An Unquiet Place

by Clare Houston

  ‘Yes?’ Esme’s tight voice cracked across the line and Hannah’s heart sank.

  ‘Hello, Mrs De Jager. I’m phoning to apologise for upsetting you this afternoon. I was out of line, I’m sorry.’ The silence on the other end unnerved her and she blurted out, ‘It’s Hannah Harrison, from the bookshop?’

  Esme’s voice, though muffled to a whisper, spat bitterly, ‘I saw you go to Goshen today. You’re hunting my daughter’s husband, aren’t you? You move quickly, bitch—’

  Hannah slammed down the phone. Her chest tight with shock, she pressed trembling hands into her solar plexus, trying to breathe.

  Her evening was restless after that. She couldn’t settle to anything. When she realised she had been staring at the computer screen for half an hour without registering a thing, she eventually gave up on the movie she had started. Changing into her pyjamas, she crawled into bed, picking up Rachel’s journal and opening it to where she had left off a week previously.

  I write to take my mind off this place, as if I can write a different world into being. I wish I could. I would write away this camp, this war. All the hatred and misery and death. I want things which I do not know if I will ever have again. My family. I do not want to just be with them; I want to be on the farm. I want all the things of the past. The talking, the laughing, the playing, the singing. Ma always said, ‘I want does not get.’ I don’t care any more about manners – I want it all. I always thought war bred heroes, but it doesn’t. It breeds selfishness. I am the best example.

  At its harshest, it strips life of normality. I watch the soldiers stationed at this camp. I’m sure at home they are normal people with mothers and sisters and grandmothers. They must do normal things like kiss their children goodnight. Like go to church and sing hymns with their wives. Here, they are strapped into uniforms and helmets. They look at us like we are a species foreign to them.

  Even the medical officer, when he comes, does not like to touch us. He snaps at the mothers, telling them if they keep their children clean and feed them properly, they won’t get sick. Like it is our choice to be dirty. Like it is our choice to starve. He tells them to stop using the old medicines their mothers taught them, and their mothers before them. But there is never enough British medicine, just stories about supplies and rations. What do they expect us to do? He says blame the commandos for blowing up the railways. But did the Boers start this war? Did the commandos burn our homes and herd us off the land into these places?

  Hannah awoke in the middle of the night, unsettled, as thoughts and emotions gathered and shifted around her. She knew her brain was trying to process the day, but that clean, rational explanation didn’t lighten her mind’s stumbling from one thing to another. Her bedside light glowed next to her, throwing shadows onto the walls. She had always hated this time. This weird, lost time, when everyone else was asleep and she lay alone. Todd had teased her – made fun of having to close the cupboard doors on the black caverns they became in the night. As a little girl, she had been stranded in her bed. The terror wouldn’t allow her body to leave the safety of the sheets. So she had to lie there, paralysed by gut-twisting fear. Reading had been the only way through it. Now she reached for the journal again.

  It is so cold. Our rough shelters do little to ward off the wind. I think of you all the time, Wolf. Where are you? I hear stories about the prisoners of war. That the British are sending burghers to far-flung places, to Bermuda and Ceylon. To India? Is this true? Are you still here? I would rather think of you hunched against the wind in the lee of a rock than setting sail for a place from which you might never return.

  How I long for the house with its thick stone walls. We lay in our beds listening to the wind raging around the house, loving the sound because inside we were warm and safe. Our home has been lost, Wolf. There is no thatch house, no stable, no horses, no fields. Even if we all could meet back there again, so much has gone.

  I am changed too. Not lost yet, but almost.

  Hannah must have fallen asleep for a few hours because she awoke as the light began to creep under the heavy curtains of her room. Her head thumped, her tongue thick with a metallic taste. She kicked the wretched iron doorstop on her way to the kitchen for a glass of water. That thing has to go, she promised herself.

  Hobbling, she retrieved her leggings from the floor and a clean T-shirt, and sat on her bed, about to pull on her running shoes, when she changed her mind, sliding her injured toe into flip-flops instead. She hadn’t gone for a run since she had arrived in Leliehoek. But not today, with the restless night still pounding behind her eyes and her toe bruised and throbbing. It wasn’t five o’clock yet, but she felt compelled to get out of the house.

  As she started her car, she thought how wonderfully still the small town was at this time. Glancing across the square, she could see Kathryn’s lights on. No doubt she was hard at work already, her ovens filling the shop with scents of cakes and pastries. But Hannah turned left at the corner and headed out of town, finding herself driving towards Goshen. Soon, she was climbing the hill behind the house, and she wound down her window to breathe in the fresh morning air. The sun was climbing too, and with it came the grass birds, clinging to the grass stems, bending the heavy seed heads with the weight of their little bodies. The morning light brushed the hillside in bright gold, and Hannah felt herself relax, congratulating herself. As her headache disappeared, so did the vague nausea. She wished she had brought something to eat. A rusk with a cup of coffee would’ve been perfect.

  Instead of opening the wire gate for her car, she parked there and ducked through the triangular gap at the bottom of the fence, deciding to walk on to the plateau rather. The sun was at her back and wonderfully warm. As she crunched through the wet grass, each step raised the scents of dew and dust that tangle together in summer. She indulged a memory and stopped to pull a long stem from its stalk, biting the soft green end and relishing the sweetness.

  The wind pump and reservoir came into view as she crested the plateau. The light sat gently on them, quiet seeping from the still air. What was it about this place that was so compelling? What was this almost visceral connection?

  Walking around the reservoir until she came to a concrete water trough, she stepped up onto it to look over the edge of the reservoir where the pipe trickled water into the pool. The wind pump stood tall overhead, its metal frame weathered and rusted in parts. The blades were still, reflecting bright silver in the sun. Hannah folded her arms on the wall and rested her head on them. From this angle, with the stand of gum trees behind her, the view stretched over the plateau to the hills beyond. No sign of human habitation anywhere. Isolated. The silence grew heavier and seemed to hang in the air.

  With a deafening clank, the wind pump blades swung into motion. Hannah started and fell off the trough. The wind pump was now shrieking, faster and faster. A freezing wind blew over the plateau and into the gum trees behind her, raising a skeletal rattle through their grey leaves. She picked herself up and rubbed her arms, now white with goosebumps. Her ears rang with the metallic scream of the wind pump. Glancing back towards the trees, she noticed in confusion that they stood completely still. Her brain wouldn’t compute what she saw, and the temperature plummeted further. The rush of wind through the trees whistled around her, but the trees stood unmoved. She looked from side to side, expecting to see the grass folded over in the face of the wind. It was undisturbed. Backing away, she broke into a run. Her flip-flops slipped in the wet grass, and she tripped over tussocks, but kept on till she got to the fence. She ducked through and saw Alistair’s pickup pulling up next to her own, the dogs milling around her legs.

  Alistair slammed his door and came striding towards her, concern in every movement. He must have felt the chill in her arms as he grasped her, and he began to rub them vigorously. ‘Are you okay? What happened?’

  Hannah drew a breath and felt her heart slow its frantic pace, relief replacing the crazy fear. ‘I’m fine. Just spooked.’ She looked up
at him. ‘But I didn’t imagine it. One minute, it was beautiful and sunny. Then the next, the temperature dropped to freezing and the wind pump started up.’ She looked back towards the plateau. ‘It’s still going – can you hear it? But there’s no wind. And it’s warm here.’

  Alistair’s eyes were puzzled. ‘It can be unsettling up there. I don’t come up unless I have to.’

  Hannah felt his gentle diplomacy and it irritated her enough to snap, ‘What are you doing here then?’

  He stepped away from her. ‘I take the dogs for a run every morning and I saw your car from the bottom field. I came to see you – I mean, to see if you were okay.’

  She pulled herself up, ‘You still don’t believe what I’m saying, do you? Nothing could possibly be up there. Kobie and I have just imagined it all. Right? Why would I need help?’ She looked past him.

  Turning from her, he walked to his Toyota, wrenching open the door and pulling a fleece from the seat. He came back to where she was still standing, stony and remote.

  ‘Put this on, you’re cold.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  His face dark, teeth gritted, he growled, ‘Put it on.’ She angrily pushed her arms into the huge sleeves and he zipped up the front roughly. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and glowered at her. Furious, and not sure exactly why, Hannah turned towards her Mazda. Alistair followed her and firmly closed her door. He stood back as she drove off without a further word between them.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Hannah was setting up for book club the next afternoon. She and Barbara had spent the morning together, serving the odd customer and registering the new stock Hannah had ordered. Older townspeople, who didn’t own computers, still thought Amazon was a jungle in South America, and Loot something to do with pirates, and depended on Hannah ordering specially for them. The courier service had delivered the stock that day, and Hannah had begun to phone customers to let them know their books had arrived. She set out catalogues and a few reviews of the latest published books, hoping the book club might find something interesting.

  The doorbell tinkled and Sarah Barlow looked into the reading room. ‘I know I’m early – I wondered if you might need some help?’ She began to unpack a wicker basket, placing on the table plates of scones, and cheerful jars of cherry and gooseberry jam.

  ‘Those look wonderful. Are they your jams?’

  ‘I make them every year, even now that I won’t let Neil touch them. I produce far more than I should. Please keep these, Hannah.’

  Hannah smiled at her, appreciating the sunny atmosphere which seemed to follow Sarah. ‘That would be great, thank you.’

  ‘May I get the tea things for you?’ said Sarah.

  ‘Thanks, they’re laid on trays in my kitchen.’ Sarah bustled out and Hannah stood back from the table, checking the cloth and flowers, still a little anxious that she might not hit the mark with the ladies of Leliehoek.

  Sarah returned with the tray of cups and saucers, and began to set them out, placing a teaspoon on each saucer and turning the teaspoons so that they lined up in identical rows. She glanced at Hannah. ‘That’s a very old ledger you have on the kitchen table. Did you come across it in the shop?’

  Hannah sighed. She should have put it away. She was still smarting from her encounter with Alistair yesterday, and had run out of ideas which might lead her closer to Rachel. Taking a breath, she folded her arms across her waist as she leant back against a bookshelf. ‘Remember I told you I had found something in the shop which referred to a camp called Goshen?’ Sarah nodded. ‘That ledger is a journal, written by a Boer girl called Rachel Badenhorst of Silwerfontein.’ Hannah saw Sarah’s eyes widen. ‘It means something to you?’

  Sarah was quiet for a moment. ‘I know Silwerfontein – I grew up there almost as much as I did on Goshen. Karl is a bit younger than me, but our families have been neighbours for generations. His mother, Gisela, and mine were very close.’ Sadness passed over her face as she said, ‘After so many generations of running together as kids, Marilie and Alistair were the first ones to marry. It was like losing my own child when she died. Two, actually. Alistair became a different person after that.’

  Hannah laid her hand lightly on Sarah’s arm. The older woman smiled back at her, then gave a small shake of her head. ‘It split the families too. We pulled Alistair back into ours, defending him fiercely from …’ She paused, then: ‘As well as I know the family, though, the name Rachel doesn’t ring a bell. Gisela was the last Badenhorst before she married Bryant de Jager.’

  Hannah nodded. ‘Alistair said I have to give him some kind of proof that Rachel was a real person, that this journal is not a fictional account. If I can do that, he’ll consider allowing me to look into the camp on Goshen. I’ve been wondering if there aren’t photos or letters or something at Silwerfontein which might tell us about her.’

  ‘But Esme is the obstacle?’

  Hannah’s mouth lifted in a small smile of acknowledgement, but she didn’t say anything more. She didn’t want anyone to know about the phone call. It had been too personal an attack, and Hannah still felt a niggle of guilt about provoking it. ‘I’ve found nothing so far. I really want to get into that house.’

  Sarah lifted a hand. ‘It’s impossible with Esme there. Maybe Karl … Let me think about it, Hannah.’

  The doorbell tinkled and the book club ladies began to arrive, filling the shop with chatter and the clink of tea cups. Hannah didn’t get the chance to say anything further to Sarah, but she felt a faint glint of excitement that someone, at last, seemed to be interested in Rachel too. Perhaps having Sarah in her corner would turn the tide.

  On the surface, she calmly managed the afternoon, refilling tea pots and replenishing plates of tartlets and cheese muffins. And beneath it, she enjoyed the feeling of anticipation – a sense that something was about to break open for her.

  Later that evening, her house phone rang. Hannah paused in her supper preparations, wondering who had her home number. She padded barefoot into the passage to answer. Sarah’s voice came down the line, bright and excited: ‘I’ve arranged it! Esme’s in Wilderness and it’s just Karl at home. I asked if I could look for some of his mum’s recipes.’

  ‘That’s so sneaky, Sarah! And completely genius.’

  ‘I know!’ Hannah could hear the grin in Sarah’s voice. ‘Can you manage a visit to Silwerfontein tomorrow?’

  ‘Barbara is in the shop tomorrow afternoon – I can come out then.’

  ‘Meet me here first and we can go together.’

  Hannah replaced the receiver in its cradle and returned to her plate of reheated lamb casserole, one of the many contributions to have come out of the freezer from her welcome a few weeks before. Savouring the stew, Hannah’s mind turned to the following day. She had no idea what to expect – what they would find – but her sense of anticipation grew, and she wondered if perhaps this was indeed her break.

  The next morning crawled by. The shop was quiet, and Hannah was not able to settle. She was making herself a sandwich in the kitchen when Barbara came down the passage.

  ‘Hello, Hannah-Belle,’ she said breezily as she helped herself to a wedge of cheese. ‘That has a nice ring to it.’

  Hannah looked sideways at Barbara. ‘Hannibal Lector comes to mind, not quite the image I try to project.’

  Barbara grinned back at Hannah and munched her cheese. Hannah bit into one half of her sandwich, balancing the other half with her keys as she slung her bag over her shoulder. She waved and left Barbara cutting a thick slice of bread, slathering it with Sarah’s cherry jam.

  At Goshen, Sarah was waiting for her and they climbed into her Ford to drive to Silwerfontein. Though the farms shared a boundary, it took twenty minutes to drive back to the main road, take the next farm entrance along, and reach an avenue of old oaks which lined the road to the farmstead. Hannah wondered when they had been planted. Could they have been young trees when Rachel and Wolf played there?

  The av
enue ended at old stone gate posts, which stood as sentinels on either side of the drive. Passing through, Hannah could see the house. Built from similar sandstone as the Goshen house, this dwelling was laid out in a horseshoe shape with two wings jutting forwards, topped by gables. A veranda ran around the inside of the U, shaded by pergolas with old wisteria creepers twisting across the beams.

  As they pulled to a stop in front of the house, a cloud of small dogs erupted from the front door. Hannah climbed out the car, wincing at the high-pitched cacophony of three dachshunds and two Yorkshire terriers. An enormous man followed the dogs down to the car, opening Sarah’s door for her. His grey hair curled around a warm, sun-beaten face. When he hugged Sarah hello, she disappeared into his huge arms. He was heavily built, but so tall he could carry off at least twenty kilograms more than most men. He was dressed in what Hannah imagined was his uniform, a short-sleeved checked shirt with khaki shorts and dusty farm boots. Even in the middle of winter, he probably just threw on a fleece and went about his business. He came around the car and held out his hand for Hannah to shake.

  ‘Hannah, this is Karl. One of my oldest friends,’ said Sarah, smiling fondly at him.

  Karl met Hannah’s eyes and, despite the warmth of his smile, she could see deep sadness in the depths, of a sort that would never go away.

  ‘Aangename kennis,’ he greeted her with the traditional Afrikaans welcome.

  Slinging an arm around Sarah, he led them around the side of the house. Hannah, walking behind them, was sure he would not have been so unreservedly friendly if his wife had been home. They followed a path and came to a small house set towards the back of the garden. It too was built of sandstone blocks. A simple rectangular house with a steep-pitched roof of grey corrugated iron. White wooden trellises formed a balustrade to the stoep and prolific old-fashioned pink roses scrambled along their lengths.