CHAPTER FIFTY

Ricus was a good counsellor. He knew when it was time to be quiet and time to say something, and when it was time to eat.

He turned my pot of fritters next to the fire, then pulled a long fat thing out of the black cast-iron pot and laid it on the grid on top of the coals.

‘This won’t take long,’ said Ricus.

‘What is that?’ asked Lemoni.

‘Pofadder,’ said Ricus.

Lemoni squealed and swatted at the air with her hand. ‘Ew. How disgusting!’

You shouldn’t be rude about food, but I felt sorry for her, so I explained, ‘It’s sausage.’

‘I am not eating puffadder,’ she said, ‘whatever way you cook it.’

‘No, no,’ said Dirk, who was more sorry for her than I was. ‘We’re not eating snake. It’s just the name of a kind of thick sausage.’

‘Oh. It still looks gross.’

I frowned, but Ricus just smiled and adjusted the sausage on the grid.

‘Before we eat,’ he said, ‘bring your awareness back to your body and your senses.’

I could smell my pumpkin fritters and hear the sausage grilling. I heard Mielie bark and looked up to see her herding her sheep towards the kraal. The sun was falling, and the long white thorns on the trees were now a reddish colour.

Then the sun was gone, and there was just a bloody smudge in the darkening sky. Ricus dished up two plates with sausage and pumpkin fritters, and gave them to Ousies.

‘For Johannes and Kannemeyer,’ he said.

Johannes was behind the red Mini van, tidying up, packing away his tools. Henk was further away, and Ousies walked out into the veld with his food.

Fatima helped Ricus to serve Lemoni, Dirk, Tata and me. Dirk ate all his sausage in the time it took Lemoni to nibble on the edge of her pumpkin fritter.

‘This fritter is divine, koukla,’ Lemoni said to me.

‘And the pofadder is excellent,’ I said to Ricus, when I had swallowed a juicy mouthful. ‘Roasted coriander seeds?’

‘Ja, crushed. And dried thyme,’ said Ricus.

‘And Worcester sauce,’ said Dirk.

‘You have made pofadder, then?’ Ricus asked.

‘Ja, once, on a hunting trip.’

Lemoni cut off a small piece and chewed. She nodded, like it was not bad.

‘What meat is it?’ she asked.

‘Springbok and kudu,’ said Ricus.

‘Liver, heart and kidney,’ said Dirk. ‘Stuffed into the intestine.’

Lemoni coughed and some of her mouthful might have come out. But at least she didn’t say anything. And she did eat up all of her fritter.

Ricus gave us napkins and cleared up the plates, then Ousies collected the napkins and swept us towards the fire. My pot was still there, with leftover fritters inside it.

As I joined the fire circle, I heard Henk call ‘Kosie’ and saw a dark figure chasing what looked like a dog and a lamb. I guess Henk had been distracted by his dinner, and Mielie had taken the chance to herd Kosie to bed.

We stood around the fire, looking into the coals. Tata, in his dark suit, almost disappeared into the night. Just the moonlit flash of his white T-shirt beneath his jacket made him visible. Lemoni was holding her handbag under her arm and cleaning her fingers with her handkerchief. Ousies offered her another napkin, which she used to polish her fingernails, then Ousies took it back again, adding it to her bundle of napkins. She dropped a handful of dried thyme on the fire and then began that song that sounds like distant winds and birds that live deep in the forests.

She threw the pile of napkins onto the fire, and we all disappeared in the smoke. I closed my eyes so they wouldn’t sting. Far away, Henk shouted ‘Kosie!’ again. There was a clanging of Johannes and his tools. The sound of a truck on Route 62. An owl called, joining in with Ousies’s song. Whoo hooo.

Then there was a short sharp sound.

Very loud. Like a car backfiring. Or a gunshot.

I stepped back out of the smoke and saw Tata, his hand to his heart. Ousies was catching him from behind as he fell. His fingers slipped, and I saw the hole leaking red onto his white T-shirt.

The weight was too much for Ousies to hold, and she lowered him slowly to the ground. The napkins caught fire, and the light flared across Tata’s face. He had a small smile on the edge of his lips. His eyes were wide open, staring.

I waited for him to blink. But he did not.