Edge of the Rain

by Beverley Harper

  He had ceased all attempts to get her to marry him. Her promise, that one day he would know the reason why she would not, had so far not been fulfilled. They lived together as man and wife, they laughed and fought together as man and wife—it seemed to be enough for Chrissy. So Alex told himself it would have to be enough for him as well.

  The last time he broached the subject was after Marv had telephoned bubbling with excitement with the news that, finally, Pru was pregnant.

  When he told Chrissy, she simply shrugged and said, ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘Nice! It’s terrific news. Marv’s over the moon. They’ve been trying for a year.’

  ‘Well good for him.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you? You almost sound as though you’re jealous.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘That’s it, isn’t it? You’re jealous. For Christ’s sake, Chrissy, we could have a kid too.’

  They had the usual argument about getting married. She cried the usual tears. He felt the usual fear that she didn’t love him. They made up as usual. He never mentioned it again. He didn’t understand her; he’d seen her with other children and knew she liked them. On infrequent visits by Pru and Marv he had listened to her sharing Pru’s excitement about the baby, but he sensed that if he pushed her she might leave him. She never said she would, it was just a feeling he had. He never wanted her to leave, he loved her too much. But her refusal to discuss it made him scared.

  He never ceased to marvel at his good fortune for having met her. Together, they were a complete unit of loyalty and love, tenderness and happiness, laughter and agreement. Sometimes he would glance up and she would be watching him, a small smile on her face, and he would blow her a kiss and go back to whatever he had been doing, secure in the knowledge his Chrissy was with him.

  He learned to read her face. He knew, for example, when she was tired and wanted to go home. He knew when she wanted to make love by a softness which crept into her eyes, and when she didn’t by the way she held her shoulders. He could tell whether she liked someone or not by the tilt of her head. The tip of her nose going white was a sure sign he was in trouble, a smile in her eyes when he was forgiven. She was his friend, lover, confidante, sounding board, loyal and staunch supporter and constant companion.

  She liked to read in the bath and would shut the door and lock it. ‘I need to be on my own,’ she would say. When she did that he would be unable to settle to anything until she came out. At parties he was continually aware of where she was and to whom she was talking. It wasn’t jealousy; he trusted her and respected her need to speak to others. He just needed to know where she was for, if he lost a sense of that he experienced a nameless panic. Sometimes his sixth sense about her let him down and, when he thought she was on the other side of the room, she would suddenly appear beside him and take his hand. He did not understand the fear in him. It was not, he conceded, like him at all.

  But he stayed scared. There was something about her that seemed transitory. Once or twice, when she was unaware he was watching her, he could see that whatever thoughts she was having caused a look of deep sorrow on her face. He never asked what she was thinking. He was too scared of her answer. They were close but there was a barrier she had erected. And this barrier caused his uncertainty which in turn made him vulnerable. He was never completely sure of her.

  They were sitting together on their verandah, looking over the lilac carpet of fallen jacaranda flowers in their garden. ‘I’ve decided to accept that job at the museum.’

  ‘Great. I was beginning to think you might leave.’ His words did not reveal the relief he felt.

  She put out her hand and stroked his arm. ‘I never want to leave you,’ she said softly. Tears slid down her face. She often did that. At first it worried him but now he was used to them. She always explained them away as sentimental foolishness, an explanation he accepted since she cried nearly every time they spoke about their relationship.

  ‘Don’t cry, Chrissy love.’ He said it automatically.

  The tears stopped as quickly as they started. ‘Will you have to travel as much now the study has been accepted?’

  ‘At first I suppose I’ll have to get out there and talk to the clans again. That will take time, you know how the San are. Half of them have probably forgotten all about the project by now. After all, in some cases it’s been a year and a half since I first mentioned it to them. I’ll try to talk !Ka into coming with me, the others will listen if I have him there. And then there’s the problem with the tannery. I’ve been shown five sites and the bloody District Council are arguing over which one is best. I have to make a final decision on that this trip. Once everything’s up and running I guess I’ll be away a couple of times a year, that’s all.’

  She nodded. ‘It’s suddenly happening so fast. You go away the day after tomorrow. I’ll miss you.’

  ‘I’ll miss you too.’

  Again the tears. ‘Don’t miss me too much, darling. Concentrate on what you have to do.’

  He had a government Land Rover at his disposal. He set off two days later. Chrissy waved him goodbye. ‘See you when I see you. Stay well.’ Her smile did not reach her eyes.

  Alex was busy for the next four weeks. He went to Molepolole and selected a site for the tannery, staying on there for five days to hold discussions with the District Council, a lengthy process where the ramifications of every stage of its construction had to be talked about fully, from who would lay the concrete floor to who would paint the walls to who would supply the light fittings. Council members tended to push relatives forward, irrespective of their skills. To head them off when clearly a cousin or nephew was unqualified required a great deal of tact and arguments flared quickly if a council member felt he was getting less than his fair share of the spoils. Alex knew that if he appointed a building contractor who was an unpopular choice with the majority of council members, he could expect sabotage at the very least.

  The Chief, still smarting from losing most of his authority and still angry with Alex, went out of his way to make progress as difficult as he could. By and large, however, his constant sniping and whining was ignored or overruled. All he achieved was unnecessary delay at every turn.

  Alex stayed with Marthe and Jacob during this time. Jacob was as outspoken as ever. ‘Why are you wasting your time with this, jong? Them plurry Bushmen won’t thank you.’

  ‘This attitude,’ he thought sadly, ‘prevails everywhere. The Bushmen are vilified by white and black alike. Perhaps it’s their small stature and childlike features which make people think of them as being of no consequence, or maybe it’s because they were hunted and forced out of traditional homelands. People write them off as cowards but they went in peace, rather than stay and fight. That’s their way. They have to be the most misunderstood people on earth.’

  But all he said to Jacob was, ‘I don’t want them to thank me. I just want to help them.’ Someone had to. Before they disappeared forever.

  Once the clans roamed the whole of southern Africa. In the thirteenth century, with Bantu tribes fleeing south to escape the slave traders, the peace-loving Bushmen had been hunted and herded out of their lands. They moved away to the south, finding places along the way where they could live. With the coming of the white man, however, the Bushmen found themselves, once again, hunted—this time with guns from horseback. With nowhere else to go, they headed west, into the sand and rock country of the Kalahari and Namib.

  There they found the peace they so desperately desired. No-one else was interested in such arid places. ‘Until now,’ Alex thought. ‘Thanks to technology.’

  Once the talks with the District Council were concluded he made his way across the Kalahari towards Ghanzi, stopping at each of the places selected as pick-up points for leather, giving each person a register for the skins, teaching them the system required by the government and checking, where possible, that the local clans were still keen to participate. He was not surprised to discove
r that some of the clans had either changed their minds or were indifferent. Their wandering, non-hierarchal lifestyle made them reluctant to make decisions which might affect anyone other than the individual concerned and they could not yet grasp the concept of reward. Polite to the nth degree, the clans listened and nodded, then went about their own lives as though Alex had never spoken to them. He was not overly concerned. He knew how these people networked and how they loved to talk. The word would spread eventually. Although he searched for !Ka along the way, he was unable to locate the clan but he believed he had !Ka’s approval of the project and that would help get the entire scheme off to a good start.

  Reaching Ghanzi, Alex stayed at the Kalahari Arms, hoping to run into Pat. Some of Jeff Carter’s men came into the bar on Saturday evening and from them he learned that Pat, Willie, Artie and Bob had just left on an early cattle drive. ‘Jeff wants to do more drives than usual this year,’ the man told him. ‘He’s mad. He’s pushing us too hard.’

  Alex didn’t want to talk about Jeff. ‘Who owns that land just west of town with the old shack on it?’ The cartage company he’d had forced on him was nothing more than a man with a truck. He needed a depot for the skins.

  ‘Jeff Carter.’

  ‘What about the fenced plot out along the Maun road? The one with the road sign just in front of it?’

  ‘Tribal.’

  ‘Where does the Chief hang out?’

  ‘You’ll find him in the pub most afternoons.’

  Alex made contact with the Chief of Ghanzi who was more than a little drunk. ‘You want to build a depot! For them Bushmen? Thieving little bastards! The land’s not mine to give any more but, if it were, I’d not let them have it.’

  In the end he found the perfect piece of land which had been earmarked for a new District Commissioner’s house in the days before independence. The project had been shelved and then the land forgotten about. In that it already belonged to the government, getting it for his depot was easy.

  Negotiations with the ‘cartage company’ were nearly as complicated as they had been over the tannery. The man who owned the truck had been told that the depot would belong to him and became stubborn and uncooperative as soon as Alex advised him otherwise. Then he made unreasonable demands about his truck which, on inspection of the vehicle, did not look as if it could make the journey from one end of Ghanzi to the other, a distance of half a mile. Alex had to agree to a major mechanical overhaul before discussions could proceed. He had been away nearly a month when Paul telephoned him from Gaborone, on a radio phone. His voice sounded tinny and disconnected. ‘Can you come back. Chrissy isn’t well.’

  They were cut off before he could get the full message.

  There was no hesitation on his part. If Paul had taken the trouble to call him then he knew that whatever was wrong with Chrissy was more than a dose of flu. He dropped everything and made the long trip south, sleeping briefly in his vehicle. It was hot and cramped but better than running the gauntlet of lions who would have been attracted to the area by the cattle drive. He actually passed the drive as it was camped out for the night just before the deep sandy country, but he didn’t stop. It was midnight, the day after Paul’s call, when he pulled into the yard of their house. Lights burned inside. Paul’s vehicle was in the yard. Another car was there, one he did not recognise. He rushed up the steps and into the house.

  Paul met him inside. ‘The doctor’s with her.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ There was the deepest fear in him.

  Paul handed him a glass of scotch. ‘Sit down.’

  He knew it was bad. The look on Paul’s face told him it was serious. But he wasn’t prepared for the kick in the guts when Paul told him how bad. ‘She’s got leukaemia, Alex. She’s known about it for some time. She didn’t want you to know.’

  Alex felt the scotch burning his throat. He felt weariness in his arms from the long trip. He felt the grittiness of lack of sleep in his eyes. But he had no idea that tears were streaming down his cheeks. He just knew a lump had appeared in his throat that hurt, and a cold was creeping through his gut and down his legs, and a scalding rage was setting fire to his heart.

  He turned his head slowly, seeing Paul through a red haze of anger. ‘No,’ he whispered. His Chrissy. His bright-haired, milk-skinned, warm, loving Chrissy. She who filled him with smiles of happiness. His gentle girl who cried so suddenly and so unexpectedly. ‘No.’

  The doctor came from the room looking grim. He stopped Alex from going in. ‘She’s deeply asleep. I’ve given her something to help.’

  ‘How long has she known?’

  The doctor looked at him sharply. Alex knew him slightly—a man born in Basutoland who had made his life in Botswana with a Motswana wife. He was a good doctor. ‘Several years. Didn’t you know?’

  ‘No,’ he whispered miserably, wondering why he hadn’t guessed. ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘It was pretty far advanced when we discovered it. She’s refused most treatment. She went into remission for a while but it came back stronger than ever. She’s done well to last this long.’

  ‘How long. . .’ the words hurt his throat, ‘. . . how long has she . . .’ he could not bring himself to ask.

  ‘Not long. Just a few days.’

  Oh God! Oh God, Chrissy! Why didn’t you tell me, darling? But she had. In a thousand different ways. He just hadn’t been listening.

  The doctor was leaving, telling Paul he’d come back in the morning. Paul was walking the man to the door. Then he was coming back into the house, arms outstretched, sorrow on his face. Alex went into his brother’s arms and cried, broken and ashamed he had not guessed. Hating himself for pushing her to a marriage she would not live to fulfil and to children she had known she could never bear. Terrified of a life with no Chrissy. A large black hole of sorrow loomed in front of him, gaping and unknown, threatening and so very full of pain.

  Paul led him to the sofa and sat with him, his arm around his shoulders, pulling his older brother close, trying to comfort the boy, and then the man he so idolised. ‘She didn’t want you to know. When she learned I had contacted you, weak as she was, she really chewed me out.’

  Why didn’t I know? Was he so insensitive he could not see that which was right under his nose? ‘When Chrissy makes up her mind about a thing, nothing changes it. She would have been very cross.’ Sick and cross. My darling, my poor darling.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No. You did the right thing. I have to be here.’

  Paul rose and poured him another scotch.

  ‘How did you find out?’ He took the glass from Paul. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘She called me. She was frightened. When I got here I could see that something was obviously very wrong. She’s lost a lot of weight. She didn’t even want me to call the doctor but I had to. Her appearance scared me.’

  Frightened! His girl was frightened and sick and cross and he was not here for her. It was all he could think of. ‘Oh God, Paulie!’

  ‘Do you want me to stay?’

  ‘No.’ He stirred himself, tried to take control of his emotions. ‘No, I need to be alone with her.’

  Paul nodded that he understood.

  After his brother left he went to the door of their bedroom. A lamp lit the room softly. He stopped at the door, looking at the bed. Her bright red hair was a flickering fire on the white pillow. Her face was as pale as the linen. Dark circles, like smudges of charcoal, under her eyes were the only things to break the whiteness of her face. Her cheekbones stood out, high and fine in a face which had grown terribly thin since he last saw her. Her lips were white.

  Misery engulfed him. The soft rise and fall of her chest taunted him. Soon it would stop. Soon she would not breathe any more. Soon the gleam of mischief would leave her eyes. Soon the intelligence he had come to respect would be no more. Soon. Too soon.

  He undressed quietly. Naked, he padded through to the bathroom, taking a scorching hot shower. There was a need i
n him to hold her but, before he did, he needed to be clean. Cleaner than he had ever been. So clean his body touching hers would do her no harm.

  She stirred and mumbled as he got into bed next to her. Gently, so as not to disturb her precious sleep, he put his arm under her head. Slowly he pulled her into him, curling his body around hers, cradling her in his arms, gently kissing her hair, her forehead, her closed eyes. And as he held her he was shocked at the deterioration of her little body, and his tears fell on her hair and he tried to swallow around the terrible ache in his throat, as his heart broke with the loneliness yet to come, as he willed his own strength to help her, to enter her body and make her well again, Alex knew a pain so deep, so intense he trembled with it. Holding her, trembling with hurt, feeling her breath against his neck, he knew he was losing the one thing that meant more to him than his own life. And, oh God, how it hurt.

  Chrissy never woke up. She died in his arms that night. The terrible pain which he had kept in check so as not to wake her burst from him in heartbroken, racking sobs as he held her lifeless body in his arms. He held her until dawn. As the sun broke over the rim of the earth and sent long fingers of light into their room he looked at her face and he understood, at last, that she had gone and would never be coming back. Her spirit had flown away, leaving the shell which had contained it.

  He knew about death. !Ka taught him about the Hare and the Moon and the argument they had long ago about rebirth. He also taught him about the inevitability of death. His mother told him of life after death. Everyone had a story, a theory. But no-one prepared him for this. No-one warned him that when a vibrant young person dies their body looks like a wax figure. No-one told him how to cope with the knowledge that right here in his arms was the girl whose voice he could still hear but would never hear again, breath he could still feel but would never feel again, warm smile he could still see but would never see again.

  She had gone. She had left him. She felt nothing. She saw nothing. He wanted to laugh at her, she looked so silly. He was angry with her. He felt like shaking her. His ears were ringing, loud bells which pealed through his head. He had no idea he was crying. A red mist rose. He thought he was laughing. Someone was, he could hear it.