by Tony Park
‘Hope Bryant,’ Braedan said.
She lifted her glass. ‘Howzit, Braedan. Congratulations on the medal – though I'm glad you moved away from us when you were little. Otherwise I wouldn't have had any hair left.’
Braedan raised his beer in return. ‘Well, your hair looks just great to me. Just as well it's not in pigtails, though, or I might want a handful for old times' sake.’
Hope felt her cheeks redden.
‘Where's Julie today?’ Tate asked.
Braedan looked from Hope to his brother. ‘Ag, she walked out on me, man.’
‘Sorry to hear it, she was a nice girl.’
‘Ja,’ Braedan's expression went from mock sad to a broad smile, ‘but her roommate was even nicer.’
Tate shook his head.
‘You don't approve, boet? I can hook you up with Julie, if you like. She needs a shoulder to cry on.’
Any attraction Hope might have felt towards Braedan – in a purely physical sense, because he was indeed a handsome, well-crafted example of the male species – evaporated.
‘I can give you the roommate's number as well if you like, Tate.’ He grinned. ‘How about you, Hope? A few of us are going to the Monomotapa for drinks after this is all over. Fancy coming with?’
Hope smiled. ‘I'd rather slit my wrists.’
Braedan laughed and downed his beer, then looked around for a waiter. He snapped his fingers and an African man threaded his way through the crowd towards him. Braedan took a Lion from the tray then, as an afterthought, asked Hope if she wanted a drink.
‘I'm fine thanks,’ she said. She glanced around to see if there was anyone else nearby that she knew, so she could excuse herself.
‘Is Natalie all right?’
‘What?’ Hope looked back at Braedan and saw his eyes were fixed on her again. ‘Oh … she's as well as can be expected.’
Braedan nodded. ‘It will be hard for her. She'll have some dreams … nightmares … and she'll keep coming back to what happened. They say it's good to talk to people, to tell people about it. She'll be lucky to have you at home. She told me you were coming to stay with her.’
‘And you? Who do you talk to?’
Braedan smiled. ‘Come to the Monners tonight and I'll talk to you.’
‘Can't,’ Hope said.
Braedan nodded. ‘I understand, it's better if you're with little Natalie.’
Hope shook her head. ‘No, I'm going out with your brother tonight.’
Tate spluttered and raised a hand to his face to cover the orange drink that bubbled from his nostrils. Natalie laid a proprietary hand on Tate's arm and smiled at Braedan, who turned and walked back into the crowd.
12
Tate felt like the luckiest man alive. He was still a little baffled about how and why Hope had fallen for him, but each time he saw her he felt pure, unadulterated joy at the realisation that she was his. They'd talked for two hours over dinner, after the movie on that first date, and Tate had known he was in love with her right from the start. He'd begged the chief warden to let him take his annual leave earlier than planned so that he could spend time with Hope when she was next able to get back to Salisbury from Cape Town.
Now, two months later, almost to the day Tate was waiting in the small, hot, stuffy terminal at Kariba Airport for Hope to arrive on the Air Rhodesia Viscount. She was actually coming to visit him.
He was in his neatest national parks uniform. He had picked a bouquet of wild flame lilies for her and hidden in his Land Rover was the present he would give her tomorrow, for their two-month anniversary. It was an intricately carved stone pendant depicting Nyaminyami, the serpentine river god of the Zambezi. It wasn't expensive – he couldn't afford anything pricey – but he desperately hoped she would like it.
It wasn't only because of his poor pay that he couldn't afford a nicer present for Hope – he'd also started saving for a ring.
Tate couldn't control his smile as he heard the drone of the Viscount's four engines over the terminal building and saw its shadow flash across the shimmering runway outside. He had it all planned. He was going to take Hope down to Andora Harbour and load his camping gear and the food he'd bought onto a boat he was borrowing from a friend. He was then going to take her across to Tashinga, the main camp of Matusadona National Park.
He still couldn't quite believe she'd agreed to go with him – just the two of them – and while he'd scrounged an extra tent from the same friend, he had high hopes that she might share his with him. How he would ask her, or suggest it, he still had no idea. He'd never had sex, and while he was sure he would know what to do when the moment came, he hadn't a clue how to initiate it.
The only thing Tate was sure of was that he was in love.
*
Hope wished she were dead. Her head throbbed, her tongue was dry and swollen and she felt another wave of nausea rise up from her body as the Viscount banked hard for its final approach to Kariba.
It wasn't the flight that was making her sick, nor the fact that she'd drunk far too much the night before, although that hadn't helped. No, what was making Hope sick was herself.
Lizette, her Afrikaner friend at varsity, had joked about it. ‘Sleep with both of them, hey? Maybe at the same time!’
Hope shook her head. Why, oh why, oh why had she ever agreed to go out with Braedan? She hated him. She hated everything about him – what he did for a living, his racist remarks, his politics, his arrogance …
She loved Tate. He was kind, gentle, innocent, and he was opposed to the war. He worked with Africans and respected their culture, and he looked forward to the day when they would have equal electoral representation and run their own country. He looked forward to working with them, he'd told her, not over them. He was going to take her camping and introduce her to his friend, an African game scout. They'd kissed, but Tate had been too polite to try anything more.
God, God, God! Hope balled her fists and pushed them into her eyes, as though she could force the images of the night before out of her mind. How, she thought, could she be so bad?
‘Are you scared of flying?’ said the businessman next to her, interrupting her self-flagellation. He had on a toupee and wore an open-necked shirt showing too much chest hair and a gold medallion.
‘No.’ He'd tried chatting to her at the beginning of the flight from Salisbury, but she had done her best to ignore him. Perhaps she gave off the vibe of being available. A slut. She hated herself. Why, oh why, oh why had she said yes?
*
Hope had heard the knock on the door at George and Susannah's air force bungalow, but as it wasn't her home, she didn't get up to answer it. She was bored. She went back to her magazine, ignoring the RBC news on the television, which was just more war and more propaganda. Natalie sat on the floor, dithering over her homework. She was a quiet child, much quieter now than before the attack on her grandparents' farm.
‘Susannah!’ George called, though there was no answer from the kitchen.
Natalie got up, but instead of answering the door she scuttled down the hallway, in the direction of her bedroom. It wasn't the first time Hope had seen her niece avoid meeting someone, and she could tell it was adding to George and Susannah's concern about their daughter's behaviour.
Hope looked over the top of her magazine and saw her brother's harrumph. He set his beer down and got up and walked to the door. He had on camouflage trousers and a green T-shirt. He'd been flying during the day, and spoke about as much as his daughter. God, this was boring, Hope thought, even if it was only for a two-night stopover on her way up to Kariba.
‘Hello,’ she heard George say, with no trace of welcome in his voice.
‘Howzit, sir?’
Hope recognised that voice. She stood up and peered around her brother's wide shoulders. There it was, that face again. It was so similar, yet so different to Tate's. Hair the same colour but a little shorter, a little neater; the same lean body, but the muscles better edged, the shirt a little tighter w
here it should have been. The eyes … that was the difference. Tate's were soft and warm like a puppy's; Braedan's were ice, like a cobra's.
‘Hope – howzit? I heard you were in town.’
‘Come in,’ she found herself saying.
George turned and gave her a pained look, which Braedan couldn't see and Hope didn't understand.
‘Braedan, Braedan, Braedan!’ Natalie emerged from the hallway and ran across the lounge room and threw her arms around the young soldier, her face buried in the crisp white T-shirt above the faded but ironed denim jeans. Braedan bent down a little and picked Natalie up, lifting her until she was eye to eye with him. He grinned.
‘Howzit, my girl?’
‘She's not your girl,’ George said.
They all looked at him. George's cheeks coloured. ‘Natalie, get back to your homework. Leave Braedan alone.’ He nodded to the soldier, by way of some sort of apology, and Braedan lowered Natalie gently back to the carpet. ‘I'll be in the kitchen,’ George said to Hope.
‘Gosh, sorry,’ Hope found herself saying. She had no idea why George had snapped like that. Theirs was a happy family, even with the trauma that Natalie had gone through. Perhaps, Hope thought, her brother blamed himself for Natalie's kidnapping because he was away flying at the time. It was nonsense, but it explained his outburst – that and the fact this was the most animated Hope had seen little Natalie since the kidnapping.
‘It's OK,’ Braedan said quietly. ‘I think I understand.’ He prised Natalie's spindly arms from around his waist, then ruffled her hair. ‘How about a coolie, hey?’ Natalie bobbed her head up and down and ran off to the kitchen to get Braedan a cold soft drink.
‘Why are you here, Braedan?’ Hope asked.
He shrugged. ‘Tate told me you were coming to town. I thought that since you're not from Salisbury and … well …’ he nodded towards the kitchen, ‘from what I know of this side of your family they don't exactly jol every night, so I thought maybe you'd like some company of your own age.’
Hope folded her arms. ‘That's a bit forward, don't you think?’
He shrugged again. ‘That's the only direction I know. It's what they teach us in the army. Going backwards is for the gooks.’
The joke was poor, as well as bigoted. Natalie pursed her lips. ‘There's no way we're even going for a cup of tea if you're going to preface every sentence with “it's what they teach us in the army”.’
Braedan held up his hands. ‘OK. I surrender. No army talk. Is that a yes?’
Hope wasn't even sure she knew what the question was. She suddenly felt as though she'd been tricked into agreeing to something slightly underhanded.
Susannah bustled out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron and then fidgeting with her hair. ‘Braedan, what a lovely surprise. I'm afraid we've just had dinner and it's the cookie's night off, but I can fix you a sandwich or something …’
‘No, it's fine, thanks, Mrs Bryant. I've had some graze already. I just came around to see Hope.’
‘Really?’ said Susannah.
Hope saw Susannah's disapproving look.
‘You're sure I can't fix you something to eat, Braedan?’ Susannah tried.
‘You heard the lad, Susannah,’ George said, emerging from the kitchen.
‘Don't be so rude, George,’ Susannah said.
George frowned at his wife.
‘I like Braedan,’ Natalie said, as though that put an end to the discussion.
Hope felt suddenly like an Nguni cow or, worse, a native bride – like something whose ownership is discussed between men. So that was it, she suddenly realised, George was trying to protect her honour. Hope had noticed on past visits that George and Tate seemed to get on very well, particularly when discussing wildlife. George had kept Tate enthralled, and Hope slightly bored, with his tales of rescuing rhinos during Operation Noah, and Tate had gone on and on about the emerging problem of rhino poaching in countries north of Rhodesia. Now it looked like George was trying to lock Hope up, in order to protect her from Tate's evil twin.
‘I'll be back in a second, Braedan. Just let me change,’ Hope said.
She didn't envy Braedan having to wait there in George's den, but Braedan deserved it; Hope took her time. She brushed her long hair and put on blue eyeshadow and some lipstick. She thought about what to wear while she did her makeup. She was Tate's girlfriend, so she didn't want to dress provocatively. Braedan was in jeans, so they couldn't be going anywhere too smart. She put on her good pair of jeans, but didn't want to wear the same white blouse she'd worn to the medal award ceremony. She rummaged through the suitcase she'd brought with her. Most of her stuff was in the wash and wouldn't be ironed until Susannah's maid came in to work the next morning. The best she could come up with was a red strapless top. So much for not being provocative. Still, she thought, they were only going for a drink.
‘Wow,’ Braedan said, ‘you look great.’
Hope waggled a finger. ‘Don't get any ideas, hey. And save your flattery. We're not going to an end-of-school ball, you know. Just a couple of drinks.’
‘Don't be late back,’ George said.
‘Yes, Dad,’ Hope said sarcastically.
They walked down the driveway and Hope could feel her older brother's eyes on her all the way. Stuff him, she thought. ‘Where's your car?’ she asked, looking down the road.
Braedan walked over to an old BSA motorcycle propped on its stand. ‘I brought a helmet for you.’
Hope put her hands on her hips and stared at him.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘You presumed I'd agree to come with you.’
Braedan shrugged. ‘If you didn't, someone else would have.’
‘Oh … so where was I on the list?’
Braedan handed her the helmet and, after making him wait a few more heartbeats, she took it and put it on, tucking her hair up inside it as best as she could.
He grinned his lopsided smile at her. ‘First.’
She shook her head as he climbed on, then got on behind him, wondering if she shouldn't just take off the helmet, turn around and go back inside. George's attitude annoyed her, though. He was acting like her father – except her father wouldn't have carried on like this – and she hated the way he was rude to the man who had saved Natalie's life. Men, she thought. George thought Braedan was some kind of threat to his position as king of his own little suburban castle.
And Tate? Tate wouldn't know, and he was too considerate to care if she went for a drink with Braedan. In fact, she resolved as Braedan kicked the bike into life, she would tell him.
‘Whoa!’ Hope screamed. The motorcycle leapt forward so suddenly that Hope had to grab him around the midriff. His body was hard, muscled. There wasn't an ounce of softness on him. He revved the throttle and the poorly muffled engine screamed as he tore up the quiet jacaranda-lined street. That'd give George's neighbours something to talk about, she thought.
Braedan rode too fast and leaned into every corner so that Hope didn't have a chance to release her grip on him. When she peered over his shoulder she saw the speedometer needle edge past sixty miles an hour. God, she thought, if the police didn't stop him he'd kill the pair of them.
‘Want me to slow down?’ he yelled back at her, reading her mind.
‘Would you, if I asked you to?’
He shook his head and revved the bike even harder. Hope held him tight and let out a wild scream of fear and pure joy.
She'd been studying hard and had been looking forward to the break, and to the free and easy lifestyle up on Lake Kariba. Tate's letters had been earnest and heartfelt and he'd been hinting at things that, if she thought too long about them, made her feel a little nervous. She thought she might love him, and had come close to telling him so more than once, but she wasn't ready to get married, settle down and produce babies like a good white Rhodesian girl should.
‘Here.’ Braedan reached around behind him and Hope involuntarily slithered a little way back on the bik
e's seat. He wasn't trying to touch her, thank God, but instead reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a slim, curved pewter hip flask. ‘Try some.’
She took it, more so he could return his hand to the handlebars than because she wanted a drink. The flask was engraved with the powder horn insignia of the Rhodesian Light Infantry. Braedan eased off the throttle, presumably so she could let go of him with her other arm long enough to unscrew the cap.
‘Go on …’ He grinned back at her, then pulled on the brakes as they coasted up to a red robot on Second Street. Off to her left was the orderly neatness of the gardens in Cecil Square, with their palm and jacaranda trees and a host of other immaculately groomed shrubs. There was chaos in the countryside outside of Salisbury, but here they were free to ride through the night without a care in the world, while African Rhodesians fought for the right to higher education and young soldiers like Braedan faced death from a bullet or landmine for … what? She looked at the flask in her hand again, fingering the engraving.
A Ford pulled up next to them and the middle-aged driver glanced across at them, disapproval plain in his fleeting look. Hope unscrewed the flask and tipped it to her mouth. The brandy burned like fire. She licked her lips and grinned at the driver, who accelerated slowly away from them.
Braedan looked back at her. ‘Light's green,’ she said.
‘I'll go when I'm ready.’ He took the flask from her and downed half of it, before passing it back to her. ‘Hang on.’
Hope barely had time to recap the flask and grab him again as Braedan mercilessly revved the BSA's engine and let out the clutch.
‘Whoo-hooo!’ Hope was laughing as they roared past the Ford. The driver honked his horn in annoyance as they overtook him illegally, roaring up his left-hand side. Hope turned and raised two fingers at him.
Braedan cut across to First Street, and then turned into Speke. He stopped the bike amid a line of cars and a few other motorcycles outside a sign for Club Tomorrow. She'd heard of the place but never been into it. She got off the bike and Braedan took the helmet from her. A young white man with short hair was leaning one hand against a shopfront a couple of doors down. Hope heard the deep throb of a bass beat coming from the door to the club, and saw a flight of stairs leading down. It looked like the place was in a basement.