by Wilbur Smith
"Ramsey, you look awful. At least let me get you something - a bowl of soup, darling?" He nodded agreement, but did not look up from the telephone as he dialled.
She went through to the kitchen and heated up a can of thick vegetable soup. As she worked she could hear him speaking to somebody in Spanish on the telephone. However, her recent exercise with the Linguaphone course was insufficient to allow her to follow the conversation. She took the tray of soup and Pro-Vita biscuits through to him as he hung up.
"Darling, what has happened to you? Why won't you let me call the doctor?" He grimaced. If a British doctor saw that injury, he would be bound to report it. If the Cuban embassy doctor came to the flat, it would almost certainly compromise this address and Ramsey's cover. So he had made alternative arrangements. However, he did not answer her question directly.
"I want you to go out immediately. Go to the westbound platform of Sloane Square Underground station and walk the full length of it slowly. Somebody will put an envelope in your hand..." 'Who? How will I recognize him?" 'You won't,' he answered brusquely. 'He will recognize you. You will not speak nor acknowledge the messenger in any way. In the envelope will be a doctor's prescription and a detailed list of instructions to treat my injury. Take the prescription to the all-night chemist in Piccadilly Circus and bring the supplies back here." 'Yes, Ramsey, but you haven't told me how you hurt yourself."
"You must learn to do as you are told - without all those tiresome questions. Now, gov 'Yes, Ramsey.' She picked up her jacket and scarf and then stooped over the bed to kiss him.
"I love you,' she whispered. Halfway down the stairs, she stopped suddenly.
Nobody, with the possible exception of Nana, had ever spoken to her in such forceful terms since childhood. Even her father made requests; he did not give her orders. Yet here she was scampering breathlessly as a schoolgirl to obey. She pulled a face and ran on down into the street.
She had not reached the end of the Underground platform when, from behind, she felt a light touch on her wrist and an envelope was slipped into her hand. She glanced over her shoulder, but the messenger was already walking away. He wore a blue wool cap and dark overcoat, but she could not see his face.
At the chemist's the dispenser read the prescription and remarked: 'You have somebody badly injured?' But she shook her head.
"I'm just Doctor Alves' receptionist. I don't know." And he made up the package of medicines without further comment.
Ramsey seemed to be sleeping, but he opened his eyes immediately she entered the bedroom. All her previous fears for him returned in full force when she saw his face. His eyes seemed to have sunk into dark bruised cavities, and his skin had the pallor of a two-day corpse. However, she thrust aside her personal misgivings and steeled herself to act calmly.
While she was at university she had taken a course in first aid with the Red Cross. At Weltevreden she had often assisted the visiting doctor at his weekly clinic for the coloured employees. She had seen enough missing fingers and crushed feet and other injuries inflicted by farm machinery to have overcome any squeamishness.
She laid out the supplies from the chemist and read swiftly through the simple typed instructions from the envelope. She washed in the bathroom basin, adding half a cup of Dettol to the water; then sat Ramsey upright and began unwrapping the bandages.
The blood had dried, and the dressing stuck to the edges of the wound. He closed his eyes, and a light sweat dewed his forehead and chin as she worked it loose.
"I'm sorry,' she whispered. 'I'm trying not to hurt you." The dressing came away at last, and she suppressed an exclamation as she saw the wounds. There was a deep puncture low down in the side of his chest and a second corresponding ragged aperture in the smooth muscles of his back that was clogged with a black plug of clotted blood. The skin around the wounds was hot and inflamed, and there was the faint sickly smell of infection.
She knew instantly how those injuries had been inflicted. On her last visit to her brother Sean's hunting concession in the Zambezi valley, they had answered a call for assistance from a nearby Batonka village that had been attacked by terrorists. That was where she had first seen the distinctive entry puncture and enlarged exit of a through-andthrough bullet wound.
Ramsey was watching her face, so she made no comment and tried to keep her expression neutral as she cleaned the area around the wounds with disinfectant, and then strapped fresh dressings in place with crisp white bandages.
She knew that she had done a proficient job, and he murmured as she eased him back on the pillows: 'Good. You know what you are doing." 'Not finished yet. I have to give you a jab. Doctor's orders.' And then in an attempt at humour; 'Show me your gorgeous bum, chumv She stood at the foot of the bed and removed his shoes and socks, then took a grip on the turn-ups of his trousers and, while, he arched his back and lifted himself slightly, she pulled them off.
"Now your underpants.' She drew them down, and sighed with mock relief. "At least you didn't damage any of my special goodies. That would have made me really mad.' This time he smiled, and then rolled cautiously on to his side.
She filled the disposable syringe and injected an ampoule of broad-spectrum antibiotic into the smooth hard swell of his buttock. Then she covered him carefully with the down-filled duvet.
"Now,' she said firmly, 'two of these pills - and rest." He did not protest and when he had taken the sleeping pills she kissed him and switched out the bedside light.
"I'll be in the sitting-room if you need me."
In the morning his colour was much improved and obviously the antibiotic had done its work. His temperature was down, and his eyes were clear.
"How did you sleep?' she asked.
"Those pills are dynamite. It was like falling over a cliff, and now I could use a bath." She ran the bath and helped him through. Once he was seated waist-deep, she used the sponge to clean around the edges of the bandage, and then her attentions moved lower and she plied the soapy sponge with cunning.
"Ah, you may be damaged on top, but down below things are all working very satisfactorily, I am glad to report." 'Merely as a matter of interest, Nurse, is what you are doing at the moment business or pleasure?" 'A little of one and considerably more of the other,' she confessed.
Back on the bed, he protested half-heartedly when she filled the syringe with another measure of antibiotic, but she told him sternly: 'Why are men such cowards? Bottoms up!'And he rolled over obediently. 'Good boy,'she nodded as she withdrew the needle and swabbed the puncture mark with alcohol. 'Now you've earned your breakfast, and I've got you a kipper as a reward." She enjoyed nursing him. For once she was in a position to give him orders and have them obeyed. While she was busy in the kitchen, she heard him on the telephone, talking Spanish that was too rapid and complicated for her to follow. She listened, trying, despite her limitations, to make sense of it, and the misgivings that had troubled her most of the night returned in full force. To fend them off she slipped down the stairs and ran to the flower and fruit stall on the corner opposite the entrance to the Tube station.
She chose a dark red Papa Meillon rosebud and a perfect golden peach, and ran all the way back. Ramsey was still speaking on the telephone when she let herself in.
She arranged the rose and the peach on the breakfasttray. When she took them through to him he looked up from the telephone and rewarded her with one of his rare and treasured smiles.
She sat on the edge of the bed and carefully forked the succulent flesh off the kipper bone and fed it to him, a mouthful at a time, while he continued his telephone conversation. When he had finished, she took the tray back to the kitchen, and while she was washing up she heard him hang up the telephone receiver.
Quickly she returned to the bedroom and settled down on her own side of the bed with her legs curled up sideways under her in that feminine double-jointed fashion impossible for a man to emulate.
"Ramsey,' she said quietly and seriously, 'that is a bullet wound." His
eyes went cold and deadly green, and he stared back at her without expression.
"How did it happen?' she asked, and he was silent, watching her. She felt her resolution fade, but she steeled herself to continue.
"You are not a banker, are you?" 'I am a banker most of the time,' he said softly.
"And at other times, what are you then?" 'I am a patriot. I serve my country." She felt a hot rush of relief. During the night she had imagined a hundred horrid possibilities: that he was a n8 drug-smuggler, or a bank-robber, or a member of some criminal syndicate involved in a gang war.
"Spain,' she said. 'You are a member of the Spanish secret service, is that it?" He was silent again, watching her with careful calculation. He was the master of progressive revelation. She must be drawn in gradually, a little at a time, so that she was neither unwilling nor resistant, an insect being entrapped and slowly engulfed in a puddle of honey.
"You must realize, Bella, that if that were indeed the case I would not be able to tell you." 'Of course.' She nodded happily. She had known another man from this dangerous and exciting world of espionage and intrigue. He was the only man before Ramsey with whom she had believed herself to be in love. He had been a brigadier in the South African security police, another powerful ruthless one who could match her spirit and control her wilder emotional excesses.
She had lived as man and wife with Lothar De La Rey in the Johannesburg flat for six marvellously stormy months. When he had ended it suddenly and without warning, she had been shattered. Now she realized that it had been shallow infatuation, nothing to compare even remotely with what she had found in Ramsey Machado. 'I understand completely, Ramsey darling, and you can trust me. I won't ask any more silly questions." 'I have trusted you with my life already,' he said. 'You were the first person I called upon for help." 'I'm proud of that. Because you are Spanish and because you are my lover and the father of my baby, I feel myself to be in a large part Spanish as well. I want to help you any way I am able." "Yes,' he nodded. 'I understand that. I have thought about the baby.' He reached out and touched her stomach, and his hand felt cool and hard. 'I want my son to be born in Spain, so that he, too, will be a Spaniard and his claim to the title will be secured." She was startled. She had taken it for granted that she would have her baby here in London. The gynaecologist had already made a tentative reservation at the maternity home.
"Will you do that for me, Bella? Will you make my son a full Spaniard? he asked, and she hesitated not a moment longer.
"Yes, of course, my darling. I will do whatever you wish.' She leant over him and kissed him. Then she snuggled down on the pillow beside him, careful not to jostle his injuries. 'If that is -what you want, then we will have to start making arrangements,' she suggested.
"I have already done so,' he confessed. 'There is an excellent private clinic just outside Mdlaga. I have a friend at the bank's head office in MAlaga who will find us a flat and a maid. I have arranged a transfer to the head office, so that I will be with you when the baby is born." 'It sounds so exciting,' she agreed. 'And if you get to choose where the baby is to be born, then I choose where we marry when we eventually can.
That's fair, isn't it?" He smiled. 'Yes, that is fair." 'I want to be married at Weltevreden. There is an old slave church on the estate, built a hundred and fifty years ago. My grandmother, Nana, had it completely restored and renovated for my brother Garry's wedding. It's exquisite, and Nana filled it with flowers for Garry and Holly. I will have arurn lilies. Some people believe that they are unlucky, but they are my favourite flowers and I'm not superstitious, or not much anyway..." Patiently he let her ramble on, occasionally murmuring encouragement, awaiting the precise moment for his next revelation, and she gave him the opening.
"But we are cutting things a little fine, Ramsey darling. Nana will want at least six weeks to make all the arrangements, and by then I am going to be the size of a house. They'll play the "Baby Elephant Walk" as I come down the aisle." 'No, Bella,' he contradicted her. 'At your wedding, you will be slim and beautiful - because you will no longer be pregnant." She sat bolt upright on the bed. 'What are you trying to tell me, Ramsey.
Something has happened, hasn't it?" 'Yes. You are right. There is bad news, I'm afraid. I have heard from Natalie. She's still in Florida. She is being obstinate, and there are legal delays." 'Oh, Ramsey!" 'I am as unhappy as you are about it. If there was anything I could do, believe me, I would do it." 'I hate her,' she whispered.
"Yes, sometimes I feel that way. But truly it is not a disaster, only an inconvenience at the most. We will still be married, and you will still have your little slave church and your arum lilies. It is just that our son will be born before that happens." 'Promise me, Ramsey, swear it to me - that we will be married as soon as you are free." 'I swear it to you." She settled down beside him, cradling her head on his good shoulder, hiding her face so that he could not guess how disappointed she truly was.
"I hate her, but I love you,' she said, and Ramsey gave a grim little smile of satisfaction that she could not see.
He was confined to the flat by his wound for another week, and there was time to talk. She told Ramsey about Michael, and was flattered by the interest he showed in her brother.
She expanded on Michael's virtues, and on their special relationship. Ramsey listened and drew her out gently. He was so easy to talk to. She looked upon him as an extension of herself. She found herself going on to tell him about the rest of her family, about what lay behind the public mask that they as a group presented to the world; about their secrets and their weaknesses and their scandals, about Shasa and Tara's divorce. She even told him about the dark suspicion that Nana had once given birth to a bastard son in the wild southern deserts of Africa.
"Of course, nobody has ever proved it. I don't think anybody would dare.
Nana is a formidable force.' She laughed. 'And that is understating the fact. However, there was definitely some very fishy business back there in the nineteen twenties." In the end, Ramsey brought the conversation back to Michael. 'If he's here in London, why haven't you introduced us? Arc you ashamed of me?" 'Oh, may I? May I bring him round here, Ramsey? rve told him a little about you, about us. I know he'd love to meet you, and I'm sure you will like him. He's the only truly sweet and good Courtney. The rest of us... P She rolled her eyes comically.
Michael arrived with a bottle of his father's burgundy under his arm. 'I thought of bringing flowers,' he explained, 'but then I decided to get something useful instead." He and Ramsey scrutinized each other carefully as they shook hands. Isabella watched them anxiously, willing them to like each other.
"How are your ribs?' Michael asked. Isabella had told him that Ramsey had taken a toss from his horse and broken three ribs.
"Your sister is holding me prisoner. There is nothing wrong with me nothing that a glass of that excellent burgundy won't cure.' Ramsey displayed that rare warmth and special charm of his which were irresistible. Isabella felt quite giddy with relief. Her two most favourite and important people were going to like each other.
She took the burgundy through to the kitchen to find a corkscrew. When she returned with the open bottle and two glasses, Michael was settled in the chair beside the bed and they were already engrossed in conversation. 'We get the airmail edition of your paper, the Golden City Mail, at the bank," Ramsey was telling him. 'I particularly like your financial and economic coverage."
"Ah, you are in banking,' Michael nodded. 'Bella didn't tell me that." 'Merchant banking. We specialize in sub-Saharan Africa.'And they were away at a conversational gallop. Bella kicked off her flat shoes, rolled up the bottoms of her blue jeans and perched up on the bed beside Ramsey. Although she took no part in the conversation, she listened avidly.
She had no idea that Ramsey had such a grasp of African facts and realities, such a deep knowledge of the personalities and places and events which made up the rich and fascinating mosaic of her native land. Compared to this discussion, all her previous co
nversations with him had been shallow and trivial. Listening to the two of them, she learnt new facts and heard ideas expressed that were totally fresh to her.
Michael was obviously as impressed as she was. His pleasure at finding a challenging and stirhulating intellect on which to try out his own interpretations and beliefs was evident.