A Plume of Dust

by Wynne May

  ‘Today you’ll be eating mostly out of tins,’ he told her, arid she knew he was smiling.

  ‘Well, it’s very quaint,’ she murmured. ‘Rough and ready - a proper mountain chalet, but attractive.’ She turned to look at him. She wanted desperately to believe in him, she thought. But how could she?

  ‘Do people come up here to rest?’ she asked. ‘What I mean is, it is right at the top, so they can’t come here to climb - you know what I mean…’ she broke off, laughing a little.

  ‘Snow can fall in almost any month of the year here, although more likely during the months of June, July and August. Skis, sticks and boots are hired out and there’s a ski-lift in operation. Skating in winter on a lake, nearby, is becoming more and more popular.

  Excursions from here are arranged. It’s a favourite resort all round.’

  ‘And yet nobody, apart from us, today?’ she said again.

  ‘It goes like that.’

  ‘I suppose it storms up here? It must be terrible.’ Because she was so aware of him she kept her voice carefully expressionless.

  ‘They occur roughly every two days out of three during midsummer.’

  After an uncomfortable silence she said, ‘The others are taking a long time, aren’t they?’

  Glancing at his watch, Lyle said, ‘There’s about ten minutes to go before lunch and I can’t see them missing that.’

  ‘No, I suppose not, but I was thinking about falls …’

  ‘They’ll be all right. They’ve just gone up there to get a better view.

  Apparently they’re keen photographers.’

  ‘Is there a better view?’ she asked incredulously.

  ‘Come through here,’ he said, beginning to lead the way towards a large room with window-seats, a table and cane chairs. There was a hurricane lamp on the fireplace.

  The wind was more noticeable here, licking around the corners of the building. A glass door opened to what surely, Michelle found herself thinking, must be the Roof of Africa. This was Africa’s Switzerland, she mused, where the people were black-skinned and blanketed to cope with the cold.

  ‘Is it really always as cold as this?’ she asked Lyle who was sitting at the table now, writing.

  ‘It’s usually cold up here, make no mistake about that.’ He met her eyes for a moment, then he began writing again.

  Her eyes rested on him for a moment, then she went to the glass door, opened it and stepped out into the wind and cold. The wind sucked the door closed with a shattering bang and, catching her breath, Michelle swung round, expecting to see the glass falling out of the white frame, and was relieved when it didn’t.

  The mountains appeared to be carved out by wind and far below them there were the beautiful if barren valleys.

  The cross St. Bernards came round the side of the building to greet her, pushing and nudging themselves into her legs. She was suddenly nervous as the male took the sleeve of her jersey between his teeth and began tugging at it.

  ‘Down, boy,’ she tried to keep her voice calm. ‘Down!’

  The door opened and Lyle came out. ‘They won’t bother you,’ he said,

  ‘but let’s put an end to this game, shall we?’ He coaxed the animals into leaving her alone.

  ‘I hope the others don’t get blown over,’ she said. ‘This wind is terribly strong and all round there are these fantastic drops.’ Her eyes took in the hairpinned, indistinguishable track that lost itself amongst the mountains. ‘Is that where we came from?’ Her eves were wide and there was wonder in his voice.

  ‘Yes - and where we still have to go,’ he answered.

  ‘I don’t know how you can bear to drive people up here. Don’t you think about it?’ her voice carefully controlling the concern she felt for him.

  ‘Yes, I do think about it. It would be foolish to insist that there was no danger. There is an element of risk and uncertainty, certainly.

  Disaster could follow neglect of reasonable precautions.’

  ‘And yet,’ she felt provoked into saying, ‘often you were quite reckless. Was that to scare me?’

  ‘I don’t think you quite know what you’re talking about, Michelle.’

  His voice was abrupt. ‘Whatever I did to control the bumps and the skids would appear reckless to you.’

  Suddenly, her excited eyes took in a number of Basotho riders, wrapped in colourful blankets, riding like the wind on sturdy mountain ponies which nevertheless looked a size too small for them.

  Her mind memorized the red-and- indigo, sky-blue-and-yellow, brown-and-cerise colours of the blankets which were in such contrast to the brown, boulder-strewn track on which they were travelling.

  ‘Come in, out of the wind.’ Lyle took her arm and she put her teeth down on her lip and allowed him to guide her to the door.

  When they were back in the chalet she sat on a window-seat, which she surmised could double up as a bed, and gazed out of the huge pane of glass, curtained in green and gold sun-filter, which was all that separated her from the cold of the buffeting wind. Everything was so bleak and windswept, she thought. She could see the dogs with their thick coats blowing in the wind. Poor animals, she thought.

  There’s nothing for them, except each other and waiting for the people they know bringing tourists to the chalet.

  Her eyes strayed in the direction of the table where Lyle still appeared to be writing and she was acutely aware of him - and something told her that he was aware of her.

  For a crazy moment she wanted to tackle him about the farm, her eyes brooding on his tanned, handsome face. She wanted to clear everything up, once and for all. How could he do this to Pete and Laney, while pretending to be their very good friend? Surely there was other land on which to grow vegetables for their deep-freezing?

  Suddenly Lyle looked up and, because it was too late to drop her lashes, Michelle met his blue-green eyes. She realized that by doing so she was skating on thin ice and that, razor-thin, it could crack at the slightest movement on her part. For a long moment they studied each other, then she felt a wild impulse to shock him. ‘To think,’ she said, with an attempt at flippancy, ‘I should have been sitting here with Jake Gobbi. It just goes to show,’ she shrugged elaborately, ‘that you can’t plan ahead, doesn’t it?’ She stood up and went to the glass door where she remained looking out, then she caught her breath and a small shock went through her when Lyle came to stand next to her.

  ‘I’ve never been able to make out what all this is about,’ he said, his tone angry. ‘Why bring Jake Gobbi’s name up right now? I thought we were beginning to cope rather well, considering. Suppose you forget about the snow episode and stop punishing me for it? After all, you’re entitled to do as you like.’

  The wind was rattling the glass door and she watched him as he went to turn the key. The rattling stopped and he came back to her.

  ‘You’re giving me a hard time, Michelle.’ There was accusation in his voice. ‘However, I can sympathize with your feelings about Jake.’ He placed his hands on her arms and drew her towards him. ‘And the planning ahead, Michelle. This time, though, we’re not going to concern ourselves with planning ahead.’

  She -had not been prepared for this turn of events, she thought, as his lips came down upon her own - and yet hadn’t she been aware of the tension in him - in both of them?

  In the kitchen at the end of the corridor, there were noises of talking, a faint giggle, pots being scraped across the big range, crockery rattling and, sharply and disturbingly, the falling of cutlery and more giggling.

  Lyle Cunningham’s kiss was a calculated insult - and she knew this.

  Yet she found herself unable to take her lips away. Vaguely, she was aware of resentment that her lips were letting her down by responding, leaving her drained.

  When he released her she still had her eyes closed while she waited for everything to stop spinning and when she opened them again the dizziness had stopped and he was saying, his voice hard, ‘I doubt if even Glen Hayes, let alo
ne Jake Gobbi, could have done better than that!’

  While her rapid heartbeats relayed their frantic message to her she did her best to appear taunting. ‘That’s a matter of opinion, surely?

  But, to put you in the picture, I have to inform you that your remark was based on an unfortunate calculation on your part.’

  ‘Why unfortunate?’

  ‘Unfortunate,’ she got herself under control with some effort, ‘because you’re so self-centred that it must come as a terrific blow to you to discover that you’re quite mistaken.’

  ‘Frankly,’ his eyes went over her face, ‘it’s no longer important.’

  There was the sound of the dogs barking in an excited manner, followed by laughter, talking and the stamping of feet. The foursome had returned and had entered the chalet by means of the main entrance.

  When packing .the food hampers the hotel had decided upon curry, tiny seed potatoes, green beans and carrots, to be followed by peaches and cream - all out of tins, except for the bread, biscuits and cheese and fresh fruit. Although she had been feeling hungry before Lyle had kissed her, Michelle found that she did not feel like eating now that lunch was finally served. Immediately she had eaten she experienced the discomfort of acute indigestion, which was all the more unpleasant because she was not used to it.

  Over coffee Marie said, ‘See how you can send it going down. Give us a few more thrills to remember.’

  ‘You should know better than to talk like this,’ Lyle answered. ‘Don’t dare me - I might just do that.’ He laughed. ‘All within reason, of course.’

  ‘You said you’d take us down that part that was washed away. You know, the part that some guy had cemented to form two strips, at one time or another. Remember, you said although we couldn’t go up it -

  we could ride down it, although I can’t help wondering how on earth we can when the cement was suspended over a deep donga. Do we just collapse down over it?’ Marie went into giggles.

  Smiling easily, Lyle said, ‘Okay, Marie, I’ll see what I can do to scare the daylights out of you.’ There seemed to be a shell of indifference about him now.

  Michelle sat and fumed as she listened to them, her indigestion like a rock on her chest.

  As they made preparations to get back into the Land-Rover she said,

  ‘Would anybody else like the front seat going down? You’ll see more, I’m sure. What about you, Marie? You’re the daredevil of the party.’

  ‘Let’s stay the way we were,’ Marie answered quickly, and this was followed by the approval of the others, so once again Michelle found herself sitting next to Lyle.

  The blanketed man with the straw hat and the peg-leg tried once again to sell them a mealie-straw hat, looped at the top, but far too small to wear.

  When official routine matters had been adhered to they drove across the border and Lyle stopped the Land-Rover again so that Carl could take a photograph of the party standing next to the vehicle. With the wind tearing at their hair and cutting right through them they formed a group and laughed obligingly, Michelle clutching at her blanket to give colour to the slide when it was projected on the screen.

  As they pulled off again, amidst shivering noises and rubbing of hands on the part of the young people in the back, Lyle turned to glance at Michelle. ‘I got carried away back there,’ he said softly. ‘I promise to be more careful in the future, but in any case, what would you have done in my position?’

  ‘You’ve proved yourself to be the cad you are,’ she answered. ‘I wasn’t surprised, actually.’

  There was a brief silence, then he said, ‘And you certainly weren’t immune. I know I wasn’t, at the time. You know it too, but you’re not honest enough to admit it.’

  ‘Talking about honesty,’ she answered in angry despair, ‘that’s a subject best left alone. I should have thought you would have known that.’

  ‘What exactly are you driving at?’ He turned his head quickly to look at her, then gave his attention to the road. ‘I’ve a feeling that it’s something to do with me.’

  They were in the thick of the hairpin bends, now, and he was giving his full attention to them and she thought it better not to go on talking.

  The vehicle tilted forward and Michelle found herself holding her breath. The girls in the back screamed with a mixture of fear and sheer delight.

  ‘I promised you wouldn’t be disappointed,’ Lyle tried to make himself heard over the rattling of the Land-Rover and protesting compression noises.

  ‘Let us know when we reach that bit with the cement strips dangling in mid-air,’ Marie yelled back. ‘I don’t want to miss it.’

  ‘I won’t have to let you know,’ Lyle called back, ‘You’ll know well enough!’

  Once again the journey was an ever-changing combination of hanging over sheer space on the one side and avoiding huge walls of boulders on the other which seemed to hang in the path of the Pass. It was worse, Michelle thought, than going up. This time she felt as though they were being pitched forward and at any moment the Land-Rover would tilt forward on its bonnet and turn over, crushing them beneath it before rolling down into the valley, smashing it to pieces.

  At one time, as Lyle made the short detour to drive over the cement strips which had been laid as an experiment and which had been partly washed away and the experiment abandoned, she quite resigned herself to this fate. Usually tough and able to cope, she began to feel ill and the tinned curry lay heavily on her chest. She found herself wondering whether she would have enjoyed the trip better had Jake Gobbi been at the wheel, instead of Lyle Cunningham, and she had not been subjected to the tension of Lyle’s presence and remarks.

  Once the Land-Rover seemed unlikely to make one of the hairpin bends and she caught her breath sharply as Lyle tamed it in an instant, bringing it round, missing the insecure wall built up of boulders and stones which was all that stood between them and an awesome drop. When she slanted a look in Lyle’s direction she was almost disappointed to find him smiling mockingly at her.

  ‘I can’t see us getting down in one piece,’ she said hotly. ‘The way you’re driving, we could go over the side at any moment!’

  ‘On no account must this possibility be overlooked.’ There was nothing in his voice.

  The bends were coming quickly and at times Lyle appeared to be fighting for control as he wrenched the wheel round. Michelle found herself wondering whether he was playing up the danger for her benefit. Whatever it was, though, it was a magnificent display of skill on his part.

  ‘Don’t you find yourself beginning to panic sometimes?’ Marie called out, from the back. ‘I know I would.’

  ‘Let’s be honest,’ he laughed back, ‘panic is no stranger, but I’ve learned to extinguish it quickly.’ Although Lyle answered questions and joked with the passengers in the back of the Land-Rover the task of keeping the vehicle in control demanded all the alertness and skill he had to give. That was obvious.

  Michelle was becoming uneasy now, about her indigestion. Feeling close to panic, she tried to concentrate on the scenery. The worst bends seemed to be over now and the jumble of menacing rocks did not appear so menacing.

  Suddenly Lyle stopped the Land-Rover and switched off. She watched his tanned hand go to the brake. ‘Would you like to get out and look for stones?’ he asked, turning in his seat.

  ‘What kind of stones?’ Carl wanted to know.

  ‘Agate, chalcedony, malachite, amethyst, quartzite - all to be found here, near Twin Streams. You might find it interesting. When I saw the men digging and widening the road I thought they might have unearthed something - no harm in looking.’

  Michelle joined in with the others, searching for stones. She was desperately aware of the fact that she wanted to be sick and stopped scratching around in the sand which had been excavated to listen to Lyle, who was talking to a fascinated Marie. ‘Pebbles of agate,’ he was saying, ‘are formed in an interesting way. As volcanic material solidifies, gas bubbles are trapped in it. Mineral
-rich liquids percolate through the rock and get into these holes to form concentric layers of beautifully coloured agates, quartz and chalcedony.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ Marie exclaimed. ‘Utterly fascinating!’ She turned to look back at the mountains. ‘Looking at all this, I ask myself how it all started, you know?’ Then she went on, ‘I know a farmer who keeps great shallow baskets in all sorts of show places in his home. His wife has created a lovely sun-room with thick, nobbly yellow sun-filter curtains, cane furniture, books, African masks and beadwork, copper and baskets of the most fascinating stones you ever saw. The result is superb.’

  Watching her, Michelle found herself thinking that Marie was giving her a bad time. She longed to get back into the Land-Rover and to get back to the hotel where she could take something for the indigestion and nausea which was plaguing her. The strong taste of curry kept entering her mouth. If only she had some antacid-alkalizer mints with her for the relief of indigestion, she thought, how much better she would feel - but then she did not, as a rule, suffer from this complaint.

  ‘Would you like to visit a trading store before I take you back?’ Lyle asked, making things worse for her.

  ‘That sounds great,’ Carl called out as he stood turning some stones over in his hand.

  ‘I’ll laugh if Michelle sees a blanket there at half the price she paid for it,’ Marie giggled. ‘Michelle?’

  ‘It wouldn’t matter,’ Michelle tried to smile brightly, ‘I particularly wanted this one, to remind me of today, right up there. So far away now. It seems incredible that we’ve been right to the top.’

  For a few moments they all turned to look up at the great spectacle of the Pass - the lines of free-standing peaks, examples of weathering and erosion between fracture planes, boulders scrubbed by flood waters, rounded summit domes and broken kranses, the result of weathering. Beyond it was Lesotho, cold, sometimes bleak, often snow-covered and, judging from the views from the mountain chalet, thought Michelle, apparently lifeless. Normally this would have been a wonderful experience for her, but Lyle Cunningham had made sure that he had ruined it for her. And yet no matter what happened, she would always remember this day - the feel of his arms about her, his mouth on her own…