The See-Through Leopard

by Sibel Hodge

  ‘It was lovely to meet you.’ Mandisa gave me a soft smile. ‘We should talk more.’

  I nodded, an uncomfortable feeling settling over me. Was this woman after my dad?

  I was quiet as Zach drove to the festival.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked after a ten minute silence.

  Everything. It was my birthday and Mum wasn’t here. I didn’t want to go to a stupid festival where I’d get stared at. And that woman clearly had eyes for my Dad. ‘Nothing,’ I mumbled.

  We heard the bass of the music before we even pulled up to the field on the outskirts of town. Cars were parked everywhere, and it took a while to find somewhere to leave the Land Rover. At least it was pretty dark. Maybe no one would even notice my face.

  I took a deep breath and got out, following Zach towards a crowd of people gathered in front of a stage that had been set up for the festival.

  A group of men were playing to an African tribal beat, and a woman sang in Swahili, swaying and jiggling her hips in time to the music so well I could’ve sworn she was double-jointed. We stood at the back, craning our necks over the people as the beat vibrated through us.

  ‘Do you want a beer?’ Zach shouted above the music, jerking his head towards a group of stalls selling food and drink.

  I nodded, watching the crowd roar when the singer began a new song with a faster tempo. The people danced wildly, smiles on their faces, letting the music overtake them so they became one with it. By the time Zach came back I was tapping my foot. Maybe this was a good idea of Zach’s. It was my seventeenth birthday, after all. Was it so bad to go out and try and enjoy myself?

  He chinked his bottle against mine. ‘Happy Birthday.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I took a huge swig of beer and the bubbles rushed to my nose. I coughed as Zach laughed and patted me on the back.

  ‘They’re good.’ I nodded towards the stage.

  ‘This is just the warm up.’

  The band played a few more tracks before a group of children got on stage and started playing what looked like homemade instruments. One of the girls, who couldn’t have been more than five, started dancing with expert timing, and the crowd clapped their encouragement.

  I swayed my hips and downed the last of my beer before Zach went off to buy us another one. After he’d been gone about ten minutes, I kept glancing at the stall to see where he was but there was a long queue. The man standing next to me caught my eye and stared.

  I stopped dancing and turned my head to the stage to block him out. When I looked back for Zach again more people were staring. I bowed my head and looked at the ground, willing Zach to hurry up and come back.

  After another few minutes, Zach returned and handed me the drink.

  ‘They’re all staring at me,’ I whispered to him. ‘I want to go.’

  He glanced up at the nearby people who were looking at us and whispering to each other, before settling his gaze back on me and shaking his head slightly.

  ‘Jazz, they’re not staring at you because of your face. They’re staring at you because you’re probably the only blonde, white girl they’ve seen in town for a while.’

  But I knew that wasn’t the real reason, and it was confirmed a few minutes later when I heard one woman say to her boyfriend, ‘I thought they had good doctors in Europe. How could they leave her face like that? There must be more they could do.’

  Zach caught my gaze and shook his head slightly, telling me to ignore them.

  I opened my mouth to make a ‘told-you-so’ snappy retort and caught sight of Dad and Mandisa moving through the crowd. My jaw dropped open as my gaze followed them to a spot at the very edge. Dad’s hand rested protectively on the small of her back, and they were deep in an animated conversation.

  ‘Stop looking at them if they’re staring,’ Zach said. ‘They’ll lose interest soon, anyway.’

  I pointed to Dad and Mandisa. ‘I’m not looking at them, I’m looking at Dad and that woman getting very cosy with each other.’ Too cosy for my liking. Who did she think she was? Mum had only been gone just over two years. How could Dad be taking out another woman?

  Dad looked around the crowd and caught my burning gaze. He whispered something to Mandisa and she nodded and looked at us before they made their way round the outskirts of the people towards us.

  ‘I hoped we’d find you here,’ Dad shouted over the music.

  ‘They’re good, aren’t they?’ Mandisa smiled and tilted her head towards the band.

  I was getting pretty sick of her annoyingly nice smile by then, and I stood there, glaring at Dad, my fists clenching with anger. ‘How could you do that?’ I asked.

  His eyebrows furrowed together in confusion.

  ‘How could you go out with another woman?’ I cried, feeling my temperature shoot up. ‘How could you betray Mum’s memory like that?’ I pushed past them and stomped back to the Land Rover.

  ‘Jazz!’ Zach chased after me. ‘Jazz, wait!’

  When he caught up with me I was leaning against the vehicle, arms crossed, a thunderous frown on my face.

  ‘Get in,’ he snapped, unlocking the Land Rover.

  I got in and buckled up before he drove off. We were silent for a while before he finally said, ‘That was a bit immature, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Shut up! I wasn’t being immature.’

  ‘Oh, and “shut up” is mature, is it?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ I folded my arms and stared out the passenger window.

  ‘Oh, yeah, that’s right. If anything gets too tough or complicated you don’t want to talk about it. Clam up. Keep silent. Let everything fester away until it becomes a toxic wound. That’s you all over,’ he snapped back.

  I carried on staring out the window, trying to drown him out.

  ‘Why doesn’t your Dad deserve some happiness? Don’t you think that’s a bit selfish?’ He paused, his voice calming down a notch. ‘From what I’ve heard about your mum, she was caring and happy and full of life. Do you really think she’d want your dad to be on his own, wallowing in unhappiness for the rest of his life?’

  ‘It’s none of your business. Just shut up!’

  ‘No, I won’t shut up.’ He jerked the Land Rover to a halt and shifted round in his seat.

  I could tell he was looking at me, even though I concentrated out the window with narrowed eyes.

  ‘For once you can bloody well listen to me instead of being so stubborn.’

  ‘I’m not stubborn.’

  ‘You’re the most stubborn person I’ve ever met! I’m trying to be a friend and help you.’

  Yeah, right. A friend.

  ‘There isn’t a textbook on grief, you know, and everyone has to go through it in their own way.’

  ‘How would you know? Your mum and dad are still alive. You don’t know anything about grief.’

  ‘I know that if he’s ready to move on, then you should let him. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t still love and miss your mum. It’s not like someone can replace her. What’s going to happen when you eventually leave home? Do you want him to be on his own forever?’ He took a deep breath. ‘You can’t change anything that’s happened in the past, but you can accept it and move on. At some point you have to learn to be happy with what you’ve got because this is life, Jazz, what you’ve got right at this moment. You can’t go backwards, you can only move forwards.’ He paused. ‘And if living out here on the reserve teaches you anything, it’s that life is fragile. Death can happen in the blink of an eye, and if you don’t live right now, all you’ll be left with are regrets.’ He shifted the Land Rover into gear and drove off in silence.

  After he dropped me off, I flopped into bed, going and over and over what Zach had said. Was I being selfish, or was I just trying to protect Mum’s memory? It felt like Dad was betraying her. Betraying the love they’d shared. But in the early hours of the morning I came to the conclusion that Zach was right. No one could replace Mum, but deep down I knew that she’d want us both to be happy.
She’d want us to live life to the full without her.

  Chapter 18

  I woke up the next morning feeling embarrassed about having to see Dad. I’d been rude and selfish and unfair to him. I knew he’d only ever tried to do what he thought was best for me, and it was wrong of me to expect that he should never be happy again. Mum wasn’t coming back and we both had to learn to deal with it. It didn’t mean that I liked seeing him with someone else, but, like Zach said, no one would ever replace her. It just meant that there would be new memories with new people, and hopefully some happiness for both of us along the way. We had to try and make the best of the life we had now. That’s all we could do.

  I got up and made a coffee, taking it outside to sit on the veranda with my legs tucked underneath me, staring out across the bush.

  I heard Dad stirring and fidgeted with the hem of my T-shirt. I would need to do a lot of apologising.

  He walked outside wearing a pair of shorts, a steaming mug of coffee in his hand, and eyed me warily. ‘Are you going to have another go at me?’

  I set my cup down on the floor and jumped up, wrapping my arms round him in a big hug. ‘I’m sorry about last night. It’s just that it was really horrible seeing you with another woman. It felt like you were betraying Mum.’

  He squeezed me back. ‘Jazz, I’m never going to forget her. And I’m never going to stop loving her. She’ll always be with us, in our hearts, and no one else can take that away.’

  I nodded and sniffed. ‘I know.’

  ‘But life does go on. It has to. And I know she’d want us to be happy.’ He stroked my hair. ‘Nothing is going on with Mandisa and me, but I like her. I miss having female company, and for the first time since your mum, I feel like I deserve some happiness for a change.’ He pulled back and tucked his finger under my jaw, turning my face up to his. ‘If something does progress, I want to know that you’re OK with it.’

  I sniffed again. ‘I want you to be happy, Dad. I want us both to be happy.’

  He smiled and kissed the top of my head. ‘Look, I know maybe I should’ve tried to encourage you to talk about things more after the accident, but you were just so unreachable. You’ve always kept things inside and it’s not good for you. If you ever want to talk about anything, you know I’m here for you, don’t you? Talking to someone can help you get over things. It never seems as bad when you’ve shared a problem.’

  I rested my head on his shoulder.

  ‘And I know you’ve maybe felt abandoned in the past because I spend so much time either talking about animals or being with them, but it’s only because they don’t have a voice, Jazz. Someone needs to speak up for them and help them when they’re ill.’

  ‘I know. Believe me, I understand that now after being here so long.’

  He sighed. ‘Maybe I could’ve been a better father, but I’m doing the best I can.’

  ‘Maybe I could’ve been a better daughter.’ I squeezed him tightly. ‘I’m going to speak to Mandisa and apologise for how I behaved.’

  ‘She understands why you were upset, but I think she’d like that.’ He drew back. ‘Look, what do you say we spend some father-daughter time today? I wanted to talk to you about something, anyway. One of the rangers spotted a wild dog with a poacher’s snare caught around its neck and I’ve got to go and check it out. They’re an endangered species, and I want to make sure we don’t lose a single one on our reserve. Do you want to come along? ’

  ‘I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.’

  After we changed and collected Dad’s medical equipment from his office, we headed off in the Land Rover to the spot where the wild dog had last been seen. On the way we caught sight of Bella, feeding on some bushes. Dad stopped the Land Rover downwind of her so she wouldn’t smell us.

  ‘Looks like she’s settling in OK,’ Dad whispered.

  ‘She’s beautiful. When will her baby be born?’

  ‘The gestation period is between fifteen and sixteen months. The vet from the Kruger National Park did a scan on her when she was sedated and estimated she was about four months pregnant. Her calf will weigh between thirty-five to fifty kilos when it’s born and will be able to follow her in the bush after about three days.’

  ‘And how long will the calf stay with her?’

  ‘For about two to three years, until the next calf is born, hopefully. Without poaching in the equation, she could live to anywhere between thirty and fifty years old.’

  We watched her for half an hour before driving off.

  ‘My contract with Richard has expired now,’ Dad said as he headed alongside the banks of the river. ‘I didn’t want to renew it without talking to you first.’

  The thought of going back to England filled me with dread. For one thing, I couldn’t leave Asha now. And then there was Zach…

  ‘I can’t believe we’ve been here a year. Looking back now it seems like it’s just flown by.’ I turned my face up to the Kenyan sun.

  ‘I want to stay and renew the contract for at least another couple of years.’ He glanced at me. ‘How do you feel about that?’

  ‘I want to stay.’ I grinned. ‘I can’t imagine being anywhere else now, and Asha needs me still.’

  ‘You don’t know how happy it makes me feel to hear that.’ He reached out and squeezed my hand. ‘You know, your mum loved it out here so much. We only went back to England to look after my father, who was ill at the time, then, of course, you were settled in school and doing so well that we couldn’t really come back like we originally planned,’ he said wistfully. ‘After I’d graduated as a vet and she graduated as a veterinary nurse, it was a toss up between which countries we’d go to so we could get experience of the big game animals. I wanted to go to South Africa, but there was a lot of trouble still going on with apartheid. Your mum wanted to come to Kenya—said she’d always dreamed about living here.’ He glanced around the bush. ‘We had so many good times in this place. One day we were out on a camping safari in the Masai Mara, just me and your mum sleeping out under the stars. We’d set up an area for washing ourselves and draped a wind break round it for privacy. She was inside the wind break with a bucket of water, having a strip down wash, and an elephant wandered up looking for a drink. It flopped its trunk over the wind break and took a long slurp! Your mum was so excited she ran out naked just to watch it wander off and came face to face with a bunch of people driving around on safari.’ He chuckled, his eyes staring off into the distance. ‘We laughed about that one for ages. And there was another time when we were at the lodge having dinner with Richard and Jenna when a vervet monkey suddenly appeared in the ceiling above us and urinated on your mum’s dinner. As we all scattered from the table, the cheeky blighter came down and stole the food before getting chased out.’ He shook his head softly.

  It was the first time he’d told me stories like this since Mum had gone, and I begged him to tell me more, listening with rapt attention as he spent the rest of the morning filling me in on some of their adventures while we drove around trying to find the wild dog.

  ‘Kenya is in your blood, I think,’ he said. ‘You must’ve got it from your mum. You’re a lot more like her than you realise. If she was still here and she’d found Asha, she’d be doing exactly the same thing as you are now—fighting for Asha’s freedom. She’d be really happy to know you’ve finally found yourself in the place where she felt most at home.’ He brought the Land Rover to a stop and looked at me.

  I tilted my head to Dad’s and we touched foreheads. Smiling softly to myself, I realised something. For the first time, I was able to remember her without feeling like there was a knife stuck in my heart.

  We sat like that for a while, staring out at the plains, lost in our own thoughts about Mum until I spied what I thought was a pack of wild dogs in the distance. Using the binoculars, I zoomed in for a closer look.

  ‘There.’ I pointed. ‘Maybe the one with the snare is with them.’

  ‘Let’s check it out.’ He headed towards
the pack and stopped about a hundred metres away.

  I passed him the binoculars.

  ‘I see it.’ He handed them back and drove closer, then held his hand out again for them. ‘It looks like the snare is buried deep in her neck.’

  ‘She keeps trying to scratch at it with her paw,’ I said. ‘It must be agony for her.’

  ‘I’m going to dart her with anaesthetic and take a look. I’ll need to position the vehicle between her and the rest of the pack while I deal with her, and I need you to keep a lookout. If the rest of them come closer, wave your arms around. As a last resort, fire the gun.’ He handed me his rifle. ‘You ready to do this?’

  ‘Ready.’

  Dad loaded up the dart gun and swiftly fired a shot that landed with the feathered tail of the dart sticking out of her rump. A perfect shot.

  The dog bolted, and the rest of the pack got spooked and ran towards some dense bushes, but the darted animal couldn’t keep up. After a few seconds, she wobbled on her legs and went down.

  ‘We’ve got to move quickly.’ Dad positioned the Land Rover between the bushes and the dog so the pack wouldn’t see what was happening and got out with his gear.

  The snare had embedded itself deep into the flesh of the wild dog, and I couldn’t bear to look at the injury that must’ve been causing it a lot of pain and distress. I turned my back to Dad, keeping a close eye on the area to make sure the other dogs didn’t return and holding the rifle steadily in my hand.

  ‘These snares are vile. When the animal gets caught up in them, it struggles to try and get away, which just makes the wire dig in deeper. It was probably set to catch an antelope, but they’re indiscriminate about which victims get trapped in them,’ Dad said angrily, trying to cut the wire and peel it away from the skin and muscle.

  One of the dogs from the pack poked its head round the bush, closely followed by another one, watching us with trepidation.

  ‘I’ve removed it all now,’ Dad said. ‘Just need to clean the wound and give it a long-lasting antibiotic and it should recover eventually.’