Edge of the Rain

by Beverley Harper

  ‘How is Madison?’

  ‘She thinks you’re dead. She left Botswana a week ago. I think she’s in South Africa somewhere. I can find out for you.’

  Alex’s spirits lifted. ‘Is it true, I’m not wanted?’

  ‘You’re a free man. It’s over, Alex, you can come home.’

  Home! What a great word. ‘How about the fact that I escaped from prison?’

  ‘Alistair McKeith of CID was a bit put out. He was planning to organise your release the day after you escaped. He’s prepared to overlook it though since, technically, you were a free man when you did it.’

  ‘How did you locate Tim Boland?’

  ‘Same way I located you. In the Personal column. But it wasn’t only Tim who cleared your name. Madison was wonderful.’ Paul filled Alex in on the night she broke into Kel’s house and found the licence. ‘It was a close one, Alex. I think Kel planned to kill her.’

  ‘What’s happened to Kel?’ Alex found his fingers gripping the receiver hard wishing it was Kel’s neck.

  ‘He and his uncle are in prison. His uncle got five years but Kel got fifteen.’

  Alex’s fingers relaxed. Fifteen years in Gaborone prison was more than enough punishment for anyone.

  ‘De Beers are grateful and embarrassed,’ Paul continued. ‘You’ve led them to the biggest diamond mine in the southern hemisphere. You’ll get your farm now, Alex. Not only are they prepared to pay you for the find, they plan to compensate you for your time in prison. They feel a bit responsible for that. I think you’ll be happy with their offer.’

  Free! He was free. It was all he could think about.

  ‘Madison . . .’

  ‘Call me tomorrow. I’ll find out from her mother where she is.’

  ‘Tomorrow!’

  Paul laughed. ‘Okay, hang around the phone box. I’ll call you back in half-an-hour.’

  Madison had gone to the family beach cottage north of Durban. Conserving the little cash he had, Alex thumbed the 400-mile distance in just under ten hours. Arriving at the small resort of Umhloti Beach he did something he did very rarely. He panicked.

  How does she feel about me?

  ‘She risked her life for you,’ said his heart.

  ‘She’s never said she loves you,’ his head told him. ‘You were an absolute shit to her in the desert,’ it added.

  Help me, !Ka.

  He located the cottage and stood on the road, uncertain and afraid. A dog barked from the garden of the house next door.

  ‘She put up with you in the desert,’ his heart said. ‘She must love you.’

  His head had no answer. He took it as an omen.

  No-one answered his knock. He walked around to the back. The cottage was right on the beach. Wooden steps led down from emerald green lawns to the sand below. From the lawn, he had a good view right around the small cove. He could see one solitary figure standing at the water’s edge, staring out to sea. Alex made his way towards her, across the soft sand, down to the hard edge, and along to where she stood. It was the longest walk of his life. ‘Madison.’ He was three yards from her.

  She spun around. ‘Alex!’ Wind whipped her hair across her face and she brushed it back impatiently. ‘Is it really you?’

  He grinned at her. He was still uncertain.

  ‘You bastard! You thoughtless, unmitigated bastard! Why the hell couldn’t you have let us know you were all right?’

  Alex reached her in three strides. ‘It’s okay,’ his heart and head agreed. ‘She loves you.’

  Much, much later, lying in a tangle of sheets and limbs, she said, ‘I have a confession to make.’

  ‘What would that be?’ His heart was so full of happiness he felt it would explode.

  Her fingers traced a pattern on his chest. ‘Finding you in Scotland was not an accident.’

  He brushed hair off her face gently. ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘I met Marv. I knew he was a friend of yours. I asked if he’d heard from you. He said you were going to Stirling to speak to Chrissy’s parents.’

  Alex remembered a card he wrote Marv to that effect.

  Sheets rustled as she turned into him. ‘You know how, in old novels, the heroine is ruined by the scoundrel?’

  ‘I’m no scoundrel,’ he protested.

  ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘But I was certainly ruined. No-one else could measure up.’

  ‘I take it you’re speaking in general terms here?’ he said drily.

  She punched him lightly on the shoulder. ‘You know what I mean.’ Hesitation. ‘I did have one or two relationships, I can’t lie about that.’

  ‘Heavens,’ he murmured, amused. ‘How decadent.’

  ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘Lead me to them, Madame. It’s pistols at dawn time.’ He was laughing at her gently.

  He felt the soft pressure of her lips on his skin. ‘You know what I love about you most, Alex?’

  ‘My great personality, good looks and charm?’

  He should have known better. ‘You think like a woman.’ She yelped when he tickled her. ‘It’s true, it’s true,’ she giggled, trying to squirm away from his fingers. ‘You don’t suffer from masculine myopia.’

  He stopped tickling and pulled her closer. ‘What the hell is masculine myopia?’

  ‘Belief that the only way to be with a woman is to own and dominate them.’ She laughed at herself. ‘Hell, I don’t know. It’s a male thing.’

  He laughed with her. ‘Is that it? That’s the end of your confession? Male myopia?’

  ‘No.’ She hesitated. ‘Alex, I’m not proud of the next bit.’

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, sensing her reluctance.

  ‘I was at that horrible finishing school when Mummy wrote and told me that Chrissy had died. My heart just broke for you. I knew you would be devastated.’ She raised herself on one elbow and looked down into his face. ‘Even so, Alex, all I could think was that now, maybe, you’d have time for me. That’s why I went out of my way to get expelled. I wanted to get back to Botswana, be closer to you.’ She looked at him unhappily. ‘ I knew you would be in pain and all I was interested in was me. I’m sorry. I still can’t forgive myself for that.’

  Her hair had fallen forward and he brushed it back, tucking it behind her ear. ‘You should,’ he said softly, respecting her honesty.

  She shook her head. ‘By the time I got back to Botswana you’d gone. I thought, “Fine, he’ll be back.” But you didn’t come back. That’s when I met Marv and decided to go to Stirling. I guessed you’d turn up some time. I’d nearly given up on ever finding you when you were literally thrown out of that pub at my feet.’

  ‘Don’t remind me.’

  She grinned at that. ‘It was obvious you weren’t ready for another relationship,’ she went on. ‘A couple of times, when you were staying with me, I nearly blurted out the truth. But you needed more time, I could see that. By the time you returned to Botswana I had come to the conclusion that you had loved Chrissy so much there was no room in your heart for me.’

  He pulled her down so she lay on his chest. ‘The first time I saw you I fell in love with you,’ he admitted. ‘Each time we ran into each other after that I always seemed to do or say the wrong thing. Then I met Chrissy. Yes, I fell in love with her. I loved her very much. When she died I couldn’t handle the pain but it was more than just that. You put your finger on it in Scotland. You said there was guilt and anger. I was full of guilt. I felt I should have known she was ill. I was terribly angry at myself, I missed her and I felt guilty. I just went off the rails.’

  He ran his fingers over her bare shoulders. ‘It took a long time,’ he said softly. ‘I can only guess now that it was because I was so young. But I’m over Chrissy. There is no ghost.’

  ‘Are you sure, Alex? I couldn’t live with a ghost.’ She looked up and grinned. ‘I’m too bloody vain.’

  He grinned back. ‘I wouldn’t do that to you, Madison. You scare me too much.’

  They laug
hed and he kissed her again.

  ‘I must have been blind in Scotland,’ he said finally.

  ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘You had only just opened your eyes. It was too soon.’ She kissed his chest. ‘When we bumped into each other in Gabs I thought I could feel something between us.’

  ‘I felt that too.’

  ‘That’s why I wanted to go with you.’

  ‘It’s why I didn’t want you there.’ He laughed at himself. ‘Bit of latent chivalry if you like.’

  ‘You were so awful to me in the Kalahari . . .’ she said, her voice muffled against his chest, ‘. . . you kept trying to get rid of me.’

  ‘And you wouldn’t bloody go,’ he said lightly, smiling at the memory of her stubbornness to give in.

  ‘It was my last chance to get you to notice me.’

  Alex tightened his arms around her and rolled, so he was leaning over her. ‘Oh I noticed you, Madison darling,’ he said, kissing her gently.

  She wound her arms around his neck. ‘I love you,’ she whispered.

  Looking at her face close to his Alex realised he was seeing the face of his future, the face which would always be there, the faces of their children.

  NINETEEN

  God, I hate August! The wind, blowing in from the desert, picked up sand and dust and hustled it through the air, stinging his eyes until they grew red and sore. It was so dry he got an electric shock every time he touched metal. The land had turned dusty white and dead looking. His cattle, their backs hunched against the flying sand, searched morosely for fodder, eating the dry, dust-laden grasses which had most of the goodness burned out by frost, their big soft eyes reproachful against nature’s unkindness. August made them short-tempered and difficult to work with. He sympathised. August made him short-tempered and difficult to work with too.

  Leaning over the railing of his verandah, he grinned. ‘Silly old fart, you feel like this every year. At your age, you should know better.’ He eyed the rose garden. Everything else had the good sense to wait for September, but not the roses. Gamely, they struggled into flower early. Each year, blasted by flying sand and dirt, they had an air of desperate determination. Next to August he didn’t much like roses either.

  The rooster was out again, scratching under the roses, pecking the ground hopefully. ‘There’s nothing there, old fella,’ he called. ‘Get back to your women.’ The rooster glanced at him briefly, his feathers flying out in the wind giving him a fluffy look, then went on pecking.

  Normally the garden delighted him. Terraces of green lawn, tumbling splashes of colour from flowering shrubs, the deep shade of deciduous trees, quiet tucked away corners. But in August the lawns were burned brown, the shrubs were scrappy, the trees still bare and the quiet nooks no match for the wind and sand.

  God, I hate August! He moved back to his chair against the wall of the house. There, protected by the solid bulk of the kitchen where it jutted out and formed an L-shape, the wind couldn’t reach him. The years had been kind to Alex. He walked straight and tall, with an easy fluid stride. Hair, thick and curly still, was peppered with grey. Blue-green eyes, a little faded, held serenity and humour. He picked up Sam’s letter. ‘All the other boys get twice the allowance I get. Please, Dad, I need more money.’ Alex rattled the letter irritably. The boy was incorrigible. Just what did a sixteen-year-old need with so much money? Neither Claire, nor Mickey, had asked for more.

  ‘I used to get by on two shillings a week,’ he grumbled to no-one in particular, although the rooster, who had abandoned the roses and was now advancing hopefully up the verandah steps, clucked sympathetically. ‘Scram,’ he told the bird. The rooster obeyed, dropping his calling card as he went.

  Alex sat back and looked across his desperate garden to his equally desperate farm. Despite the dust devils, the lifeless leaves on evergreen trees and bushes, so encrusted with grit not even the gusting wind could shift the layers of dust, despite the Limpopo river lying in sluggish brown pools and his skinny, winter starved cattle with heads drooped in disconsolate misery, he knew he loved this place. Next month, with luck, would come the spring rains, bringing soft green grass into sparkling relief against the white sandy soil. In November or December, the hard summer rains put new life into the river so that it tumbled and flowed and flushed out the green and brown algae which formed in stagnant pools.

  He should have gone away, he said that every year. Marv and Pru, and all the other farmers in the area, went away every August. But some stubborn instinct made him stay. Perhaps it was a time to look back, he didn’t know. He just knew that each year he stayed on his farm and cursed the weather and remembered.

  He remembered it now as clearly as though it was yesterday. All those years ago.

  As soon as he had arrived back in Botswana with Madison, two men were clamouring to see him: Tim Boland and Alistair McKeith. Alex had decided to deal with the bad first.

  ‘You’re a damned fool,’ McKeith snapped irritably. ‘You might have been shot.’

  ‘But I wasn’t,’ Alex said mildly. He had expected an earbashing from Alistair.

  ‘You could have been.’

  ‘Okay.’

  McKeith stared at him. ‘One more day. That’s all. If you’d waited . . .’

  ‘How was I to know?’

  ‘Even half a day would have done it.’

  ‘Okay.’

  The policeman breathed heavily. ‘You taking the piss, Theron?’

  ‘No sir.’

  ‘I could arrest you.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  McKeith glared.

  Alex gazed innocently back.

  ‘Here.’ McKeith passed two pieces of paper over his desk. ‘You are now officially pardoned and officially released from prison.’

  Alex glanced at them. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And here.’ He passed Alex a cheque. ‘You’re entitled to be paid for the work you did inside.’

  Alex looked. The cheque was for an amount of sixty-three rand and forty-six cents. He passed it back. ‘Donate it to the police fund.’

  McKeith digested this. Then, ‘You bitter about this, son?’

  ‘Bitter?’ Alex thought a moment. Then he grinned. ‘To be perfectly honest, fucking livid doesn’t come close.’

  McKeith laughed. ‘You’re all right, Theron. Get out of here. Way I hear it you lead a charmed life. Go and enjoy it.’

  Alex rose and put out his hand. ‘Thanks,’ he said simply.

  The policeman took it. ‘Try to stay out of trouble, son.’

  Alex smiled. ‘On second thoughts I will take that cheque.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I intend to frame it.’

  De Beers had been more than generous. The biggest gemstone diamond pipe in the world had been found exactly where he and Madison had been digging.

  Tim Boland had been reinstated when the full extent of Kel’s activities became known. The government had readily agreed to erase all trace of the Prohibited Immigrant order which had ejected him from Botswana. The gardener, who had been paid by Kel to lay false charges against Tim for racist comments and behaviour, was located but Tim Boland refused to lay charges in return. ‘It wasn’t his fault. Up against Kel and his family, the poor man had no choice.’ He rehired the man and in doing so, earned himself the gardener’s respect and loyalty which far exceeded that of a close personal friend.

  ‘Basically we’re not obliged to pay you anything.’ Tim Boland made Alex sweat a bit first. ‘The land at Jwaneng belongs to Botswana. You picked up nothing on the surface and you’re not entitled to anything found under the ground.’ Nails tapped on his desk. He was, Alex observed, in one of his pretentious moods.

  ‘True enough,’ Alex agreed. ‘But would you have found the pipe without us?’

  ‘Eventually, yes.’

  ‘And how much money would De Beers have spent looking?’

  Tim Boland tried to stop it but his professional smile sneaked into real. ‘Nice one, Theron.’

 
‘Actually,’ Alex went on as though he hadn’t spoken, ‘at a guess I imagine you’d have blown a good three to five million rand.’

  Tim laughed. ‘You wouldn’t be related to an economist I know by any chance would you?’

  Alex leaned forward. ‘Tell me, Tim, how big is this?’

  Tim’s eyes were alive with excitement. ‘Bigger than your wildest dreams. You hit the jackpot, you and your Bushmen friends. The geologists are full of the mutters.’

  ‘What are you doing for the San? I assume you’ll be cordoning off a large area of what used to be their hunting ground. How are they to be compensated?’

  Again Tim Boland’s real grin emerged. ‘Don’t you worry about that. De Beers have a reputation to maintain. We’re not in the habit of taking without giving something in return. We’ve joined forces with that Bushman curio scheme you started. We have a team of people working on a package for the Bushmen that will knock your eyes out. No, it’s you who is giving us the headache.’

  ‘Why?’ Alex shifted uncomfortably in the elegant but inadequate chair.

  ‘Like I said, technically we don’t have to give you a thing.’ A quick professional smile. ‘But while we were not directly responsible for you spending three months in prison, nor was it our idea that you jump the fence and go leaping off to South Africa, and we can’t possibly be blamed for the fact that you made no contact with anyone for a whole month who could easily have acquainted you with the status quo . . .’ Tim took a deep breath and finished with a rush, ‘We feel morally obliged to make amends.’

  ‘How moral is this obligation likely to be?’ Alex asked quickly in case another barrage of words was on its way.

  Tim made no attempt to conceal his delight. ‘How does a million rand sound?’

  Alex sat, stunned. He hadn’t expected anything like that much. ‘You’re kidding?’ he managed finally.

  Tim grinned. ‘I’m not kidding. If the land belonged to you it would cost us at least twice that much to buy it back. If you hadn’t led us to the pipe, as you pointed out, we’d have spent anything up to five million finding it. It’s a fair offer, young man, what do you say?’

  All Alex could do was nod.

  ‘We’re not announcing the find for a couple of years,’ Boland said. ‘The industry isn’t ready for another large mine.’ He put a piece of paper in front of Alex. ‘Sign this. It’s a confidentiality agreement. If word of this find leaks out and we trace it back to you, we’ll sue.’