An Unquiet Place

by Clare Houston

  When they pulled up outside Hannah’s gate, Joseph hauled himself out of the car and said, ‘There’s certainly something to be said for spending Christmas with Christians.’

  Hannah pulled her bag onto her shoulder. ‘It’s not much fun being an atheist, is it?’

  Joseph laughed, walking up the path to the house. ‘Tell that to Mum and Dad.’

  ‘Oh, Joseph.’ Hannah’s voice shifted to imitate the clipped tone of her mother. ‘Can’t you see that the meta-discourse of religion is tied to the insecurity of self?’ Joseph snorted and shook his head.

  ‘Maybe we should phone them, today of all days,’ said Hannah, feeling a nudge of guilt at mocking them.

  ‘Go right ahead. I would rather the day not end with Mum’s hounding me about getting back to work and some professor of anthropology she wants to set me up with.’

  ‘Come on, Josey, sounds perfect for you.’

  ‘Been there,’ he said callously. ‘What did you say the other day? Glamourous, sophisticated, ambitious, but this time, amazingly, unattached. She is perfect for me. But my tastes seem to have changed.’

  Hannah thumped him on the arm. ‘Recently changed? Like, this week changed? Remember our deal, Joseph Harrison, especially as we’ll see Suzanne tomorrow.’

  He grinned at her as he rubbed his arm and wandered off to shower.

  When they arrived at Goshen the next day, they followed a line of cars making their way to park in a field next to the river. Trestle tables, covered in white cloths, had been set out in the shade of willow and poplar trees that grew along the banks. Already, bowls of salad and loaves of homemade bread were accumulating on the tables. People were sinking bottles of wine and cans of beer into zinc tubs filled with ice. The fires sparked and crackled in rustic half drums. Groups of men gathered around the braais, cold beers grasped in large calloused hands. Joseph made his way over and Neil introduced him around. Hannah, watching her brother relax in the company of these men, shook her head. He looked like he had been born in the district, already laughing at the jokes and throwing in his own stories.

  She saw Kathryn and Douglas arrive. One of the twins was riding on Douglas’s shoulders, the other holding Kathryn’s hand. They looked like a family. Hannah wondered how long it would take Kathryn to relent. She moved over to them as Kathryn began to unpack a basket onto a dessert table. ‘How come you were allowed to bring something? Sarah wouldn’t let me.’

  ‘She said no to me too,’ said Kathryn with a grin. Out of the basket came two pecan nut pies and a tray of mince pies, the pastry lids decorated with delicate pastry snowflakes and dusted with sugar. Hannah reached for one and had her hand sharply smacked. Kathryn threw a light gauze net over the desserts and turned to Douglas. ‘How about you bring Hannah and me a drink?’ He bowed low in mock subservience, and left laughing as Kathryn lightly kicked him on the backside.

  They found themselves two striped deck chairs in the shade and collapsed into them. Douglas returned shortly and delivered chilled bottles of cider before ambling over to the braais to join the men. Before long, Suzanne and Gen had joined the women, stretching out on picnic rugs laid on the grass. Gen’s fiancé, Glen, had arrived that morning from Johannesburg. He settled himself on the rug with the girls and fished out his phone, madly tapping away at it while the conversation drifted around him. He was a good-looking man with designer stubble and gym-toned arms reaching out of a tight white T-shirt. Skinny orange trousers were rolled up at the ankles, revealing white sneakers without socks. Hannah couldn’t help wondering how this city man would fit in with the Barlows. She couldn’t imagine Neil or Alistair shunning him, but did they have anything in common?

  Resting her head back into the canvas, she listened to the ‘poor father’ call of the ring-necked doves. At the braais, Alistair was heaving metal grids onto the drums and giving them a good scour with a wire brush. He stood back and brushed his hair out of his eyes, leaving a black smear on his skin. She smiled and he glanced over at her, as if aware of her gaze, his mouth curving tentatively in response. He lifted a hand in a small wave and she felt her stomach turn over, but with what emotion she wasn’t sure. She needed to apologise to him. Kathryn was right. It had taken a great deal of courage for him to reach out again after all he’d been through. Maybe a bit of light romance was what they both needed to get back on their feet. Maybe then she could return to Cape Town with the confidence to start her own life there.

  A movement caught her eye and she turned her head to see a large BMW park at the edge of the picnic. Karl de Jager stepped out of the driver’s door and moved around to open the door for his wife. Hannah sucked in her breath when she saw Esme, in high-heeled sandals, pick her way over to the tables and deposit a small foil-covered plate on the table. Her white shorts rode high on her thighs, revealing shapely but overly tanned legs. A tight red vest exposed a bony chest and brown, stringy arms. Hannah felt sorry for her, a woman trying so hard to hold on to her past, yet so brittle, as if she could fracture at any moment.

  She watched Esme perch on the edge of a chair and try to follow the older women’s conversation. Karl hovered over her for a while, and then moved over to the braais, where he was handed a beer and a pair of braai tongs. He was soon fully immersed in the group.

  ‘Poor woman …’ Kathryn was also watching Esme fluff her peroxided fringe with her fingers and then pull a lipstick from her bag, turning her lips a stark red.

  ‘How can Sarah and Neil still include her in days like this after what she did to Alistair?’ said Hannah.

  Kathryn sighed. ‘Karl is from one of the longest-standing farming families still on their farm. They’ve been on Silwerfontein for over a hundred years or something like that. The community love him.’

  Hannah looked again at Esme. ‘She doesn’t fit in, does she?’

  ‘From what I hear, she never has really. Karl was completely infatuated with her. Imagine what she must have looked like forty years ago?’

  Gen followed their gaze across the lawn. ‘As a little girl, I remember thinking she was just like my Barbies, long blonde hair, thin, tanned. Always in heels. I thought she was amazing. No doubt the men in the district shared my opinion then too.’

  Suzanne, lying on her back in the shade, raised herself to lean on her elbows. ‘Amazing to look at, maybe, but I think most men are practical at heart. Farmers need wives to be partners, almost extensions of their own bodies. A wife who is not interested in or capable of driving a truck, taking a new lamb into their house, getting up before dawn, or managing farm books is not ideal.’

  ‘Not that farm wives have to be frumps,’ said Gen sharply, tucking a blow-dried wing of hair behind one ear.

  ‘Your mum is a good example of ideal, isn’t she?’ said Hannah, smiling at the two sisters.

  ‘Yes,’ said Suzanne, looking thoughtfully at Hannah. ‘We just hope that Alistair finds a good wife and has some children, because Mum’s qualities were split between, rather than passed on to, us girls. Neither of us would manage this farm like she does.’

  At that moment, Sarah, casually but impeccably dressed in beige linen trousers and a fitted white T-shirt, clapped her hands and called everyone to lunch. The tables by now were groaning with food. Hannah picked up a paper plate which had been set into a basket holder. She chose a lamb chop, trying not to think of the lambs she had seen in the fields alongside the house, and a small piece of spicy boerewors. The selection of salads was overwhelming, and she was grateful she hadn’t brought anything. Nothing she knew how to make would have looked at home on this table.

  She took her plate back to her deck chair. Alistair came up behind her. ‘Kathryn, Hannah? May I get you something to drink?’

  ‘Another cider please, hon,’ said Kathryn grinning up at him. He turned enquiring eyes to Hannah.

  ‘Um, some kind of juice?’

  Alistair smiled at her. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  Returning a few minutes later, he handed her a tall glass of lemon juic
e, the ice cubes chinking as he passed it down to her. ‘It’s my mum’s famous lemon syrup.’

  Hannah took a sip. Cool, tart, and sweet – perfect for the day. But then Sarah never seemed to get things wrong.

  He came back with a plate of food for himself and settled next to Douglas on the edge of a blanket. Joseph plonked himself down beside Suzanne, and proceeded to regale them all with antics from his travels, even managing to draw trendy Glen away from his phone as he followed Joseph’s stories with amusement.

  ‘So, while some are theorising about complicated burial practices, the rest of us are thinking, what sensible prehistoric person would squeeze themselves down a pitch-black, tiny tunnel, stretched into a superman pose. Not a chance! It makes much more sense that it’s a case of Darwinian survival of the cleverest. The first idiot squeezed down the tunnel to see where it went and couldn’t come out. The second idiot squeezed down the tunnel to see where the first idiot went, and couldn’t get out either. And so on, a whole heap of their bones lying at the bottom for thousands of years, until some brilliant archaeologists discover them and decide it’s evidence of high-functioning human-like behaviour.’

  Douglas grinned. ‘It is human-like, just not so much high-functioning.’

  Hannah watched Suzanne, comfortable with the light-hearted conversation, throwing the odd dry remark which revealed her quiet wit. Her complete obliviousness to Joseph’s attention intrigued Hannah. She didn’t ignore him, but she showed none of the breathy awareness most women fell into around her brother. Joseph’s eyes constantly flicked to her, though, trying to gauge her responses, and Hannah could see this was completely new to him. He was, in fact, mystified. She grinned to herself, thinking that, perhaps, for the first time, Joseph might actually have to work very hard for a woman. And, in the end, he might not win. It would be groundbreaking, perhaps even heartbreaking. But then Joseph swore he didn’t have a heart. Interesting times ahead, she thought.

  Soon, a cricket game started up on the grass. Joseph and Neil elected themselves captains and pulled people onto their sides. Even a few elderly men joined in the game, declaring that the youngsters would have to run between the wickets for them. People drew their chairs into the shade and turned to watch the fun. Hannah was coerced by Joseph to take up the bat, and she surprised even herself by still being able to smack the ball over the fielders’ heads.

  ‘Woohoo!’ yelled Kathryn from the sidelines. ‘You’ve been holding out on us, Hannah Harrison!’

  ‘First team at her school, you know. The only girl in the squad!’ shouted Joseph from the other end of the wicket. ‘Watch out, Neil, she’ll win this single-handedly!’

  ‘Sounds like insider trading to me,’ called Glen from the boundary. He had put on a fedora-style hat and looked keen, if rather out of place.

  Hannah’s run of luck ended with a brilliant ball from Neil, which thumped the improvised wickets behind her. She lifted her bat in salute to much applause from the spectators, and Neil came jogging over to her, slinging his arm around her shoulders. ‘What a smashing girl you are!’ Hannah grinned up at him, loving the open admiration on his face and thinking she’d never received this from either of her own parents.

  Back in the shade, she poured herself more lemon juice and held the glass to her flushed face, sinking into a chair beside Sarah. ‘My goodness, that’s the way to Neil’s heart,’ said Sarah, smiling at her. ‘For some men, it’s good cooking, but Neil is a cricket fanatic. You will have him as a fan forever.’

  ‘It’s mutual,’ said Hannah, watching him resume bowling to Joseph. Alistair had taken up as wicket keeper, and he crouched behind Joseph, sniping remarks.

  Joseph eventually turned to him, laughing. ‘You can be rude to me after the game, but I need to concentrate right now.’

  ‘He’s our secret psychological weapon,’ called Neil.

  ‘You don’t need any more weapons, Neil. Your bowling is quite enough!’ said Joseph.

  Dessert was served. Hannah helped herself to an ice-cream cone and wandered down to the river. The willows bent low to the water and the chatter from the picnic faded as she skidded down a small bank and found herself a large flat rock to sit on. Finishing her cone, she dipped her bare feet into the water, gasping at the temperature, but still lowered her feet to the stones at the bottom so that the clear water reached her calves. Dragonflies buzzed on the surface of the pool and the sudden sharp kik-kik-kik of a kingfisher broke the stillness, giving her a start. A footstep behind her had her turning her head quickly, and she saw Alistair hop down a set of rough stone steps she had missed earlier.

  ‘May I join you?’ He kept his distance until she nodded, and then settled next to her, his boots drawn up to the edge of the rock, long arms looped around his legs.

  ‘The water’s lovely,’ she said, looking across at him. He smiled and began unlacing his boots, stuffing his socks into the boots and throwing each one behind him up the bank. He winced as he immersed one foot at a time into the water. ‘Lovely when you get used to it, I mean,’ she said grinning.

  ‘I’m relieved you’re feeling better. I was worried about you the other day.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry. I behaved badly.’

  ‘I understand now how much Rachel means to you.’

  Hannah reached across and took his hand. She laced her fingers through his and raised their linked hands to her mouth. As her lips grazed his knuckles, she heard his breath hitch, his grip on her fingers tightening. She looked up to meet his gaze, his eyes deep and dark. She pulled her feet from the water and knelt on the rock alongside him, bringing her mouth within inches of his, until she could feel his breath, quicker now, on her lips. As his eyes searched hers, she saw the fear there and the questions. An intensity and a vulnerability that made her heart contract and stalled her intention. The pause was enough for him to pull away and let go her hand.

  ‘Hannah. Can we talk about this? I’m sorry. I don’t know … I haven’t … I’m not …’

  She swallowed a wash of guilt. What was she doing playing with this poor man? Alistair couldn’t do light romance if he tried. Maybe he could have once, but certainly not now. She looked across the quiet pool. ‘It’s okay. I understand if you don’t want to.’

  He laughed, a low bitter sound as he pulled his feet onto the rock. ‘Don’t want to? Are you mad? I couldn’t want anything more. But it’s not that simple any more. There’s this fear, gut-wrenching. I can’t help it. It paralyses me, and I’m so scared it will never go away.’ He pushed his hand into his hair. Hannah recognised the gesture for weariness. He went on, ‘When you arrived, I found myself thinking, for the first time, about you rather than Marilie. You got into my head. It felt like I’d been set free from her … but it’s not over yet.’

  Hannah dropped her chin to her knees. ‘You mean, just now, when we were … you were thinking of her?’

  ‘No, Hannah! Dammit! I just can’t get this out right.’ He scrubbed his face with his hands and then looked directly at her. ‘No. I mean, I second-guess myself all the time. I read a hesitation as unwillingness. A frown as disgust. Hannah, I’ve lost my nerve.’

  She nodded. Neither spoke for a while, and she wondered how to sidle round the silence.

  Alistair swallowed loudly and then said, with a rasp in his voice, ‘Hannah, would you try kiss me again?’

  Her throat tightened at his courage. Scared to meet his eyes this time, she twisted her body to sit cross-legged in front of him. She took both his hands in hers, felt his fingers clench and then relax as she studied them. Using the resistance of his arms to pull herself onto her knees before him, her gaze slid to his neck, sunburnt above his collar, to his jaw, then his mouth. She felt her pulse begin to quicken and lightly touched her lips to that scarred mouth, feeling the ridges of smooth skin pulled crooked. Her lips softened and opened, and he gasped, his hands releasing hers to anchor her hips in front of him. His tongue tangled with hers and grew more demanding. She drew a sharp breath when his mou
th moved to her jaw, to her ear, and the words were spoken against her skin: ‘I’ve wanted you like this since the moment I saw you.’ His hands pushed up under her shirt, rough against the skin of her back.

  She threaded her fingers into his hair, pulling his head close as he moved his mouth to her neck, the pressure of his teeth making her gasp. ‘Alistair …’ Her whisper snapped the tension, and he leant the top of his head against her collarbone, breathing unevenly. She drew another breath, still stroking her fingers through his hair. ‘I don’t think this a good idea. I mean, right now. The whole district is sitting fifty metres away.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Alistair. Then: ‘I’m not really sorry,’ and she smiled into his hair.

  Hannah kissed him softly on the forehead and sat back on her knees. She watched him get to his feet, move up the slope to retrieve his shoes, sitting back down next to her to lace his boots. When he was standing, he reached out a hand to pull her to her feet and into his arms once more. His mouth this time was soft. A kiss on her smiling lips, a kiss on her cheek, and a gentle nip on her ear which made her draw a sharp breath. He stepped away from her and turned to haul her the short distance up the riverbank. When they were back on the grass, he kept hold of her hand, and Hannah felt her heart contract again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  They walked hand in hand towards the others. Hannah saw Esme register their approach with shock, her hand reaching up to grasp her throat, her eyes stricken. Alistair dropped Hannah’s hand as if scalded, as Esme stumbled from her chair, through the startled people still lounging on the grass, towards her car. Small, agonised yelps came from her mouth, an animal in distress. She scrambled into the front seat of the car and slammed the door closed. Sarah hurried over to the car, tried to open the door, then spoke through the window, but Esme sat immobilised. Her face like stone staring blankly forwards. Alistair quickly moved off to find Karl, leaving Hannah uncertain and guilty. Her hands hung at her sides, feeling horribly empty.