by Wilbur Smith
When she said goodnight outside her apartment block, she asked, ‘I suppose you will be at the Met on Saturday?’
The Metropolitan Handicap was the premier race on the Cape turf calendar.
‘I don’t race,’ Garry replied reluctantly. ‘We are polo people, and Nana, my grandmother, doesn’t approve of me—’ he stopped himself as he realized how callow that sounded, and he ended, ‘— well, somehow I’ve just never got around to racing.’
‘Well, it’s about time you did,’ she said firmly. ‘And I need a partner for Saturday – that’s if you don’t object.’
Garry sang all the way home to Weltevreden, bellowing happily into the rushing night air as he drove the MG through the curves and dips of the mountain road.
It took Garry a while to understand that the actual racing was not the main attraction of the meeting. It was secondary to the fashion show and the complicated social interaction of the racegoers.
Amongst the bizarre and outrageous creations that some of the women wore, Holly’s floating blue silk and the wide-brimmed hat with a single real pink rose on the brim were elegant and understated, and drew envious glances from the other women. Garry discovered that he knew nearly everybody in the members’ enclosure; many of them were friends of his family, and Holly introduced him to those he did not know. They all reacted to the Courtney name, and Holly was subtly attentive, drawing him into conversation with these strangers until he felt at ease.
They made a remarkable couple, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, as one of the unkind wags suggested, and a buzz of gossip followed them around the ring: ‘Holly has been out cradle-snatching’, and ‘Centaine will have her burned at the stake’.
Garry was totally oblivious to the stir they were creating, and once the horses were brought into the ring for the first race he was in his element. Horses were part of the life at Weltevreden. Shasa had carried him on the saddle before he could walk, and he had a natural eye for horseflesh.
The first race was a maiden handicap, and the betting was wide open as none of these two-year-olds had raced before. Garry singled out a black colt in the parade. ‘I like his chest and legs,’ he told Holly and she checked his number on the card.
‘Rhapsody,’ she said. ‘There has never been a good horse with an ugly name – and he’s trained by Miller and ridden by Tiger Wright.’
‘I don’t know about that, but I do know that he is in peak condition and he wants to work,’ Garry told her. ‘Just look at him sweating already.’
‘Let’s have a bet on him,’ Holly suggested, and Garry looked dubious. The family strictures against gambling echoed in his ears, but he didn’t want to offend Holly or appear childish in her eyes.
‘What do I do?’ he asked.
‘You see those gangsters standing up there?’ She pointed at the line of bookmakers. ‘You pick any one of them, give him your money and say, “Rhapsody to win.” She handed Gerry a ten-rand note. ‘Let’s dib ten each.’
Garry was appalled. Ten rand was a great deal of money. It was one thing to borrow two million on a legitimate business scheme, but quite another thing to hand ten to a stranger in a loud suit with a cigar. Reluctantly he produced his wallet.
Rhapsody was in the ruck at the turn, but as they came clear of the bend, Tiger Wright steered him wide and then asked him to run. The colt jumped away and caught the leaders in front of the stand where Holly was hopping up and down and holding her hat on with one hand. He was two lengths clear at the post and Holly threw both arms around Garry’s neck and kissed him in front of ten thousand beady eyes.
As Garry handed over her share of their winnings, she said, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be fun to own one’s very own racehorse.’
He phoned her apartment at six o’clock the following morning.
‘Garry?’ she mumbled. ‘It’s Sunday. You can’t do this to me – not at six o’clock.’
‘This time I’ve got something to show you,’ he said, and his enthusiasm was so infectious that she agreed weakly.
‘Give me an hour to wake up properly.’
He drove her down to the curving beach of False Bay beyond Muizenberg and parked at the top of the dunes. Forty horses with their apprentice jockeys and grooms were cantering along the edge of soft white sand or wading bareback in the curling green surf. Garry led her down to the group of four men who were supervising the training and introduced her.
‘This is Mr Miller.’ The trainer and his assistants looked at Holly approvingly. She wore a pink scarf around her forehead but her thick blonde hair fell freely down the back of her neck and the short marine peajacket emphasized the length and shape of her legs in the ski pants and calf boots.
The trainer whistled to one of his apprentices and only when he turned the colt out of the circle of horses did Holly recognize it.
‘Rhapsody,’ she cried.
‘Congratulations, Mrs Carmichael,’ the trainer said. ‘He’s going to do us all proud.’
‘I don’t understand.’ She was bewildered.
‘Well,’ Garry explained, ‘you said it would be fun to own your own horse, and it is your birthday on the twelfth of next month. Happy birthday.’
She started at him in confusion, wondering how he knew that date and how she was going to tell him that she couldn’t possibly accept such an extravagant gift. But Garry was so rosy with self-satisfaction, waiting to be thanked and applauded, that she thought, ‘And why not – just this once! The hell with conventions!’
She kissed him for the second time, while the others stood around and grinned knowingly.
In the MG on the way home she told him. ‘Garry, I cannot possibly accept Rhapsody. It’s much too generous of you.’ His disappointment was transparent and pathetic. ‘But,’ she went on, ‘I could accept half of him. You keep the other half and we will race him together, as partners. We could even register our own racing colours.’ She was amazed at her own genius. A living creature owned jointly would cement the bond between them. ‘Let all the Courtneys rant and rave. This one is mine,’ she promised herself.
When they reached her apartment, she told him, ‘Park there, next to the Mercedes.’ And she took his arm and led him to the elevator.
Like her office, the apartment was an expression of her artistry and sense of form and colour. The balcony was high above the rocks, and the surf crashed and sucked back and forth below them so that it seemed they stood on the prow of an ocean liner.
Holly brought a bottle of champagne and two tulip glasses from the kitchen. ‘Open it!’ she ordered and held the glasses while he spilled the creaming wine into them.
‘Here’s to Rhapsody,’ she gave him the toast.
While she made a huge bowl of salad for their brunch, she instructed him in the art of mixing a dressing for it.
They drank the rest of the champagne with the salad and then sprawled on the thick carpet of her living-room floor, surrounded by books of silk samples as they discussed their racing colours, and finally decided on a vivid fuchsia pink.
‘It will look beautiful against Rhapsody’s glossy black skin.’ She looked up at him. He was kneeling beside her, and her instinct told her that this was the precise moment.
She rolled slowly on to her back and hooded those bicoloured eyes invitingly, but still he hesitated and she had to reach up with one hand and draw his head down to hers, and then his strength shocked her.
She felt helpless as an infant in his embrace, but after a while when she was certain that he would not hurt her, she began to enjoy the sensation of physical helplessness in the storm of his kisses and let him take control for a while until she sensed that he needed guidance once again.
She bit him on the cheek and when he released her and started back in surprise and consternation, she broke from his grip and darted to the bedroom door. As she looked back he was still kneeling in the centre of the floor, staring after her in confusion, and she laughed and left the door open.
He came in like a bull at the cape, but she
stopped him dead with another kiss and, holding his mouth with hers, unbuttoned his shirt and slipped her hand into the opening. She was unprepared for the thick pelt of springing dark hair that covered his chest, and her own reaction to it. All her other men had been smooth and soft. She believed that was her preference, but now her sexual arousal was instantaneous and her loins swam with excitement.
She dominated him with her lips and fingertips, not allowing him to move while she undressed him and then, as the last of his clothing fell around his ankles, she exclaimed aloud, ‘Oh dear God!’ and then caught his wrist to prevent him covering himself with his hands.
None of her other men had been like this, and for a moment she felt uncertain of her ability to cope with him. Then her wanting overwhelmed any doubts and she led him to the bed. She made him lie there while she undressed in front of him, and every time he tried to cover himself she ordered him, ‘No! I like to look at you.’
He was so different, all muscle and hair: his concave belly was rippled with muscle like the sand on a wind-swept beach and his limbs were clad in muscle. She wanted to begin, but she wanted even more to ensure that this would be something that he would never forget, that would make him hers for all his life.
‘Don’t move,’ she whispered, and naked she stooped over him. She let her breasts swing forward and her nipples just brush the curls on his chest, and she touched the tip of her tongue to the corner of his eye and then ran it down slowly to his mouth.
‘I have never done this before,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘I don’t know how.’
‘Shh, my darling, don’t talk,’ she whispered into his mouth, but the idea of his virginity elated her.
‘He’s mine,’ she told herself triumphantly. ‘After today he will be mine for ever!’ And she ran her tongue down across his chin, down over his throat, until she felt him thrust up hard and thick between her dangling breasts and then she reached down and took him in both hands.
It was darkening in the room when at last they lay exhausted. Outside the sun had sunk into the Atlantic and left the evening sky infuriated by its going. Garry lay with his cheek cushioned on her breasts. Like an unweaned child he could not get enough of them. Holly was proud of her bosom and his fascination with it amused and flattered her. She smiled contentedly as he nuzzled against her.
His spectacles lay on the bedside table and she studied his face in the half light. She liked the big virile nose and the determined line of his jaw, but the steel-framed spectacles had to go, she decided, those and the Prince of Wales checks which emphasized the squatness of his body. On Monday her first concern would be to find out from Ian Gantry, her partner, the name of his personal tailor. She had already chosen the pattern – crisp grey or distinguished blue, with a vertical chalk stripe that would make him taller and slimmer. His reconstruction would be one of her most challenging and rewarding projects and she looked forward to it.
‘You are wonderful,’ Garry murmured. ‘I’ve never met anybody like you in my life.’ Holly smiled again and stroked his thick dark hair. It sprang up under her fingers.
‘You’ve got a double crown,’ she told him softly. ‘That means you are lucky and brave.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ he said, which was not surprising, as Holly had invented it as she said it.
‘Oh yes,’ she assured him. ‘But it also means that we have to grow our hair a little fuller over the crown, otherwise it will stand up in a tuft like this.’
‘I didn’t know that either.’ Garry reached up and felt his tuft. ‘I’ll try that, but you’ll have to tell me how long to let it grow – I don’t want to look like a hippy.’
‘Of course.’
‘You are wonderful,’ he repeated. ‘I mean, totally wonderful.’
‘The woman is obviously a gold-digger,’ Centaine said firmly.
‘We can’t be sure of that, Mater,’ Shasa demurred. ‘I have heard that she is a damned good architect.’
‘That has absolutely nothing to do with it. She is old enough to be his mother. She is after one thing, and one thing only. We’ll have to put a stop to this immediately. Otherwise it could get out of hand. It’s the talk of the town, all my friends are gloating. They were at Kelvin Grove on Saturday, smooching all over the dance floor.’
‘Oh, I think it will blow over,’ Shasa suggested. ‘Just so long as we take no notice.’
‘Garry hasn’t slept at Weltevreden for a week. The woman is as blatant and shameless—’ Centaine broke off and shook her head. ‘You’ll have to speak to her.’
‘Me?’ Shasa raised an eyebrow.
‘You are good with females. I’d be sure to lose my temper with the hussy.’
Shasa sighed, although secretly he welcomed the excuse to have a look at this Holly Carmichael. He couldn’t imagine what Garry’s taste in women would be. The lad had never given any indications before. Shasa imagined sensible shoes and horn-rimmed glasses, fat and fortyish, serious and erudite – and he shuddered. ‘All right, Mater, I’ll warn her off, and if that doesn’t work we can always send Garry down to the vet to be fixed.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t joke about something as worrying as this,’ said Centaine severely.
Although Holly had been expecting it for almost a month, when the call finally came the shock of it was unmitigated. Shasa Courtney had addressed the Business-women’s Club the previous year, so she recognized his voice instantly, and was glad that it was he rather than Centaine Courtney she had to contend with.
‘Mrs Carmichael, my son Garry has shown me some of your preliminary sketches for the Shasaville township. As you know, Courtney Mining and Finance are considerable shareholders in the project. Although Garry is responsible for the development, I hoped we could meet to exchange a few ideas.’
She had suggested her own office, but Shasa neatly thwarted her attempt to choose the field of battle and sent a chauffeur to bring her out to Weltevreden in the Rolls. She realized that she was being deliberately placed in surroundings which were intended to overpower her, and show her up in the splendour of a world in which there was no place for her. So she went to endless pains with her dress and appearance, and as she was ushered into Shasa Courtney’s study she saw him start and knew that first blood was hers. She made the room with all its treasures seem as though it had been designed around her, and Shasa Courtney’s cool supercilious smile faded as he came to take her hand.
‘What a magnificent Turner,’ she said. ‘I always think he must have been an early riser. The sunlight only has that golden lustre in the early morning.’ His expression changed again as he realized there was depth below her striking exterior.
They circled the room, ostensibly admiring the other paintings, fencing elegantly, testing each other for weakness and finding none, until Shasa deliberately broke the pattern with a direct personal compliment to fluster her.
‘You have the most remarkable eyes,’ he said, and watched her keenly to see how she would react. She counter-attacked instantly.
‘Garry calls them amethyst and sapphire.’ She had wrongfooted him neatly. He had expected her to avoid that name until he raised it.
‘Yes, I understand the two of you have been working closely.’
He went to the ivory-inlaid table on which glasses and decanters had been set out.
‘May I offer you one of our sherries? We are very proud of them.’
He brought her the glass and looked into those extraordinary eyes. ‘The little devil,’ he thought ruefully. ‘He has done it again. Who would have expected Garry to come up with something like this!’
She sipped the wine. ‘I like it,’ she said. ‘It’s dry as flint without any astringency.’
He inclined his head slightly to acknowledge the accuracy of her judgement.
‘I can see that it would be fruitless to attempt to obfuscate. I didn’t ask you here to discuss the Shasaville project.’
‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘Because I didn’t even bother to bring the latest draw
ings.’
He laughed delightedly. ‘Let’s sit down and get comfortable.’
She chose the Louis XIV chair with Aubusson embroidered upholstery because she had seen the twin to it in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and she crossed one ankle over the other and watched him struggle to get his eyes back up again.
‘I had fully intended to buy you off,’ he said. ‘I realize, after having met you, that would have been a mistake.’
She said nothing, but watched him over the rim of the glass, and her foot swung like a metronome, with the same ominous rhythm.
‘I wondered what price to set,’ he went on. ‘And the figure of one hundred thousand came to mind.’
The foot kept swinging and despite himself Shasa glanced down at her calf and exquisitely turned ankle.
‘Of course, that was ludicrous,’ he went on, still watching her foot in the Italian leather court shoe. ‘I realize now that I should have considered at least half a million.’
He was trying to find her price, and he looked back at her face, searching for the first glint of avarice, but it was hard to concentrate. Sapphire and amethyst, forsooth, Garry’s hormones must be boiling out of his ears – and Shasa felt a stab of envy.
‘Naturally, I was thinking in pounds sterling. I haven’t adjusted to this rand business yet.’
‘How fortunate, Mr Courtney,’ she said, ‘that you decided not to insult us both. This way we can be friends. I’d prefer that.’
All right, that didn’t work out the way he had planned. He set down his sherry glass. ‘Garry is still a child,’ he changed tack.
She shook her head. ‘He’s a man. It just needed somebody to convince him of that. It wasn’t difficult to do.’
‘He doesn’t know his own mind.’
‘He is one of the most definite and determined men I have ever met. He knows exactly what he wants and he will do anything to get it.’ She waited a moment to let the challenge contained in those words become clearer, then she repeated softly, ‘Anything.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed softly. ‘That’s a Courtney family trait. We will do anything to get what we want – or to destroy anything that stands in our way.’ He paused, just as she had done and then repeated quietly, ‘Anything.’