Dearest enemy

by Kathryn Blair

  Sincerely, Alicia Westwood."

  The garrulous wife of the missionary. People who talked a lot were often companionable, and it looked as if Fenella would have to depend to some extent upon Mrs. Westwood's friendship—during the weekdays, at least.

  Besides, she did want to learn more about the town—not the facts and figures such as she had been regaled with by Carlos, but about the old families he had mentioned in passing, who represented the cream of Mozambique society, the sons and daughters who danced and made love in those elegant old houses near the church. So she wrote a reply to the note and, rather nervously, called Antonio and bade him take it along to the house of Senhora Westwood.

  Half an hour later her father came in, and Fenella ate her first meal on African soil. A vegetable soup, pickled fish, chicken with bacon rolls, an iced sweet, cheese and fruit, together with an excellent, rich coffee.

  "And all of it brought to the door," Dr. Harcourt said expansively. "Our only shopping is for staple supplies, such as flour, sugar, dried fruits, and so on. In Angola we lived on tinned foods, tough beef and yams. Here, we're lucky enough to have everything fresh and of the best."

  "Thanks to Senhor Pereira," Fenella tartly ended for him.

  He laughed teasingly. "Don't worry about Carlos. Now that you've made your duty call you may never have to speak to him again. He doesn't often come to the mission." He folded his napkin. "Let's get along to the Westwoods. I'm sure you need an early night."

  Fenella agreed. She went to her bedroom to use a powder puff and hesitated in there, near the wire-screened window. Beetles were singing out in the grass, and a musky smell exuded from some blossoming shrub and came in soft gusts to fill the room. Clearly, over the night air, issued notes plucked from a guitar, and in a moment a thick musical voice joined in and softened to a nostalgic and liquid sweetness. She caught the far-away glow of a native fire, and for some reason her mind switched from this evidence of the primitive to splendid mosaics and borique ornamentation, and the white-suited senhor with dark grey eyes. She breathed a deep and quivering breath. So this was Mozambique!

  During the next few days Fenella became acquainted not only with the grave-eyed missionary and his plump, homely wife, but also with her immediate neighbours, Lario Santos, the schoolmaster, and old Senhor Aguilar, the retired planter, both of whom talked fluent English. It turned out that Lario was the man who sang and strummed the guitar; he was a member of the town band which played for dances and festal, and he was engaged to one of the nurses at the clinic.

  Mrs. Westwood, who invariably wore a dark skirt with a white shirt-blouse and took no trouble at all with her grey-brown hair, could pour out a considerable amount of detail over the midmorning glass of tea.

  "The Agueria couple—in the end house—order up supplies for the mission and see that the boys keep everything spotless. Next comes the Seixas family—wonderfully nice people—who run the bookshop in town but live here so that the wife can give instruction to native women—she's a gem, I give you my word! Then comes Adriano Lopes; he's a sort of pensioner of the Pereira family. Strictly speaking he has no right at the mission, but he likes his house and Senhor Pereira won't have him moved." And so on.

  Fenella assimilated about half the information yielded at each sitting and gradually built up in her mind the tiny busy community of which she was now a member. There were ten houses, none quite like the others, and each was set in a fair-sized garden and hedged in by a wall of hibiscus. The gardening was done by a squad of mission boys. A huge arm of tall, luxuriant magnolias cradled both mission

  and houses, but the view of the town—white buildings and coloured roofs peeping between masses of flowering trees—was uninterrupted, and, to Fenella, an unfailing delight.

  Each day the sky was a flawless blue and a dreaming wind sighed over the hillside and kept the scents stirring. The footpaths to the mission, innumerable and winding in from the native villages and reserve, saw a continual ebb and flow of dark-skinned Tongas in every conceivable form of dress. The younger ones, in their uniform white mission school smocks, all had that surprised, expectant look so refreshingly common to the budding African, and the babies, mostly naked, tumbled about in the grass like puppies. Their elders came to the clinic for advice and medicine.

  There were no definite working hours at the clinic, for the natives lived maddeningly by the sun. Dr. Harcourt breakfasted at seven and began to attend to his patients at eight, but the nurses had to be on duty much earlier, tending the hospital cases and dressing the less serious wounds of those who had congregated in the mission courtyard. An astonishing number of natives were injured every day.

  Fenella was allowed to watch lessons in the school-room and veranda, and to walk through the ward and surgery of the clinic, but her father insisted that she become more accustomed to the heat before attempting anything in the least strenuous. In any case, she was supposed to be on holiday.

  It was not till her second weekend at Machada, on a Saturday morning, that she strolled down into the town to buy stamps and enjoy her first peep into the shaded shop windows. The Avenida Paiva Manso was broad and white with a strip of lawn down the centre from which grew tall, smooth-trunked palms with emerald fans. The stores displayed spices and jewellery, and a few model gowns from Lisbon, but more attractive were the curios and lovely silks, the beaten metal trinkets set with semi-precious stones. Unaware that the shopkeepers were smilingly intent upon her progress, Fenella moved absorbedly from window to window. She had forgotten that, being the only English girl resident in Machada, the whole population knew all there was to know about her.

  A small, highly polished carving caught her eye, a square block of green stone smoothly hollowed out and rimmed with a garland of flowers. It was the sort of thing that Aunt Anna doted upon, but Fenella hesitated, a little doubtfully. Buying stamps at the post office had been easily accomplished by repeating the half-dozen words which her father had written on a sheet torn from his notepad. Bargaining for a piece of carved jade called for ingenuity and a quick translation of escudos into pounds sterling.

  Fenella was about to pass regretfully on her way when the shop owner came to his door and, with a deep bow and a glistening smile, addressed her.

  "Possa ajuda-la, senhora?"

  Eu nao falo portugues, senhor."

  Fenella was congratulating herself on the speed and correctness of her apologetic disclaimer to any knowledge of his language, when the man looked beyond her and beamed.

  "Senhor Frankland!"

  Fenella turned, met two twinkling blue-green eyes and smiled, with some relief. Austin Frankland was hatless and the dull gold hair had become uplifted with the breeze. He had a smooth teak-tan which emphasised the whiteness of his teeth. He was even more pleasant to look upon than Fenella had thought that day at the Quinta.

  "Well, well," he said. "So we meet at last. Your father told me a little about you when he came down to the camp a few days ago, but with the usual parent's reserve. He didn't mention the word 'pretty' once. Glad to know you, Fenella."

  The shopkeeper broke in with a further bow and a wealth of Portuguese. Austin listened tolerantly, his gaze upon Fenella, his eyebrows twitching.

  "Is this true?" he wanted to know. "Are you simply desperate to buy something from the shop and unable to make yourself understood?"

  "Not desperate," she said. "But there's a piece of carved jade on display which would please my aunt enormously, and I suppose I did examine it rather thoroughly."

  "An aunt in England?" he enquired interestedly. "I used to have several a few years ago. In time they tend to become too expensive."

  The Portuguese again made himself heard, and Fenella was persuaded to indicate the object under discussion. A staccato and somewhat longdrawn argument ensued between the two men. Then Austin turned to her.

  "He won't go below a hundred escudos—that's over a pound."

  "It can't be real jade for that money," she protested. "It isn't. It's a Portugu
ese stone, but quite good. Do you want it?"

  The purchase was put through and the article wrapped in tissue paper. Fenella paid, dropped the heavy packet into her bag and voiced her thanks

  "Where to now?" asked Austin.

  "Home, I think. It's warming up."

  His small open sports car stood at the kerb, a dazzle of dusty red with peeling chromium fittings. He opened the nearside door.

  "Slide in, and I'll take you round the town first."

  "How odd that you should stop directly outside that shop."

  "Not a bit odd." He got in beside her. "You're the first fair woman I've seen since the last bunch of tourists descended upon Machada, which is quite a few months ago. You stuck out a mile as a maiden in distress, so what could I do but pull up, don armour and hasten to the rescue in the best romantic style?" He steered out behind a slow-moving car. "I'm jolly glad you've come to Machada. I hope you'll occasionally take pity on a lone bachelor."

  "You don't appear to be in need of pity. Where do you live when you're not at the camp?"

  "I rent a room at the back of the town, but I seldom eat there," he said. "Taking the hint?','

  She smiled. "It was too broad to miss. You may come home with me to lunch, if you like."

  "I'd prefer dinner, if you haven't made other arrangements."

  "We don't go out. I haven't met the townspeople."

  "No?" This morning he seemed willing to crawl along at the pace of the motorist in front. "Some of them are well worth knowing. You must let me take you to the next festa. It's one of the best ways of meeting people, and a

  Portuguese festival is an education in itself, to both the palate and the emotions."

  "Emotions?" she echoed.

  "Not apprehensive, are you?" He grinned at her. "There's a quality about the nights here—I've never met it anywhere else that's inclined to get under the skin. When you have lights in the trees and the moon scintillating on ruffled water, music, wine, laughter, dancing . . ." his shoulders rose, explanatorily; "add a modicum of imagination and see if it doesn't tilt your equilibrium, Fenella."

  "It sounds exciting, but almost anything is exciting here. The whole atmosphere is strange and heady. Why did you come to Mozambique?"

  Austin drove for a minute or two in silence. He half-circled the trim gardens at the end of the Avenida and took a road which led by a roundabout route to the mission.

  "I 'first met Carlos Pereira at Cambridge University," he said. "We were both studying agriculture, and we had a lot of very good times when we were still bright and gay. Sometimes, when there was nothing else to do, we talked about the future. Not that Carlos himself ever said much. I told him I intended farming in Kenya, and when eventually we parted he asked me to keep in touch with him—it was merely a generous gesture on his part. Well, I took over a farm, but after two poor seasons I'm afraid I lost heart. I'm not one of your stolid, untiring tillers of the soil. So I wrote to Carlos and he offered me the post as superintendent at the Ibana end of the plantations, which I accepted with the greatest alacrity — heaven knows why. I've been here eighteen months."

  A curious note in his voice made Fenella pause before saying, "Don't you care for it here?"

  "Mozambique is all right, but it's no fun living at the camp five days a week. Till six months ago I had one of the bungalows at the mission, only a couple of doors from your father. Then Carlos decided to build a house for me at the camp. You've met him, of course?"

  She nodded. "He's an incalculable sort of man."

  "Not really. He always does the right thing at the right time—which has a chastening effect upon me, I must confess. He's intolerant of any sort of weakness. I don't like

  him, but I do admire him." Austin gave her a teasing glance. "He floors the women, you know. You'll have to watch out."

  Fenella laughed with him. "He won't floor me. My feet are firmly planted on the ground, thank goodness, and I don't approve of one man owning so much." She waved a hand. "It's almost incredible that he should live at that castle, looking out over a whole town and miles of plantations and whatnot which belong to him."

  "Machada owes its existence to the Pereira family, but Carlos has departed to some extent from the tradition of complete ownership. In the bad old days, during all the various troubles which used to beset colonies, the plantations were worked by slaves, but today the natives in the reserves are housed free, and any Portuguese in the town is entitled to buy his house, if he wishes; when the young people marry they're presented with a gift of land on which to build. There's also a council responsible for public works. You'll admit the place is a credit to him."

  They were within sight of the mission, and Austin nodded up towards it. "That's new—it was just completed when I came. Carlos turned the whole thing over to the missionary society, together with six of the houses and a packet of money." He paused. "Sometimes I wonder what will happen to it all if he doesn't marry."

  "Why should you think he won't?"

  "Carlos isn't likely to take a wife simply from a sense of duty to his position. From what I know of him he'll have to be in love first, and I'm fairly certain there's no one who attracts him in that way."

  She smiled and said lightly, "No ordinary woman would satisfy him. I don't believe he'll ever meet one he'd deem worthy to share the Quinta Agostinhos."

  Austin had stopped outside the doctor's house. Companionably, he leaned an arm upon the back of the seat and faced her.

  "What time do I come this evening?"

  "We dine at seven-thirty, but come early."

  "What about a trip into Alimane tomorrow?"

  "My father suggested that, too. We could all three go."

  "But in two separate cars," he said firmly. "What a pleasure it is not to be compelled to say `senhora? in every breath."

  "Is that what you're accustomed to? I suppose you know a good many Portuguese girls?"

  "Yes," he said drily. "But, being a bachelor of limited means, I'm better acquainted with their mothers. Being entertained in their homes is so depressingly formal that I avoid it when I can."

  "Which is why you snatched at the chance of driving Maria de Cardena home from Ibana," she slipped in mischievously.

  "Maria?" His puzzlement dissolved in sudden enlightment. "So you heard about that? Maria is one of those excitable wenches. You never know what she's going to do next."

  "She sounds reckless and carefree—a girl after your own heart." Now that the car was stationary the sun beat down with the malicious ferocity of blown flames. Fenella opened the car door and slipped out on to the path. "I'll see you later, then. Thanks for the lift."

  Austin airily waved a hand and raced away.

  The weekend passed happily. At dinner that evening Austin was an appreciative guest, and his conversation was easy and undemanding. His banter was of the type that is peculiarly English and rather restful. The fact that Dr. Harcourt found him good company added to Fenella's enjoyment of the younger man; she was grateful for anything which helped to bring herself and her father closer together.

  Sunday in Alimane was comparatively lively. There was a regatta in the lagoon, and later a visiting brass band blared in the centre of the shady square, while people sat around in basket-chairs drinking light wine and gossiping. And then at dusk came those piercingly sweet convent chimes and the square emptied. Fenella, her father and Austin dined with an English family and got back to the mission by ten.

  Austin smiled appreciatively and said, "I'll be calling again next weekend, if I may."

  "Glad to have you," Dr. Harcourt answered cordially. "And you, Fenella?" Austin enquired, in accents engaging but faintly mocking.

  "Naturally," she said. "We English are bound to stick together."

  Thinking about him the next day, Fenella decided that Austin was much more likeable than she had anticipated, after the acid comments of Carlos Pereira. Possibly he did scamp his work because he loathed it; and Mrs. Westwood's whispered communication to the effect t
hat Carlos had removed him to the camp because his presence in town was unsettling a certain young lady might be true. But, the climate was hot and enervating, and what was a matter for deep concern in Machada might be regarded as a mild flirtation elsewhere.

  In Fenella's opinion, Senhor Pereira's criticism of his English superintendent had been unnecessarily harsh. Austin was merely human. He was no more of a philanderer than any other young man at a loose end in an exotic land; and blitheness and friendliness were scarcely indicative of a flaw in his nature. The great senhor's standards were too exacting.

  During the following week her father gave her the longed-for permission to work for two hours each day alongside one of the nurses in the clinic. Fenella had already tried to edge in on the housekeeping, but Antonio's training had been so exhaustive and attuned to the climate that she could think up no improvements. He did everything one wished for, and more. Her single attempt at making broa, the maize bread which seemed to be preferred in Machada, was such a lamentable failure that her erstwhile confidence in her own culinary abilities was badly shaken. She would wait a while before trying anything else. So it was with relief that she discovered in herself a slight aptitude for nursing. Her duties were uncomplicated and congenial, for they had to do with an experiment of her father's upon the nutrition of all the small children in the reserve. Periodically, the piccaninnies ranging from the age of one to four years had to be weighed and measured, and have their eyes, ears and throats examined. Results were charted, and each child was then passed outside to its mother, who was told when to come back for further tests.

  Dr. Harcourt was pleased with the statistics of his correct feeding scheme. Now that she was beginning to take part in it, he talked it over with Fenella in the evening.

  "It's a great deal of bother, of course," he said, "because we have to provide and supervise the meals and threaten the mothers with dreadful penalties if they supplement the diet with their own food; but disease among the children is waning and the best sign of all is the noise they make when they play."