by Wilbur Smith
"I refuse to let myself swell up like a toad. I don't want to revolt you." 'You are the most desirable woman in existence, and pregnancy has brought you to full bloom,' he contradicted her, and touched her bosom. It was magnificent.
"I asked the gyney, and he said it's quite OK; we don't have to hold back at all,' she giggled. 'I do hope the ambulance that takes me to the maternity home has a comfortable double stretcher so that we can fit in a quickie on the way." After lunch she went on to visit her tutor or to spend the rest of the afternoon in the reading-room of the British Museum. Finally there was a mad dash back to the flat in the Mini in time to start preparing Ramsey's dinner. Fortunately, Papa had arranged for her to retain her diplomatic plates, and she parked at the kerb right outside the front door and smiled winningly at the hovering traffic warden.
In the evenings they went out less and less frequently, apart from an occasional theatre or an early dinner with Harriet and her latest beau.
Usually they piled all the cushions on the floor and sprawled in front of the television, arguing and discussing and billing and cooing and ignoring the inane burble of 'Coronation Street' and the gameshows.
When at last the taut flat plain of her belly began to bulge she opened the front of her silk dressing-gown and exhibited it proudly. 'Feel id' she urged Ramsey. 'Isn't it wonderful?" He palpated it solemnly. 'Yes," he nodded sagely. 'Definitely a boy." 'How do you know?" 'Here.' He took her hand. 'Can't you feel it?" 'Ah, it does stick out a bit. He must take after his papa. Funny how thinking about that makes me feel like bed." 'Sleepy?' he asked.
"Hardly,' she replied.
Shasa had left her with her Harrods charge-card, and she acquired most of her maternity clothes there, although Harriet kept discovering newly fashionable boutiques that specialized in clothes for the swinging young mother-to-be. Wearing one of her flowing new caftans, she enrolled in the ante-natal classes that her gynaecologist recommended. Suddenly the company and conversation of the other gravid classmates that would once have bored her to distraction was fun and fascination.
At least once a month, Ramsey had to fly out of town on bank business, and each time he was away for a week or more. However, he telephoned her whenever he had an opportunity. Although she missed him more painfully than she would admit even to herself, when he returned her joy was enhanced a hundredfold.
After one such trip, she met him at Heathrow and drove him directly back to the flat. He dropped his travel-bag in the hall and threw his jacket over the back of the chair before he went into the bathroom.
His Spanish passport slipped from the inner pocket of his jacket and plopped on to the carpet. She picked it up and riffled through it until she found his photograph. It wasn't bad, but no camera could do him full justice. She flipped the page and saw the date of birth. That reminded her that his birthday was only two weeks away. She had determined to make it a wonderful occasion. She had already seen a glass statuette in an antique-shop in Mayfair, an exquisite little glass nude by Rend Lalique.
She recognized the body as so similar to her own, even to the exaggerated length of leg and tight boyish buttocks. But for the fact that it had been sculptured at the height of Lalique's popularity during the 1920S, Isabella could easily have been the model. However, the price daunted even her, and she was still plucking up sufficient courage to buy it for him.
She flipped over a few pages more of his passport, and the visa caught her eye. It had been stamped in Moscow that morning, and she blinked with surprise.
"Darling,' she called through the bathroom door. 'I thought you were in Rome. How did you end up in Moscow?' Everything she had ever learnt, every facet of her South African upbringing, had always pointed to Russia as the great Antichrist. Even the symbol of hammer and sickle and the Cyrillic script stamped in his passport made the fine hairs on her forearms rise in repugnance.
There was silence for a full minute beyond the locked door, and then it was flung open abruptly, and Ramsey strode out in his shirt-sleeves and snatched the booklet from her hand. His expression was one of cold fury, and his eyes terrified her.
"Don't ever pry into my affairs again,' he said softly.
Although he never mentioned the incident later, it was almost a week before she felt that he had forgiven her. It had so intimidated her that thereafter she tried to put it completely out of her mind.
Then, in early November, when she called round at the Cadogan Square flat, the housekeeper handed her her mail. As always, there was a letter from her father, but under it was another envelope franked in Johannesburg, and with a lift of pleasure she recognized her brother Michael's handwriting.
Each of her three brothers was so distinctly different in looks and character and personality that it was impossible for her to have a favourite.
Sean, the eldest, was the flamboyant adventurer. A wild spirit who, until she met Ramsey, had been the most impossibly beautiful man she had ever known. Sean was the soldier and the hunter. He had already been decorated with the Silver Cross for valour in Rhodesia's grim little bush war. When he wasn't tracking down terrorists, he ran the vast hunting concession in the Zambezi valley for Courtney Enterprises. Isabella adored him.
Garrick was her second brother, the ugly duckling, the myopic asthmatic who during his unhappy childhood had always been referred to as'Poor Garry'.
However, although born deficient in most physical areas, he had inherited his full measure of the Courtney spirit and determination and shrewdness.
He had worked on his puny body until it was almost grotesquely muscular with such a barrel of a chest and powerful arms that all his clothes had to be tailored for him. With near-sighted eyes behind thick horn-rimmed spectacles, and no natural sporting ability, he had developed such powers of concentration that he made himself into a four-goal polo-player, a scratch golfer and an extraordinary shot with rifle and shotgun.
In addition he had succeeded his father as chairman and chief executive officer of Courtney Enterprises. Not yet thirty years of age, he ran a multi-billion-dollar complex of companies with the same formidable application to detail and insatiable appetite for hard work that he brought to all his other endeavours. Yet he never forgot her birthday, and responded instantly to any call that Isabella made on him no matter how onerous or how trivial. She called him 'Teddy Bear' because he was so big and hairy and cuddly, and she loved him dearly.
Then there was Michael, sweet, gentle Michael, the family peacemaker, the thoughtful, compassionate, poetic creature, and the only Courtney who, despite the encouragement and example of his father and his two brothers, had never killed a wild bird or animal in his life. Instead, he had written and published three successful books, one a collection of poems and the other two on South African history and politics. The last two had both been banned by South Africa's industrious censors for their unseemly treatment of racial matters and their radical political flavour. He was also a highly considered journalist and the deputy editor of the Golden City Mail, a large-circulation English-language newspaper which was stubbornly and outspokenly opposed to the Nationalist Afrikaner government of John Vorster and its policy of apartheid. Of course, Courtney Enterprises owned eighty percent of the Mairs stock, otherwise he might not have achieved such a responsible position at such a tender age.
During all of Isabella's childhood, Michael had been her protector and adviser and confidant, and after Nana her favourite story-teller. She trusted Michael more than anybody else in her life, and if Sean hadn't been so wonderful and Garrick so lovable and cuddly, then Michael would definitely have been her favourite brother. It was a dead heat between the three of them for her affections, but she loved Michael as much as any of them, and now his handwriting on the envelope gave her a warm glow of pleasure and a prickle of guilt. She hadn't written to him since she had met Ramsey, almost six months ago.
The second paragraph of the first page caught her eye the instant she unfolded it, and she skipped the salutation and went straight to it.
Pater tells me that you are cosily ensconced in Cadogan Square and labouring mightily on your thesis. Good for you, Bella. However, I am sure that you are not presently occupying all five of the bedrooms, and I was hoping that you could fit me in somehow. I plan to be in London for three weeks from the fifteenth of the month. I will be out all day, every day. I have a full schedule of interviews and meetings, so I promise not to be a nuisance and interfere with your studies... It was a complication in that she would be forced to take up physical residence at Cadogan Square for the period of Michael's visit. However, most fortunately, it coincided with one of Ramsey's periodic travels abroad. She would have been alone anyway. Now at least she would have Michael's company.
She sent him a cable addressed to the Mairs offices in Johannesburg, and set about making Cadogan Square look as though it was being permanently lived in. She had a week to prepare for Michael's arrival.
"There will have to be some explanations,' she told Ramsey, and clasped the neat little bulge of her tummy. 'Luckily Michael is so understanding. I'm sure that the two of you would get on well together. I wish you could meet him." 'I will try to complete my business ahead of time and get back to London while your brother is still here." 'Oh, Ramsey darling, I would love that. Please do try.) She was waiting for Michael as he pushed his luggagetrolley through the international-arrivals barrier at Heathrow, and she let out a squeal of glee as she recognized him. He swung her off her feet, and then his expression changed as he felt her stomach against him, and he set her down again with exaggerated gentleness.
As she drove him into town in the Mini, she kept darting glances at him. He was tanned - when you lived in London you noticed that immediately - and he had grown his hair fashionably long. It curled over the collar of his bottle-green corduroy hacking-jacket. However, his smile was still boyish and frank, and the blue Courtney eyes lacked the hard acquisitive sparkle of all the other Courtneys, and were instead mild and thoughtful.
She pumped him for news of home, partly to satisfy her curiosity but mostly to keep the conversation away from her fecund belly. According to Michael, Pater had engrossed himself in his new duties as chairman of Armscor. Nana was growing more vigorous and more imperious every day, ruling Weltevreden with an iron fist. She had even taken up breeding retrievers and training them for gun dog trials. Sean was still killing platoons of guerrillas and droves of buffalo. He had recently been promoted to a reserve captain in the Ballantyne Scouts, one of the crack Rhodesian regiments. Garry had just presented his shareholders with record company profits, for the sixth year in succession. His wife, Holly, was about to produce another infant.
Everybody was holding thumbs for a girl this time.
As he said this, Michael glanced at her midriff significantly, but Isabella concentrated all her attention on the traffic to avoid an explanation and at last parked the Mini in the mews garage at the back of the square.
Michael was suffering from jet-lag, so she ran him a foam bath and brought him a whisky and soda. While he was soaking, she sat on the closed lid of the toilet-seat and chatted. She would never have contemplated sharing a bathroom with either Sean or Garry, but between Michael and herself nudity was natural and unremarked.
"Do you remember that silly little nonsense rhyme?' Michael asked at last.
"How did it go again?
"Dum de dum-dum, And her father said, 'Nelly, There is more in your belly Than ever went in through your mouth!"
Isabella chuckled unashamedly. 'Is that what they call "the trained journalistic eye"? You don't miss anything, do you, Mickey?"
"Miss. it?' he laughed with her. 'Your turnmy damn near knocked out my trained journalistic eye!" 'Pretty, isn't it?' Isabella pushed it out as far as it would go, and patted it proudly.
"Stunning!' Michael agreed. 'And I am sure that Pater and Nana would agree if they could see it." 'You won't tell, will you, Mickey?" 'We don't tell each other's secrets, you and me. Never have, never will.
But what are you going to do with the eventual, ah, result?" 'My son, your nephew - you call that a result? Shame on you, Mickey. Ramsey calls it the greatest miracle and mystery of the universe." 'Ramsey! So that is the culprit's name. I hope he's wearing bullet-proof knickers when Nana catches up with him toting her trusty old shotgun, loaded with buckshot." 'He's a marquds, Mickey. The Marquds de Santiago y Machado." "Ah, that might make a difference. Nana is enough of a snob to be impressed. She will probably reduce the charge from buckshot to birdshot." 'By the time Nana finds out about it, I'll be a marquesa." "So the nefarious Ramsey intends making an honest woman out of you, does he?
When?" 'Well, there is a little bit of a hitch,' she admitted.
"You mean he's married already." 'How did you know that, Mickey?' She gaped at him.
"And his wife won't give him a divorce?" 'Mickey!" 'My love, that's the hoariest old chestnut in the packet.' Michael stood up, cascading soapy bath water, and reached for the towel.
"You don't know him, Mickey. He's not like that." 'May I take that as an impartial and totally unbiased opinion?' Michael stepped out of the bath, and began to towel himself down.
"He loves me." 'So I see."
"Don't be flippant." 'Make me a promise, Bella. If anything goes wrong, come to me first. Will you promise me that?" She nodded. 'Yes, I promise. You are still my very best friend. I promise, but nothing is going to go wrong. You just wait and see." She took him to dinner at Ma Cuisine in Walton Street. The restaurant was so popular that they would never have got a table had not Isabella made the reservation the very day that she heard Michael was coming to London.
"I like escorting a pregger,' Michael remarked as they settled at the table. 'Everybody smiles at me, as though I am responsible." 'Nonsense. It's simply because you are so handsome.' They talked about their work. Isabella made him promise to read her thesis and make suggestions. Then Michael explained that the main reason he was in London was to write a series of articles on the anti-apartheid movement, and the South African political exiles living in Britain.
"I have arranged interviews with some of the leading lights: Oliver Tambo, Denis Brutus..." 'Do you think our censors will let you publish the article?' Isabella asked. 'They'll probably ban the entire edition again, and Garry will be furious. Anything that affects the profits makes Garry furious." Michael chuckled. 'Poor old Garry.' That title was habitual but no longer appropriate. 'Life is so simple for him -not the black and white of morality, but the black and red of the bank statement." With the dessert Michael asked suddenly, 'How is Mater? Have you seen her lately?" 'Not Mater, nor Mother, nor even Mummy,' Isabella corrected him tardy. 'You know that she thinks those terms terribly bourgeois. But to answer your question - no, I haven't seen Tara for some time." 'She is our mother, Bella." 'She might have thought of that when she deserted Pater and the rest of us and ran off with a black revolutionary and bore him a little brown bastard." 'And you might be a shade more charitable when it comes to bearing bastards,' Michael said mildly, and then saw the hurt in her eyes. 'I'm sorry, Bella, but as in your case there are reasons for all things. We shouldn't judge her too harshly. Pater can't be the easiest man in the world to be married to, and not everybody can play the game to the rules that Nana lays down. Some of us don't have the killer instincts finely enough developed. I don't think Tara fitted into the family at all, not from the very beginning. She never was an dlitist. Her sympathies were always with the underdog, and then Moses Gama came into her life... 'Mickey darling'- Isabella leant across the table and took his hand -'you are the most compassionate, understanding person in the world. You spend your life making excuses for us, protecting us from the Fates. I do love you so much. I don't even want to fight or argue with you." 'Good.' He squeezed her hand. 'Then, you'll come along to see Tara with me.
She writes to me regularly. She adores you, Isabella, and she misses you terribly. It hurts her when you avoid her." 'Oh, Mickey, you set a trap for me, you devil.' She thought furiously for a second. 'But what a
bout my condition? I was hoping to be a little more discreet." 'Tara is your mother, she loves you, and they don't come any more broad-minded than our Tara. She's not going to do anything to hurt you, you know that." "To please you,' she sighed, and capitulated. 'Only to please you, Mickey." So on the following Saturday morning they walked down Bromptyn Road, and Michael had to stretch his long legs to match her flowing athletic stride.