The Fever Tree

by Jennifer McVeigh

  “Market Square,” Edwin said, jumping off the back of the wagon and lifting their luggage down onto the side of the street. He looked excited to be here, invigorated by all these people, but Frances felt a little overwhelmed. It had been months since she had set foot in a town. He handed her Mangwa’s lead rope and left her standing on the steps of a hotel, one of only two brick buildings in the square. “I’ll be out in a minute. Watch the luggage.”

  The hotel was a surprise. It looked bright and friendly, and she could see between the curtains that the front room was well lit and glowing in a shabby, welcoming way. She stood next to a window which looked into the dining room. Two tables were laid, with clean white napkins and brass candlesticks. Edwin had no income now, and she had imagined a dingy, run-down establishment on the outskirts of town. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  She stroked Mangwa’s nose while she waited. The Reitzes had offered to try to sell him, but Edwin had suggested he come along. “We’ll get a better price for him in Kimberley,” he had said, and she had agreed, hoping that she might be able to change his mind.

  There must have been over forty oxen in the square, with natives unloading huge bundles of goods, crates, and bales of straw from the backs of wagons. Surely it was only a matter of time before she saw William. It occurred to her that he might have stood where she was standing now. Perhaps he had passed through the square today, or was about to. He might have stayed in this hotel, in the very room that she would be sleeping in tonight. Two boys darted between the wagons, running swiftly from person to person, offering pieces of paper to anyone who would take one. She held out her hand, and a pink slip was pressed into it. The lamp outside the hotel cast enough light for her to read what it said: “The disease at Falstead’s Farm is not smallpox. It is a bulbous disease of the skin allied to pemphigus. Signed—.” The names of various doctors were signed underneath. She felt relief mixed with disappointment. This slip was official and signed by enough men to prove without doubt that it wasn’t smallpox after all. They would only be staying a few days. Which was good. The sooner they got away from Baier, the better. And yet, even though nothing could come of it, her heart was set on seeing William. A few days might not be enough time.

  Two natives stood across the street, watching her. They approached when they saw her looking. One was dressed in an old woolen jumper, with bare legs and feet. He said something to her in Dutch. She shook her head to show she didn’t understand, and he put out a hand to touch Mangwa, curiously, letting it rest on his shoulder. His friend, a tall boy with just a knotted cloth passed between his legs and his buttocks bare, stared at her as if she were a specimen behind glass. She took a step backwards, but the naked boy reached forwards, put out his hand, and touched her hair, letting it bristle between his fingers. She jumped away from him and he laughed, a bellowing sound showing a mouth full of long, white teeth like the keys on a piano. The boy in the jumper said something to her again. It sounded like a question. She didn’t answer, and he squatted down beside their luggage and began hauling her trunk onto his shoulders. She told him to stop, but her voice was shrill. When she made a grab for the handle, he swung it effortlessly out of her way, then looked at her, grinning.

  “Put it down!” she shouted, and they roared with laughter as if she were playing a part in a pantomime. She felt absurdly like she might cry.

  Edwin reappeared. “You all right?” he asked, then spoke to one of the natives in Dutch.

  “They’ll take our luggage,” he said to her, nodding to the boy carrying her trunk, and he handed the zebra to the other to lead.

  “Doesn’t the hotel have a room?” she asked, disappointed, as they walked away from the square.

  “The hotel? Probably, but we’re not staying there.”

  “Why not?”

  He gave her a wry look. “Do you really need to ask? Mrs. Edwinson, who runs it, has a side business letting out tents on the other side of town.”

  They turned down a street off Market Square, walking past corrugated-iron buildings of every shape and size, painted white, green, red, and yellow. The tradesmen advertised their wares on large billboards which she could just make out by the light of Edwin’s lamp. They were mostly diamond merchants and one-room mining offices. Further on was a chemist, then an auction house and a pawnbroker. They passed a barber and a shop with a window crammed full of bottles of carbonated water. On their left was a row of brick buildings covered in scaffolding. Edwin said they were being built by the new bank.

  They turned off the main street at the corner of an architect’s office and stepped into a maelstrom of canvas and makeshift iron houses. There was no clear road here, and everything looked as if it had been laid down haphazardly, with no attempt at order, like a pack of tumbling card houses. It was too crowded, and the tents were pitched right up against one another. Fires were dotted in between, and the lamps which burnt inside the tents threw grotesque shapes across the canvas walls, like a lantern show.

  “Why aren’t there any houses?” Frances asked, half jogging to keep up.

  “They’re building on the other side of town, but it’s expensive. Bricks are harder to come by in Kimberley than diamonds, and all the timber has to be imported.”

  They walked past a large pavilion tent which had been turned into a boarding house. Next to it was a liquor bar with a sign outside: THE DIGGER’S REST. A handful of tables were scattered in the dust at the entrance, and inside a throng of men were playing cards and drinking. A tune was being hammered out on a piano. Pools of light spilled onto the road, and two men dressed in shirtsleeves and overalls with knives in their belts swigged from the same bottle. She could smell the sweet stink of stale alcohol.

  A little further on, the crush of canvas thinned, and it was here the natives stopped. A tent stood in a small yard, bolstered up with thornbush. Her heart sank. It was a squalid, dirty-looking place. There was a line for washing strung across the middle from the stark branches of a dead tree to the top of the tent, and a few barrels for water. Their luggage was brought inside, the boys were paid, and more lamps were lit. There was a small, rickety fold-out table at the front of the tent with three chairs, and a curtain which ran across the middle separating off the bed. Boards had been put down on the floor, so at least they wouldn’t be living in the dust. She could stand, just about, if she was in the central seam of the tent, but not where the canvas began to slope towards the floor.

  It was cold now, with winter coming on, and she pulled a shawl from her bag. She wished she had brought some woolen underclothes from London. Edwin was holding a match to a knot of kindling. She handed him the slip of pink paper. He looked at her curiously, then put it up to the light to read it. After a moment, he asked, “Where did you get this?”

  “Boys were handing them out in the street. It’s good news, isn’t it? For the town? For us?”

  Edwin shook his head stubbornly. “I can’t say. Not until I’ve had a look for myself.”

  “Because of course only you would know?” she cried in exasperation.

  She pushed through the curtain. The mattress was made of straw, and it had an old blanket laid on top which didn’t quite stretch to the edges. She found their sheets and made the bed.

  Edwin toasted some mealies which Sarah had made, and they ate them with tinned sardines. It was so cold now that you could see your breath when you talked. Through the chill night air came the sounds of other people’s lives. The clatter of pots, voices raised in argument, and, further off, the tinkling of the piano at the Digger’s Rest.

  They had finished eating when she noticed a man appear silently in their yard. He stood looking in at them, swaying slightly like a stick of bamboo in a gentle breeze. Edwin held up a hand in recognition. The man came closer, and Frances saw from his tall frame and disheveled, old school flannels that he was English. His jacket, all faded stripes and fraying buttons, hung awkwardly from his narrow shoulders. He had a long, tanned face with a grizzled beard, and
his hair, grown over to cover a bald patch, had been blown off his forehead into wisps of white cotton.

  The man looked round in a nervous, hesitating way, clutching his hat in one hand. Frances, concerned that gravity was going to get the better of him, motioned to the spare chair, and he buckled into it.

  “Got a drink, Matthews?” he called to Edwin, who was already pouring out a glass.

  “He can be a tight bastard,” he said to Frances heavily. Then, after a moment, he shouted to Edwin, “Is this your wife?” He turned to her, asking in a low voice of mock disbelief, “Did you marry him?”

  Edwin handed him the glass, and the man took a long draft and seemed to revive. “I had lunch with Baier today.”

  “And I thought you were just here for the scotch.”

  “Yes, the scotch too,” the man said benignly.

  “Did you see the men at Falstead’s Farm?” Edwin asked.

  “So Baier was right. He’d heard you were coming to town. Said you’d got yourself in a twist about an outbreak of smallpox. I disagreed with him.” He took another long draft and waved his hand airily. “I assured him that a few months on the veldt would have sweated your youthful ambitions out of you.”

  “I was told there were four Mozambicans, traveling down the east coast. Is that right? They were suspected of smallpox, were quarantined at Falstead’s Farm, and shortly after, died.”

  “Not smallpox. Pemphigus.”

  “Pemphigus? I’ve never even heard of it.”

  “Well, I encourage you to look it up.”

  He took another sip of whiskey and sucked his teeth. “You know, we doctors should stick together, Matthews. It doesn’t do to have stray sheep.”

  “You’re a doctor?” Frances asked.

  “Of sorts,” Edwin replied for him.

  “I’d forgotten how you love to make yourself unpopular.” The man tilted his whiskey into the light. “He’s right, of course. I was banned from practicing in England. Still, it’s not so bad. Kimberley is less queasy when it comes to picking its professionals.”

  “Did you examine the men?” Edwin asked. The man didn’t deny it. “And you’re sure it wasn’t smallpox?”

  “Having never seen a case of smallpox, I don’t feel absolutely qualified to say.”

  “But you signed the slip regardless.”

  “We’ve all signed it,” he said, draining his glass. “There isn’t a doctor in Kimberley who refused.”

  “But you don’t believe it?” Edwin persisted.

  The man gave a rattling cough and stood up to phlegm outside. When he came back he said, “Have you been to Ebden Street? To the new stock market?” He picked up the bottle from the chest and poured out another fistful. “You should go down and take a look. Kimberley has changed since you’ve been away. More than thirty joint stock companies floated in the last two months, and a handful more every day. There isn’t a man in Kimberley who isn’t invested. They can’t get in fast enough.” He waved his glass of whiskey. “Lawyers, servants, dentists, barbers, magistrates, farriers, gun runners—they’re all at it. Every man a diamond digger!” he said with a flourish, then pulled something out of his pocket and thrust it at Edwin. “Look here. One hundred shares at one pound apiece bought a week ago. If I sold them tomorrow they’d go for thirty percent more than I bought them for. I’m telling you,” he said, gesturing with his glass at them both, “more money has changed hands in Kimberley in the last few months than over the last ten years put together.”

  “And your point is?”

  “You should invest.”

  “Thank you, but it’s not my game.”

  “You don’t need money, you fool. The Standard Bank is lending! But that’s not the point.” He ran a hand over his face, as if trying to clear it from a fug of alcohol. “There’s an awful lot riding on the stock market. Too much perhaps.”

  The floorboards creaked as the man walked across the tent to set down his glass. “Think about it, Matthews. We’re all sucking from the same teat here.”

  Then he tipped his hat at Frances, and picked his way across the yard in the dark, singing a rolling tune to himself under his breath.

  “Who was he?” Frances asked, when he had gone.

  “Dr. Robinson—he’s a friend of Baier’s.”

  They sat in silence, until eventually Frances said, “It can’t be smallpox, Edwin. One of the doctors would have spotted it.”

  “Not if Baier was putting pressure on them.”

  “Those signatures on the slip—they’d all be prepared to lie just because he tells them to?”

  “You saw how determined he was to keep smallpox out of Kimberley. He can’t afford an epidemic. Anyway,” he said, standing up, “there’s no point worrying about it now. I’ll know tomorrow one way or another.”

  • • •

  WHEN FRANCES WOKE she thought it was still the middle of the night. Despite the blankets Edwin had insisted on bringing, she had been chilled to the bone, and she was shivering. Edwin had lit a lamp and was already half dressed, pulling on his shirt. A baby was wailing close by, and there was the sound of a man racking up phlegm. The tent was full of smoke, and it stung her eyes. She propped herself carefully up on one elbow, trying to stop the cold air getting into the sheets.

  “What time is it?”

  “Five o’clock.” Edwin smoothed his hair down, and pulled on a jacket. “There’s food in the box and drinking water in the jug. And money”—he nodded his head in the direction of the ledge above the bed—“should you need it. Everything in Kimberley is double the price it should be. Particularly fuel. So spend carefully.”

  A few minutes later he was gone, taking the lamp with him. Her water had turned to icy slush in the glass. She lay looking up at the holes in the canvas, turning pale and cold in the dawn light.

  She slept and woke again to a drone of flies which batted against the walls of the tent and crawled across her skin. There was a foul, cloying smell which she couldn’t locate in any one place, but seemed to seep out of the pores of the canvas. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, pulled her hair into a rough knot, and sorted through her trunk. Folded at the top was her black woolen bodice; too warm to wear during the day. She pulled out her gloves and turned them over. They had holes where the fingers ought to be, and she put them to one side. She would go without gloves for the time being. At the bottom of the trunk were her two cotton dresses. They had just about survived the last six months intact, and Sarah had dyed them both brown to hide the dust stains on the fabric. She chose the cleaner of the two, but when she put it on she saw with dismay that the cotton had begun to wear through at the sleeves. She would have to talk to Edwin about having some new dresses made.

  All she needed to feel half human was a cup of tea. At the front of the tent was the wooden box full of their provisions, lined with lead. The sun caught the edge of it, and the metal corners were already warm to touch. Inside was a box of tea leaves, a jar of coffee, sugar, a few cans of meat, a bag stuffed with biltong, and some powdered milk.

  Tea, she thought again. There was a blackened kettle, but the fire had gone out. After a few minutes spent trying to light it, she had used up all the matches. She gave a cry of frustration. Her body craved something hot to drink. Her eyes were tired and dry, and her head throbbed. It was already too warm, and a thin, hot breeze blew sand in under the side of the canvas. She looked at the tins of meat, but had no notion how to open them. There was a chunk of yesterday’s bread in the box, which splintered like wood when she broke it open, but she moistened it with some water and dried milk, and ate.

  The water carts obviously didn’t come out this far to dampen the earth, and when she stepped into the yard, a fine red dust sifted through the hot air and furred her tongue, dried her throat, and caught in her eyelashes. Mangwa, tethered outside, had been watered and was munching at a pile of hay under the shade of a piece of tarpaulin. A pile of rubbish was heaped up outside, spilling over the fence into their yard. There wer
e rags, rusted tins and sardine boxes, broken wine crates, paper shirt collars, and one old boot. Flies sucked in and out of brandy bottles, their labels faded and peeling in the sun. A dog of nondescript breeding with a coat tufted with mange lay on its side on a spread of paper. It was a bitch, with swollen bags of red skin and a narrow rib cage which heaved up and down with alarming speed. Somewhere in the distance a building was being constructed, and there was the sound of a hammer, and the knocking of iron poles.

  Two tents were visible, not twenty feet away. In the yard of the first she could see a thin, naked black child scratching in the soil, and a native woman holding a baby. The canvas roof bulged in under the heavy weight of dust. A donkey, with hobbled front legs and withers as sharp as a mountain range, ran his muzzle hopefully through the dirt. They had a smoking fire which the woman prodded now and then with an iron. When she did, the smoke would billow into Frances’s tent, making her eyes water.

  In the yard of the other tent, a man dressed in overalls was rinsing a cup and pouring out coffee with bachelor efficiency. She could smell the warm, bitter deliciousness of it, and she had to force herself to look away. She stepped up to Mangwa and ran her hands over his ears, one by one. He nodded his head irritably, not wanting to be bothered while he ate. The boy in the yard opposite stood up, moaned, and squatted over a bowl.

  She rested one hand on the zebra’s withers and swatted away a fly. Another came to rest on her arm, and another crawled across her nose. The boy squatted over the bowl again, whimpering. When his mother shouted at him, he picked it up in both hands and walked out of the yard towards a small iron shed not far from where Frances was standing. He yanked open the door. There was a whining noise, and a thick black cloud of flies blew out into the sun. The smell hit her like a punch, and she doubled over, coughing. That was where the stench came from then.

  She found a metal beaker in the tent and dipped it into the barrel of water outside. It was warm and tasted dank and slimy, but she dipped again and drank more, washing away the smell of the place and the filth. All the debris of twenty thousand people seemed to be festering here, out in the sun. She had thought Kimberley might have a kind of romantic charm. She had read the diary of a girl who had lived on the gold fields in California, but their camps had been clean and orderly, and the diggers shared a common purpose. In Kimberley, people seemed to be barely surviving.