“They know that,” Paul said. “I’ve already had this discussion with Fox senior.”
Andrew relayed the message and Joan let out an even more tired sounding oomph. “Okay. Leave it with me, and I’ll see what I can organise.”
I noticed Lesego slouching at the kitchen door with the lunch tray. “Paul, why not persuade them to at least get their money’s worth by having lunch before they go.”
“Make sure the wine flows, particularly in my direction. I need fortifying.” Paul clamped his professional guide smile onto his face and went to negotiate with his clients.
We and our guests were just settling down to lunch when the radio squawked. I let Andrew handle it while I topped up Paul’s wine. He returned a few moments later, looking glum. “Sandton City is fully booked. Some huge international convention in Johannesburg. The only rooms Joan can find are at the Milpark Holiday Inn.” He slid a piece of paper with a rather large looking number scrawled on it in front of Father Fox. “And here’s the quote for the charter flight.”
Father Fox brushed it away as if it were of no consequence. “Holiday Inn?” His face crinkled with distaste.
“‘Fraid so,” Andrew said.
The Fox family exchanged disgusted looks, but it was left to Father Fox to handle the negotiations. It reminded me a bit of the Godfather, how they all—even the sons-in-law—deferred to him. I suppose that came with the territory when you held the purse strings.
“What’s Milpark like?” Father Fox demanded.
Andrew cleared his throat and broke the bad news. “You won’t want to stroll about the shops unless you like stepping over homeless people sleeping in urine-scented doorways.”
The daughter with the gold and diamond dog collar actually choked on her wine.
I stepped into the fray. “Even if we have elephants and hyenas wandering around camp at night, you’ll be much, much safer sleeping here than you’d be locked in a hotel room in Milpark.”
Andrew grimaced at me, clearly questioning why I was working to hang onto these people. I wasn’t sure, except that I felt offended that they sported those loud T-shirts but didn’t have the guts to handle a few moths. I wanted to see them live up to all that hype.
“Tell your travel agent to keep looking,” Father Fox instructed.
The whole table stopped to listen while Andrew relayed that message back to Joan. Once he’d reappeared, one of the girls—this one with gold earrings about the size of Ferris wheels—asked where the drinking water on the table came from.
“The river,” I answered, pointing at the water sparkling darkly as it rippled passed us in the channel.
Earrings smiled at me like I was a small, dumb child needing humouring. “No really, where does this water come from?” She held up her glass. “It’s quite sweet.”
“The river,” I repeated, with just the right amount of small-child inflection in my voice. I saw Paul smile, but he quickly buried his face into his wine glass before anyone else could spot it.
I had answered this question countless times, but I wasn’t in the mood today. Not with these people who couldn’t appreciate the magnificence of this place because of a few lousy bugs. Also, I was tired, and desperately in need of some leave. I should never have agreed to postponing my holiday for the wedding.
Father Fox, clearly agreeing that I was too stupid to live, leaned across, and said slowly, “No, what Gail means is…where does the drinking water come from? A borehole? Flown in from Maun?”
As if we had space on planes to fly in bottled water. I rewarded him with my brightest smile. “Like I said, it comes all the way from the river.”
Father Fox hissed in a breath and then forced a sick smile. “You can’t possibly get the drinking water straight from the river. So, please, let us in on the secret. We promise not tell anyone.” He now winked, poking his tongue out at me as if we were cohorts in some evil scheme.
Andrew came to my rescue. “Maybe I can explain it better. You see, it’s like this…” He picked up the water jug and emptied its contents over the atrium plants. Then he kicked off his sandals, and walked out of the dining room. Without pause, he waded out into the bay up to his thighs and scooped up a jug of water. He was loving this. Bloody show-off. I wished I’d thought of it. Back in the dining room, dripping water on the clean floor, he filled his glass and then topped up mine. We clunked glasses as if they held the finest Champagne—it tasted almost as good—and each took a gulp.
“It comes from the river,” I said, making a point of smacking my lips. Yes, childish, I know, but what can I say?
To a man, our guests pushed their water glasses away.
Paul smiled, lifted his glass, and said, “That’s why I drink wine.”
Only Andrew and I knew he was joking.
Then a thought struck. We had just given them another reason to leave. Dang, I wasn’t going to see them beating off swarms of moths tonight.
Andrew refilled their wine glasses, and asked, innocently, “So, why exactly do you want to leave? Is it because of—”
“Snakes!” Dog Collar burst out. “We hate snakes. We saw one at the lodge in South Africa and I almost died.”
“And this place looks like there must be a thousand snakes here.” A tear actually welled in Earring’s eye. What was her name again? Gail.
I felt awful for being so ungracious. To make up it, I leaned over and patted her hand. “Please, don’t let that stop you enjoying an amazing place. We hardly ever get snakes here.”
Apart from the black mamba in that English lady’s cottage a few weeks ago. She was a real star about it. Didn’t even flinch when she heard it was Africa’s deadliest snake. Evicting it had been a real challenge. Thekiso and Olututswe still paled when anyone mentioned the word ‘snake’.
And not to mention the little spotted bush snake—Spotty—who had taken up residence in the letaka blind, right here in the dining room. We only saw him occasionally, but he was around.
And the Cape cobra, living somewhere in our new scullery roof. He popped out every few days, sending me and the kitchen staff diving for cover.
Oh, and what about the boomslang hiding in the tree outside number two?
Okay, so we got the occasional snake. Nothing to get worked up about.
“And the odd ones who do visit are usually harmless,” Andrew added, lying through his teeth.
For a moment, the girls and Father Fox look half calmed.
Andrew nodded his assurance. As he did so, a tiny movement above Gail’s head caught my eye.
Spotty.
The darling little beastie.
And what perfect timing, too.
Andrew guffawed, telling me he’d seen the snake.
Exercising every bit of self-control to stop myself from laughing, I stared at Gail, desperately trying not to look above her head.
It was hopeless.
As if he knew exactly what was going on, Spotty slowly unwound himself until his elegant green body hovered a foot above Gail’s and her sister’s heads.
Ten thousand years passed.
Gail must have sensed something, because she suddenly looked up, directly into Spotty’s bright eyes. Her face contorted and a horrific screeching tore from her throat. She leapt to her feet, sending her massively heavy chair skittering across the floor.
The rest of the Fox family, Father Fox included, screamed.
But Dog Collar shrieked the loudest. She tore from the room and ended up down at the bay.
Plates spun off the table, and the jug, still full of water, toppled, soaking Mother Fox as the rest of the family scattered out the door. They huddled together a few feet from the dining room. Mama Fox, the slowest of the bunch, yelled at son-in-law-number-one for bumping into her. He didn’t stop long enough to reply. Robert, Lesego, and Betty charged in from the kitchen to see what all the fuss was about.
Rescuing this situation seemed pointless.
Once silence descended and hell composed itself, Andrew shouted,
“I told you, most of the snakes that visit us are harmless. Now watch this.”
That got some of their attention. Even Dog Collar, down at the water’s edge, took a step closer.
Offended at the reaction to his grand entrance, Spotty had recoiled into the blind, leaving just the tip of his tail sticking out. Andrew gave it a tug. Spotty reared his head out of the reeds and opened his mouth, showing a maw devoid of fangs. Even in my mirth, I understood at least some of the Fox family’s shock, having been a tad taken aback myself when I first saw the snake.
“Meet Spotty, our resident dining room snake,” Andrew said, so calmly you’d think he was introducing his mother. “Harmless and very cute.”
It seemed to work.
The Fox family settled down enough to gather in the lounge. In truth, I don’t think a stampeding herd of elephants could have gotten them back into the dining room. Paul and I carried the wine bottles and some clean glasses to them, and then joined them while Andrew spoke to Joan on the radio.
The news was bleak.
Johannesburg was over-run by convention-goers. The only hotel available remained the Holiday Inn. After a heated discussion, Father Fox announced that he and his lot had decided to stay. Funny, it seems there are things in the world more terrifying than snakes: homeless people sleeping in urine-scented doorways.
During their four-day stay at the camp, the Fox family covered the entire spectrum of human emotion. After the initial horror and panic, no meal started on time because they were always late back to camp, delayed by some new marvel discovered while out on their walks. Dinners filled with belly-numbing laughter went on deep into the night, only ending after exciting walks down the runway to see the lechwe and impala and to soak up starlight. When the time came to leave, none of them wanted to go. For a while there, it looked like they would miss their flight. So charmed by the wonder of the Okavango, we almost had to lift them bodily onto the plane.
Just goes to show that one should never judge a person by their T-shirt.
The day after the Fox family left, Andrew and I took our much needed holiday.
Chapter 45
Home at last.
The Cessna’s door opened on the Tau strip after our ten day break and I reeled back in my seat. The overpowering scent of spring flowering acacias hit me like humidity at the seaside.
Our visit to Johannesburg for the wedding had been more stressful than relaxing, thanks to snarled traffic and the pressure to see too many people in too short a time. It was good to be back in our little backwater.
September was the loveliest time in the Okavango. While the water was receding, it was still not too low for a mokoro to get about. Animals roamed everywhere, and the birdlife was at its most plentiful. I had hoped to see the camp diary filled with interesting sightings during our absence, but the last entries, posted by Morag, read: Andrew and Gwynn on leave, followed by, Andrew and Gwynn are back. So, I drew a smiley face.
It seemed while we were away, the hyena had left as inexplicably as it had arrived. The kitchen had definitely benefitted from his absence. Still, nature abhors a vacuum, so he had been replaced by a bachelor herd of young elephants. Too old to be mothered, the youngster would have been kicked out of their matriarchal family herds to fend for themselves until old enough to mate. Like naughty teenagers everywhere, trouble followed them.
Elephants in camp, we quickly learned, were far worse than hyenas. Now it wasn’t just hazardous walking around the camp at night, but during the day, too. These obstreperous giants had taken a marked fancy to the palm trees growing in the centre of the camp. Every day we watched in fear as yet another tree fell victim to their craving for juicy palm hearts. Too often, they’d fell a tree, sniff at the leaves, and then move on to wreck something else. The destruction was astounding. It really was just a matter of time before someone—other than Matanta, who deserved it—got charged by an angry elephant, or a cottage got flattened by a falling tree. Either way, the chance of someone losing their life was good.
In a futile attempt to protect the guests, we implemented a rule that no lekgoa was to walk around the camp without their guide. I don’t know how having a guide at their heels would help against a falling tree, but it made us feel a bit better.
It did mean rumbles of rebellion from the guides, though, largely stirred up by Sam.
Sam.
Matanta had been right; the guy was bad news. A day didn’t go by when he didn’t agitate for tea and other food privileges. Thanks to months of full camps and a rash of CIMs, he worked regularly, casting a pall of discontent over everyone —especially, Lesego.
Given everything, it peeved me one morning to arrive in the kitchen for my early morning shift to find no waiter—or, more specifically, no Lesego. He had been late the last three mornings, maxing out my patience. It didn’t help that we had a camp full of guests, and not all of them accommodating.
I put the kettle on to boil for the early morning coffee, and started clearing the brandy glasses off the dinner table. Our guests included six South Africans who liked drinking deep into the night. Last evening we’d tried the walk-on-the-runway-to-see-the-stars routine, but it hadn’t worked. They had returned to the table to dent the brandy bottle. As hosts, we had to keep them company. Now I was tired as well as peeved.
So, I wasn’t in the best of moods when Lesego finally appeared after the guests had left for their morning walk. Worse, he was dressed in a pair of dirty jeans and a Lusaka Football Club T-shirt. His gear looked as if it had spent the last month lying in the bottom of a mokoro. He even had a Walkman on his belt and headphones strung around his neck.
“You’re late,” I said unnecessarily. “And where is your uniform?”
“Dirty, Mma. I need another one.”
“You already have two. One for the wash and one for the back.”
“I don’t have time to wash clothes. I have a life.”
Fury nipped at my self-control. Oh to deck this guy! But I forced myself to take a deep breath. “This is the fourth time you’ve been late this week.” He shrugged, like it didn’t matter. “And because you’ve had your three letters of warning, I can now legally fire you.” I managed to resist rubbing my hands together. Only just, mind you.
Lesego thrust his jaw out at me. “You can’t fire me. I’m the best waiter in the camp. Sean told me this when he gave me my salary increase.”
“Sean told you this?” I asked, disbelief haemorrhaging into my voice.
“Of course. He gave me a salary increase and not Kekgebele.”
“Ah,” I said, understanding dawning. “Correction. He gave you an increase so you could become the best waiter—not just the best paid waiter. Surely Morag told you this?”
“Morag said nothing like that to me.” Why wasn’t I surprised? “And Sean gave me that money, so that means you can’t fire me,” Lesego added with quaint logic.
Andrew and Matanta joined Lesego and me at reception and I quickly brought them up to speed. Matanta grinned, looking positively Machiavellian. It was no secret that he and Robert had little tolerance for Lesego’s laziness and lack of team spirit. Even Andrew cracked a smile.
“You know the Chief can fire you now?” Matanta chimed, echoing my words.
Lesego crossed his arms, hugging his chest. “Only Sean can fire me.”
“Not so,” Andrew said, in his best official voice. He reached over for a pen and paper and started writing Lesego’s letter of dismissal. He signed it with a flourish, and then fished around in the cigar box under the desk where we kept the petty cash. After counting out Lesego’s severance pay, he handed the money, the letter, and a pen to Lesego. “Sign. And then you’re out.”
Lesego backed away, hands now held out defensively in front of him. “No, Rra. I can’t sign this. Only Sean can fire me. I’m his waiter.”
Andrew opened his mouth to argue but Matanta beat him to it. Gushing Setswana—I caught the odd phrase, mainly telling Lesego how useless he was—Matanta grabbed t
he money and letter, and frog-marched Lesego down the path leading out of the camp. Once at the runway, he shoved Lesego hard, sending him spinning away. The handful of money and the letter followed, fluttering in the breeze until finally landing at Lesego’s feet.
“Don’t come back!” Matanta shouted, turning to the camp to get breakfast started. Feeling somewhat shell-shocked by his uncharacteristic display of violence, I stumbled to the kitchen, listening to him mutter. “Useless, the man is useless. A waste of a good black skin.”
For all that we were all pleased to see Lesego go, I had added another matata to my list: who was going to serve breakfast this morning?
Me? I don’t think so. I had been a waitress once, working in my brother’s restaurant. I was so pathetic not even nepotism could save me. My bother fired me after my first shift. I think dropping a burger on that lady’s lap had been what clinched it… Anyway, I needed a plate carrier, and fast.
Just then, Petso sashayed into the kitchen to start her shift, singing at the top of her lungs. Before I stopped to think it through, I yelled, “Hey, Pets, see me in reception.”
Her face fell as if she’d just been caught stealing the petty cash.
I put a reassuring arm around her shoulder. “How would like a job as a waitress?”
For a moment there, I thought her eyes might actually pop straight out of her head. Then she skipped, swinging her arms. “Emmm, Mmmmmma.”
I was unlikely to get any more conversation out of her. I felt good about my decision. Petso had a smile as big as Africa. Just that made her preferable to the surly Lesego. She was also eager to learn. While in practice I couldn’t wait tables to save my life, I did know the theory of how it was done. Between the two of us, we’d manage. I just wished we had more amenable guests than the South Africans to experiment with.
Ah, well, this was Tau Camp; one couldn’t have everything.
Leaving a pile of dirty dishes for Betty to handle when she arrived for her shift, I led Petso to the dining room to teach her how to set the table. We were just finishing up when our South African guests arrived back from their morning outing.
Torn Trousers: A True Story of Courage and Adventure: How a Couple Sacrificed Everything to Escape to Paradise Page 25