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SEVERAL HOT AND DUSTY hours later, they arrived at the small bungalow which nestled on the edge of the forest where the dunes began, deep in the iSimangaliso Marine Reserve on the northern coast of KwaZulu-Natal.
The bungalow had a thatched roof and to one side of it was a boatshed with a rusted corrugated-iron roof. From the veranda which ran the length of the front of the bungalow, the girls looked out over endless stretches of sandy beaches, stained golden by the warm light of the setting sun. Ahead of them, the Indian Ocean roared and pounded its waves onto the beach.
“Tide’s coming in,” Mr. Steadman said.
He unlocked the padlock, security gate and front door, and stepped inside the bungalow, but the girls paused for a moment, still enjoying the view.
“It’s so beautiful,” Jessie said in an awed voice.
“I love it,” Samantha said, happy to share the place that was so special to her with her friends. “When my mom was still alive, we used to come here almost every holiday. She loved to swim. She could stay out for hours and hours.”
Jessie glanced across at her. Samantha had never spoken of her mother to her new friends.
“When?” asked Jessie, simply.
“Hmm?” said Samantha, as if recalled from a memory of another scene, another time.
“Oh, three years ago. She was sick for a while before that. Cancer. Dad struggled to cope with me at day school, but he promised Mom no boarding school until high school. So that’s why I started at Clifford only this year. My aunt, my mother’s sister, helped my father a lot. It was so difficult for him, and Dan and James, too, of course.”
Cassandra, who had stood silently alongside Samantha while they spoke, reached over and hugged her around the waist, saying, “I’m sorry. I would miss my mommy very much if she died.”
Samantha brushed tears from her eyes. “I’m okay, mostly. It gets easier as time passes. But sometimes, something will bring her back to me so strongly, and then I miss her like mad.”
Jessie gave her friend’s shoulders a squeeze, and they stood for a while longer, looking out at the sky, now a blazing red streaked with the dark purple of distant clouds.
“Are you lot going to stand there all day, or are you going to give me a hand with unpacking?” Mr. Steadman’s said.
Their reverie broken, they all went to the Landy to help unload it. Inside the bungalow, Samantha opened the curtains and windows to let the fresh sea breeze in. The large living room was filled with comfortable old couches and chairs, a scratched and dented coffee table stained by the rings of countless cups, and shelves stacked with books and several boxes of jigsaw puzzles. There was a small kitchenette with yellow cupboards at the far end of the room.
“The bedrooms are this way,” Samantha said, heading down a short passage which led off the living room and opening one of the doors. “This is where James usually sleeps and —”
“Dibs on this room,” Jessie said quickly.
“Big surprise,” Cassandra muttered.
Samantha pointed to a bed over which hung a guitar case. “This is his bed.”
Jessie climbed onto the bed and stretched herself out with hands at her sides, palm down, as if to sense vibrations; Cassandra rolled her eyes. Taking in the posters of musicians stuck on the wall beside the bed, Jessie read, “Bach, Mozart, Jimmy Hendrix, Bob Dylan, James Blunt, Eric Clapton. Oh, James is so intelligent and cultured and cool.”
“Well, I’ve heard of those two,” said Cassandra, pointing at the wigged portraits of Bach and Mozart. “But who the heck are they?” she asked, waving a dismissive hand at the other posters.
“Ignoramus! They’re only the best guitarists of the last century,” Jessie said, and then added a little uncertainly, “At least, that’s who I think they are.”
“They’re his heroes, especially Clapton,” said Samantha, opening the windows wide.
Jessie looked around in a hopeful sort of way. “Sam, isn’t there a photo of James here?”
“Uh, no, he doesn’t keep a picture of himself at his bedside. And you should know that Dan also sleeps in this room. Over there.”
Jessie cast a quick glance over to Dan’s side of the bedroom. A mobile of whales and dolphins roughly crafted out of wire hung over his bed and moon-phase calendars and tide charts were stuck haphazardly above the headboard, while a shelf of untidily stacked books ran the length of his bed. A pin-up poster of a pretty woman wearing a bikini was stuck on the wall near the pillows.
Jessie snorted. “I’ll try not to let it distress me. You can sleep in his bed, Caz.”
“My room’s just next door,” Samantha said.
Walking into her bedroom was a little blinding. The walls and ceiling and even the wooden floor were painted a bright white. It might have looked like a cell in a mental asylum, except for the sky-blue curtains and bedding, and the dark blue rug which lay on the floor. On the bedside table stood a small silver-framed photograph of her mother, while the rest of the surfaces of the room were decorated with an assortment of shells, driftwood and thick, intricately knotted sections of sisal rope. The overall impression was fresh, bright and nautical.
“I like it! But you need a picture or something for that wall,” Jessie said, pointing at a blank expanse opposite Samantha’s bed.
“Could you paint me one?”
“Me?” Jessie sounded doubtful but she didn’t, Samantha noticed, refuse outright.
Everyone was tired and hungry, so they had an early supper of bacon rolls. Mr. Steadman declared himself too tired to go out looking for turtles that evening but promised that they would definitely go on the hunt the next night. He stretched himself out comfortably on one of the sofas with a thick book and promptly fell asleep.
Samantha, Jessie and Cassandra who had bought snacks at a village on the way, now sat cross-legged on Samantha’s bed, planning a midnight feast. Samantha placed several bags of crisps and a few ropes of twisted liquorice onto the bedspread; Jessie added a dozen different chocolate bars, and three bottles of chocolate milk, and Cassandra tossed in a large packet of sour jelly babies and six enormous, fiery-red gobstoppers.
“They’re really hot!” she said proudly.
Jessie eyed Cassandra’s contribution with a revolted expression. “Disgusting! I don’t like any of those.”
Cassandra smiled slyly. “What a pity. I’ll have to eat them all myself.”
“So, I’ll wake us up at midnight, okay?” Jessie said. “And we’ll have the feast in James’s room. On his bed.”
“You sure you don’t want me to do the waking up?” Samantha asked.
“Don’t you trust me? I’ll set the alarm on my phone, now. There you are, all done.”
The girls went off to brush their teeth — “Though it seems a waste, since we’re just going to dirty them again in a few hours,” said Cassandra — and then went to bed.
Mr. Steadman’s snores echoed from the living room and the cries of night birds and the dull roar of the ocean drifted in through Samantha’s window where she stood, looking out at the stars. Sighing, she climbed into bed, turned the photograph of her mother to face her, and whispered a soft “Goodnight, Mom,” before sinking instantly into a deep sleep.
She woke to bright light shining in her eyes. At first, she thought it must be Jessie, waking her for the midnight feast, but when she opened her eyes, she discovered that it was morning, and bright sunlight was streaming in through the window. Rubbing her eyes, she walked to Jessie’s room where both Jessie and Cassandra were still sound asleep.
“Hey,” she said, flopping on Jessie’s bed and poking her on the shoulder. “You forgot to wake us up for the feast!”
Cassandra immediately sat up and threw a pillow at her sister, but Jessie woke up reluctantly.
“I was having such a lovely dream. James was playing a guitar and singing ‘You’re beautiful’ to me,” she said, yawning. “You’re beautiful, it’s true,” she sang into her pillow. “And Jimi Hendrix was there, and he said, ‘That’s true, even if she is a sour sweet, man.’ And you guys and Nomusa were there, like backing singers.” She sat up and gave Dan’s bed a satisfied look. “And your other brother was not in the dream at all! Come on, let’s have our feast.”
“But we’ve missed it,” Samantha said.
“Nah, we’ve just built up our appetites a bit, that’s all. I’m starving!”
“Sweets for breakfast?”
“YOLO!” Jessie said, and they tucked in.