‘Gutless, Jefferson.’
He looked at his face. You got to have guts to be happy. You got to have the guts to kick over the traces and grab happiness. Grab it, Jefferson, get a divorce, tell the Board to stick their promotion up their jersey. Quit the job, get back your pension money, pay your wife’s debts off once and for all, take Suzie and your daughter with you and take up that Narcotics job that’s going in Hong Kong and start your life again. Stuff the Board and their bloody blackmail. Blackmail: Assistant Commissioner or Suzanna de Villiers. ‘We cannot have our top men involved in open scandal, Jefferson. You will lose the respect of your men.’
Jake Jefferson shook his head. Assistant Commissioner, almost top man. Superseding others. Just the right age, it was clear he was being groomed for the Commissioner’s job when the Old Man retired. Commissioner. His own police force. The job he’d been working for since he was a trooper. And he need not centre his life round the Club, he could carry on with Suzanna secretly—
But oh sweet Jesus, what kind of a man are you, Jefferson? What kind of a life is that? What about children for her, and a home? Forty – how much youth have you got left to give her? It must be all or nothing, for her. The bloody Board is right.
But—oh God, the divorce. ‘Try to sue me, Jake,’ she had said, ‘and I’ll contest it, it’ll be the dirtiest divorce suit in the history of this colony, darling. And I’ll cite your precious Suzanna de Villiers as your mistress, and don’t expect the judge to believe you haven’t slept with her after the evidence he’ll hear. The police force will love that, reading all the juicy bits about their Assistant Commissioner in the paper. And I’ll see to it that I get awarded the custody of Helen, the wife always gets the custody of children, I’ve seen a lawyer too, darling—’ Exactly what his own lawyer had said. Christ – Suzie. She wasn’t going to drag Suzie into this. And Helen – oh Jesus, his own sweet Helen, the only sweet clean thing that had come out of their rotten set-up. The bitch using Helen as her trump, it suited her to be Mrs. Jefferson, Mrs. Superintendent Jefferson. And she was right, the bitch, the wife always gets the custody of a daughter fifteen years old, his own lawyer had told him that too.
Jake Jefferson looked at his face in the mirror. He took a big breath. ‘Fuck the Board,’ he said.
He would bloody well send Suzie away first, far away so she could not be dragged into the witness box. And Helen too, send her away too with Suzie, send them both far away first so they couldn’t be dragged into the case – Christ. It filled him with elation.
He walked out of the toilet back to the bar, up to his wife. ‘Yes, darling?’ Sheila turned her bright brown eyes up at him.
‘H.Q. has just phoned,’ he said, ‘and there’s been a development. I’m terribly sorry, I’ll have to go.’
‘Poor darling.’
‘Sorry folks,’ he said. ‘But don’t rush off, Sheila will be staying—’
‘Poor Jake.’
‘Hell of a life being a police officer,’ Forsythe said.
Jake Jefferson got into his car and drove out of the Club yard. He did not drive to Headquarters. He drove to Suzanna de Villier’s flat. She came to the door in her dressing-gown with a book in her hand.
‘Jake! What a lovely surprise!’
He stepped into the room and took her shoulders and looked at her.
‘Jake – what is it, you look haggard. What is it, darling?’
He opened his mouth to say it.
‘Suzie … We’re—’
She waited. ‘What?’ she whispered. ‘What were you going to say?’ He closed his eyes and pulled her to him.
Sheila Jefferson said goodnight to her guests on the front steps of the Club and walked over to her new Zephyr. She waited till the Humber parked near the gate started, then she started her engine and followed the big car at a distance. She followed it all the way through the avenues of Hillside and up into the drive of the big house. The lights in the lounge were burning by the time she stopped. She walked through the French windows.
James Forsythe turned from the liquor cabinet and smiled and passed her a glass of Scotch.
Chapter Four
Suzanna de Villiers was not a tart. It is correct that she was not a good Dutch Reformist, not any more. She had lapsed, as it is said, which meant, for practical purposes and language, which was Suzanna’s language, that she was doomed to hell-fire and damnation: there is little place in heaven for Dutch Reformists who were prepared to marry a man already married in the eyes of God. Hellfire and brimstone. Suzanna de Villiers, of old Dopper Kerk stock, was prepared to do it. Suzanna was afraid, she verily believed she would pay the price in due course, but she did not care. She cared for Jake Jefferson.
Suzanna de Villiers did not go to kerk any more. She did not go to church because the Dominee had told her she was a wicked woman and she was doomed.
‘See no more of this man!’
‘Dominee,’ she said. ‘I will see this man again.’
‘What! Do I understand that you are unrepentant for your sin?’
Suzanna hesitated. ‘Dominee, I have done nothing bad!’
‘Who are you, child, to decide what is bad? You know the law: “Those whom God hath joined together, let no man rend asunder!”’
‘They are already asunder. And I am not sleeping with him!’
‘I should hope not!’ the priest snorted. ‘See him no more.’
‘And if I do, Father?’ she whispered.
‘Hell.’
That was a year before. Instead of going to kerk she worked three evenings a week for no reward as an assistant nurse at the Dutch Reformed Church Mission Hospital for non-Europeans.
Suzanna de Villiers was no coward. But still she blanched when the young Predikant accosted her in the Female Ward at six p.m. She was on her way to the sluice-room to dispose of a pan of vomitus.
‘Are you Suzanna de Villiers?’
Automatically she gave a little bob, a quarter curtsey. ‘Ja, Vader.’
‘I want to talk to you,’ the Predikant said. ‘Come with me.’
She followed the dapper priest down the passage and into a little alcove. She was still carrying the pan.
‘Get rid of that,’ he pointed testily, ‘and come back here.’
She went to the sluice-room with a pounding heart, and disposed of the vomitus. She washed and dried her hands and returned to the alcove carrying the clean bedpan.
‘What’s this?’ the priest said angrily: he flicked his fingertips over her working smock. ‘Wearing the trappings of the servants of God?’
Suzanna was unnerved.
‘I’ve heard about you,’ the priest said softly. ‘And if half of it is true you have no right here in this house. Now I want to know. Is it true?’
‘Is what true, Vader?’ she said in Afrikaans.
‘That you are responsible for breaking up a home! That you are the mistress of one of the high ranking police officers who lives in this city.’
She was too nervous to be angry.
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘It isn’t. Who told you?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘it isn’t! Who am I to believe then? I’ve got ears, I’ve heard from other voluntary organisations that work in conjunction with this hospital, you know, and some of the members are prominent and trustworthy members of the circles that you seem to have the audacity to move in. And I’ve heard you no longer attend the kerk. Don’t think that working here is any substitute!’
As suddenly as she had been unnerved, her temper rose.
‘Is that so, Father? Then you better restore that to its rightful place!’ And she thrust the bedpan into his hands.
She wept in the taxi. Her hands shook, but in remorse now. After all, he had only been trying to save her soul, her soul. And thrusting the bedpan at him! She had not wished to leave the hospital in that way. She liked them all and she had felt deceitful going there this evening knowing it was to be her last time, but without even telling them so. But how much worse to l
eave in a rude temper. And in her regret she saw the streets of Salisbury anew, suddenly she loved them all, and she did not want to leave the town and her friends in it. She was still thinking in Afrikaans.
She reached her flat. Everything was packed, ready, her two suitcases in the middle of the floor. The windows, the sills, the occasional tables were stripped of all their things. The flat was bare, abandoned. And suddenly the flat which had meant little to her before and which she had considered a rather poky little place was a lovely flat, home, and the memories of all the happy things that had happened in it were crying out from the walls. She closed her eyes and sat down on the couch. This wasn’t the way she wanted to start her life: sneaking off, pretending to everybody she was just going away for a month’s holiday and then never coming back. Then when the divorce was all over and Jake joined her, how Salisbury would talk.
‘I always said she was a tart—’
‘Hasn’t the guts to face the music—’
‘And there was Jake Jefferson in the witness box, under oath, mind you, and denying adultery.’
Suzanna de Villiers shook her head and dried her eyes. What was she crying for? She was the happiest girl in the whole world. And Jake knew best. He was the boss. Why, they’d live happily ever after—
She got up off the couch, still sniffing, and scratched around in the big cardboard box. She found the half bottle of whisky she kept for Jake. She looked around for a glass, said ‘oh damn’ and scratched in the box again and produced a tea cup. She was thinking in English again now. She was fluent in English, she only thought in Afrikaans at the hospital these days, and when she wrote home to her father in Cape Town. Poor Pappa! He was very much Dopper Kerk. Godsdiens with the farm labourers every night, whether they liked it or not. He would have a fit when he knew, and Jake an Englishman at that! A Rooinek! Pappa was still fighting the Boer War. Ag, liewe Pappa! Verskoon my, Pappa, ek het horn lief, I love him, Pappa—
She half filled the tea cup with whisky, sniffed again, then went through to the naked kitchenette and squirted some water into it. She returned to the couch and sipped it. She pulled a face – how people could drink the stuff!
But it warmed her, warmed her belly. She sipped it doggedly, like medicine, and she began to feel better. Her sniffing stopped. It was cold in the flat and cheerless with the lampshade gone. Why, it would be lovely in Hong Kong! Warm and bright and sunny all year round and from their flat they’d have a lovely view of the great sparkling blue sea with ships and sampans and junks on it. The streets below would be bustling with colourful life and there’d be the tinkling singsong sound of the Orient that you always hear on the flicks. And at night, they’d look out from their lounge on to a great sweep of harbour lights and the bright neon lights that she’d seen in the magazines and on week-ends they’d go round the islands to those beautiful palmy beaches, Big Bay or Tiger Water Bay or something like that. And they’d lie in the sun and swim in the blue salt water and have their picnic lunches. And Jake said they’d buy a junk and fit a motor into it and they’d spend their week-ends on it cruising round the bays and Jake wold fish and get brown and fit again. And he’d get long leave every three years and they’d go to—
The door swung open and in walked Helen followed by Jake Jefferson. She was looking pink and excited and nervous. Jake was looking big and crumpled and worried.
‘Hullo, Suzie.’
‘Hullo, Jake.’
Helen stood with her hands clasped in front of her. ‘Hullo, Miss de Villiers.’
‘Suzanna!’
The girl looked embarrassed. ‘Suzanna, sorry, I keep forgetting.’
‘Why, you’ve been crying!’
Suzanna bit her lip and turned away and shook her head and dabbed her eyes. Then she blew her nose loudly on her hankie. ‘It’s nothing.’ Then she tossed her head and turned around to them with a big sniff and a gay forced smile.
‘All set!’ she said too loudly.
Jake put his arm around her and he pulled Helen to them.
‘You’re a fine pair! Helen had a good cry too.’ He grinned at his daughter and he pulled her head to him and planted a kiss on her forehead. ‘And you too!’ He kissed Suzanna’s wet eyelids and squeezed them both. Suzanna smiled sheepishly at Helen and Helen smiled sheepishly back. ‘Anyway it’s good for you to have a good old cry. Takes the wrinkles out of your face! Why d’you think I’ve got such a beautiful skin!’
Suzanna said: ‘Yes, Mister Max Factor,’ and they all laughed, a little shrilly.
‘Anyway,’ Jake said with forced joviality, ‘I don’t know what you’re crying about! When you’re languishing on the white beaches of Hong Kong, think of me sweating it out here in dirty old Rhodesia!’
‘Sit down,’ Suzie said. She dabbed her eyes for the last time. She went to her handbag and took out her powder compact. ‘God, I look horrible,’ and she put the hankie and compact away without attempting any repairs. She looked at Jake.
‘How much time?’
‘No rush,’ Jake said. ‘We haven’t got to be there till elevenish.’
She smiled brightly. ‘Well, let’s have a drink! Only whisky in tea cups, I’m afraid.’ When she spoke English there was only the slightest trace of her Afrikaans accent, very soft and mellifluous.
‘Suzie, you’re a genius.’
‘That’s what they all say.’
Jake poured whisky into two tea cups. ‘Nothing for you, I’m afraid, my girl,’ he said to his daughter.
‘That’s all right, Miss de Villiers,’ Helen smiled shyly, her hands folded on her knees.
‘Suzanna!’ Suzie said.
‘My first drink today, I might tell you,’ Jake Jefferson said. ‘I’ve been rushing round like a blue-tailed fly.’
Suzanna took her tea cup of whisky from Jake. Helen said, ‘Excuse me,’ and tiptoed out of the room to the bathroom and closed the door. Suzie looked up at Jake.
‘Jake, is everything okay?’
Jake nodded with a mouth full of whisky and sat down.
‘Yes,’ he said with forced carelessness, ‘everything’s okay. She’s flown down to Jo’burg for the week-end, and she thinks I’m just driving Helen to Bulawayo to spend a couple of weeks with her schoolfriends. By the time it breaks you’ll be safely installed at the Capitol Hotel, Kowloon, Hong Kong, you lucky devils.’
Suzanna nodded to the bathroom door. ‘And she understands?’
Jake nodded. ‘She worships you,’ he said, ‘and so do I.’
‘I wish you were coming.’
‘I will be soon. I’ve given my daughter as a hostage.’
‘Jake – d’you think you’re wise to come out to the airport? You’re compromising yourself – heaven knows who’ll be there.’
Jake shook his head impatiently, nervously. ‘It’ll be all right. I’m coming to see you off – you might run into immigration snags or anything. Especially taking my minor daughter out of the country. Besides I want to see you off.’
‘You’re the boss,’ she said.
The bathroom door opened and Helen came out. He sat back in the armchair guiltily and smiled up at his daughter.
‘Everything’s fine,’ he insisted irrelevantly. Helen sat down on the edge of the couch next to Suzie.
‘You look pretty,’ Suzanna said lamely.
Helen smiled and blushed and smoothed her skirt. ‘Thank you, Miss—Suzanna,’ she corrected herself. ‘Dad let me wear lipstick tonight,’ she added, equally lamely.
‘I should hope so, you’re almost sixteen.’
‘I always let her wear lipstick when she goes out to a party,’ Jake said defensively.
And so they talked for half an hour, generally, with frequent silences, trying to keep the girl in the conversation, avoiding the subject of separation. Jake filled the tea cups again with whisky, his hand shaking a little, his mind on the problems and he kept wanting to blurt out his uncertainties. Once his mind shrieked at him, ‘You’re crazy! Arnold said you were crazy!’ and he w
anted to start a discussion with Suzie justifying his action, but he took a slug of his whisky and quickly talked about something else. And he looked at his two women sitting on the couch and the whisky was beginning to go pleasantly to his head. And he was joyously glad about what he was doing and he wanted to go over to the couch and hug them and say: You’re the only goddam things that matter in this world! It was a relief when Suzanna looked at her watch and said:
‘Well, hadn’t we better be going?’
Chapter Five
Salisbury’s international airport was almost deserted this Saturday night. A few people to meet the few Bulawayo passengers, a dozen black porters in khaki uniform.
They entered the high concourse, and found the Immigration counter down the hall. Suzanna and Helen filled in forms.
They moved on to the weigh bay, checked the baggage through and got their boarding passes.
‘Well,’ Jake breathed. He looked at the concourse clock. ‘Ten forty-five. It’s felt as if it took hours.’ He smiled weakly at Suzanna. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I know what we do next. Find a drink!’
The big bar was almost empty. They sat at a table. They looked through the glass doors out on to the runway. There was seldom a sound in the bar, except an occasional murmur from a customer across the room. They drank in silence, tense, heavy with departure, strained with guilt. ‘Wish that damn plane would come,’ Jake said. He imagined the immigration officers below putting their heads together, suddenly having second thoughts, making a phone call, setting the machinery in motion. ‘Don’t be a fool,’ he told himself, ‘what on earth can they do? Phone Sheila in Jo’burg? Hell, even I don’t know where she is. I haven’t committed any offence, I can send my daughter to Alaska on a sealing expedition if I want to—’ At every moment he expected the immigration officer to enter the bar. Or the sheriff with a bloody interdict or whatever Arnold called it. Oh for Chrissake, Sheila’s a thousand miles away. The time passed slowly. He looked at Suzanna, sitting rigid, her eyes pent. He leaned across and squeezed her hand and she gave him a tight smile and immediately tears began to bum. The bar began to fill up as passengers for the jet began to arrive.
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