It shames me to see children getting thinner and thinner until their knees and feet are enormous lumps on their stick legs, but I won’t share. I won’t sacrifice myself for nothing. One tin between so many would go nowhere, and then we’d all be dead. Surviving is no reason to boast – it’s not heroic or brave, just selfish. Would Oupa Jakob be proud of me?
You and Pa and even Paul are on commando, fighting for our farm and family. You are heroes and Paul is only ten. Did you know that when you left to defend Naauwpoort Nek, Paul packed his bag and moved into the barn? He said he couldn’t stay in the house like a baby or a girl. When Pa came back that last time, I remember Ma standing on the stoep watching Pa cross the yard to the barn. He called Paul down. I can see them now in the encroaching twilight, one tall and tired, and one little and fierce. He promised Ma that Paul would stay with him. That he would keep Paul safe. He’s probably safer out there with you in the veld than in camps like us. I wish Pa would come for me.
There are so many ways to die here. Children are going the fastest. Once you are weak from hunger, you have almost no chance. Lists of names with measles, measles, measles. People start with a cough and a runny nose; then a rash comes. Then a fever hits them, and they start coughing up green phlegm; then they shiver uncontrollably and then they die. That’s the way most go.
At least our water is clean. I hear the newcomers speak of bad water in other camps, water that makes your stomach so sick you vomit yourself to death. We have a good well, at least. They need water for the vegetables and we carry buckets to water them. Guards let families have a bucket a day. We drink and cook and wash with that one bucket. I carry the buckets for anyone who asks, so the guards at the pond know me and lose count of the times I come. This is the way I sneak extra, and the women are grateful – they think kindly of me. But I am not kind. I am a schemer, and everything I do is about what I can get, how much longer I can last.
Hannah looked up from where she had settled at the kitchen table. Her mind elsewhere, she stared out the window at the garden, now dim in the last light of the evening. She couldn’t help feeling that Rachel’s voice was too compelling to be fiction. It touched Hannah across the years, real and honest and oddly familiar.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Hannah waited for the book club ladies to arrive. Even though she stood nonchalantly at the till, her stomach curled at the thought of being on display for the curious. She was good at putting on a casual front, having learnt to do so with Todd and his endless social gatherings. But small talk in a crowd of new people did not come naturally to her.
She had laid the reading-room table with one of Tim’s embroidered cloths and set out his mismatched antique cups and saucers. Glass jars filled with herbs and flowers from the garden brought a light waft of scented geranium and rosemary. Maybe she could pull off the afternoon, despite her inadequacies.
‘Oh, Hannah, this looks gorgeous. You’ve put so much effort in – far more than I ever do,’ said Barbara when she arrived.
‘Is it too much? I wasn’t sure.’
‘No, honey, it’s lovely.’ Barbara put her arm around Hannah’s shoulders and squeezed her. ‘You’ll be fine here, you know. People are kind and mostly gentle.’
Hannah felt her eyes prickle with tears. It surprised her. She hadn’t expected a maternal gesture from Barbara; she couldn’t remember the last time her mother had done anything like it. Wiggling away, she clapped her hands together and said, ‘Right, I’ll just go and put the kettle on. We still need to fill up that urn.’
By three o’clock, the reading room was buzzing with laughter and chatter. Dainty cake plates were piled with tartlets, scones, and savoury pastries, the women tucking in with gusto. Hannah thought of the girls her age in Cape Town who picked at half a health muffin, leaving the nuts while sipping their compost-smelling matcha. They might be in skinny jeans showing flat stomachs but they certainly didn’t have as much fun as these older women. Past the point of worrying about their thighs, the book club members were relishing being together, away from their housework and their husbands.
One woman, dressed in three-quarter beige trousers and a classic white-cotton shirt, approached Hannah. Her hair was silver white and styled in a sleek bob to her shoulders.
‘Welcome to Leliehoek, Hannah. I’m Sarah Barlow. I think you met my husband, Neil, the other day.’
Hannah looked at this lovely woman and wondered how two such warm, secure people could produce a son as grating as Dirty Harry.
‘Yes,’ said Hannah, ‘Neil was so helpful. Well, more than helpful really. He got me out of a jam.’
Sarah looked at Hannah with interest. ‘Would you like to come to tea on the farm? Perhaps see it in less stressful circumstances?’
Hannah’s eyes lit up at the thought of getting back onto Goshen. ‘I’d love that, Mrs Barlow. Thank you.’
‘Please, call me Sarah rather.’ Her eyes creased gently. ‘Mrs Barlow was Neil’s mother and a tricky woman to like.’
‘When would it be convenient for me to come?’ Hannah hoped she didn’t sound overeager.
‘Are you busy in the shop tomorrow morning?’
Barbara had clearly been eavesdropping, her voice carrying from across the table as she said, ‘I’ll be here, Hannah. You go on ahead.’
‘There you are, then,’ said Sarah. ‘Come at ten o’clock.’
Hannah smiled at the older woman. ‘I look forward to it.’
The next morning Hannah was up early. Having put a good few hours into entering the new stock from the cardboard box she’d unpacked a few days earlier, she had registered the shop with an online book auctioneer and already had responses to the books she’d put up for auction. Some of the bids were surprisingly good. Perhaps she should also go through the second-hand stock on the shelves – there were bound to be books of value which would do well on auction. A trip to Bethlehem would be necessary soon to buy packaging so that she could ship the sold items to their buyers. The Leliehoek post office might become busier than they realised. She smiled at the thought of the historic post office with its equally ancient postmaster managing a flood of new work.
At half-past nine, she stood in her bedroom deliberating over her white T-shirt and old jeans. She looked down at her flip-flops and wondered again if she should buy some proper shoes, pretty sandals maybe, that would look less scruffy. Eventually opting for a cotton knee-length skirt, she twisted her hair into a plait that brushed her neck. The flip-flops would just have to do.
By twenty to ten, she was on the road, her palms sticky on the steering wheel. She wondered if she should have bought flowers. Something as a gift for Sarah. But then she remembered the exquisite garden growing around Sarah’s cottage – arriving with a sad bunch from the supermarket would be embarrassing. Hannah turned off the road at the Goshen sign and drove up the farm road, glancing up at the donkey pasture as she passed it and shrinking a little at the thought of her antics a few days before. She hoped Alistair was out this morning.
Sarah came down from the stoep to greet her and they stood for a few minutes while Hannah tripped over words of admiration for the view and the garden.
Sarah brushed off the praise gently. ‘The sad thing is, when you have lived somewhere your whole life, it just is what it is, no matter how beautiful. Does that sound horribly ungrateful?’
‘No,’ said Hannah, liking this woman. ‘I felt the same about Cape Town. I looked at Table Mountain every day, numerous times a day, and I stopped seeing it – let alone hiking up it.’
‘Exactly. Come on in. Would you like to see the cottage before we have tea?’
‘I’d love that.’
The stoep floor was patterned in Victorian tiles that created tumbling cubes. ‘My mother hated this floor,’ said Sarah. ‘She said it made her nauseated eating out here.’
‘It’s quite Escher-like, isn’t it?’ said Hannah, liking the optical illusion playing out on the floor.
‘It’s exactly like his drawings,’
said Sarah, looking at Hannah in surprise. ‘My father loved it and wouldn’t let Mum touch it. Like many Free State farms, this cottage was the original dwelling. My grandfather bought the land and then built this cottage in 1910. He and my grandmother lived here until the family could afford a more substantial house. He told me that when he built this cottage, he scavenged all the flooring and roof beams from dump sites.’
Hannah ran the dates in her mind. ‘So this wasn’t a farm during the war?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Sarah. ‘I know he bought the land cheaply from the government who wanted to get rid of it. I always assumed this was the first dwelling to be built here, but the worker housing is also very old.’
Hannah studied the antique tiling. ‘I suppose so many houses were destroyed in the war, there must have been building materials around that could be reclaimed.’
Sarah followed her gaze and said, ‘That never occurred to me … I’m sure you’re right. Like I said before, when you grow up in a place, things disappear in your consciousness though you see them every day.’
She led Hannah into the house. The passage had wide wooden floorboards. They had been sanded and sealed, and glowed golden brown.
‘We’ve done quite a bit of remodelling. Made the bedrooms en suite and opened up the kitchen. The original house was rather dark.’ The cottage was immaculate. Antique furniture complemented homemade quilts on the beds, but it was unfussy and simple, which made it altogether charming.
The kitchen was clearly Sarah’s favourite room. An original anthracite stove dominated the room. ‘We had the stove reconditioned when we moved back in here – it’s such a joy to cook with now.’
‘I wouldn’t know where to begin,’ said Hannah, laughing.
‘It looks intimidating, but cooks like a dream when you get the hang of judging temperatures,’ said Sarah, busying herself with filling a silver tea pot. ‘Would you prefer muesli or buttermilk?’ She pointed to two large jars of rusks on the counter.
‘Muesli definitely,’ said Hannah.
‘Neil calls them horse rusks because of all the bran and fruit in them.’ She shook her head but her smile softened the disdain.
They sat at the veranda table, Hannah facing the garden. She sipped her tea and thought how easy it was to be with this quiet, gentle woman. It put her relationship with her own mother into stark contrast. Maud Harrison constantly seemed to be measuring Hannah, assessing whether she was performing. Conversation was never just easy talking but invariably became intense, a debate that was won or lost. Being with her mother was exhausting.
‘Do your parents still live in Cape Town, Hannah?’ said Sarah, as if reading Hannah’s thoughts.
‘Yes, they both lecture at UCT, though they’re on sabbatical at the moment in England. Seeing a bit of my brother, who lives in Cambridge.’
‘Is he studying there?’
Hannah concentrated on setting her cup back in the saucer without spilling. ‘No, he has a fellowship at the university. He’s a rising star in the archaeology department. A golden boy.’ She said this without sarcasm, but didn’t look at Sarah.
‘Neil said you were interested in South African War history in this area.’
Hannah looked up, relieved Sarah had turned the conversation away from her family. ‘Yes. Though I don’t know very much – I’m only just beginning to read about it.’
‘Did something specific spark your interest?’
‘I found something in the shop which references a camp called Goshen. I can’t find any other record of it, though, so I seem to be at a dead end.’ Hannah dipped her rusk in her tea, leaning over her plate as she bit into the biscuit to avoid messing on Sarah’s pristine cloth.
‘You know,’ Sarah said after a few moments, ‘the old farm workers had stories. I always dismissed them as ghost stories to frighten children … but perhaps there might be something to them. There is an elderly man on the farm called Kobie. He and his mother before him were both born on the farm. If anyone knows anything, it will be him.’
Hannah helped herself to more tea from the pot, projecting a casualness she didn’t feel. ‘Could I talk with him sometime?’
‘Of course,’ said Sarah. ‘I saw Kobie in the yard this morning. I can take you up there to find him.’
They walked around the side of the house and up the drive past the bigger farm house. ‘If you go up to the sheds, you’ll find Kobie there. And then maybe you should find Alistair at the house and ask him to take you around the farm.’
Hannah didn’t want to tell Sarah how disastrous her previous encounter with Alistair had been. ‘Um, okay. But if he’s busy, I can come back another time. Maybe Neil could show me …’
‘Alistair’s not doing anything that can’t wait an hour. Besides, it’ll be good for him to get away from his desk. He’s been tied to it the past few days.’
‘I don’t want to be a bother.’
‘Nonsense. You go chat to Kobie.’
Sarah watched Hannah cross the yard and disappear into the shed, before she turned towards the main house. Manipulation was not normally something she practised, and now she hoped the consequences of throwing Hannah into Alistair’s path would not be disastrous for them both. Perhaps Neil was right and she should stay out of it. But she liked this girl, and hoped Hannah might be able to shake Alistair out of his blundering pain.
‘Alistair?’ She knocked on the back door. ‘Are you home?’
‘No, I’m out,’ came the reply.
Sarah muttered under her breath and made her way down the passage to his study. She stood in the doorway, watching him work. He didn’t look up from his computer screen.
‘Alistair.’
He lifted a finger to signal to her to wait, then carried on typing numbers into columns. Sarah sighed and crossed her arms across her chest.
Eventually, he sat back in his chair and ran his hand through his hair, making it stand up in the crest which signified a desk-bound morning. ‘What is it, Mum?’
‘I want you to hear me out before you fly off the handle.’
‘That sounds ominous.’ He picked up a pencil and began to tap it on the mouse pad in front of him.
‘I want you to take Hannah up to the plateau.’ He carried on tapping the pencil, staring at her. After a moment or two, she blurted, ‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’
‘I’m waiting to hear you out before I fly off the handle.’
Sarah huffed in irritation. ‘Alistair Barlow, sometimes I do not know where you came from. And yes,’ she added, seeing his smirk, ‘I already know everything and more about the birds and the bees.’
‘Wow, everything and more?’ Alistair’s smirk stretched into a grin.
‘Oh, you!’ was all Sarah could manage as a blush crept up her neck.
‘Why do you want me to take her up to the plateau?’ The fun in his eyes drained away again, and Sarah wished she could hang on to it, even at her own expense. ‘Are you encouraging her in this crazy idea that there was a camp here? Really?’
‘What’s the harm, Alistair?’ Sarah said.
‘The harm? The harm is that I don’t want this farm to become a laughing stock in the community because of some ludicrous stories. I don’t want strangers walking all over the farm looking for so-called ghosts.’
‘Could it be that you don’t want to meet someone new, Alistair? That you keep your fear of another relationship like barbed wire around you?’ She backtracked when she saw pain widen his eyes. ‘I’m sorry, that was unfair.’
‘You really know how to twist the knife, don’t you, Mum.’
‘Please just take her, Alistair. When she sees that there’s nothing there, she’ll lose interest.’ She hoped she sounded more convincing than she felt.
‘If I do, will it get you off my back too?’ Alistair sighed.
CHAPTER NINE
Hannah peered into one of the sheds and, when her eyes had adjusted to the gloom, she saw a small man sitting on a paint tin with his
back to her. He was painting something onto an orange plastic ball and, when she approached, the smell of fibreglass resin singed her nostrils. Not wanting to startle him, she called out, ‘Excuse me, I’m looking for Kobie?’
The man looked over his shoulder at her. His face was lined with deep grooves from the sun. ‘Ja, Miesies, ek is hy,’ he said and, when he smiled at her, she could see that his front teeth were missing. She switched to Afrikaans.
‘Do you have a minute to talk with me?’
He gestured to another paint tin. As she lowered herself onto it, she found the seat was surprisingly comfortable.
‘Mrs Barlow said I could talk to you about the farm. She said you’ve been here the longest.’
He nodded and returned his attention to the fibreglass patch he was applying to the ball float. ‘I lived here my whole life – 1939 till now. My mother was also born here, 1921.’
Hannah watched his weathered hands brush the resin up and down. The stringent smell brought tears to her eyes but seemed not to bother him at all. She thought carefully about how she should approach the conversation.
‘Kobie, do you know anything about the war here, the South African War?’ He nodded, and she continued, ‘I’ve heard there was a camp on the farm from those days.’
Kobie lifted his head and, for the first time, looked directly at her. His eyes were older than his years, somehow, thought Hannah, struggling to grasp what she saw.
‘I know these stories,’ he said simply.
‘Can you tell me?’
He sighed deeply and looked away from her, over his shoulder. She followed his gaze to the rocky cliffs which climbed the view over the valley. ‘My ouma, my mother’s mother, lived with us. She was a young girl when the British came over the land. After the war, she had no parents, no family at all. She never told us what happened to them. Never spoke about those days. But in her last years, her mind drifted away from us. We had to watch her all the time, or she would wander out the house and get lost on the farm. She started speaking about soldiers and tents. She spoke of people walking like skeletons. She said weeping had soaked into the ground. That grief had scored the rocks. It frightened my sister and me. And then, when we started seeing things, we remembered her words.’ He looked back at Hannah and smiled, perhaps at how wide her eyes had grown, and Hannah realised she had been holding her breath.
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