by Peter Rimmer
Gregory found Fran drunk in the one armchair and, taking a clean set of clothing, left without a word. The small shower enclosures, one for the men and one for the women, allowed a man to shower while looking over the top of the thatch-grass. The water was tepid from the day’s sun. He added a jug of hot water to the large bucket and with the rope that looped over an arm of a tree, hoisted the contraption above his head and tied the rope. A piece of rubber hose was attached to the bottom of the bucket and dangled over his head held straight down by the weight of a large iron rose.
Reaching up he turned the spigot above the shower rose and warm water began to wash the day’s dirt from his body. Were it not for Fran drunk in the chair he would have whistled a tune. Tinus, in the ladies’ shower with Seb outside standing guard, was singing in the Taal, a tune his grandfather had taught him from the Great Trek. Halfway through he switched to English and an even older song of his mother’s Scottish clan, the McDonalds. He was in fine voice, and forgetting himself Tinus began to whistle ‘Greensleeves’ the song some said had been written by Henry the Eighth.
“Shut that up, you Sassenach,” came from the next shower and all three of them began to laugh.
“Hurry up both of you,” shouted Seb. “I need my gin.”
The unopened letters sat on the low table on Tinus’s veranda that he alone called the stoep. Gregory had given his apologies for Fran, saying she was tired, which everyone knew was a lie. The sun had set leaving a red sky behind the msasa trees and for the first time, Emily noticed Tinus had left his gun in the gun cabinet. When not in use the guns were chained so the children, Harry in particular, could not take them out. Gregory said his obligatory ‘that tastes good’; Henry said cheers and went back to his book while Alison related the story of the cat and the dead rat on her dining room table. Barend tried to twist Madge’s hair and received a loud, unladylike smack which made him grin; he had caught her attention. George was fast asleep on a rush mat near the screen door. Slowly the pressure lamp took over the light as colour faded from the night sky. Far away there was a rumble of thunder, the unspoken hope in all of them that it would bring some rain. Food was set out on the big table that had been moved onto the screened veranda for the summer. The tension of war that invaded their lives for so long was gone and the only blight on their happiness was Fran and Gregory Shaw.
The experiment of using the maize corn to fatten the cows, Seb’s great brainchild, had worked and the farm for the first time was self-sufficient. Thirty black men were now empowered and housed in their own compound, each family given an area to build a hut in the same tradition their own chiefs had perpetuated through the centuries. All signs of fear had left the farm and food was assured for everyone. They could hear drums beating from the native compound, a sure sign of content.
“You’d better open them,” said Alison.
“Doyle saying he’s gone bust,” said Tinus.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Sebastian picking up his letter from the low table where in his mind’s eye it was burning a hole. The huge hand of Tinus came forward and picked up his letter. The letters were opened in silence and Henry put down his book. Everyone waited. Seb looked up for a moment and then started again. Tinus had finished reading and was staring at the ceiling, the lamp throwing strange shadows from his full beard up over the dark cavities of his eyes. Silently he passed the letter to his wife. Seb finished the letter for the second time and gave it to Emily. Tinus began to chuckle from deep in his big chest, the shirt buttons fighting to stay attached to his shirt.
“What’s going on, old boy?” asked Gregory.
“Very simply,” said Sebastian, “my partner and I are very rich. Em, give him the letter. Alison, pass yours to my father-in-law if you don’t mind, Tinus. Presume they have made you the same offer?”
“Sixty thousand pounds sterling. Who are these Baring Brothers?”
“The largest merchant bank in London,” said Henry, scanning the letter passed to him from Alison. “My word, that really will put the old pirate’s nose out of joint.” And then everyone began to laugh at the reference to The Captain, the reason for all of them being in the room.
“Are you going to sell?” asked Seb of Tinus quietly.
“Of course I am. Look, Seb, a farm can belong to only one person in the end. We both know that. My dream, far back in my mind as I knew I would never have the money, is to buy a wine farm in the Cape. Ceres in particular. Every Boer wants a wine farm in the Cape with a long Cape Dutch house and a cottage down the road by the sea. Why don’t we both buy farms in the Cape?”
“Funny how money upsets everything,” said Fran Shaw, pushing open the screen door. “Someone better give me a gin. You either have too much or too little. Splits up the jolly old family, see.” She was quite drunk and Gregory put her down in his chair.
“Funny how often the truth comes from babes and drunks,” said Gregory too quickly. There was a long silence. “No, Fran, I apologise. That was quite unnecessary. Appearances, Fran, appearances. Always so very important. No, on second thoughts let us go home. Will you excuse us, everyone? Good night.”
“Take some supper,” said Alison.
“Sorry. But I don’t feel hungry. Henry, old boy, I’ll see you in the morning. Such a long way from Florence don’t you think? A long way from Chittagong. A long way from Nottingham. Fact is, I’m a long way from anywhere.”
Working on the principle that talking about a bad situation makes it worse, Emily turned to the children.
“Come along, children, it is well past your bedtime.”
“Mummy, I’m still hungry,” said Madge trying to keep the whine out of her voice.
“You’ve eaten enough for three grown people.”
“Harry,” said his grandfather stepping into the breach, “come along and I’ll tell you another story of the first Mandervilles who landed with William the Conqueror.”
“Oh, tops. Come on, Madge, Grandfather’s going to tell us a story.”
“Barend,” said Tinus, “take your sister back to the house.” He spoke in the Taal and without a question, Barend took his sister by the hand. “Both kiss your mother and aunt before you go… Good night.”
“Father,” said Emily, “can you pick up George? He’s fast asleep.”
When Henry had taken his grandchildren and Barend and his sister had gone to their house, Emily turned to Alison and Tinus, “What are we going to do?”
“Nothing,” said Tinus.
“She’s drunk. Unhappy. He’s miserable.”
“Never tell a person the truth about themselves. First, they will secretly hate you and secondly, it will not do any good. We can be kind to both of them, Em. All we can do. Married people have to go to each other with their problems.”
“If only she had some children,” said Alison.
“Would you like me to serve supper?” said Emily. “My father will be a long time with the children. He loves to tell stories.”
“He should write them down for the future,” said Alison, quickly following the change of subject.
“He has his butterflies,” said Emily, relieved the crisis was over, “and now he has all the flowers and insects to contend with.”
As Emily got to her feet with the others to go to the dining room table and their cold supper, a crash that sounded like broken pottery echoed across the houses over the beat of native drums throbbing constantly from the compound down by the river.
For the first time in his life, Gregory Shaw almost hit a woman but upbringing and training stopped the deadly impulse. Turning away from the woman who had thrown the jug, he was sick with horror at what he had almost done. He knew that if he was not a gentleman, he was nothing. Outside the fox terriers were barking, a hollow sound in the empty night.
Sobered by the broken jug and the brief threat of her husband, Fran began to shake. She tried to tell the dogs to shut up but nothing came out of her mouth. Gregory had his head bent away from her and the horror of what he was
doing came to her and with it understanding. He was crying. Silently. But he was crying and for once she began to think about someone other than herself.
“Greg, I’m sorry.”
“I nearly hit you.”
“I know.”
“That is so terrible. You know that. A man hitting a woman.”
“It’s my fault. I married you because I thought you were rich.”
“It’s my fault. I thought a wife so young would bring back lost years.”
“And extinguish her memory.”
“Maybe… Are people always selfish?”
“Always, Greg. If they think otherwise they are lying to themselves. Even charity is given for self-satisfaction. Each must have what the other wants to balance. Harmony comes with balance I think, though mostly I don’t know what to think.”
“You want to go back to England. I have nothing but my share in this farm and that doesn’t amount to anything if you want to be rich. Divorce and where will you go? I didn’t know about the Catholic clause, and with my dreams rushing around me I wouldn’t have cared. Digging farms out of the African bush is hard, Fran. There are things here we didn’t know about in England. Rinderpest. Too much rain. Drought. War. Did you know last night a leopard ate the head from a calf while it was being born? Smelt the blood of birth. Tinus had to shoot the cow. No one has ever tamed Africa and maybe no one ever will. Even Nat had his church burnt to the ground. His school. Everything he thought he was doing right. But Africa didn’t want his God any more than his education.”
“Will the money come back if we divorce?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you want to find out?”
“No. What I have is here. I’m too old to change my life. Fran, I’m almost forty-four and most of my life has gone.”
Quietly Gregory went down on his knees next to the cold fireplace and began to pick up the pieces of broken porcelain from the rush mat. Outside the dogs had stopped barking. In the still of the night they could hear Henry Manderville’s voice storytelling his grandchildren and for a moment they both listened through the open windows. Then the drums stopped and without the rain the frogs were silent. Even the whirr of crickets was dampened by the dark of the moonless night.
“He loves his grandchildren,” said Gregory.
“Oh, yes. They have something to give each other, you see. The balance. They are his future and he is their past. He likes talking the stories and they like listening. It’s all about them. Their family. They all belong to the same thing… Don’t blame yourself. I was a fool long before I met you. Probably always been a fool. Part of what’s being told out there I wanted… Family, children, belonging, but something else said there was more and I went looking. I enjoyed everything on the surface and you were to be the rich prize of my success. There was music but that was only on the surface. Do you know, I have never heard an original note of music in my life? When I took my LRAM I cheated on the composition. I thought of Mozart and changed some of the notes because there were so many of them. I was so good at fooling people and myself that one of the teachers thought I would go into composition. Become a composer. For a brief flight of fancy I believed him, fool that I was. We are what we are, Gregory. Thank you for not hitting me. I deserved it. Can you bear to give me a hug?”
“Of course, you fool.”
“Maybe only babes and drunks do tell the truth.”
“You’re not drunk anymore.”
“No, I’m not.”
The letter from Captain Doyle that was meant to precede the offer from Barings Brothers arrived a week later. For the families living in isolation, the idea of the white tribes of Africa having a war with each other was ludicrous. When Gregory laughed out loud at the idea of untrained farmers squaring up to the British Empire, he received a look from Tinus that was murderous. Quickly apologising, he had quite forgotten the man he worked with all day long was not an Englishman.
“Tinus, you don’t really think this Kruger wants a war… Why?”
“To keep him in power. To keep his Boers from the grip of the British. My grandfather trekked away from the British, away from the Cape and British rules and regulations. The only rules the Boer accepts are those in the Bible. A Boer, his family, his Bible and a rifle. That’s freedom. Individual freedom. Democracy ties the hands of a man like that, always telling him to do the will of the majority. There are more Uitlanders, foreigners, than Boers in the Transvaal digging for gold. The right of every white man to vote will give them the power and join the Transvaal to the British, what my grandfather risked everything to get away from. Captain Doyle is right. If the British force Kruger to enfranchise the Uitlanders, he will fight.”
“But he will lose in a week,” said Gregory.
“The veld is big and wide. The Boer knows every kopje and every Boer can kill a buck with one shot from five hundred yards. Those British red coats with the nice white sash that crosses over the heart will make a good target. Don’t laugh at the Boers, Gregory. You will regret it.”
“But you want to go to the Cape,” interrupted Sebastian. “That’s going back in your family history.”
“My mother was Scottish. My wife is English. I live here under British rule. Don’t judge the Boers by me, Seb. Some would say I am a detribalised Boer, ruined by English influences. No, Seb, you can’t dissuade me. I’m selling. Having my wine farm.”
“The children will miss each other,” said Emily, keeping the fear of loneliness out of her voice.
“Yes they will but soon new families will arrive in the Mazoe Valley. The rich red soil will bring them. With your dividends from African Shipping, Seb, you can buy out my share in Elephant Walk.”
“When are you leaving?” asked Sebastian sadly.
“When these English bankers pay me my money.”
“And war with England and the Transvaal. Which side will you take?”
“I will take no side. The war will be far away from my wine farm. Look, Emily, you and the children will visit. When Barend grows bigger, he will want to come to his father’s old hunting grounds. We will always be related to each other, if not by blood then by memory. I can send you the equipment you need. Newer strains of livestock, bigger cattle. Come, this isn’t the end of our world together.”
Fran watched her husband and understood. She had given up drinking during the day having embarrassed herself in front of her friends. Instead, she waited impatiently for the first drink on Tinus Oosthuizen’s veranda. Gregory’s back had straightened. The eyes had lost their hesitancy. For one brief moment of hope, she thought his impotency would leave with his new strength. The man was a soldier who had lost his job and the thought of war had brought him alive again. In a war, they would need his skills. In a war, petty convention would be drowned in necessity. In a war, Gregory Shaw would be a soldier again, a real soldier with a uniform, a real command, a purpose for his life. She never spoke what was in her mind but they both knew; war would be good for both of them. In front of her eyes, the ageing husband had become a young man again. For a moment she was even jealous.
The one thing Henry Manderville feared most in the bush was snakes. For lions and buffalo, he carried a gun with a good chance of acquitting himself. Snakes were waiting for him hidden in the grass, and no amount of expert reading could convince him his footfall vibrating through the earth sent most snakes running faster than he would have wished to run himself. High gaiters and leather trousers were his answer to the phobia, and he carried a long stick with a short fork at the end for imprisoning the upper halves of snakes firmly to the ground with the idea of walking around the pole to make his escape.
Every day he left with the rising sun, the butterfly net firmly attached to his haversack, the hoop behind his head, the handle bouncing on his bottom; a wide-brimmed hat turned down at the front kept out the yellow light of the morning sun. For all intents and purposes, he had given up farming in pursuit of his new obsession. All over the rondavel were books open and
shut.
The riverside acacia was chock-full of birds and butterflies from very large fish eagles to small songsters that had no English names. The butterflies flitted from flower to flower, small ones like the cabbage whites he had known in England to creatures with long tail feathers more like kites than butterflies. All the problems of the world had left his mind to live free with nature, and Henry had never known such contentment. All the wonders of the world were around him in the trees and bush, the long elephant grass, the reeds by the river, gurgling water, the hum of bees and the calling of the birds. Best of all, he told himself, there was not one sign of man, only animals watering peacefully from the river.
At midday when the sun was too hot to venture from the shade of the tall acacia trees, lacelike in green leaf and sharp with thorn, Henry collected water from the river and in the protection of rocks washed clean by the river in flood, he made a fire and boiled water for his tea. Down by the river, where a swirl of water through the rocks had given him the perfect hiding place, he collected his bottle of milk. A man without a sweet tooth, he drank his sugarless tea and prepared to catch his lunch, a ritual that provided Henry with short bursts of excitement as well as long periods of hunger when the fish wouldn’t bite. On fishless days he refused to eat in punishment, and left the buttered bread in its waxed paper to be eaten the following day.
During the heat of the day, with his back to a tree trunk, he read the books from England stashed in his haversack. When the white light of day yellowed with the sinking of the sun he foraged for his specimens, and with the last rays of the sun burning the sky red, he trudged home a happy man.
Back in the compound they smiled at him, gave him a drink on the veranda as was their ritual, and told him of their day. Sometimes he showed them what he had found but not always.
Young Harry borrowed a pair of British Army field glasses from Uncle Gregory and spent a long and hungry day viewing his grandfather from the sanctuary of a shaded outcrop of rocks across the river. He was fascinated by the leather pants that had been lovingly made from the skin of young bushbuck carefully cured in salt to softness. The butterfly net gave his grandfather a halo with the morning sun in his face and Harry expected him to be doing great things with so much equipment: the gun, the forked stick, the pole and net, the haversack bulging with content. By the time the light had gone from yellow to white Harry was bored but, being on the other side of the river in full view, if he stood up, he could see his grandfather settled down comfortably with his back to a tree reading books.