Karl touched Sarah on the shoulder and spoke quietly to her. She squeezed his arm, looking so full of pity that Hannah felt a lump in her throat. He walked around the car, pulling his keys from his pocket, his face weary and suddenly drawn. As they reversed and drove off, Esme still stared ahead, frozen.
The mood of the day had splintered, and people began taking their leave of Sarah and Neil. Hannah moved to the tables to help Suzanne and Kathryn as they covered dishes with plastic wrap, loading crates with glasses. Hannah shook out a black rubbish bag and began to collect paper plates and crumpled serviettes. She always found the aftermath of a party depressing, but this was horrible. She felt responsible for its terrible end.
As if reading her mind, Kathryn pulled her into a side hug, saying, ‘It’s not your fault.’ Hannah threw her a sarcastic scowl. ‘Okay, you could have timed your reappearance a bit better.’ Kathryn’s mouth spread in a grin. ‘And maybe tried to hide that great big hickey starting on your neck.’
Hannah’s hand flew to her neck. She had completely forgotten Alistair’s teeth on her skin. She groaned, ‘How could this have happened? I’m such a terrible person.’
Suzanne came up alongside them, taking the black bag from Hannah. ‘Any girl who gets my brother playing cricket and kissing her senseless gets my vote as the best thing that’s happened to him in a long time.’
‘I should go,’ said Hannah, looking for her bag under the deck chair.
‘Please don’t,’ said Alistair’s voice from behind her. ‘Don’t let Esme ruin more than she has already.’ He watched as Hannah pulled a light cardigan from her bag, tying it into a knot around her neck. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’ He smiled. ‘I seem to be doing that a lot around you.’
‘Too late to cover it up now. Everybody’s seen it, Hannah,’ said Douglas, coming over to Kathryn with one sleeping twin against his shoulder and giving Hannah a wink. Hannah groaned and hid her face in her hands.
They watched Douglas and Kathryn drive away. By the time the field had been cleared, the light was fading. Hannah walked up to the house with Gen, the zinc tubs stacked together between them and each woman gripping a handle.
Gen was furious. ‘What was Mum thinking, inviting Karl and Esme! Alistair will never come out of mourning if he constantly has to be under Esme’s judgement. Mum and Dad are too forgiving.’
‘I didn’t think there was such a thing for Christians,’ said Hannah quietly.
‘What?’ Gen looked at her sharply.
‘Being too forgiving, I mean. Aren’t Christians supposed to forgive seventy times seven or something like that?’
‘You’re talking to the wrong daughter.’
Hannah glanced curiously at her.
‘Let’s just say I’ve strayed from the fold. When I told Mum that Glen and I had moved in together, I thought she was going to fall down dead from the shock.’
‘What did she say?’ Hannah couldn’t imagine Sarah shaken.
‘She managed to recover, and now she tries very hard with Glen, but I know that my two worlds don’t really mix. I’ve chosen his world, and will just have to make sorties across the border every now and then,’ she said, her mouth curving in a small smile.
‘It might be different when you have kids. I can’t imagine your parents being content with occasional sorties where their grandchildren are concerned.’
Gen was quiet for a few moments. ‘We’ve decided not to have children.’ Her resolute face made Hannah wonder how much of that decision was really Gen. ‘Please don’t say anything though, Hannah. Mum doesn’t know yet.’
Hannah nodded, and they were quiet as they walked the last few yards to the main house.
Sarah was presiding over Alistair’s kitchen, turning leftovers into another meal.
‘Mum, we aren’t going to eat again, are we?’ said Gen.
‘You’ll see, as soon as I put this out, people will be hungry again.’
She set Hannah to work laying the large kitchen table. By the time Alistair and Neil had come in from the sheds, the table was groaning yet again.
‘Don’t wait for Glen,’ said Gen, ‘he’s busy with something.’ Hannah caught a glance between Neil and Sarah, Sarah shaking her head at him to stop him saying something.
Alistair chose the seat next to Hannah and handed her a plate. She couldn’t believe she was helping herself to more food after the lunch they’d had, but chose cold slices of steak and salad, adding a piece of crusty bread. Alistair’s thigh brushed hers under the table, and his hand came to rest on her leg just under the hem of her skirt, his calloused palm bringing a hum of response along her skin. He ate with a fork in his right hand, not looking at her and contributing to conversation as if nothing else were going on, but the warmth of his fingers on her thigh, just lightly brushing her skin, distracted her completely.
The farmhouse phone rang and Gen left the table to answer it. She had her back to the room and shortly replaced the receiver, returning to her seat to continue eating.
‘Who was it, Gen?’ asked her mother.
‘Nobody. They just hung up.’
Alistair stiffened beside Hannah, withdrawing his hand and putting his fork down on his plate. The phone rang again. Hannah watched, confused, as Neil pushed his chair back and picked up the handset, depressed the switch hook with his forefinger, and put the receiver on the counter, leaving it off the hook. He turned back to his chair. ‘Let’s not allow phone calls to disturb our supper,’ he said. ‘Sweetheart, remember our old rule that nobody answers the phone during meals?’
‘I remember the rule that nobody should phone after eight o’clock,’ said Gen putting her fork down. ‘Al, do you remember Pietie Rossouw who was so desperately in love with Suzanne? He tried to phone her once after eight and got Dad on the line.’
‘Poor guy was too frightened to talk to her ever again, even at school,’ said Alistair.
‘What did you say to him, Dad?’ said Suzanne mildly.
‘I just told him that if he wanted to consort with my daughter in the middle of the night, he’d have to get through me and my shotgun.’
‘Consort! He was only twelve, Dad,’ said Gen, laughing.
‘It worked, didn’t it? He’s in his thirties now, married with three kids, and he still speaks to me with his cap in his hand and calls me “Mr Barlow, Sir”. I like that,’ said Neil, grinning at his daughters.
Sarah stood to collect plates and Joseph jumped up to help, leaning across to Neil. ‘May I take your plate, Mr Barlow, Sir?’ causing everyone around the table to collapse laughing.
Neil slapped Joseph on the back. ‘You’re a fast learner, boy. Which daughter would you like to have?’
‘Hey!’ said Gen. ‘I’m not on the market!’
‘More’s the pity,’ whispered Neil to Joseph and got his foot stamped on by Sarah.
Coffee and left-over pecan pie followed, and it was late when Alistair pulled Hannah away from drying dishes, into the garden. He led her out of the light pouring from the windows, into the shadow of an oak which grew on the corner of the house. He slipped his arms around her waist, pulling her onto her tiptoes. Angling his face down to hers, they touched foreheads. ‘I like seeing you in my kitchen with my family. I find myself wanting you there more and more.’
‘In your kitchen? Maybe barefoot? Pregnant?’ she said, a tease in her voice.
‘It came out wrong,’ he said, laughing against her cheek, and then his voice softened as his breath tickled her ear, making her shiver. ‘But maybe that’s exactly what I want.’
Her stomach clenched into a knot. ‘Alistair, I can’t think beyond a few weeks or months. Living in Leliehoek is a dream for me – and I know that I’m going to have to wake up at some point. What will you do when this ends?’
He put her at an arm’s length. ‘What do you mean? I thought after today … I thought you wanted to be with me?’
Hannah sighed. ‘I did … I do. But I’m not thinking about gettin
g married! We kissed, Alistair. That’s all. Besides, I can’t be a farmer’s wife. I couldn’t do what your mother does. I don’t know the first thing about farms. I can barely put a salad together, let alone put on a feast for the whole district. Suzanne said today that a farmer needs a partner for a wife – how could I ever be that to you? Like Marilie was.’
He dropped his hands from her. ‘Marilie was never a partner, not how you think, anyway. She and I lived alongside each other, like railway tracks. Perfectly parallel. Her horses and her showjumping were her total focus. To be honest, the dream of a guest house and tours? It was my dream, and she got excited about the horse trail part of it.’ He leant against the trunk of the oak, the silence stretching for a long moment. Then he said, ‘When you … when you say you couldn’t be a farmer’s wife? Do you mean you don’t think you’re capable?’ He paused, before saying in a rush, ‘Or that you actually don’t want to be one?’
‘Why does it matter? Alistair, we’ve only kissed once! Why are we talking about getting married?’
‘You really are asking that? You have that little insight?’
‘Maybe I’m not as clever as you. It doesn’t give you the right to insult me!’
‘Hannah! What are you talking about? Not as clever as me? You’re one of the most intelligent, bat-shit crazy people I’ve ever met. How can you not know how big your brain is? How talented you are? You could run rings around me in any field. If I could just have a few minutes with the people who beat the belief out of you …’
He moved away from her out of the shadow of the oak. In the light spilling from inside, she could see his hands clasped around his head, which was thrown back to look upwards at the night sky. ‘You drive me nuts. You know that?’ He was quiet for a moment before he turned to face her, ‘I’m not saying I want to marry you, okay? If our relationship doesn’t work out, I’ll deal with it. But I’m not interested in a fling with you. Do you understand that? Otherwise we’re wasting our time. And my heart is on the line here, Hannah. It’s in a pretty sorry smashed-up state as it is. I don’t think I could handle getting more involved with you than I already am, knowing it won’t go anywhere.’
Joseph’s voice cut into the darkness: ‘Hannah? You out there? Ready to go?’
Hannah stepped forwards to take Alistair’s hands in hers. ‘Give me a little time to think,’ she said. His back was still to the light, and she couldn’t see his expression, but felt his disappointment.
As she moved towards the house, he tugged at her hand. ‘Hannah? Thanks for being honest. It’s important.’
Kobie leant his head against the mud-plastered wall. The ancient stool had stood outside his doorway for as long as he could remember. It was worn smooth with the weight and slide of many, many bodies doing what he did now. Sitting in the cool of an evening, a cigarette pinched between his fingers. The stars were bright tonight against a deep navy-blue sky, the moon just a silver sliver hanging low above the horizon so the farm was dark below it. His gaze was drawn to the hill behind the house and suddenly he sat up, his body rigid. A fire lit on the edge of the plateau, and then another and another, until the top of the hill glowed with the scattered, small blazes. Small smudges of orange against the black night. The smell of distant smoke reached his flared nostrils. Kobie’s heart jolted. Fire on the farm could be a disaster, even in the middle of summer. There was a drill for this. Alistair needed to know. The water tankers had to be hitched up, the workers roused, the neighbours called. Before he could call to his daughter, just as suddenly as he had seen them, the fires disappeared. With them vanished a sound Kobie only registered when it was gone. The sound of people. That low indistinct hum of humanity.
He pressed his left hand into his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose, but when he looked again, the hill was a black absence against the brighter sky. The night, once more cool and quiet. The skin of his arms and neck rose in a shiver, but he leant back against the wall and brought the stub of his cigarette to his lips, drawing deeply, his eyes not leaving the hillside.
January 1902, Goshen Camp, Orange River Colony
Dearest Wolf,
We heard a good story. A trader came into camp and brought the news that Christmas day was a triumph for General De Wet at Groenkop. He overran a Khaki camp and captured over two hundred men! Were you there? So close as the crow flies, just a wagon ride away. Did you feast from the captured wagons and drink to your success? Did you think of us at all?
Life in the camp carries on, such as it is. People continue to arrive. Some have been forced by their circumstances simply to walk in. Their homes have been demolished, their crops and livestock looted or destroyed. Their last hope of survival is to work in the camp for food. I look at them with such judgement. I know what the Lord says about judging others, but, Wolf, what I wouldn’t give to walk out of here! I swear I would scrape a life for myself in a cave in the mountains if I could. I’ve had enough of the death and the work and the months of being hungry. The feeling that I’m walking circles in a desert, getting nowhere and achieving nothing. Oh, to have space. To wash myself clean with no one watching. I would indeed turn my eyes to the hills. Relish the solitude, the distance from other people’s grief. It has become too much for me.
The cemetery is full. There is no more space on the flat ground, and people have begun to disinter the old graves, burying the first body deeper so that there’s room above it. It is done quietly; the British are terrified of disease and would no doubt halt the practice immediately. But what is to be done? There is no more room.
Yours,
Rachel
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The students began arriving in the week after Christmas, most in small cars loaded with sleeping bags and pillows. Sarah soon realised that her anxiety about their accommodation was in vain. That they had a roof over their heads was a luxury for them. They were full of praise for her arrangements. Alistair gave the group the use of a spare farm pickup and two quad bikes so they could get from the homestead to the site. It wasn’t long before a routine emerged. Joseph held a meeting every morning, and ran through the work that needed to be done, getting feedback from the day before and setting the students to new tasks.
They spent the morning on site, coming back down for lunch. Alistair had to get used to seeing bodies on mattresses, fast asleep in the shade of the farmyard oaks. They were back on site for the afternoon, working until the light dimmed. The strum of a guitar and floating laughter carried across to the main house in the evenings. The farm felt alive, like it hadn’t been in years. And yet he was in turmoil. The dig would come to an end. Joseph would wrap up his investigation and go back to Cambridge. What would be left to keep Hannah in Leliehoek? Would she leave? He had said he would cope if their relationship did not work out, but he felt that he was already in too deep. The thought of going back to empty days spent at his desk, with only his dogs for company, was too awful to contemplate.
Alistair found himself venturing out if he saw Joseph’s car to sit and drink a beer with him, talking or simply sitting, listening to the joking, teasing banter that emanated from the shed.
It was clear that with a group of students mixed together over a couple of weeks came politics. Alistair saw the interest that more than one girl had in Joseph. Despite the opportunities, Joseph showed nothing but professional interest in the students. He was friendly, but kept himself apart, preferring to hang out with Alistair in the evenings, perhaps in the hope that Suzanne might join them.
‘Are you still driving across to Hannah’s to sleep?’ said Alistair on one such evening.
‘Ja,’ Joseph said, leaning his head back into Alistair’s couch. ‘Let’s just say it would complicate things if I started sleeping in the shed. I don’t feel like fending off’ – and he used his fingers to punctuate – ‘“sleep walkers” in the middle of the night.’
Alistair grinned. ‘So you’ve noticed the attention?’
‘You’d have to be dead not to notice! Those girl
s have the subtlety of a jack hammer.’
‘I’ve got two spare rooms here if you want one,’ said Alistair, leaning forwards to mute the sound of the TV as the rugby game came to halftime and an advert segment began.
Joseph turned his head to Alistair. ‘Hey, thanks. I’ll take you up on that. I still want to be at Hannah’s every now and then, but it’ll make getting to the site so much easier.’
‘No problem. Tina, my housekeeper, will be delighted to fuss over someone.’
‘Being fussed over sounds awesome. I certainly don’t get that at Hannah’s.’
The camp investigation moved slowly forwards, helped by the student labour force. Alistair had managed to source aerial photographs going back a few decades, and Joseph brought Hannah to the farm one afternoon to talk through their progress.
Joseph spread the photographs over the kitchen table. ‘You can see in these, even over thirty years, that the basic look hasn’t changed as much as one might expect, even after fires have been through. Can you see these areas?’ He pointed to patches on the photographs. ‘These areas are clearer and the vegetation is sparser, growing lower than say here,’ he said, gesturing to other places, ‘which looks like compacted ground.’
‘Couldn’t it be naturally shallow, maybe stone just below the surface?’ said Alistair.
Joseph shook his head. ‘And be this regularly spaced? I doubt it.’
‘What would have compacted it?’ said Hannah, holding her hair to one side as she pored over the photographs.
‘If you had to set up a tent or a shelter on open stony ground, what would you do first?’
‘Clear the stones,’ said Alistair.
‘And that’s what these people would have done. Nobody’s going to sleep for two years with stones under their bedding. Also, just the act of living in a space, the foot traffic, the weight of bodies and possessions, would compact the ground over time. Then, when the camp is dissolved, the tents gone, and the veld regrows, the vegetation growing on those compacted spots will be more stunted than in other places.’
An Unquiet Place Page 20