Shilo's Secret

by Stephan, Judith

  The waterhole was not like anything that she had expected. It was a dam, reeded on one side and glistening silver in the moonlight. The other sides of the dam were muddy and rutted, evidence of heavy animal traffic. It was fairly busy. Pre-dawn was rush hour. Some anxious deer drank steadily in the pre-dawn light, until startled by some invisible force, which made them disappear into the thicket. The reason was evident some five minutes later, when a pride of lions, consisting of two males, one smaller than the other, five females and several cubs of varying ages, ambled down to the water’s edge to drink their fill. Shilo sat mesmerised by the scene. Lions! Real, live lions! These were no animated lions from ‘The Lion King’, or any flea-bitten specimens she had seen in the London Zoo or the annual circus, or even the big cats that had starred in National Geographic specials. These ones were fifteen metres away and very real... So close, she could almost smell them. So big and so noble. There was something incredibly majestic about their confidence, their arrogance, their presence. A deep-seated, primeval thrill of fear passed through her, and she moved subconsciously closer to Stratt, her guide and protector.

  “They won’t attack us, will they?” she whispered.

  He casually put his arm around her and laughed as he drew her closer to him, and she felt his warm breath in her hair as she nestled into him.

  “We’re downwind. They don’t even know that we’re here.”

  “But what if…”

  “Ssssh,” said Stratt and placed a finger on her lips. “Just watch and wait. Don’t say a word.”

  A pair of graceful giraffes entered the clearing to their left, and also came to quench their thirst at this oasis in the weather-tortured bush. They painstakingly spread their front legs and lowered their necks awkwardly to drink.

  “The lions probably ate last night. The giraffes seem to sense that they are in no danger from them … But watch the crocs?”

  “What crocs? I don’t see any crocodiles,” Shilo gasped.

  Stratt pointed to what Shilo had thought were simply logs lurking beneath the darkened surface of the water.

  “Those are crocodiles?” she said, the terror in her voice was evident.

  “Giraffes are easy prey here. It takes them so long to get into that drinking position and the same to get out, that they are sitting ducks for predators.”

  A few moments later there was a tremendous splash and a mighty gnashing of prehistoric jaws. Shilo flung her arms around Stratt in terror, and he held her close. He reveled in the feel of her body close to his, her scent, and perhaps held her tighter than he should have. The crocodile’s massive jaws had clamped on the leg of the smaller of the giraffes, and was pulling it, struggling and splashing, into the murky, muddy shallows of its lair. It rolled over and over in the boiling water as the giraffe bucked and struggled. Eventually its thrashing was stilled as its lungs slowly filled with water. The lions looked on unflinching. Nature ignored the tragedy. It was simply part of the inevitable circle of life.

  “Do you mind?” said Stratt, laughing, and prying her hands off from around his neck. “There are really far more romantic ways than this.”

  Shilo was once again humiliated by the inference. She had been clutching him harshly around his neck. He had also said ‘romantic’. Romance with this hulk of a man was definitely not on the cards … or was it? She no longer was a hundred percent certain.

  “I’m sorry,” she stammered, “I was just so scared.”

  The sky was turning a pinkish-orange on the horizon giving definition to the dark shadows, and making the world seem a little less ominous.

  “So what did you dream about last night? It must have been really frightening,” Stratt said, cutting to the chase.

  “I can’t talk about it,” Shilo answered. “I don’t want to talk about it. Besides it’s really none of your business.”

  “Why? It’s a nightmare. Sometimes if you talk about it, it’s like a type of therapy. You know I can’t ignore it. I know it happened, because I was there. Anything that frightening and that terrifying needs to be shared, Shilo. I’m offering a compassionate ear here.”

  “Stratt, I can’t talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it. It’s a part of my life that I don’t want to remember. It’s part of my life that I don’t want you to know about,” Shilo said, her tone was quite stern. “It has nothing to do with you.”

  “I used to have recurring nightmares,” Stratt said, “I used to dream about this aeroplane … I was always on a God-damned aeroplane. And then it would start falling, going round and round in circles, like a fighter plane that’s been shot down in an old war movie, and I’d see the ground coming closer and closer … and then…” he drifted off.

  “And then what?” Shilo asked.

  “And then I’d wake up. But I have a deep-seated fear of flying. I never fly – I hate it with a passion. If there’s another way I’ll take it, but flying is out of the question.”

  “My dreams are real. It’s something that happened to me when I was a child that my subconscious won’t let me forget. Not some make-believe fantasy, like yours … now let’s just leave it, okay?”

  “Look,” Stratt said suddenly changing the subject, “there’s a cheetah. You hardly ever see cheetahs. They are terribly shy animals.”

  The majestic creature slunk stealthily towards the water’s edge to drink its fill. Once or twice it would lift its head and analyse the surroundings, before it dipped its head to drink again.

  Then the dazzling sun slowly rose out of the hills to the east, illuminating the morning in a million shades of peach and orange. Shilo felt completely at peace. She sat in the crook of Stratt’s arm as he explained in depth each animal that visited the waterhole, and she was in awe at the wealth of information that was being revealed to her. They sipped the steaming, aromatic hot chocolate he had brought with them from the same cup. They were both ignoring the fact that they were enjoying each other’s company, the closeness of the other’s body … and how so like a couple they might have appeared to any hidden watcher.

  “How come you know so much about these animals?” she asked.

  “Well, I’ve grown up with them. But I also have several degrees, a masters and a doctorate. I’m a qualified zoologist, you know? My title, although I never use it because it makes me seem like a pompous ass, is Doctor Stratt Ogilvy.”

  “Oh, really? I’m impressed … I always thought you were …” she broke off, realising that she was about to be inadvertently offensive, aware of the insulting words that would exude from her lips.

  “You thought what?” he said abruptly, retracting his arm from around her shoulders.

  “Nothing.”

  “What?” he insisted.

  “Well…. sort of … I don’t know … unqualified… just a park ranger,” but she knew she had made a mistake even before the deluge that followed.

  “Listen to me,” he said sternly, “You know nothing about me at all… And yet you have judged me. I know what you think I am… I’ve heard it in your pompous, arrogant tone of voice, your ‘I don’t fraternise with the help’ shit. But I’m more than that. I’m much greater, much more educated than you could ever be. You have got no right to be so prejudiced even if you think you are the Queen of England. Just because you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth does not make you any better than any other human being on this planet. You are a rich bitch. A snob… And I really don’t appreciate your insinuations. If that is the way you are continually going to behave, then I really don’t want anything more to do with you.”

  With that, the engine roared to life, sending animals scattering in all directions: a troupe of baboons were stirred to a frenzy and bounded into the undergrowth screeching loudly, and a flock of frightened flamingoes rushed up into the dawn sky in a cloud of beating wings as the Jeep roared off in a swirl of dust.

  Shilo felt deeply hurt and ashamed. What had she done? Again her supercilious attitude had got her into trouble. She was just warming to thi
s enigmatic man, this man who had calmed her after a nightmare, had comforted her when she was sick, had treated her sunburn, when she had spoiled it all. Even if he was a commoner, like she thought – so what? Not everyone was fortunate to lay claim to an aristocratic birthright. Why did it make such a difference to her?

  The drive back to the lodge was hell. Stratt stared blankly and silently ahead of him, completely ignoring Shilo’s presence and pleas to let her explain, and drove extremely fast so that the Jeep flew over bumps and jolted and jerked. She held on for dear life, and her head was thrown around so that she feared she might get whiplash. He screeched to a halt outside the main building, got out and slammed the door, leaving her sitting forlornly in the front seat.

  “I’m sorry,” she called after him, but he pretended not to hear.

  The magical aura of darkness had completely disappeared.

  *

  Stratt lay on his bed and stared mesmerised at the fan spinning idly on his ceiling. He subconsciously toyed with the chain around his neck, fingering the lion’s head. Perhaps he had been too hard on her, but she needed, once and for all, to be put in her place. She had prejudged him. She thought he was a nothing. She had thought he was “the help”, a servant to her, that he was uneducated … if only she knew. She probably thought she was slumming it going out with him in the dark hours before dawn … like a naughty school girl ignoring a curfew … like forbidden fruit. She was only focused on class and wealth and social standing. Why was it so important to her? He did not mean everything he had said, especially the bit about wanting nothing to do with her. His head had said it was a good idea but his heart wanted everything to do with her. Everything. He would just have to play it cool for a few days and then see what would happen. What will be, will be, he thought to himself.

  *

  Lady Carina Delucci sat opposite her husband at the other end of the gleaming mahogany dining room table. They both had a newspaper and it was common practice to exchange snippets of news over breakfast.

  “Have you seen this on the front page, dear?” she said, tapping the paper. “Isn’t it awful? This killer goes around picking up women, killing them and then, and then leaving them just as they fall…” she drifted off.

  “I’ve read it. It’s shocking!” Henri said, buttering another piece of toast and reaching for the marmalade. “He doesn’t perform necrophilia though, does he?”

  “What?” his wife replied innocently.

  “Having sex with dead people,” he replied.

  “Henri!”

  “I do it all the time,” he continued winking at his wife, who even after twenty-five years of marriage still looked so appealing to him. Her hair was loose now, and the fine spray of wrinkles around her eyes made it look like she was always laughing.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, recognizing the mischievous twinkle in his eye.

  “I feel this body in my bed. It’s fast asleep, dead to the world, and I give it to her.”

  She blushed. “I’m not asleep for long, Henri. That thing always manages to wake me up.”

  “Come on, Carina, how would you feel like some after breakfast necrophilia?” he said laughing as he rose and starting to walk around the table towards his wife. He stood behind her and slipped his hands down the front of her gown until he touched her breasts. She giggled and grabbed his hands.

  “You’re such an animal, my dear,” she said in mock coyness, but he knew she was the animal once the bedroom door was closed and she was away from the prying eyes of the staff.

  *

  Shilo did not speak to Stratt for the next four days: Circumstances dictated that they were to miss each other. Shilo was mostly locked away from the sun’s penetrating rays, and Stratt was out in the reserve doing job. He took Michaela and Dorianne out to the Elephant Pools on the third day. It was the perfect opportunity to talk to Michaela about Shilo.

  “So what is it with your sister, anyway?” asked Stratt, as he and Michaela sat in the front of the Jeep watching a bachelor elephant having a mud bath.

  “What do you mean?” she said.

  “I lost my temper with her the other day …I know I shouldn’t have, with her being a guest here and all but she has just got this way of making you feel like absolutely nothing at all, like an inferior being… of her being better than anyone else,” Stratt replied.

  “Don’t worry about her,” Michaela said. “She is just like that. It will wear off once she gets to know you a little better.”

  “Why, though? … What is she trying to prove?” Stratt asked.

  “I really can’t tell you … let’s just say it’s a front to prove to herself that she’s worth something. Something terrible happened to her when she was a child … something which she has never got over and probably never will,” Michaela sighed.

  “Has it got something to do with those nightmares she has?”

  “God, is she still having those awful recurring dreams?” Dorianne chipped in from a back seat, “I thought those had stopped some years ago.”

  “Well, yes. Maybe it was the fever that brought it on, but she had one the night of the camp fire … I was there,” said Stratt.

  “You were?” laughed Michaela with a twinkle in her eye, “And what may I ask were you doing in her bedroom while she was sleeping? Is there a little holiday romance starting here?”

  “No, it’s not what you think. I went to wake her up for a pre-dawn game drive I had promised her and she was feverish and thrashing about and screaming ‘No!’” mused Stratt; “It was quite awful to see. The terror, the unadulterated fear … I had to physically restrain her as she became very violent and supernaturally strong for such a tiny woman.”

  “She’ll have to tell you, not me. I’ve been sworn to secrecy … but just remember … the horrible Shilo you see is not the real Shilo. She’s really a lovely person. I hope you’ll understand one day.”

  “If I knew, maybe I would understand her better,” he said.

  “I gave her my word. She’ll tell you when she’s ready.”

  And then Stratt took a group of Americans out on an overnight trip to a mini-camp at the other side of the lake. Shilo spent her time reading and writing letters and postcards to her friends and family back in England. Her stupid cell phone had no reception and she wished she had brought her laptop, because emailing and texting would have been far quicker – and she could not remember the last time she had actually taken pen to paper and written a letter. She wrote quite a long, rueful epistle to Charles Lambert-Carr … but as she was considering how to end it (either with mush and gush or formally) she realised that she really was not missing the man at all. She thought of his thin, pasty legs; his dark, dead straight, always neatly combed hair; his thin, impeccably trimmed moustache and the fact that he thought he was really slumming it if he didn’t wear a tie, and she smiled to herself. Her letter contained nuances at how awful Africa was, with references to the uncomfortable heat, her bout of sunstroke and the brusqueness of their guide. She rambled on for pages, in her neat feminine print, about the animals they had seen: the experience with the lions, the elephants and the crocodile … but at its closure it dawned on her that Africa was not as awful as she was making it out to be: It was actually exhilarating! Africa was exciting and although she hated to admit it, she was having the time of her life. She had experienced more fun and excitement in her brief sojourn in the African wild than she could ever remember having before. It made her feel alive. And Stratt … she kept on comparing him to the men in her circle of friends. He was leagues ahead of them in every single way except that he was not one of them. She just wished she would see him again so she could apologise. Maybe try and explain why she had insulted him. She ended the letter with the word “Regards” … it was a conscious decision to cool it with Viscount Lambert-Carr.

  On the fourth day, after a boring morning watching cable television while Stratt went out to see to an injured blue wildebeest, Shilo decided to go for a sauna. In the sma
ll changing booth, she stripped off, wrapped her hair in a fluffy white towel and fastened another over her breasts. She sat in the steaming room on a slatted wooden bench with her back against the cool tiles, a copy of Vogue on her lap and her eyes closed... The steam engulfed her, and there was a tingling in every pore as the moisture caressed her tender skin.

  After five minutes, the door opened and a huge figure stood in a shroud of steam. It was Stratt, and her heart skipped a beat. He was wearing only a royal blue towel around his waist.

  “Sorry, I didn’t know anyone was in here,” he said, but never-the-less he entered and closed the door of the small chamber, and sat down opposite her, without saying another word. Initially Shilo was indignant. No one would ever intrude on the privacy of a sauna back home … especially with someone like her in there … She reprimanded herself again. There was plenty of room in there for two.