He had bent and kissed her. Her lips were still wet from the wine. She was finding it hard to breathe as though a hand had closed over the upper part of her abdomen.
‘I’ll take your glass.’ He had put it down on the floor and kissed her again. Now he was sitting with her in the chair. She had put her arms around him and returned the kiss. She felt as though she were floating, drugged, yet excited. She felt his hands on her breasts. She was hardly aware that the buttons of her blouse had been undone until she felt his cool touch. His hands were expert and excitement mounted. They stayed as they were for a long time. Darkness had fallen, but the moon was already up and the room was bathed in a cold, silvery light. She had seen a pale reflection in the windows and realised it was her own skin. She had seen her breasts and his hands. She discovered with some surprise that she was naked from the waist up. His hands moved constantly. She felt one on her thigh. She told herself she was still in control. The hand moved. She gasped and caught his wrist.
‘Why not?’ he whispered.
‘I don’t want you to.’
The hand had moved again and again. She used all her strength against him.
‘Please!’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I don’t want to.’
But the hand was moving all the while. She had felt suddenly stifled; he was smothering her. She had felt the first flutterings of panic. She had twisted and turned. Her wiry body was strong. The arm of the chair gave way and Charles fell to the floor. In a moment, she was on her feet, buttoning her blouse.
He stood up. The blankness that she associated with his anger came into his eyes. He had grabbed her and dragged her towards him. ‘Why did you come here? You could have said no!’
She had felt his rage and his strength and been suddenly afraid. She let her body relax against his. ‘It’s not that,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve got my period.’
There was a pause, then she had felt him begin to slacken.
They drove back to Saxenburg in silence and she went up to her room and locked the door. He remained downstairs and she heard him calling for water, ice and brandy. Much later the roadster’s engine revved up and she heard the harsh noise of its tyres speeding off down the gravel drive.
*
Such outbursts of temper from him were infrequent, but when they came, they were alarming. She recalled one in which he had lost his temper first with Jonas and then with Smuts.
She had been working in her office at the back of the house when she heard his raised voice. It appeared that he had told Jonas to wash his roadster and that Jonas had not done so because he’d had his own work to finish.
‘Don’t you give me any of that shit!’ Charles was shouting. ‘When I tell you to do something, you do it!’
‘Master told me to fill the heaters with paraffin.’
‘I don’t give a fuck about that. I told you to clean the car, man, and you haven’t done it. You bloody do it now or I’ll kick your arse. Verstaan?’
At that moment, Smuts had come into the yard. Jonas immediately appealed to him.
‘He’s right,’ Smuts said. ‘I told him to check the incubators.’
‘I want my car cleaned. I told him half an hour ago.’
‘If he’s got time, he can do it later.’
‘What!’
‘You’re not taking one of my boys away from his work just to clean a car. We’ve got too much to do, Charles.’
‘Christ Almighty! First I get a bloody argument from a coloured and now you. I’m telling you, I want that car cleaned and I want it cleaned now.’
Smuts said evenly, ‘You’re not Boss Charles, you’re Master Charles. You don’t give me orders.’
‘You! God, my father picked you out of the gutter! That’s where you would still be! I’m a Preller. You’re bugger all. When I say something, I want it done!’
Again without raising his voice, Smuts said, ‘You want me to go and ask your mother? You want me to ask her who gives Jonas orders, you or me?’
For a moment Kate thought Charles was going to attack him, then he turned and walked into the house. Jonas stood firm, a look of satisfaction on his face. Smuts shook his head and said, ‘All right, get on with your work.’
These gusts of anger did not seem to bother Smuts or the coloured folk on the farm as much as they did Kate. Perhaps they were used to them, she had thought. She was to get used to them herself.
*
Under Smuts’ tuition, she learned to drive the motor and during the second week of December she was driving Mrs. Preller to Helmsdale when the old lady brought up the subject of Christmas: ‘It is a time for family gatherings, no? In Vienna, if the weather was cold, my father would take us skating in the Turkenschantz Park. I remember once I fell and hurt my elbow. Such days! You must go to your mother and father for Christmas.’
Kate thought of the little house in Observatory with the smell of drains and old cooking. She thought of Tom and knew she did not want to be anywhere near him at Christmas.
Mrs. Preller went on, ‘You know we have a holiday called Second New Year? That is the day after New Year’s Day. You must take that, too. You can leave here on Christmas Eve and you need not be back until the third of January.’
Kate was appalled at the thought of such a long period with her family. ‘What about you, ma’am? I think I’d rather stay here with –’
‘Do not pity me!’ Mrs. Preller’s voice cut at her like a whip. ‘I have got on well without you for years. I can get on . . .’
‘I didn’t mean that at all.’
‘Do not interrupt. Charles will be here with me. I do not need anyone. Do you understand me? Not Smuts, not you, not Lena, not anyone!’
‘It wasn’t meant that way, ma’am. It’s just that the Scots don’t keep Christmas. There’s no holiday in Scotland on Christmas Day, everything is the same as usual. It’s New Year that we keep, that’s when we have our celebrations.’
‘It is a strange custom.’
They had reached Helmsdale and Mrs. Preller was distracted from the conversation when she saw a group of people standing outside the little courthouse. There were two cars and an ambulance with Cape Town plates.
‘What is happening?’ she demanded. ‘Who are those people?’
The group broke up and got into the cars. Kate saw Arnold Leibowitz, the attorney, Mr. Sachs and the local police sergeant. The cars drove up the street, followed by the ambulance. Dr. du Toit, in his own car, was about to follow them when he saw Mrs. Preller and came towards her.
‘What’s happening, Hennie? Who is sick?’
He was frowning. ‘No one is sick.’
‘Then why the ambulance?’
‘They’re digging up Miriam Sachs’ body.’
There was a moment of total silence, then she said, ‘What?’ as though she had misheard.
‘Sachs got a special court order.’
‘But why?’
‘He says she was not buried according to Hebrew rights. He’s going to have her re-buried.’
‘But that’s nonsense!’
‘It may be, but it’s true.’
‘To dig up the poor girl! What next? Has he no respect for the dead?’
‘He’s her father, Augusta.’
‘Ever since it happened he’s been . . . peculiar. He’s not the same Sachs I knew.’
‘He’s taken it hard.’
‘He collapsed,’ she said, with contempt.
‘She was his whole life.’
‘What if I had collapsed when Hugo died?’
‘Ja, that’s true.’
‘But why the ambulance? Are they going to bury her in Cape Town?’
‘Apparently he’s asked a pathologist there to examine her.’
‘Cut her open? Hennie, what a terrible thing to do!’
‘He thinks there may be something wrong.’
‘Wrong? How?’
‘He doesn’t think she drowned.’
‘He’s mad! Of course sh
e drowned. I told her when she was a little girl not to go near the rock pools. You know she used to go there with Charles. He would not have gone if she had not tempted him.’
‘Sachs says she would never have swum that night at high tide.’
‘Come, Hennie, you know what she was like. She was a . . .’
Dr. du Toit looked at Kate and said, ‘Augusta, she’s dead, you know.’
‘I mean, she wasn’t one of us.’
‘That’s true.’
‘What could they find?’
‘God knows.’
‘I think it is unChristian.’
‘I don’t think that matters, Augusta. They’re Jewish.’
‘Ja, but Jews should also be Christian, if you know what I mean. How long will it be before they know?’
‘Probably a few weeks.’
The fact that Miriam had been dug up and removed by ambulance to Cape Town was a greater sensation in Helmsdale than her death had been. The town was used to the occasional knifing in the coloured fishing village, the occasional skull split open by a wine bottle, but this was something different. There had been nothing like it since Hugo Preller had died. Mystery still surrounded his death and now mystery surrounded the death of Miriam Sachs. What made it even more fascinating was that her death should have taken place on Saxenburg. When it had happened, the fact that it had occurred there had only added a pinch of spice, for Saxenburg was a source of abiding interest in the town, especially since the Prellers had dominated its history for so long. But now this! To be examined, to be cut open, to be looked at through a microscope! The wildest rumours circulated, none of which lasted for more than a day or two. The most persistent was that Miriam had been pregnant, that the foetus had been found by the pathologist. Therefore, there was only one reason for her death: suicide. She had gone to a place she knew and had drowned herself.
Chapter Eight
‘She’s taken to you,’ Smuts said to Kate a few days before Christmas. ‘She respects you, and that’s bloody rare, my friend. It’s because you work like a kaffir. You know, we haven’t had a proper Christmas since, oh, before Hugo died. You’ll see, when she does something, she does it properly. It’s going to be like the old days.’
Kate expanded under his praise. No one had spoken to her in such a way for a long time. She had been praised for her work at school, but once school was over, there had been little enough. She felt the old stirrings, the need for praise and the concomitant drive that followed, the one fuelling the other.
Smuts’ prediction was right. For a few days the house was transformed. Lena and Betty opened up the drawing-room and the dining-room, dusted and cleaned, and let in more fresh air and sunlight than Saxenburg had seen in many a year.
Mrs. Preller made lists of food and wine and reminisced about Christmases in the old days, with tennis tournaments and swimming parties, and sometimes her mind would go back to others she had spent in Vienna. Kate had never seen her so animated. There were visits to Helmsdale and telephone calls to shops in Cape Town to order cheeses, tins of foie gras, smoked ham, Bath Oliver biscuits, tinned asparagus and other items which must be put on the train in good time. One day Smuts took Kate into a cellar she had not known existed. Part of it had been shelved and there must have been nearly three hundred bottles of wine lying on beds of straw.
‘Rhine wines,’ he said, touching a bottle reverently. ‘You couldn’t buy these today even if you had the money. I had some once. Like bloody nectar, my friend.’
He consulted the piece of paper on which Mrs. Preller had written her choice, and took up half a dozen bottles. ‘I told you she would do things properly.’
Kate shopped for presents and delivered an invitation to Dr. du Toit, who looked at her in surprise and said, ‘Augusta’s going to . . . Good God! Yes, of course I’ll be there. I never thought . . . well well! I was going to have my Christmas dinner in the hotel as usual. This will make a change.’
Charles arrived on Christmas Eve, and set himself out to be charming.
‘Smuts tells me this is all your doing,’ he said. ‘Mother must have taken a shine to you. She doesn’t often.’
She was flattered, and when they were alone in the drawing-room, she did not resist his kiss. There was a hunger in it to which she found herself responding, and she realised for the second time that she did not have as much control over her needs as she had thought. After a moment, she broke away and went to the window overlooking the cove.
Charles joined her. ‘Have you been swimming?’
‘Not in the pools. Not since Miriam drowned.’
‘I don’t blame you. But you can’t let that influence you for ever. She drowned. It’s sad, but the world goes on.’
‘It’s not that easy,’ she said shortly. ‘I found her, remember.’
‘Try and think of her as she was in life.’
‘I had just about managed that until . . .’
‘Until what?’
‘The exhumation. The post mortem. It’s macabre.’
‘The what?’
‘They dug her body up. Didn’t you know? I thought someone must have told you.’
‘Dug her up? What for?’
‘Her father said she had not been buried according to Hebrew rites, so he got a court order.’
‘I don’t understand. What has that got to do with a post mortem?’
‘Mr. Sachs doesn’t think she drowned.’
‘You found her. She was drowned, wasn’t she?’
‘She looked drowned, but I’m not an expert.’
‘I know you’re not an expert, but . . .’
‘Mr. Sachs has asked a Dr. Fleischman to do the post mortem.’
‘I’ve heard the name.’
‘Dr. du Toit doesn’t think it’s necessary.’
‘I don’t either!’ Charles said vehemently. ‘Jesus, I hate the thought of her body being . . . Why couldn’t they have left her alone?’
So he did care, she thought. Deep down below the surface, he did care about Miriam. She found herself somewhat relieved.
*
Christmas Day was hot and windy and they had decided to have their dinner at night. Lena traditionally went into Helmsdale in the afternoon to attend the service at her church, which lasted for most of the evening, so everything was left to Kate and Betty.
Dr. du Toit arrived at seven, dressed in a dinner-jacket, and was followed by Smuts, who wore tails. Both men looked uneasy in their tight-fitting clothes, and Smuts’ had the rusty look of old age. ‘They used to belong to my father. We had them cut down for him,’ Charles told Kate softly, as he poured Smuts a brandy and water. He himself was in a white tuxedo with a claret-coloured bow-tie and a matching handkerchief.
Softly lit, the drawing-room was huge and shadowy. The blues and purples gave it an opulent look, a feeling of luxury which suited Kate’s mood, for she had, the day before, bought a new black dress at Paris Modes in Helmsdale’s main street. It was the first non-utilitarian dress she had ever bought and she had been wavering about it for days. Finally she had given in to temptation and now she knew she had been right. Charles had told her she looked pretty and she was wearing the dress in the right surroundings: not a small, wretched house in a run-down suburb, but a great mansion which had been briefly brought to life. Why did it have to be brief, she thought? Why did Saxenburg ever have to return to the dim, lifeless place it had been before?
‘Well, Charles, it’s like the old days,’ du Toit said, holding up his glass.
‘Just what I was saying,’ Smuts said. ‘Like the old days.’ He had finished his brandy and Charles took his glass.
‘You’re always talking about the old days, Smutsy,’ he said.
‘We’ll have them again. You’ll see.’ He took a fresh drink, and turned to du Toit. ‘Any news?’
‘News?’
‘About Miriam Sachs.’
The doctor frowned. ‘I don’t think –’
‘I didn’t know,’ Charles said. ‘It
’s bloody awful, isn’t it?’
‘Ja. But these things happen. I don’t think we should talk about it, you know. Not at Christmas. I don’t want your mother . . . Here she is!’ He moved to the door. He bent to kiss her cheek and Kate saw him murmur something in her ear. She shook her head slightly.
Her long, dark blue dress reached the floor and her hair had been brushed so that it covered part of her face. She wore a piece of lace at her throat and matching lace gloves. Very little of her skin was visible, but again Kate was struck by the whiteness and thickness of the powder she had applied, which contrasted so dramatically with the slashes of red on her lips.
‘Darling,’ she said, coming forward to Charles.
He made to kiss her, but Kate saw him turn away fractionally at the last moment so that his lips did not quite touch her.
‘We were saying how long it’s been, Augusta,’ du Toit said. ‘Man, it must be . . . we haven’t fore-gathered here since the accident.’
‘I thought it was time, Hennie.’
‘What will you drink, mother?’ Charles broke in.
Kate noticed that her hands were shaking. ‘Have we any vermouth? Yes? Then I will have a dry martini.’
‘Augusta, you . . .’
She turned to the doctor. ‘It is Christmas and my son is home.’
There was a moment of tension, an uncomfortable little silence. Then, holding up her glass, she said, ‘Merry Christmas!’ They drank the toast. ‘That was delicious, Charles. You make them almost as well as your father did.’ She held out the glass. Dr. du Toit pursed his lips.
Kate decided that the sooner she served dinner, the better, and she went into the kitchen, where Betty was dressed in her best. ‘You look lovely,’ Kate said.
Then she saw a shadowy figure in the half darkness at the far end of the kitchen. ‘Good evening, Jonas.’
He came into the light. He was no longer in working clothes, but in a shirt and tie, and looked a different person. The clothes hid his physical power.
The dining-room looked better than she could have hoped. She and Lena and Betty had spent long hours cleaning it. They had polished the refectory table Smuts had told her came out of the Nicobar, then they had taken down the drops from the chandeliers – from the Saxenburg – and washed them in vinegar water, and used beeswax on the sideboard. Everything glowed, and points of light from the glittering chandeliers were reflected in dark, silky surfaces.
The Sea Cave Page 11