They drove straight to Aunty Dorie’s. He hadn’t seen her since he left school.
Aunty Dorie was overjoyed. She sat them down at the large kitchen table and made a meal, the like of which Alex had not eaten for years. As she bustled around she talked non-stop. Uncle Hugh had passed on two years earlier. ‘He’s at peace now, God rest his soul.’ The dog had died two weeks after Hugh. ‘Bad tempered bugger he was but I miss him.’ Alex was not sure if she meant her husband or the dog.
‘Your parents were here last month. Your mother’s not real well. Got some kind of heart condition. Your Pa’s quite worried about her.’
Alex felt a pang of guilt. ‘What does the doctor say?’
‘Oh, him.’ She dismissed the man derisively. ‘Some doctor! Said she’s got to take things easy. Silly bloody man. You’d think he’d give her pills or something wouldn’t you?’
‘Is she in any pain?’
‘You know your mother. Wouldn’t let on if she were. She says all sin will be atoned, whatever that means. She reads the Bible all day as though it were her salvation.’
‘When I get back from Rhodesia,’ he thought, ‘I’ll go and see them.’
Overflowing plates were put in front of them. ‘There, that should fill you two up.’ She sat opposite watching them eat. ‘You know, when Alex flew off to Ghanzi I was real worried about him,’ she told Marv. ‘He seemed so young to be going off like that.’
Alex rolled his eyes at her, unable to speak. Marv seemed similarly afflicted.
She smiled at Alex fondly. ‘I see your appetite is as good as ever.’
He nodded, his mouth still full.
‘You going to try and see any of your friends while you’re here?’
He swallowed. ‘Are any of them still here?’
‘The Tigg boy. He’s not going anywhere. He’s blind. The rest seem to come and go.’
Alex thought of Colin Tigg. He had been captain of the rugby team. Big and friendly and likeable. He had planned to become a mechanic when he left school. Alex hadn’t thought about the accident in a long time. ‘What’s he doing now?’
‘Drinking himself to death,’ she told him bluntly. ‘Doing a good job of it too by all accounts.’
Alex found he didn’t want to see him. What was the point? Colin had been full of life, full of promise. Drinking himself to death seemed like a pretty good option. Alex believed he was going to live forever. But blind? He thought he’d probably do the same as Colin.
‘What brings you here?’ she asked as they washed down the breakfast with hot, strong coffee. No-one made coffee quite like Aunty Dorie. You could stand a spoon up in it, she liked to say.
‘Marv is looking for land up here. Do you know of any?’
She inclined her head. ‘There’s always land for sale. You’d best be asking down at the Lands Office. It’ll be closed by now. You two are welcome to stay the night. I could do with the company.’
The Lands Office was just opening its doors for business when they arrived the next morning. Yes there was land for sale. Four thousand acres divided into eight paddocks. The fences needed attention. There was no house on it. The Shashe River formed one of its borders.
‘Sounds good. Where is it?’ Marv looked keen.
‘About two hours west of here.’
‘Bit far out,’ Alex said.
‘It’s a good road, sir,’ the clerk replied. ‘Good land. It’s got permanent water. It’s selling cheap because of the fences.’
Marv was doing a ‘Can I talk to you outside?’ number with his head. They went into the street.
‘Uh, Alex?’
‘Yes.’
‘How much cash you got?’
Alex was practically broke. ‘About fifty quid.’
‘I’ve got 300. You good for a loan?’
‘Don’t you want to see the land first?’
‘Nope.’
‘Bit risky.’
‘Are you good for a loan or not?’
‘Of course.’
The clerk at the Lands Office looked harassed. ‘A deposit on a deposit. I don’t know. It’s very irregular. I’ll have to check with the seller.’
‘Just to hold it,’ Marv said. ‘I’ll be back next week with the rest.’
The clerk looked as if he were about to refuse. Alex intervened. ‘Come on, man. You’ll have to make these decisions when independence comes. Mafeking is miles away, what do they know. Bloody officials, I tell you, man, we’ll be back with the balance before you know it.’
Elevated to a position of authority, the clerk took the decision Alex handed him. Then he grumbled over having to write a receipt, stamped the Deed of Sale by mistake, counted the money three times before his tally agreed with theirs and, to Marv’s horror, put the money into his pocket.
Alex dragged him out of the Lands Office before Marv could protest.
‘What if he takes our money?’
‘So what if he does, I’ve got the Deed of Sale. It’s stamped and it states the money’s been paid in full.’
‘That’s dishonest.’
‘Only if he’s dishonest.’
The Plumtree border was fifty miles to the north. From there, another eighty miles to Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia. Having no contacts, they took their stones to the first jeweller they came to. A dark and musty-looking shop in a side street. The gold leaf sign on the window said ‘Kramer’s for the Finest’.
Before the Second World War, Solomon Kramer had been a diamond cutter in Odenwald, Germany, working with his father who taught him everything he knew about this rare skill, the intricacies of which, known to only a few, are a closely guarded secret.
A survivor of Spandou prison he returned to Odenwald after the war. His mother, he discovered, had died in 1942. Of his father, two sisters and brother, he could learn nothing. He reopened the old shop but his heart wasn’t in it. In 1951, believing a better life awaited him somewhere away from the bitter memories and what still amounted to open prejudice, he went to Africa and set up a jewellery business in Bulawayo, living behind the shop as he was accustomed to doing in Germany.
Wealth became Solly’s goal, his insurance against having to go without ever again. The rich were not his customers, they were his victims. He fleeced them unmercifully, insulted them to their faces, treated them with profound indifference and made them spectacular pieces of jewellery. They adored him. He, in turn, despised them.
Solomon had two weaknesses: his wife, Clara, a tiny woman ten years his junior who, as a result of her time in a concentration camp, could not bear him children. The second was honest, open-faced young people, in whom he saw himself, before that Austrian madman had intervened. He took one look at Marv and Alex and his heart sank. He knew they would cost him money.
‘Goot mornink, gentlemens.’
Alex looked around the shop, at the beautifully crafted clocks, crystal and silver, display cases full of rings, necklaces, brooches and watches, and knew he had found quality. He was relieved to find the shop empty of customers. ‘Do you buy stones?’
Solomon’s interest quickened. ‘Does an elephant shit in heaps?’ He had read the remark in a book and had been dying to use it since then. ‘Only if they’re worth it mind.’
‘I mean real stones. Diamonds.’
Solomon’s heart missed a beat. ‘Where’d you steal them?’
The look on their faces told him they were honest. ‘We didn’t steal them. We found them. In the Kalahari.’
‘Why bring them to me?’ He showed no interest in looking inside their cloth bag.
He pretended to rummage behind the counter while Marv said in a loud whisper. ‘Tell him everything.’ Solly wanted to cry. They were babies these two. A tiny soft corner of his heart melted.
‘Go on,’ Marv whispered. ‘Tell him.’
So Alex told him everything.
‘Let’s see them.’ Neither his face, or his voice, revealed the disgust Solomon felt for Kel when Alex stopped speaking. He was glad these bo
ys had got away with something. It was good to see the honest and innocent win a few.
When he examined the stones he knew they were first class, gemstones. Most of them were free of carbon spots, small fissures or particles of other materials which had grown with the stones. They were of the finest colour, that is to say they were transparent and colourless. More than half of them would weigh nearly a carat, he could tell at a glance. One or two went higher. This was good. He knew he could charge much more for a single large stone than he could for smaller chips and stones amounting to the same weight.
And then there was the quantity. These boys did not know it but their stones were almost equal to half a ‘parcel’ which the Diamond Trading Company made up for sale to invited clients ten times a year. He was a little out of touch but he guessed the value of the stones to be around 150,000 English pounds on the open market.
‘I’ll give you £10,000.’ But his heart wasn’t in it. Sure, he wanted to make money, he wasn’t here to go broke on account of these babies, but he had the contacts and he had the skills to make a clear profit ten times that amount, at least.
‘Gee, that’s not much.’ Marv’s disappointment was a tangible thing. ‘I can’t buy the farm on my share of that.’
Solomon hid a smile. Babies. Both of them. ‘Drive a hard bargain, boy, you’ll break a man.’
‘Huh!’
Solomon chuckled. He really liked these boys. There wasn’t a bent bone in their bodies. ‘I tell you what. Let’s cut the bullshit. I’ll give you £25,000, it’s my final offer and you’re making me a pauper yet.’ Then his heart skipped another beat. Alex produced the diamond they’d found first. Solomon realised it had to go to twenty, twenty-five carats and mentally revalued the worth of their stones.
‘Fifty thousand,’ Alex said.
Good, good, the boy’s not a fool. He stared at the large diamond. It was the biggest he’d ever seen. He could retire. He and Clara could travel. These boys were young and strong. They could find more stones. He raised his hands in horror. ‘Fifty! What do you take me for? A bank yet? I’ll give you forty thousand.’
‘Done!’ Alex put out his hand.
‘All right already, all right. What can a man do? Fifty.’ Solly cringed inside. What made him so nice? Damn but he loved these boys.
‘But you said . . .’
Solomon averted his eyes while Alex nudged Marv.
‘Can you pay us in cash?’ Marv was hopping from one foot to the other in excitement.
Solomon shook his head. ‘Does a vulture eat shit?’ He had not read that in a book but he liked the sound of it. ‘Come into the back. Come on, come on, I won’t bite.’
They followed him through a beaded curtain into his little office. Books, figurines, clocks, heaps of paper and an Olivetti typewriter vied for space on the desk. Solly rummaged and produced a box of cigars. ‘You boys smoke?’ He was relieved they said no thanks. They were Havana’s best. He pulled a bunch of keys from the desk drawer, examined them, selected one and inserted it into the door of his safe. ‘You boys don’t want to hit me on the head now?’
‘Why would we do that?’ Marv was aghast at the idea. Solly hid another smile. He loved them.
Solly kept all his money at home. Clara said he was mad but he remembered how the Germans had simply helped themselves to bank assets and safe deposit boxes. Anyway he had never trusted the banks. He had two safes. This one in his office, an up-front showpiece in which he kept a few stones and anything up to £10,000. In the event of a robbery, thieves would be well pleased with such a haul. In the back, under the floorboards of his workshop, he kept another. Solly’s wealth was stored there.
He counted out £5,000. ‘You boys wait here a minute. If anyone comes into the shop call my wife, she’s through there,’ he pointed to a closed door. ‘Don’t touch anything.’ Solly went through the door and carefully closed it behind him.
Marv’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when Solly returned with the rest of the money.
‘Why do you keep so much here? Aren’t you worried someone will rob you? I mean, we might be anyone.’
Solly looked into Marv’s wide open face. ‘My boy,’ he lied, ‘I think humans are nicer than that.’
They were not exactly rich but they had enough money each to make a pretty good start in life. Knowing nothing of the value of diamonds, nor of the different qualities found in them, Alex was surprised at how much they had been paid. He had not expected so much.
They drove back to Francistown and Marv bought his farm. They camped there a week, walking the fence lines, planning dam sites, finding a suitable location to build a house, pegging out cattle yards.
On the fourth day Alex said, ‘Won’t you be lonely living here on your own?’ Marv hadn’t mentioned Pru once since they left Gaberones.
Marv grinned and shook his head. ‘Who said I’ll be on my own?’
Alex grinned back. ‘You old dog, you’ve been holding out on me.’
‘Not really,’ Marv admitted. ‘I haven’t asked her yet.’
FOURTEEN
Marv and Pru’s wedding was treated by a large percentage of the Gaberones population as an excuse for a monumental piss-up. Most of them knew Alex, a handful had met Marv and no-one at all had laid eyes on Pru until a few days before the event. Not that this mattered. Hard working, hard living, hard drinking men and women, pioneers in a land poised on the brink of independence, many unwelcome in South Africa because they were believers in majority rule, most of them were warm, open-hearted lovers of a happy ending. The material things in life had no real relevance to these people. They were larger than life for the most part, basic in the extreme, loyal to their friends and generous to a fault. God help anyone who got off side with them but it seemed like heaven smiled on those they called friends. Alex was considered one of them. Marv fitted in perfectly. Even Pru was enough of a character to be welcomed immediately, they liked her open manner and blunt way of speaking. That two of their numbers had decided to marry met with their wholehearted approval.
The change in Pru was just short of a miracle. In the two months she had known Marv she was a completely different person. She had always been candid; God help those who asked for her opinion because she just came right out and gave it, irrespective of whether feelings got hurt or not. That hadn’t changed. It was part of her personality and, very often, her directness put a different perspective on something which was both refreshing and plausible. However, the facade she had developed to protect herself had gone and with it, the snobbery, the barbed remarks and the continual references to her parents. For the first time in her life, Pru believed in her own worth. Chrissy and Alex tried to figure it out.
‘We know it was the night they got pissed together, right?’
She nodded. ‘At some stage that night they got fed up with arguing and started relating to each other.’
‘They’re both square pegs in round holes. Maybe that’s it.’
Chrissy thought about it. ‘He’s the only person she’s ever met who’s had the guts to tell her to shut up. That certainly got her attention. Then he said her parents were boring.’
Alex grinned. ‘A pet rock wasn’t it?’
‘Trust Marv.’ She grinned back. ‘He kept asking her about her. He kept forcing her to talk about herself. Even when they were arguing he kept bringing the conversation back to her. By the time they were into their fourth bottle of wine she was probably too relaxed to be anything other than herself.’
‘And she liked it?’
‘Think about it. She’s been pushed away and criticised, ignored and shut out all her life. There she was out in the middle of the desert, under the stars in a strange land with a man who appeared hell bent on listening to her, valuing what she had to say and, above all, was not toadying to her.’ She smiled. ‘Instinctive is not a word that immediately springs to mind about Marv but, by letting her know that he found her attractive and interesting but wasn’t about to let her walk all over him, he
was acting instinctively.’
Alex nodded. ‘He certainly got it right.’
She agreed. ‘Marv will love her for the rest of her life. She knows that. That’s heady stuff for a girl who has spent twenty-five years trying to get noticed.’
‘They’re good together, that’s for sure.’
‘They’re perfect together.’
He nearly said more but changed his mind. He had a plan.
Pru’s parents had wired that they couldn’t attend the wedding. Pru showed the telegram to Chrissy. CAN’T MAKE WEDDING (STOP) OTHER COMMITMENTS (STOP) DADDY IS SENDING PRESENT (STOP) BEST WISHES (STOP) MUMMY.
‘A present!’ Chrissy was horrified by the impersonal message.
‘She means money,’ Pru said curtly. ‘It’s too vulgar to mention in a telegram.’
Chrissy hugged her. ‘Are you upset?’
Pru frowned at the message. ‘I’m cross.’ She screwed up the telegram and threw it across the room. ‘To hell with them,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve got Marv.’
It was a beautiful day in May. An endless blue sky, not a whisper of breeze, with a hint of autumn in the air. Pru looked a dream in white silk. Marv was distinguished and proud. The ceremony was simple and short. Alex, standing next to Marv in the church, only had eyes for Chrissy as she followed Pru down the aisle.
A small party of invited guests, and a very large number of the Gaberones crowd who believed it their moral duty, toasted the future of Mr and Mrs Moine at the Notwane Club afterwards.
Marv’s family had come from South Africa—mother, father, a sister and two brothers. When his mother, with her arm around Pru, said, ‘Isn’t it lovely, now I have two daughters,’ Alex thought Pru would burst into tears of happiness.
The next day Alex drove Chrissy out of town to a place he had found several years earlier. ‘This place is the next best thing to being in the desert,’ he told her.
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