‘True,’ she agreed, staring at his face with an expression of distaste. ‘Not your possession. Not a prostitute. Not some vessel into which you can deposit any kind of filth you like. I don’t like what you’ve become, Joe, and unless you change, that side of our marriage is over.’
Joe squeezed her arm hard but she didn’t flinch. Instead, she reached out her other hand and squeezed back, on his bad arm. Her expression didn’t change. It was Joe who backed away. ‘You bitch!’ he whispered, as the deep ache started up.
‘You will not touch me again. You will not hit Michael again. You will get your backside out on the farm, start working and show some interest. If you haven’t got anything nice to say to your son, say nothing.’ Claire literally spat out the last two words. ‘You do not own us, Joe King. You are part of a family and unless you remember that and start acting accordingly you are out in the cold. You’ve asked for time, you’ve got it. But while you’re sorting yourself out you will not use Michael and me as your own personal whipping boys. Do I make myself clear?’
She had made it perfectly clear. He forgot his guilt over last night as rage swept over him. The bitch couldn’t talk to him like that. Joe stepped up to his wife and slapped her face, hard.
Claire, with no apparent sign of shock or pain, slapped him back, raking her nails down his cheek. Her outward calm was unnerving.
Joe lost his temper. Ignoring the pounding headache, he grabbed at her blouse and ripped it open, buttons popping and flying to the floor. He was furious and beyond caring. He’d show her who was boss. An explosion of pain in his testicles doubled him over. She had kneed him in the groin. Joe fell on to the bed. Claire simply stood there, waiting.
When he could speak, Joe grated, ‘There are plenty of women who aren’t so prim and proper, of that I can assure you. Keep me out of my room and I’ll find sex somewhere else.’
‘Good,’ she said succinctly. ‘That suits me fine.’ Calmly Claire removed her torn blouse, found another in the wardrobe and put it on. She did not look at him again.
Joe was left lying on the bed feeling slightly ridiculous, seething with resentment. He knew that his wife had come out of their argument on top. But she didn’t mean those things. He’d show her tonight just who was the boss around here.
At breakfast, Claire appeared quite normal. Michael, as usual, was silent. ‘When you get back from school today, we’ll have that game of cards,’ she said.
Michael shot his mother a disbelieving look.
She smiled at him.
There was a flurry of activity at the kitchen door and Raj, in a state of great agitation, burst into the room. ‘Madam! Goodness, very bad thing. You come quickly, goodness yes. The Zulu induna has very bad accident. I am thinking that Moses is not living any more. Those cattle, I am telling you, they have no place on a sugar farm.’ Raj had never hidden his fear of cattle, took every opportunity to say so and always avoided them. So his outburst that the Zulu in charge of the cattle had been hurt in some way did not at first alarm Claire.
She remained seated and looked at Joe. ‘You’d better see to it,’ she said calmly.
Joe was not going to be bossed around. ‘I’m eating my breakfast.’
Claire looked at Raj. ‘Wait for the master outside.’ When the Sikh had gone, she turned to Joe. ‘Go and see what the problem is. Now.’
‘I said, I’m eating my breakfast.’
As cool as a cucumber, Claire stood and picked up her steaming coffee cup. ‘You can go and see to it now, or you can wear this. Please yourself.’
Michael couldn’t believe his ears.
Joe saw the look in his wife’s eyes and rose from the table, throwing down his napkin. ‘I’ve finished anyway. What the hell are you staring at?’ he snarled at Michael. Then he was gone.
Michael sat waiting for the sky to fall on him. But all his mother said was, ‘Better get off now, darling, you’ll miss the cart.’
Joe, despite his criticism over the Bedford, had found it infinitely more convenient than a horse. He drove down to the Zulu compound, only half listening to Raj.
‘It’s that big bull, master, the new one. He’s mad I am telling you. Moses is very broken.’
What the hell had got into Claire? Okay, he’d been a bit rough on her last night but, Jesus, she was acting like a madwoman. She couldn’t order him about like that, especially in front of the brat. And there was no way the bloody woman could ban him from his own bed. ‘Better cut back on the booze,’ he thought. But, turning to Raj, all he said was, ‘In future, any news you bring to the house you will bring to me. Is that understood?’
Raj looked at him and smiled. ‘Of course, master. I forgot myself in the emergency.’
They drove into the compound to find a crowd of wailing women and silent men surrounding the fallen Moses. Raj had not exaggerated. The bull had been thorough. ‘Get my gun from the vehicle,’ Joe said to Raj. ‘The bull will have to be destroyed.’ He looked around at the sea of faces. ‘Any of you see this happen?’
One man stepped forward. ‘Moses was in the pens filling the troughs with water, master. The bull attacked him.’
‘What did Moses do to the bull?’
‘Nothing, master.’
Joe shook his head. Destroying the bull was the last thing he wanted to do. ‘It must have been provoked. Okay, I know it’s new and quite likely unsettled by the truck ride here but Moses was experienced. What happened?’
The Zulu merely stared at him.
‘Speak up,’ Joe bellowed suddenly, then wished he hadn’t as pain shot through his head. ‘A bull doesn’t attack for no reason,’ he added more quietly.
A second man stepped forward. ‘Perhaps your bull was sick, or in pain.’
Joe glared at him. He looked familiar. Good-looking for an African and with an air of quiet authority about him, the man’s eyes never wavered. Joe knew they had met before but where? Then it hit him. The African he had met on the train. Joe couldn’t remember his name. He looked quite different out of uniform. ‘What are you doing on my property?’
‘I came for my wife and son.’
‘Who are they?’
Nandi and Dyson joined Wilson. ‘This is my husband, Wilson,’ Nandi said shyly. Joe King intimidated her at the best of times but in this mood he was frightening.
Joe looked her up and down. The office girl with nice tits and a big bum. Claire’s educated house ape. Joe had no time for intelligent Africans and he distrusted them. He glanced at the kid standing next to her. It was the boy he’d caught fighting with Michael. Trouble. The whole bloody bunch of them were nothing but trouble. ‘Well you can all get the hell out of here. I’m not running a bloody guesthouse.’
Nandi gasped in dismay. She had intended to speak to Mrs King this morning about Wilson’s return. If there was no work for him on UBejane then at least Mrs King would allow Wilson to stay at the compound while he looked for employment elsewhere. Now they were all being told to leave.
There was shuffling among those standing nearby. Not many remembered Joe from before he went away. All they had seen since his return was a man with no patience who had a quick and violent temper, especially when he was drunk, which seemed to be most of the time. Those few who did recall an earlier boss had tried to explain that he hadn’t always been like this but the majority made their own assessment and found Joe King wanting. And as they had been doing for centuries, ever since the white man came to their land and started to throw his weight around, they banded together against him.
‘You will need a new induna,’ said the man who had witnessed Moses’ demise. ‘This Wilson has experience.’ Whether Wilson had experience or not was irrelevant, he had to be protected. If the job was given to him there were many others who could offer advice. And what of Nandi? The master had just told her to leave. Mrs King might have something to say about that but, then again, she might not. With Wilson as induna, Nandi and her son could stay. ‘He is a very honest man, master.’
�
��I’ll make my own decision about that.’ Joe could see where the conversation was heading. These people were backing him into a corner. He stared at the impassive black faces around him, not recognising many. They were all waiting for his next words. He had to gain the upper hand. There was no way he wanted this man, Wilson, working for him. He was too intelligent, too politically aware, too likely to turn into a troublemaker. ‘I’m not taking on someone I don’t know.’
Before the war, Joe had enjoyed a good relationship with his men. He spoke fluent Zulu and appreciated the subtleties of their humour and wisdom. The fact that he couldn’t seem to get a grip on anything any more, his farm, the workers, his family, even the house servants, made him angry. Joe knew that he was not respected and the knowledge made things worse. The more he tried, the more pronounced his failure to win their respect became. ‘I might put Raj in charge.’
Raj, returning with the gun, heard him. ‘Goodness, no, master. I am not knowing about cattle.’
Joe’s face became red with anger. ‘If I put you in charge, Raj, then you will fucking-well learn about cattle.’
Wilson had wondered if Nandi’s employer were married to the Joe King he had met on the train. He hoped not. He hadn’t liked him on the train and nothing he had been told about the man since arriving at UBejane gave him cause to change his mind. The man was a bully with a chip on his shoulder, Wilson had sensed that when they first met. Yet his wife and son, according to Nandi, were good people. It was obvious that Joe King had once been a successful farmer. War did strange things to people – Wilson had seen it before.
Three things happened at once to cement Wilson’s destiny. Raj backed away from Joe’s anger, shaking his head and saying, ‘I am sorry, master, Raj does not like cattle.’ The Zulus were muttering about taking orders from an Indian. And Joe King, eyes bulging with rage, grabbed the Sikh’s loose-fitting robe and jerked him forward.
That was when Wilson realised that things had to change, that the white man could not be permitted to behave as if they were the only ones who mattered any longer. Change had to start somewhere. Wilson put a tentative foot on the sangoma’s second path and pushed gently at the first closed door. ‘If you are willing, master,’ he said softly, ‘I would be honoured to work with such fine-looking cattle.’ He knew, as he spoke, that the path would be long and rocky and the doors would be many. But, as the diviner had said, his destiny was already in place.
Joe was stuck, and he knew it. The solution to his problem was staring him in the face. The man was intelligent and would bear watching but the others would take orders from him. After all, they had offered him as a replacement for Moses in the first place. It was obvious that Raj would be useless. Although that fact angered Joe, Raj was too good a farm manager, too well respected by both the coolies and the Pondos on the sugar side, to lose. There was no apparent successor to Moses among the Zulus who already worked for Joe. The problem seemed to be how to accept Wilson without losing face.
‘Very well.’ He nodded curtly to Wilson and tossed him the rifle. ‘Go and shoot the bull, hotshot soldier boy. I take it I can trust you with a gun? Try not to shoot yourself in the foot.’
Wilson caught the rifle and immediately checked whether it was loaded. It was and he removed the bullet, an expression of disapproval on his face. But even as he disapproved, he could see why Joe King had done what he had. Putting a loaded weapon into the hands of an African was not something many whites cared to do. The action had the potential to backfire on them. The assumption that he, Wilson, could be trusted with the weapon was not lost on the surrounding men, cementing Wilson’s position as induna. His face impassive, he asked, ‘The meat, master?’
‘Cut it up and bring it to the kitchen. You lot can have the offal.’ Joe turned on his heel and headed towards the truck. ‘You’ve got one bullet,’ he yelled back. ‘That’s all I want it to take. Bring the rifle to me after you’ve cleaned it.’ The problem of a new induna had been solved, though not as much to Joe’s liking as he would have hoped. Still, the man had been put forward by the others which he supposed was some kind of plus.
As he drove back to the house, Joe’s mind was busy with the problem of his wife. She had steel in her, he’d give her that. She was not the timid little mouse he remembered. The war had changed her too.
Claire’s threat not to sign the transfer of ownership back to him was serious. Joe had made sure her tenure of UBejane was watertight. It had been his way of ensuring that should something happen to him and he failed to return, she would not have to be bothered with the legal processes involved in transferring the farm to her own name. It crossed his mind now that he needn’t have worried. She’d shown how capable she really was. Having the title deeds back in his name would help keep Claire off his back until he could sell. Right now she was using the situation against him and he was stuck. ‘Christ!’ Joe thought savagely as he pulled up at the gate. ‘Better get this whole mess sorted out. Just stay off the sauce for a few days. Claire will come round.’
He intended to take a couple of aspirin but, on entering the house, Joe found two servants moving his clothes out of the master bedroom. ‘Put those back,’ he bellowed.
Startled, the girls froze. The madam had told them to put these things into the blue bedroom. Now the master wanted them back in the big bedroom. Their relief was evident when Claire appeared. ‘Go on. Take the clothes to the blue room.’ The girls hurried away.
‘I will not be thrown out of my own bedroom,’ Joe thundered.
‘Fine,’ Claire said calmly. ‘I’ll move into the blue room.’
‘Jesus!’ Joe ran his left hand through his hair. ‘What’s got into you?’
‘We spoke of it this morning,’ Claire told him. ‘There’s no point in repeating myself.’ She turned towards the office, then stopped. ‘What’s the story with Moses?’
‘I thought you wanted me to deal with that. It’s fixed.’
‘I’d still like to know.’
‘He’s dead,’ Joe said flatly, knowing she’d be upset and not caring.
Claire closed her eyes briefly but all she said was, ‘I’ll go and see his family this afternoon. They’ll need help to bury him.’
‘I’m not running a fucking charity,’ Joe said cruelly. ‘They can pay for the funeral themselves.’
Claire was tempted to point out that he didn’t seem to be running anything but the girls reappeared so she said nothing. Joe took advantage of her silence.
‘We are not sleeping in separate bedrooms.’
‘We’ll discuss this in private if you don’t mind. Come into the office.’
Claire shut the door behind them and turned to him, waiting, her arms folded, her eyes calm.
Joe had already realised that of the two of them, his wife was the stronger. ‘Look, maybe I’ve been a bit of a bastard.’ He smiled tentatively. ‘I apologise, okay? Let’s make a fresh start.’
Claire moved to the desk and sat down, leaning forward on her elbows, her hands clasped. She looked up at him. There was a hard note in her voice when she spoke. ‘I know you’ve had a rough time, Joe, but it hasn’t been easy for me either. I’ve kept the farm running, we’re in profit, and I’ve handled all the bookwork. I’ve reared our son and run the household. The last thing in the world I need is a stranger for a husband. It’s difficult enough, trying to adjust to you being home, without having to cope with your moods, temper and perverted sexual demands. This doesn’t have to be for long, Joe. We’ve both got to make adjustments. If you’d stop drinking it might help. As soon as you start you turn into someone else, someone that, quite frankly, isn’t very nice. We have to work this through, Joe. That’s all I’m asking.’
‘Dammit, Claire. I’ve been three years without a woman.’
‘Three years, Joe,’ Claire said softly. ‘But you’ve been away five.’
‘Three, five, what’s the damned difference?’ he blustered, knowing she was not fooled.
‘Forget it, Joe. I know you
think I’m a prude but I don’t need sex as often as you.’ Claire was blushing. ‘The things you’ve made me do in the last few days are . . . too much.’ She was finding it hard to even speak of but carried on, determined he know that she meant every word. Last night her husband had become savage and cruel. It wasn’t modesty to which she referred although, God knows, that too had been viciously violated, it was disgust. Willing as she had been to accept her husband’s demands, Claire would not tolerate another night of humiliation and abuse. ‘You hurt me, Joe. I will not allow you to touch me like that again.’
‘All right, all right, I won’t touch you like that again.’ His headache was killing him. Would she ever shut up?
‘You won’t touch me at all. Not until you show that the Joe I remember has returned. Not until you start taking an interest in our son. I warn you, Joe. If you harm that child in any way I will call the police.’
A single gun blast in the distance stilled the angry response Joe was about to make. ‘I’ve got work to do.’ He left the office, furious with his wife, furious with the need to kill a bloody good stud bull even before it had been with the herd, furious with life. Passing the bar he thought, ‘To hell with all of it. A hair of the dog is what I need.’
Moses had been UBejane’s induna for seven years. As such, he was an important person and Zulu tradition demanded that certain rituals take place. His home was Kwabhekithunga, near Empangeni. His spirit had to be returned.
Word had been sent to his family who, in turn, sent a delegation to bring Moses’ spirit home. Michael was at the Zulu compound when they arrived, carrying with them a small branch cut from a buffalo thorn acacia tree. He watched, fascinated, as they went to the exact spot where Moses died, laying the branch on the ground. After allowing time for the spirit to enter the branch, it was picked up by the leader of the group who immediately began speaking to the spirit, bringing it up to date with all manner of events from home.
Michael had never seen this ritual performed before but he knew that the flow of conversation from this person would not cease until reaching Kwabhekithunga, that the branch bearer was not permitted to speak to anyone else until then and that any lapse of concentration might result in the spirit slipping away. He also knew enough of Zulu tradition to be aware that if the return journey had necessitated a train trip, or the purchase of a meal – which, on this occasion, it did not – then a ticket or food would also be provided for the spirit.
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