antiquated plumbing system, trying to decide what it had looked like in its prime and which room had been the dining room, living room or main bedroom. The gaudy gloss paint may have been peeling from the internal walls, the window frames may have been empty and the internal doors all stolen but to our imaginations it was complete and alive. It was also alive in respect of the diverse life forms we encountered in there. Vegetation pushed through the most impossible cracks, cobwebs hung in great thick ropes from the decayed ceilings or from the exposed rafters where the lathe and plaster had fallen away completely, lizards and geckos clung to vertical faces or perched on the rafters to observe us and it was there that I came across the biggest, hairiest baboon spider ever. It was lurking in a dark corner and when we disturbed it and it ran out waving its long forelegs at us, we screamed and scarpered and then came tiptoeing back, daring each other to get the closest to its horrible hairiness and defensive aggression.
Gill would be mortified to know that her house reminds me of that old, dilapidated place. Her kitchen renovation project has made some progress since I was last here. The original bright green linoleum’s gone and the floor boards have been repaired or renewed and overlain with warm, russet quarry tiles. The walls have been repainted a cream colour that contains a hint of honey. I can’t remember what colour they were before, but I do remember thinking it was hideous. She’s planned a full range of fitted units but in the meantime the aged Welsh dresser is still there against the wall opposite the door and so are the two mis-matching formica-topped freestanding cupboard units either side of the sink. The pipework under the sink is still concealed by that curtain of coarse material with the particularly violent floral pattern. Sort of sixties psychedelia, it is. First time I saw it, I said, “Hey man. Groovy. Where the hell did that monstrosity come from?” and Gill put on her pained face.
“Don’t ask. It was one of Piet’s mother’s efforts at being hip. And don’t worry, its future is bleak.”
There’s a small paraffin heater in the corner, its concave reflective panel throwing warmth across most of the room, but the open door will have reduced its efficiency to the minimum. I rap twice. There’s no immediate response so I step inside, shut the door and cock my head to detect any signs of life.
At first all I get are strains of The Tide is High from a radio in another room but then there’s a plasticky clatter like something’s been dropped and a tap is turned on full. We catch sight of each other simultaneously – me stepping into the short parquet-floored corridor from the kitchen and Gill backing out into the corridor from the bathroom with a wet green cloth in one hand, a bottle of Handy Andy in the other and vexation exuding from the set of her jaw and stony face.
“Oh. Hello.”
The vexation gives way to confusion.
“Didn’t Nathan tell you I was coming?”
“Yes. Yes, he did. Sorry. Was just doing some household chores. Mercia is off today.”
She tries a half smile. “I hope you didn’t hear what I just said.”
She steps aside and gestures towards the bathroom with the hand holding the bottle. Its viscous contents slosh heavily with the movement and I creep a bit closer at the invitation.
“In there. Honestly, I could kill Piet. He’s left water all around the basin again, probably more than he can actually get in the thing. The top’s off the toothpaste tube as usual. I found it in the bath yesterday, would you believe? And, the facecloth was screwed up and sopping wet behind the cold tap. It drives me nuts. Why is it so difficult for him to clean up after himself?”
She fires this last question at me and tightens the cap of the Handy Andy bottle with an unmistakeably neck-wringing motion. Then she breaks a grin that tells me I look just plain idiotic with my mouth open.
“Listen to me. The old nagging housewife already. Don’t look so shocked, Tess. I wouldn’t dream of killing Piet – not yet, anyway. I do still love him. Some of his habits just get on my nerves.”
She re-enters the bathroom, discards the cloth and the Handy Andy into the basin and dries her hands on a pink towel.
“Mum warned me about this side of marriage but I can’t say I actually believed her. And I have to break bad news to you, I’m afraid. Nathan makes the most God-awful mess when he shaves.”
“I happen to know this. Remember I’ve shared hotel rooms with him? And I was in his bathroom just this morning.”
Her eyebrows shoot up into her fringe. “This morning? Oh, really?”
I don’t succeed at not blushing.
“As it happens, I arrived at your house at silly o’clock this morning to talk to everyone. Everyone except you of course, so that’s why I’m here now. I had a problem. I’ll tell you what I told them. By the sounds of it, Nathan didn’t enlarge on why I wanted to see you.”
The teasing fun has evaporated from her face, replaced by an uncertainty that’s a small step away from trepidation. Dismay perhaps. Something that’s uncomfortable on her anyway. Something that makes her take quick steps towards me and say, “Tessa? Oh. What? Tell me. Who?”
Defuse. I make a show of peering past her shoulder back into the bathroom.
“I thought I’d just walked in on some grisly murder scene. There’s no body in the bath, is there?”
“No. No, don’t be silly. Here, look, let’s go to the kitchen and you can pour your heart out.”
I do just that and she listens, like the rest of her family, with no interruptions. I relate the details of yesterday evening’s events, my visit to Makuti Park this morning and our little family talk.
The radio’s still playing to itself in the living room – the DJ’s getting all excited about something in an exchange with a high-pitched voice on a phone-in.
“You know what, Tess? I’m not even remotely surprised. It was always a matter of when, not if. I’ve even talked to Mum and Dad about the possibility. Surely you must know we think enough of you to be very concerned about you. None of us dared to predict what you would do when the time came though.”
My laugh doesn’t contain one iota of humour. “I guess I knew it was going to happen as well and even I never attempted to predict what I would do.”
“Tessa, you’re ours. In a way you have been since the first day you visited us. You have no need to worry about not having a roof over your head. I know my folks will welcome you – well they have already – and you can stay here too as often as you like. We’ve been friends a long time now, my love. You don’t need my permission.”
My lovely Gill. This unselfish personality, this heart full of unbiased, open-minded views, this fulfilling empathy linking us – these have all been with me since my first ever riding lesson. Her angelic face is, of course, older, but her beauty has bloomed. Older and wiser, the saying goes, but is she any wiser now than before? She was mature and wise even as a thirteen-year-old. She guided my mind with a surety in herself that I’d never come across in another child, and she still does. That’s what drew me to her. My life became entwined with hers on that day more than a decade ago and, looking at her eyes now, I see the same light, the same deep and intimate understanding and the same familiarity I’ve only ever recognised in my true blood sister. We’ve always understood each other on a level neither of us would be capable of explaining. And, as I now know, I share this very same bond with her cousin. Heaven knows, that took me long enough to find out.
“I just feel the need to justify myself. I haven’t fallen out with my family but I can’t walk away from my life here. To me, the politics aren’t bad enough for that.”
It’s unnecessary to explain this. She’s also committed to living in Zimbabwe with her new farmer-husband.
“Piet will be home just now,” she says, linking her fingers in front of her face and stretching her shoulder muscles as if to ease the tension in them. “He gets hungry very quickly. He eats like a horse. Little and often. Not too little though and so often it’s practically non-stop… who said that? Was it a character in a book?”
“In one of those kids’ pony-story books. I read it too. What’s for lunch then? I’m starving.”
“Oh I see. Invited yourself to lunch now, have you? Right then, let’s see what we’ve got. I’ll turn up that heater. God, I don’t envy your folks and Rosie going to live in England. We get a bit of frost here and go all to pieces. And it gets dark over there in the middle of the afternoon in winter. When I was working in Surrey we did morning stables in the dark and evening stables in the dark. It was awful.”
A vehicle roars up the driveway and the driver stands on the brake immediately on the other side of the kitchen wall. The engine is cut, two doors slam and seconds later Piet’s frame fills the doorway. Gill slides into his bear hug, her murderous intents history. There’s someone else behind him. A smaller man. A whippet compared to Piet, and older, and his complexion is swarthy and sunburned. His grey, unruly hair, poking out from under his khaki bush hat, makes him look a bit like Mum’s floor mop.
It’s odd how sometimes we can take one look at a stranger and get either like or dislike. This guy has a latent aggression in his features, his posture and even the way he wears the hat. His little black eyes dart between Gill and me. Reaching some sort of conclusion, he swipes it off his head and jams it under his arm, liberating the hair.
“Yo! Tessa!” Piet releases Gill and I get snatched and pulled into him. He lets me go after squeezing all my breath out and gestures with his left arm. “This is our neighbour, Craig Maritz. Craig, meet Tessa.”
Craig Maritz takes my hand courteously enough. When he smiles I note that one of his top incisors is broken so that the lower edge slopes at forty-five degrees away from its partner. It’s repulsively fascinating.
“Want a bite to eat, Craigy, or is Charlotte going to feed you?” Gill asks.
“Does that mean that if I play my cards right I could get two lunches?”
He’s Afrikaans. His thick, clipped accent is deep and guttural.
“Aren’t you lucky then? It’s only sandwiches, I warn you, but there’s cold beef, tomatoes, cheese, Vegex or peanut butter or a combination of them all if you want. You choose and I’ll make. Or rather, Tessa and I will make.”
She smiles sideways at me.
Chair legs scrape on the quarry tiles. Maritz launches into a conversation that must have started out in the truck. About how the Pretoria government can really put the squeeze on this place if they want. About how they’ve already taken back their rail locomotives and they’ve no intention of renewing the loans. More importantly, how they have Mugabe by the you-know-whatsits because they control all our fuel supplies, and if any of us here thinks we’ll ever get that pipeline from Mozambique fully operational we’re seriously deluded, what with it being blown up on a regular basis by bastard South African-backed dissidents.
He slaps the table with the flat of his hand and Gill, her back turned to him as she slices the bread, flinches.
“Hey, listen to this. I must tell you a story. You’ll love this. Guy gets stopped at a roadblock, see, and the military cops ask if they can search his car. He lets them do it, then says, ‘What are you looking for?’ and the cop says ‘We are looking for dissidents.’ So the guy then says, ‘Oh, well okay. I have some in the glove compartment if you want to take one.’”
He pauses, makes sure we’re all with him. Piet has a suitably puzzled air about him and Gill carries on sandwich-making. I’m still staring at the tooth.
“Well the cops get very excited and tear the inside of the car to bits and then arrest the ou. He complains bitterly and wants to know why he’s been arrested. ‘Because you said you are hiding and transporting dissidents in your glove compartment,’ the cop says. And the guy says, ‘Oh DISSIDENTS? I thought you said DISPIRINS!’”
Oh God. With everything that’s been going on today, I’m not in the mood for this. Piet’s the only one of us who appreciates the joke. When he’s done chuckling he hauls himself to his feet and stomps over to the fridge.
“I need a beer, man. D’you want one, Craig? Ladies?”
It goes on. They agree that they both thought Mugabe would cut all ties with South Africa directly after Independence, promptly committing economic suicide, and are amazed that he didn’t. Piet says Pretoria won’t pull the plug on us, and Maritz, his joviality now converted into resentment and the aggression I sensed earlier, says he’s not so sure. Piet’s wrong. The South Africans won’t take much more of the repetitive bombardment of insults from us.
“You’ve heard them,” he insists, casting around and then stabbing a forefinger at me like I’m personally responsible. “Even the weather report goes ‘The racist, apartheid, imperialist, Zionist, fascist Pretoria regime is sending a cold weather front tomorrow which will bring rain to Zimbabwe.’ Morons. It’s not Reds-Under-The-Bed any more, it’s Japies-Behind-Every-Bush. They’re shit-scared that all those ex-Rhodesian military personnel living Down South will master-mind and carry out a coup.”
“If they were going to do it, they’d have done it by now,” Piet claims.
Maritz sighs. “You’re probably right, but what they will do is continue to stir up trouble. You know, sabotage a little pipeline here, spark off a little tribal dispute there, plant a little bomb in that store. You remember how at the end of last year a quantity of arms was nicked from Cranborne Barracks? Then they found incendiary devices hidden at KG6 Barracks. South Africa was behind all that, I’ll guarantee. Mugabe will still harbour ANC terrorists and allow them to have bases in this country. Ex-ZIPRA forces are miffed that ZANU(PF) has power. They’re all back fighting again around Bulawayo, killing civilians etc. They’re ripe for shit-stirring, I’ll tell you. My boss-boy, Isaiah, reckons he’s fed up with this lot. ‘Baaz,’ he tells me, ‘Baaz, one of these days I am going to go Down South and join the army to fight against terrorists from this country.’”
He cackles at his efforts to mimic Isaiah’s accent. “I tell you, most of these buggers knows they was better off under Ian Smith and those that doesn’t know will soon find out. They thought Majority Rule would instantly solve all their problems and they would all get big houses and fast cars and a licence to print money. Well, now they find out the hard way that we’ve all had to work to get what we’ve got. I worked my arse off to build up my farm and I’m sure as hell not going to hand it to some kaffir on a plate. Give them a bit of education and they reckon they can be just like us, but you know, they don’t think like us. Throw them into a new situation and they don’t have a bloody clue what to do.”
That’s exactly what Mother said when I told her about Chipo’s dad getting a job at Allan Wilson. Time to chuck this conversation in or I’m going to say something I’ll regret. I refused the offer of beer and now I could probably do with something stronger, but I’ve got to drive home.
“Gill?” I nudge her elbow with the plate of sandwiches. “Grub’s up. Let’s get the guys filling their faces.”
I don’t add, “Please!” but she reads it in my grimace and presumably in the way I barge past her to set the plate on the table.
“So Tess,” she says, perching on the edge of the table between Piet and Craig. “As I was saying, you should enter the Zimbabwe Horse Trials Championship run this year. Induna’s quite capable of doing the Open Novice class and Encore will go Intermediate. What do you think? I’ve got two novice horses I want to put through this year. One belongs to the Johnsons over on Narrow Spruit Farm.”
She bites into a peanut butter sandwich and we smile at each other with our eyes only.
“Oh? Who’s that?”
“Telstar. Lovely bright bay Anglo-Arab with two socks behind. The other is Reckless, a fab black Thoroughbred I’ve been promised by Melody Cloete.”
It’s worked. The two guys have lost interest. They’re munching their sandwiches with dedication and easing the passage with beer and some sort of internal reflection. Gill and I could, of course, talk Horse all afternoon but, shortly after finishing his food, Maritz starts up with his dire prophesies again. He doesn’t appear to be in a hurry to leave.
I guess it will have to be me.
“Sorry about old Maritz,” Gill says to me through the open side window. “He’s a good neighbour and he means well but he’s one of the old school politically.”
I put the car into reverse. “He seems to know all there is to know about everything.”
“Him? Oh yes. He’s one of those. Whatever you’ve done, he’s done it better or seen a bigger one. You can’t win. We just agree with him.”
Friday 06/11/81
Hi Jess!
Yes, it’s me. You remember me, right?
Sorry I haven’t been in contact for yonks but it’s been a strange time. I’m going to scrawl a few lines and then have to leave it till tomorrow as we’re meeting Gill and Piet and Mum and Rosie at the Monomatapa for dinner tonight. Nathan is looking over my shoulder at this point and protesting that I don’t scrawl. He says my handwriting is, and I quote, “Flowingly lovely”. He’s such an unrepentant charmer.
So yes, you’ve guessed it. I’ve moved into Makuti Park. This is it. I’m here. The house has been sold. Mum and Rosie are living in Meikles Hotel. Dad’s in Southampton. We’re officially split up. They’ll all get back together, but not with me. I don’t really, truly know how I feel about that. I AM the only one who has a permanent home, if that’s any consolation.
Mum’s keeping her car until the day they fly out, then I’ll take it over and sell my 120Y.
Like I said, strange. The day after Dad left, Mum started throwing things away in earnest. I had no idea that would give me such a monumental sense of loss. Bloody disconcerting it was, to watch my entire home being permanently dismantled and packed away in cardboard boxes. Of course you’ve been there. You never said as much but I guess you felt the same? I tried to remember the day we moved into the house and I actually cried when I couldn’t. I have no recollection of it at all. I was only four but you’d think I’d remember something? Thinking about it though, I guess it’s better that I can’t. Maybe it would’ve been worse leaving if I remembered the excitement of arriving. If I was excited? I guess I must have been.
So Rosie and I got instructed to dig through our cupboards and THROW STUFF OUT (Mum’s words, not mine). Did you find so much junk in yours? I found garbage I’d forgotten even existed and I’ve zero idea how it came to be in there in the first place. Useless stuff. Salt, pepper and sugar sachets from SAA and Air Rhodesia. A Tupperware box with three moonstone pebbles and some chunks of pink quartz in it. Another box with loads of stubby wax crayons in it. (Okay, maybe they did have some use, judging by the length of them.) What else? Two strips of bright red wool bound into thick plaits (why?), one wing of a tin toy aeroplane, sheared off at the root (where was the rest of it?) and some small containers of model paint, gone completely solid. God alone knows what happened to the models. I do remember making a Messerschmitt 109 and some other WWII fighters with Rosie when I was into my Biggles craze. They must’ve disintegrated or been thrown away eons ago.
Then there were the old school exercise books. Yup, like you found. Why did we keep them? When we got them, the covers were bright blue, hey? Not any more. All grey and curled up at the edges. I spent a good couple of hours reading through those which was seriously wasted time but entertaining in an alarming sort of way. How the hell did I manage to sneak some reference to horses into almost every conceivable subject? Pony stories in Creative Writing, the importance of the horse in the history of transport and agriculture, a biology essay on the evolution of the skeletal structure of the modern equine, you name it, I found it. And SCHOOL REPORTS! Relieved to discover they clearly didn’t think I was that bad at all coz I mostly got nice comments, apart from a few. Let me quote some for you.
In recognition of my lack of potential to be a domestic goddess:
“Tessa’s knitting has improved little this year. Perhaps she might be more enthusiastic if she could knit herself a pony.”
In recognition of my lack of ability or interest in sport:
“Swimming – Tessa tries hard.”
“Athletics – If Tessa put as much energy into House athletics as she does into pretending to be a show jumper at breaktime, she could do very well.”
And in the absence of anything encouraging to say:
“Tessa has attended hockey and netball lessons this year.”
So I was never going to be any good at sports. Or knitting. I didn’t need a special report to tell me that.
Going to disappear off now. Gotta get ready to party. Back tomorrow.
Saturday 07/11/81
Well I have to say that was quite strange meeting up with Mum and Rosie for a meal rather than GOING with them. The times, they are a-changing for sure. We drank quite a lot, or at least Rosie and Gill and I did. I assume Piet managed to get Gill to their car, and Nathan poured me into ours and said I was talking nonsense. I slept like a log and, surprisingly, don’t seem to have much of a hangover this morning. In fact, I was the first one up and he’s still sound asleep. Next time we go out for the evening I’ll drive him.
Mum seems in good spirits, although she said it’s all a bit unreal being essentially homeless. The folks have had it tough though. So much to do, to sort out. Dad left late in August to take up his new position but he resigned from Prescott, Jones and Partners at the end of June to give himself the free time to arrange for tax clearances, to organise the air freight and shipping and to deal with the unbelievably complicated red tape. He transferred all his money to a new account to which I have access. Ha ha – I’m rich! Well, I like to think I am anyway. I didn’t say that to them of course. It’s a bloody ridiculous situation. They get this token “settling in allowance” they can take with them, which is frankly pathetic, and have to leave the rest here. I can use the money for air fares to visit England and draw it out to give to them if they ever come back here for a holiday. They’re damned lucky they’ve got Dad’s inheritance over there in England. You have family in SA and your Dad’s working so you’re lucky too. So many of their generation who’ve decided to leave have done so with next to nothing, knowing they’ll probably never own a house again. It makes me want to spit blood.
Mum and R will leave on 17th December and R will start at her new school in Southampton after the Christmas holidays. It’s the middle of the school year over there of course. I’m not entirely sure how it will work with her as she’ll be like, six months out of step with the school year. Knowing her, she’ll be fine. In several months it’ll be like she grew up there. I’m not the least worried about her.
The guy who bought the house is an accountant. The day they completed the sale was bloody depressing. Mum seemed quite happy, but me and R were just plain miserable, wandering about trying to memorise every minute detail of the house that’s been our home for the last fourteen years. Like the colour of the walls, the curtains, the plants in the garden. I concentrated on the furniture and ornaments too because they’re now gone as far as I’m concerned. The others won’t lose all that of course.
R did seem to cheer up a bit when she started packing a selection of her clothes to go by sea with the household container. I had three suitcases of clothing to bring with me to Makuti – I was a bit flabbergasted I had so much. Plus several boxes and carrier bags of personal bits and bobs. Mum offered me linen and curtains but how could I take all that? The Owens are being good enough to put me up and I can’t dump loads of junk they don’t need on them as well. I’d rather put together my own home when the time comes. I told her that. You know what she said? “You’re not going to be in too much of a hurry to move out?” What she really meant of course was, “You’re not going to be in too much of a hurry to get married”. She’s grudgingly come round to admitting that Nathan and I are just the best fit ever. Well, I say grudgingly but it’s not as bad as that. She likes him – she just was so convinced that Danny was It. Oh – did I tell you I quite literally bumped into him back at the end of September? It was a Saturday and me and R were in town and she was whining about the fact that I’d made her walk all the way down to the saddlery place in Forbes Avenue and I was trying to ignore her and dodge my way through droves of people – the whole world was in town that day – and get back to the car and get home and it suddenly dawned on me that I was following the back of a very familiar form. I had this moment of horrible dilemma, wondering how I was going to tell R why I suddenly wanted to go the other way and then he stopped and I walked into him! Well, if you’d told me a person could look like he did when he turned and saw me, I wouldn’t have believed you. He must’ve had twenty expressions run across his face one after the other. It was hilarious, when I think about it now, but at the time just plain sad. He was SO excited, I swear he thought I was about to say I wanted him back. Poor guy. I felt so mean. He greeted me as My Girl and tried to hug me and I wanted to hug him but didn’t want to give him the wrong idea. One of life’s more awkward moments, let me tell you. We asked each other a volley of questions at the same time and then started answering those questions over each other. R said it was like watching a comedy sketch.
Basically, he’s fine and doing well at university. He had no idea the folks and R were leaving so that news left him a bit dumbfounded. I think he thought for a moment I was going too and that clearly hit him hard, but then when I said I was staying with the Owens he just went all quiet. He said something like What about you and… er… and I said We’re fine and I must’ve sounded as happy as I felt. He didn’t like that.
Did you hear about that UANC bloke who was shot coming out of his driveway? They’re pointing fingers at ZANU(PF) and so far they haven’t denied it. Well, it happened in the street behind the Proctors’ place. He told me this story about how he and his mum were the only ones at home and they were watching Danger UXB, and were on the edges of their seats as old Brian Ash was delicately defusing a monster bomb, when they heard what sounded like someone hammering on a sheet of corrugated iron just outside the back door. AK47 of course. They emptied a whole magazine into him by the sound of it and then scarpered. Danny said all the local residents got out their weapons and started firing at anything that moved so it was a bit hairy for a while, until the cops arrived. I can picture it – a bunch of twitchy, trigger-happy citizens hiding behind hedges and gates, trying to be the local SWAT team. Luckily, no one else got hurt.
Danny’s not seeing anyone else yet, by the way. He reckons he hasn’t found a girl to match the required standard. I didn’t know what to say to that.
It was last Friday when we all left the house. My darling kid sister broke down. God, it nearly killed me. She was inconsolable, shutting herself in her bedroom for nearly an hour. When she did come out, she sat on the verandah railings and stared across the valley at the view – our view – that’s just been there every day of her life and that she knew she would never see again. Mum and I left her alone until the Biddulphs lorry arrived, but then I had to enlist her to help me get Cleo and Skellum into my car.
Cleo had, inevitably, disappeared earlier in the morning and as you can imagine we all hit a high level of panic. It was a hard job convincing myself and the other two not to rush about like headless chickens, calling for her. You know what cats are like. She’d have known damned well something was up just from the vibe in the air and panicky running about and yelling would only convince her she was right. So sure enough, I spotted her slinking around in the bushes behind the washing line about half an hour later. R was all for diving in and grabbing her but I insisted we just went out to sit on the lawn, to entice her to join us. Once we’d caught her, we shut her in the empty dining room with milk and nibbles. Both her and Skellum have settled remarkably well here, thank goodness. Skellum absolutely adores Nathan but I’m not jealous. I tell him it’s only what he should expect when he keeps sharing his biltong with the dog.
Those packers were super-efficient. I got the feeling that if I’d stood still for too long I would’ve got packed too. In about four hours our entire household was on a lorry. All that was left was the neighbours’ kettle and mugs. I couldn’t wait to get out. I didn’t want to see it like that – empty and echoing, curtainless windows. It might’ve been okay if we’d been going to a new house we’d all chosen but it all seemed so final in this case. The Parsons were all out so we left the kettle and mugs with Susan (she’s their new maid). I was pretty glad all told. I didn’t want to go through the Goodbyes. It’s not like Mum was flying out right there and then anyway. She’s phoned Cheryl and Alan since and they’ve called into the hotel a few times.
Mum keeps reminding me how the government is talking again about taking land from the white farmers for ‘resettlement’. Not buying it, just taking it. And they’ve also said that anyone who will not conform to the ‘New Order’ can go right now. She wanted to know how much land Charles has. I keep telling her he’s not a commercial farmer so then she moves on to Piet and Gill’s place and seems convinced they’ll be kicked off at some stage. Piet says it’s all talk and they’ll never do it. Well it doesn’t make sense, does it? Why would they tamper with an industry that’s so vital to the economy and supports so many jobs?
I still can’t convince Mum why I want to give it a chance and stay. She’s worried about leaving me here – I understand that. She’s saying – well, so is Dad, to be honest – that most of the government ministers are hell bent on some sort of revenge against the whites. They keep telling me I’m burying my head in the sand.
The Constitution they eventually managed to draw up at that Lancaster House fiasco can’t be changed for ten years. By then things may have settled and we should know which way it’s all going. Charles Owen reckons the IMF has a tight rein on the situation and they’ll stop financial aid at any violation of human rights. Mugabe’s a sensible man. He knows he needs the support of the world for the economy to survive.
So, I’m staying.
Now look – I want an equally long epistle back from you my girl. Get your pen out.
Work hard and don’t let the bastards grind you down!
Love ‘n’ love,
Tess xxx
I put my pen down. I haven’t told her the half of it but I’m incapable of putting most of the roller coaster emotions I’ve discovered in the last few weeks into words. The way I’ve been on such a high – a scudding around in the clouds, life is just the best, nothing could possibly go wrong ever again kind of high – only to come crashing down minutes later into a black hole from which nothing can ever go right again. The way I’ve endlessly questioned my own decisions like never before and like I never realised was possible. I can’t write all that in a letter – I don’t have the literary skills. But one of these days we can spend hours talking about it.
Or maybe not. Maybe by the time we get to meet up again it will all seem irrelevant and part of another life. Water under the bridge, as they say.
Just how I’m going to say goodbye to Mum and Rosie, or how I’ll feel at the airport, is one of those unknowns that is so impossible to foresee it’s outright petrifying. Saying goodbye to Dad wasn’t hard at all, but only because it was like he was going on a business trip, because the rest of us were still together and seeing him off like we’ve done before, as if he’d be returning soon and we’d be back at the airport to pick him up. When they go… Can I deal with something so final?
Don’t be stupid. It won’t be final at all. We’ll see each other again of course. But what is final, what has ended, is the way I’ve lived for the last eighteen years. We won’t ever live all together again – of that I’m sure. And that’s another thing that puts me in the clouds or down in the hole depending on the direction of the wind, or so it seems.
It was bad enough saying goodbye to Elijah. Mum was calm, business-like, at a distance, thanking him for his services, wishing him well, taking it for granted that he’d turn his back and walk away and put their relationship at an end. Or at least that’s how she came across to me, hoping in vain like I was that she’d show at least some emotion. Rosie and I had no such inhibitions. We did the awkward thing first – double African handshakes all round, thank yous, wish you wells – then like someone had pressed a button we all started blubbing and he grabbed both of us at once in a three-way hug. Anyone watching would’ve thought one or more of us was about to die, even though I knew – I know – there’s a distinct possibility I’ll meet him again. Rosie won’t, though. I never saw Mum’s face, but she was probably hopping about, incredulously disapproving of our intimate moment with the gardener. Still, nothing she could do about it.
Elijah. In my head right now he’s picking vegetables and fruit, hoeing the beds, weeding, clipping edges, mending bike tyre punctures, playing with Skellum (our vicious guard dog), opening the gates for Dad. He’s sitting outside his kaya of an evening with his family around him and, those times Rosie and I dared to join them, telling us stories of Shona traditions and myths. We’re sitting cross legged in front of him and listening and asking questions and sharing jokes. We’re playing games with his kids, making roads for our Dinky cars in the sand behind the kaya, dressing Mary’s dolls in our dolls’ clothing.
But the line in the sand that over-rode everything was that line between us, wasn’t it? Gardener and The Family. Not simply Employee and Employers, but Black and White. We knew the line existed and we wanted to ignore it, but Dad had drawn it and we minded Dad.
“Don’t spend too much time down there in the kaya,” was the repeated warning. We asked why. Mum said Mary might make the doll clothing dirty, or lose it, or Simeon and Ephraim might damage our cars. She said, did we realise these kids might actually steal the clothes, dolls and cars? Sometimes she was more generous – she thought they might just forget to give them back. Dad said we might start picking up Shona expressions and learn to speak like Africans.
Hell, we live in Africa. We grew up here. If we’d chanced to live in France, we’d’ve learned to speak like the French. Or in Germany, the Germans. He wouldn’t have objected to that, would he? Of course not. He thinks being multi-lingual in European languages is admirable.
So he drew lines, and good little well-behaved me has respected his lines all my life and only ever picked up a pathetic few words and phrases in Shona. Well, damnit, things have changed and I can learn whatever I want. I’ll enrol on a Shona course.
Actually, I don’t even have to do that. From now on I’m going to enlist the grooms to teach me more. And Nathan. He’s pretty much fluent. Gill not so much, but she understands more than she speaks. There are grammar books here in this house. Charles probably taught them as much as any native speakers.
Mum liked the dividing lines for health reasons too.
“Don’t ever eat anything Irene offers you. The kaya’s not very clean and they don’t eat like us.”
To this day I don’t know if she ever went into the kaya to see for herself. Irene’s cooking utensils were kept scrupulously clean and tidy and as all her children were healthy and strong and had perfect teeth, I figured there couldn’t be much wrong with her cooking. Rosie and I were well fed, so we never had need to accept any food from her, and nor would the idea have occurred to us I guess, until that hot, sultry summer evening when we saw Mary, Ephraim and Simeon catching flying ants. I can’t precisely remember how they were catching them – masses of them, clouding around each streetlight even as the thunder died away – I just remember the OK carrier-bags wriggling with life and Mary shouting, in English, “Keep it closed! No, Simeon, look, you’re letting them out, man, idiot!” because each time he tried to put another handful of insects into his bag, a whole squadron of them escaped.
There’s nothing like a game of dare and double-dare. Of course we goaded each other into following the kids back to the kaya, where we spent the best part of thirty minutes persuading Irene to give us a few of the fried insects from her hefty iron pan.
“You should go back to the house. Your mother will be looking for you.”
“Nah,” Rosie scoffed. “She thinks we’re at the Halls’ place. Oh Irene, please? Just a few. Come on! Bet you wouldn’t eat them, Tee.”
“Bet I would. Would you?”
“Of course! Bet you won’t though.”
“Bet you won’t.”
“I will. I’ll dare you to eat some!”
“I double-dare you to eat some!”
Irene didn’t have a clue what to do with us. She giggled a lot and avoided eye contact. Her three children just stared at us open mouthed, watching us baiting each other, their heads bobbing back and forth as if they were at a tennis match.
I really, really didn’t want to eat any flying ants. Seriously. But in the end it came down to saving face. I screwed up my nose and stuffed a spoonful of them into my mouth. And I boasted of it to Charles the next day.
“Yeah, course I ate them. They just taste like peanut butter.”
He said he guessed they probably did and that will be because they’d been fried in groundnut oil.
Of course.
Just short of six weeks till they fly. It seems like a lifetime, right now. But it’ll be over in a flash.