The Sea Cave

by Alan Scholefield

  It had rained heavily the day before and the brown dirt road had turned to mud. Charles drove fast, but with care. Again, as she had been in the train, she was struck by the emptiness of the land, but there had been a shift in her emotions. It was no longer an alien landscape. She identified with it and had learned to like its bleak beauty. At first the dun-coloured plain and the brown mountains had seemed to be monochromatic, but she had learned to distinguish the subtleties of a range of colours from cream through fawn and chestnut to mahogany and back again to dusty yellow. Now, as they began to climb away from the coastal plain, the browns and light tans were contrasted by the first of the wheatlands, bright, almost phosphorescent green in the grey afternoon light. The road was lined here and there with gum-trees, all leaning away from the south-east winds.

  Charles fumbled in his pocket, pulled out a silver cigarette case and offered it to her. She took two and lit them before passing one to him.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’ve left some lipstick on it.’

  ‘It won’t be the first time.’ He put it in his mouth and she felt a sudden moment of intimacy, as though he had touched her. She closed the case and was passing it back to him when she saw engraved on it, ‘To C.P. from M.S’.

  Miriam? It had to be. She leaned back and watched him through half-closed eyes. Miriam had wanted him so badly. She thought of the day of the picnic when she had flirted with Duggie and then with Jerry, trying to make Charles jealous. Miriam would have married him like a shot. But Miriam had not been granted the opportunity, and she had. Why not take it? Because, she thought, the shadow of Tom was between her and Charles. Yet . . . she was ready to make someone a good wife, ready to have his babies. She believed, as Mrs. Preller did, that the longer one left it, the more difficult it would become.

  After Caledon, they began climbing up towards the Houw Hoek Pass. The muddy road was badly cut about by lorries and Charles sometimes had difficulty keeping the motor out of the ruts.

  When he dropped her at her parents’ house, he said, ‘I’ll be at the flat. Why don’t we eat and go to a nightclub?’

  She was tempted, but reminded herself that it was to have a break from Charles and from Saxenburg that she had come. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘Not this time.’

  *

  It was as though she had never left the cramped little villa; the same smells hung in the passage, the same poor lighting gave the place a cold, depressed look, the same grease seemed to have remained in the kitchen, the same cold, damp atmosphere prevailed, the same small coal fire burnt in the sitting-room grate.

  Her mother looked bonier, more gaunt than she remembered. ‘Supper’s ready,’ was her greeting as Kate put down her suitcase.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’

  ‘Next door.’ It was said with tight lips.

  Kate knew that a family named Bremer lived in the neighbouring villa.

  Her mother said, ‘He goes there a lot. They’re coloureds, you know. He owns a removal business. Well, you wouldna call it a proper business. One wee lorry. He gives your father work from time to time.’ She picked up a heavy ladle and banged on the wall. ‘That’ll fetch him out. He sits there aw’ the day when he’s not working and the two of them drink white port.’

  Her father came through the kitchen door from the yard. He was wearing an old grey cardigan and a white striped collarless shirt with a copper stud at the neck. He was thinner and older and more worn than when she had last seen him.

  ‘Ma wee girl!’ he said, putting his arms about her. She flinched at the smell of him.

  They ate mince in which there were heavy white dumplings, and a dish of cabbage. ‘I bet you havena had dumplings for a long time,’ Mrs. Buchanan said.

  ‘No, Mother.’ They were heavy and sticky in the middle and Kate was barely able to get them down.

  After she had done the washing-up, her father borrowed a pound from her and went out.

  ‘He’ll be away to the Railway Arms. You shouldna have given him the money,’ Mrs. Buchanan said.

  They sat in the front room and Kate listened to a catalogue of complaints: the roof leaked, the fire smoked, the rent was going up, her teeth were hurting, Mr. Buchanan was hardly ever in work, her chest was playing up, Duggie was no better, worse if anything. ‘We’ll go to see him tomorrow,’ she said. ‘And you can see for yoursel’.’

  By nine o’clock, Kate had excused herself and gone to bed. The sheets were cold, the room damp.

  The following day, she and her mother caught a train down to the sea. Mrs. Buchanan had asked for a couple of pounds ‘to get a wee something to cheer him up’.

  They left the train at St. James, which had always reminded Kate of pictures she had seen of Devon and Cornish fishing-villages, and walked up a long flight of steps cut into the side of a hill. Duggie’s convalescent home was a double-storeyed house with a verandah that commanded a view over False Bay. He was sitting, wrapped up in a basket chair, taking the winter sun. He was thinner, like his father, and looked wasted. Kate kissed him and asked after his leg.

  ‘Not bad. They say it could be worse. The whole thing could be rotten, you ken, not just the one patch of bone.’

  He spoke with painful bitterness and her heart went out to him. This was her big brother, the charmer, who had gone off to the wars like a stainless knight and had come back with a wound that had affected not only his leg. She remembered him in Helmsdale, with Miriam sitting close to him, feeding him tit-bits from the picnic. She remembered his smile, the conspiratorial conversation between the two of them, she remembered him limping off up the street with Miriam when they had been dropped at the hotel. Had he gone home with her? Had she made him happy? She hoped so.

  ‘Have you brought anything for me?’ Duggie said to his mother.

  ‘Just a wee something,’ Mrs. Buchanan said, and passed him a package wrapped in brown paper. He excused himself and when he returned he seemed calmer, slightly more cheerful. But his limp was worse than Kate had seen it, and there was pain in every movement.

  ‘They want to take it off,’ he said. ‘Just about there . . .’ He put his finger below his knee. ‘They say the bone’ll go on getting worse and worse. They havena a hope of stopping the infection.’

  Twice more he excused himself in the following hour and twice more he limped painfully back. Kate wondered how long it would take him to finish the bottle.

  On the train going back her mother said, ‘Now you know.’

  ‘Have you spoken to the doctor?’

  ‘Of course I have. It’s as Duggie says. If they dinna take it off, he’ll die.’

  They were silent for a spell and then she said, ‘I’ve not seen him happy since that Jewish girl died.’

  ‘Miriam?’

  ‘If that was her name. Your father and I didna ken any Jews – didna want to, you understand – but she was good to him.’

  ‘In Cape Town? She saw him here?’

  ‘Oh, aye.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘He was in a terrible state when he heard. I’ve never seen him like it.’

  For a few seconds she seemed to look down the wrong end of a telescope into the future. It was going to be months before Duggie regained his strength. First there would have to be the operation, then the artificial limb-fitting, and convalescence. And once it was all over, who was going to employ him? And then there was her father. He did not seem able to keep a skilled job – according to her mother, coloured people were being employed in preference to whites because their wages were lower. For a moment, she had an urge to leave the train, to change her name and disappear into the vast continent that lay to the north.

  The following day, Sunday, she telephoned Tom at his home, something she had never done before. He sounded guarded and surprised, but agreed to meet her in Claremont Gardens during the morning.

  It was chilly, with a north-wester building up, and she stood under a palm tree in the light drizzle. She watched him come up the path between the lawns, a tall, broad-sh
ouldered figure with sandy hair, and she felt the old excitement. She managed a shaky, lop-sided smile.

  ‘May I join you under your tree?’ he said.

  ‘Hello, Tom.’

  He put her hand to his lips.

  ‘I wanted to see you, otherwise I’d never have telephoned your house,’ she said.

  ‘Joyce isn’t up yet, so it didn’t matter. Anyway, I often go for a walk on a Sunday morning. It must be important.’

  ‘Yes.’ She wanted to tell him how often she had thought of him, how often she had taken up a pen to write to him, only to put it down again, how often she had heard the telephone ring and hoped against hope it might be him. But she couldn’t. If she faltered now, everything would be lost. ‘It is important. I’m going to marry Charles.’

  She saw him flinch. He stood for some moments, letting the news sink in, and then said, ‘Why? You don’t love him.’

  ‘Lots of reasons.’

  ‘Give me one.’

  ‘Duggie has to have his leg off. He’ll never work again.’

  ‘That’s hard on him.’ Then he said: ‘Once before you came back and refused to see me. Your family seem to have a strange effect on you.’

  ‘At least this time I’m seeing you. I don’t think you realise how difficult that is.’

  ‘You’re right. I don’t. Largely because you made your feelings clear enough when I was in Helmsdale. But don’t let’s fight. I should be wishing you good luck. And I do.’

  ‘There’s no other way,’ she said, fighting back the tears.

  ‘I suppose not.’

  The drizzle became heavier and rattled on the palm leaves.

  She put out her hand again. He took it and tried to draw her towards him. ‘Don’t,’ she said.

  ‘Kate . . .’

  ‘No! For God’s sake, just leave me alone!’

  He dropped her hand. ‘Will I see you again?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Chapter Five

  Kate would remember her wedding-day always, for reasons which had nothing to do with her marriage. The ceremony was on a June day of gales and rain. It was set for eleven o’clock in the registry office at the courthouse. Her mother and father had come to Helmsdale and were staying at the hotel. Apart from Dr. du Toit, Smuts, and Jerry and Freda, there were to be no other guests. A special room in the hotel had been set aside for the wedding luncheon and after that she and Charles were to leave for Cape Town.

  It had been at her insistence that it was to be a very private wedding. She had flatly refused Charles’s suggestion that the ceremony should be at the Cathedral in Cape Town, and Mrs. Preller had supported her, as Kate had known she would, not wanting to be seen by crowds of people.

  On her wedding-morning she was dressing – she had bought a grey silk dress, waistless, with pleats flaring from the hips and a matching cloche hat, and Charles had given her a silver-fox stole – when Lena came in.

  ‘Miss Kate must be very happy.’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘I just come to wish Miss Kate good luck.’

  ‘Thank you, Lena.’

  ‘Everything going to be all right now. I pray for Miss Kate. God has heard my prayers.’

  ‘You mean you prayed that Mister Charles and I would get married?’

  ‘Right from when Miss Kate first came. Madam don’t pray, but Madam also wanted it. Madam is very happy.’

  Everyone was happy, Kate thought. Charles, his mother, Lena, even Dr. du Toit. ‘It’s the best thing that could happen,’ he had said kissing her on the lips when the announcement had been made. ‘The very best.’ Everyone except herself. There had been moments in the past weeks when she had been on the verge of calling it off, when she had looked into the future and seen herself in Mrs. Preller’s rooms, alone, fighting as the old woman fought now, to keep the estate together. Is this what she was forging by marrying Charles: iron clasps binding her to the house, to the family, to the tradition, to the name? Would she one day also end up in the mausoleum in the dusty cemetery at the edge of town: CATHERINE PRELLER née BUCHANAN, and then the dates of her birth and death? She put a pin into her hat and arranged a grey veil over her face. This was not what she had planned for herself. Life seemed to have swung off-course and was taking her farther and farther from anything she had imagined.

  She watched Lena in the mirror. The woman was looking at her with burning eyes, and Kate felt momentarily uneasy.

  ‘It’s a pity Betty isn’t here,’ she said, to fill the silence.

  ‘A big pity, Miss Kate.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘She getting better. She helps her auntie in the house.’

  ‘When will she be coming back?’

  ‘Maybe in the summer.’

  The telephone rang and Lena went to answer it. She came back after a few moments.

  ‘It’s for Miss Kate. A call from Cape Town.’

  It was Duggie, she thought, phoning to wish her well. ‘Is it my brother?’

  ‘No, Miss Kate. I didn’t catch the name too well, but it sounds like Easton.’

  ‘Could it have been Austen?’

  ‘That’s the name.’

  Kate turned back to the mirror.

  ‘Miss Kate?’

  ‘Tell him I’m out.’

  When Lena returned, she said, ‘I told him. He says when Miss Kate comes in, Miss Kate must be sure to telephone him. He says it is very urgent.’

  ‘Thank you, Lena.’

  Smuts drove Mrs. Preller and Kate to town. Charles took the roadster, with their luggage.

  Dr. du Toit was standing in the shelter of the doorway when they arrived. The north-wester was lashing the gum-trees and squalls of rain battered at the window. They hurried inside, straightening hats and brushing drops of water from their clothing. Her mother and father were in the waiting-room and she saw that Charles was already there with Jerry and Freda. Jerry was his best man.

  The ceremony was quickly over and when they emerged into the passage again, Lena was waiting with a brown paper bag in her hand. ‘Good luck, Miss Kate. Good luck, Master Charles,’ she said, and threw confetti over them. Kate realised that she must have come in Charles’s car. It was kind of him to have brought her. For a moment everyone was enveloped in a cloud of multi-coloured confetti, laughing and brushing it out of their hair. Until then the wedding had been something to be endured, now it suddenly took on a festive atmosphere and Kate felt her spirits rise. Charles took her arm and hurried her forward. At that moment, the big exterior doors burst open. Three men stood on the threshold; two were burly policemen and between them, manacled, stood Jonas.

  For a second or two, everything was still. Kate found herself staring at Jonas as though he were an animal, and this was the impression she carried with her afterwards, of a wild animal. The rain was dripping down his face and his eyes were red and staring. Lena screamed and ran down the passage away from him, dropping her bag of confetti which burst like a bomb.

  The two groups eyed each other, then Jonas slowly sank to his knees. He was looking directly at her. ‘Miss Kate,’ he said. ‘Help me!’

  One of the constables jerked him to his feet and pushed him along the passage. The other turned to Mrs. Preller and said, ‘Excuse us. We got to take him before the magistrate for remand. Then he goes back to Cape Town until you got a safe cell for him here.’ A door closed and they were gone.

  The wedding-party trooped out into the street, but no one threw confetti now. The spirit of festivity had gone. Dr. du Toit did his best to make the wedding luncheon cheerful but for Kate, watching her father in his old grey suit and her mother in her black hat, trying to efface themselves, there was little to feel cheerful about. Charles was attentive to her and boisterous with Jerry, and Smuts became animated on two glasses of champagne. But the spectre of Jonas hovered over the table and she was glad when the festivities were over and they were in the roadster heading for Cape Town.

  ‘Why was Jonas at the courthouse?’ she said
. ‘I thought he was being held somewhere else.’

  ‘For remand, the constable said. They’re probably fixing a date for the trial. I hear that Fleischman is better.’

  ‘What do you think will happen to him?’

  ‘They’ll hang the bastard.’

  ‘Everyone’s so sure he did it. What if he simply picked up the scarf on the beach? What if he didn’t even see her?’

  ‘That’ll be his defence, you can bet on it.’

  ‘Who will defend him?’

  ‘The court appointed Stoltz.’

  She sat back, watching the road unwind. People had already made up their minds about Jonas and there had not even been a trial, not so much as a preparatory examination. She could not get out of her mind the red, staring, animal eyes, the cry for help.

  ‘He was one of our people,’ she said. ‘We should do something.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘We could get him a decent lawyer. It’s the least we could do.’

  ‘Don’t meddle in something you know nothing about,’ he said. ‘It’s got nothing to do with you. Anyway, it would cost money.’

  She did not reply. She knew there would come a time when she would not allow such a reprimand to pass unchallenged, but not yet. She had married Charles and she had every intention of making things work. She would not start their life together on a sour note.

  ‘Of course, money doesn’t mean much to a rich woman like you,’ he added. It was said lightly, but there was an edge to the joke.

  She was a rich woman. Or by her own standards, anyway. And by the standards of her mother and father, and Duggie and, she supposed, even by Tom’s standards. Within reason, she could buy what she wanted. But at this moment, with the wedding only hours old and the spectre of Jonas on her mind, she did not want anything. What she required was to be happy, to enjoy this, her wedding day. And she knew, as she had known when she first arrived at Saxenburg on that strange and upsetting evening, that the future depended on herself.

  The curious thing was that Mrs. Preller had said nothing more to her about the conditions of the marriage. It was as though she had dreamed their conversation. But there was nothing dreamlike about the call she had received from Mr. Hamilton, the bank manager in Helmsdale. This time there had been no talk of collateral, of jewellery or houses to back a loan.