Golden Fox

by Wilbur Smith

  However, the guests were almost exclusively male, and the name Gay Goose had been chosen with good reason. All of the staff were good-looking young Tswana lads who were also chosen with good reason. The camp was run by a political refugee from South Africa. Brian Susskind was a striking-looking fellow in his mid-thirties. He had long blond hair, bleached almost white by the sun. He wore ear-rings in his pierced ear-lobes, gold chains around his neck that tinkled on his bare muscular chest, and bangles of ivory and plaited elephant hair at his wrists.

  ‘God, darling,’ he greeted Michael, ‘it’s just so lovely to meet you. Raleigh has told me all about you. You are going to absolutely love it here. We’ve got such fun people with us. They are in an absolute tizz to meet you, too.’

  Michael spent a long and exciting weekend at Gay Goose Camp, and when it was time to leave Brian Susskind came across the lagoon in the Makorro canoe to see him off.

  ‘It’s been such fun, Mickey.’ He squeezed Michael’s hand. ‘I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other. Don’t forget to trim your plane. You may be a touch tail-heavy on take-off.’

  Michael took off without looking in the hidden compartment below the passenger-seats, but he noticed the small alteration in trim that Brian had warned him of. The cargo that Brian had loaded must be very heavy for its bulk. He had been told not to touch it or try to examine it. He followed his instructions strictly.

  As he cleared Customs on his arrival at Lanseria Airport his nerves were stretched tight and he puffed on his cigarette. He need not have worried. The Customs officer recognized him from many previous occasions and did not even bother to examine his luggage, let alone traipse out on to the tarmac to inspect the Centurion.

  That night one of the black nightwatchmen in the Lanseria hangar unloaded a heavy box from under the Centurion’s back seat and passed it through the fence to the driver of a small blue butcher’s delivery-van.

  In the kitchen at Nobs Hill in Drake’s Farm township, Raleigh Tabaka inspected the seals on the crate. They were all intact. Nobody had tampered with the cargo. Raleigh nodded with satisfaction and unscrewed the lid. The crate contained seventy copies of the Holy Bible. Michael Courtney had passed another test.

  Michael flew up to Gay Goose Camp five weeks later. This time, on his return the crate contained twenty mini-limpet mines of Russian manufacture. He paid another nine visits to Gay Goose over the following two years, and each time the entry through the South African Customs at Lanseria was easier on his nerves.

  Five years after he had first met Raleigh Tabaka, Michael was invited to join the African National Congress as a member of its military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, ‘the Spear of the Nation’.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently,’ he answered Raleigh, ‘and reluctantly I’ve already reached the conclusion that sometimes the pen alone is not enough. At last I’ve come to realize that, even though it goes against my deeply ingrained feelings, there comes a time when a man must take up the sword. Even a year ago I would have refused what you are offering me, but now I accept the dictates of my conscience. I am ready to join the armed struggle.’

  ‘All right, Bella,’ Centaine Courtney-Malcomess nodded firmly. ‘You will begin at the far end of the street – and I’ll take this end.’ Then she transferred her attention to the back of the chauffeur’s head. ‘Klonkie, drop us round the corner, then you can pick us up again at lunchtime.’

  Obediently Klonkie slowed the yellow Daimler, eased it around the corner and pulled into the pavement.

  The two women climbed out and watched the limousine pull away. ‘You don’t want the voters to see you in a great luxury wagon with a chauffeur,’ Centaine explained. ‘Envy is a corrosive emotion, and you’ll find it at every level of society.’ She turned her full attention upon her granddaughter and inspected her carefully from heat to foot.

  Isabella’s hair was freshly shampooed and gleaming with ruby highlights in the sunshine. However, Centaine had insisted that she pull it back into a severe bun behind the head. Her make-up was limited to a moisturizing cream that gave her a scrubbed schoolgirl complexion. She wore no lipstick, although her lips were a natural youthful pink.

  Centaine nodded, and ran her eyes downwards. Bella wore a classic cashmere outfit with low-heeled sensible shoes. Centaine nodded again with complete satisfaction. She smoothed the tweed skirt over her own hips.

  ‘All right, Bella. Remember we are aiming at the ladies this morning.’ They had timed their visit for mid-morning, when the men were out of the house, the children were at school, and the main chores were behind the lower-middle-class housewives who lived in this area below the slopes of Signal Hill, overlooking the city and the harbour of Cape Town.

  The previous evening Isabella had addressed a predominantly male audience in the Sea Point Masonic Hall. Most of them had come out of curiosity to listen to the first ever female National Party candidate in their constituency.

  On that occasion Bella’s dress and make-up had evoked a chorus of wolf-whistles from the body of the hall when she stood up to speak. They had heckled her good-naturedly for the first few minutes while she struggled to overcome her nervousness. However, the horseplay had roused her anger, and she had flushed and snapped at them.

  ‘Gentlemen, your behaviour does none of us credit. If you have any sense of fair play, you’ll give me a sporting chance.’

  They grinned shamefacedly, shuffled their feet and relapsed into a silence that grew more attentive as she spoke. She and Centaine had studied the issues that concerned them most, and they listened as she addressed herself to them.

  It had been a good baptism of fire, and Centaine was proud of her, without making it too obvious.

  ‘All right,’ she said now. ‘You’ll do, missy. Here we go for St George, for Harry, and for England.’

  The war-cry was entirely inappropriate to the occasion, Isabella smiled wryly, and misquoted to boot, but who would dare tell Nana that? They separated and went to their respective ends of the street.

  Number twelve was a semi-detached cottage with a bull-nosed corrugated-iron roof and a Victorian fretwork cast-iron trellis beneath the eaves. The front garden was five paces deep, but the dahlias were in full bloom. Isabella went up the path and quietened the yapping fox terrier on the stoep with a sharp word. She had always been good with dogs and horses.

  The housewife came to the door and peered suspiciously at Isabella through the fly-screen. Her hair was in yellow plastic curlers.

  ‘Yes? What do you want?’

  ‘My name is Isabella Courtney and I am your National Party candidate for next month’s by-election. May I talk to you for a few minutes?’

  ‘Hold on.’ The woman disappeared, and came back a minute later with a headscarf over her curlers.

  ‘We are United Party supporters,’ she declared her allegiance, but Isabella distracted her.

  ‘What beautiful dahlias!’

  This was an opposition party stronghold. Isabella was a political fledgling. Her own party would never have allowed her to contest a safe Nationalist seat. Those were reserved for others who had already proven their worth. As it was, it had taken all Nana’s influence and persuasive ability, together with Isabella’s own personality and presentability, to win the opportunity from the party machine to make this foredoomed attempt. The very best Isabella could hope for was a good showing and a gallant defeat. Nana had set their objective. In the last general election the United Party had taken this seat with a five thousand majority.

  ‘If we can cut the majority to three thousand, then in the next election we can force them to give you a better constituency to contest.’

  Now the housewife softened with gratification as Isabella looked at her prize-winning dahlias and wavered.

  ‘May I come in?’ Isabella smiled her sweetest and most winning smile, and the woman stood aside reluctantly.

  ‘Well, just for a few minutes.’

  ‘What work does your husband do?’<
br />
  ‘He’s a motor mechanic.’

  ‘What does he think about trade fragmentation and black trade unions?’ Isabella struck hard, and the woman looked grave. Isabella was talking about family survival and the bread in her children’s mouths.

  ‘May I get you a cup of coffee, Mrs Courtney?’ she asked and Isabella did not correct her form of address.

  Fifteen minutes later she shook the housewife’s hand and went back down the short garden path. She had followed Nana’s maxim: ‘Be forceful, but be brief.’

  She felt a flush of achievement. Her victim had begun as a definite ‘No’ and gradually mellowed under Isabella’s persuasive logic to a tentative ‘Maybe’. Isabella marked her so on her copy of the voters’ roll.

  ‘One down,’ she whispered. ‘Two thousand more to go.’

  She marched across the street to the door of number eleven, and a child opened the door.

  ‘Is your mummy at home?’

  The child was a freckle-faced little boy with curly blond hair and sticky lips. He held a half-devoured slice of bread and jam in one hand, and smiled at her shyly. He was at least five years old, but she thought of Nicky, and her resolve hardened.

  ‘I am Isabella Courtney,’ she said, as the mother came to the door, ‘and I am your National Party candidate in next month’s by-election.’

  After the third call she found to her astonishment that she was starting to enjoy herself. She was seeing a side of life that she had never imagined existed. She found herself warming to these ordinary simple folk, and developing an understanding and concern for their problems and fears and their way of life which was so alien from her own existence.

  ‘Privilege carries responsibilities.’ She had heard her father say it so often. ‘Noblesse oblige.’ She had not thought deeply about it, but believed that she understood the concept. Not that she had ever intended doing anything about it, of course. Up until now, life had been too busy. Her own needs and desires had been too pressing to care or worry about other, insignificant, people such as these.

  Now she felt herself drawn to them. She felt a genuine warmth for them, a sympathy and a desire to understand and protect them.

  Perhaps motherhood has mellowed me a little, she thought, and the ache of her loss immediately followed the thought. Was this some displacement emotion, a diversion of her frustrated maternal instincts? She did not know, and also she did not really care. All that was important was that she wanted to do this, she truly wanted to help these people. She wanted very strongly to win a seat in Parliament, and to put her time and her talents to good unselfish use.

  She felt a genuine regret when after the eighth call she checked her wristwatch and found that it was time to meet Nana and call it a day.

  Centaine was waiting for her at the rendezvous at the street-corner. She looked fresh and alert, bubbling with the energy of a much younger woman.

  ‘How did you go, Bella?’ she demanded briskly. ‘How many calls?’

  ‘Eight,’ Bella told her with satisfaction. ‘Two “Yesses” and a “Maybe”. How about you, Nana?’

  ‘Fourteen calls and five “Yesses”. I don’t count “Maybes” or “Might have beens”. Never have.’

  She took Isabella’s arm as the yellow Daimler came into view and slowed to pick them up.

  ‘Now, as soon as we get home you will send them each a personal handwritten note – I hope you noted their children’s names and ages, and some personal details about each of them.’

  ‘Do I have to write to all of them?’

  ‘All of them,’ Centaine confirmed. ‘“Yesses”, “Noes” and “Maybes”. Then we will follow it up with another note a few days before polling, just to remind them.’

  ‘You make it such hard work, Nana,’ Isabella protested mildly.

  ‘Nothing of value is ever achieved without hard work, missy.’ She stepped into the Daimler and settled on to the cream leather seat. ‘And don’t forget the meeting this evening. Have you got your speech written yet? We’ll go over it together.’

  ‘Nana, I’ve still got a pile of work to do for Pater.’

  ‘Keep you out of mischief,’ Centaine agreed complacently. ‘Home to Weltevreden, Klonkie,’ she told the chauffeur.

  Isabella cheated a little. She had her secretary type a standard letter to all of the constituents that she and Nana had visited, but she checked and signed each of these personally. By exercising these little economies of time she was able to discharge her political aspirations and also keep abreast of the work that her father piled upon her desk.

  Shasa had given her a corner suite of offices in Centaine House. Her new secretary was one of the stalwarts who had worked for Courtney Enterprises for twenty years. She occupied the outer office of the suite. Isabella’s inner office was panelled in indigenous yellow wood that Shasa had salvaged from a two-hundred-year-old building that had been demolished to make way for a block of modern apartments in Sea Point. The wood had a glorious buttery glow. Shasa had loaned her four paintings from his collection, two Pierneefs and a pair of landscapes by Hugo Naudé. Their colours stood out very well on the light-toned panels. All the books on the shelves were fully bound in royal blue calf leather, though Isabella doubted that she would have much call for thirty years’ worth of Hansard’s parliamentary reports.

  The windows of her suite looked out to the park and St George’s Cathedral, with a backdrop of Table Mountain beyond. There was a saying that you hadn’t arrived in Cape Town unless you had a view of the mountain from your window.

  She signed the last of her form letters to her prospective constituents and carried the batch through to her secretary’s office. The secretary’s office was empty, and the cover was on the Underwood typewriter. Isabella checked her wrist-watch.

  ‘Good grief – it’s after five already.’

  She felt a quick relief in the fact that time had passed so swiftly and painlessly. It hadn’t always been like that since she had lost Nicky. She had come to rely on hard work and long hours as the opiate for the deep gnawing pain of her bereavement.

  Dinner at Weltevreden was at eight-thirty sharp, cocktails thirty minutes before. She had time to fill, so she went back to her own desk. Shasa had left a draft copy of his report on her desk with a note: ‘I need it back tomorrow a.m. Love you, Pater.’

  During their time together at the embassy they had fallen into this routine in which she checked his speeches and written reports in which she checked his speeches and written reports for style and syntax. Shasa did not truly need such assistance. He could craft a telling phrase with the best of them. However, the custom gave them both pleasure, and Shasa occasionally went over the top with a metaphor or let an unseemly cliché creep into his compositions. At the very least he enjoyed her praises.

  She read the twelve-page report through carefully, and suggested one change. Then she wrote ‘What a clever father I chose!’ on the foot of it, and took it down to his office at the end of the long carpeted corridor.

  His office was locked. She had a key and let herself in.

  Shasa’s office was four times larger and grander than hers was. His desk was reputed to have come from the Dauphin’s apartment at Versailles. He had an original auctioneer’s receipt dated 1791 which showed that provenance.

  Isabella placed the corrected report in the centre of the delicate marquetry desk-top, and then changed her mind. The report was destined to be read only by the prime minister and members of his cabinet. Some of the facts and figures that it contained were highly confidential, and crucial to the nation’s security. Shasa should not have left it unprotected on her desk but, then, he was often careless with important documents.

  She retrieved the report and took it to his personal safe. The safe was concealed behind a false bookcase. The mechanism was incorporated into the lamp on its wall-bracket above the bookcase. The release was in the shape of a bronze nymph in art deco style, holding the lightbulb above her head like a torch.

  Isabel
la rotated the bracket on its hinge, and the false bookcase slid noiselessly aside, revealing the massive green-painted steel Chubb door.

  Shasa’s choice of numerals for the combination lacked both subtlety and originality. It was simply his own birthdate in inverted sequence. Apart from Shasa himself, Isabella, in her capacity as his personal assistant, was the only one who had the combination. He had not even given it to Nana or Garry.

  She set the combination, swung the heavy steel door open and walked into the cavernous strongroom. She often had to nag her father to keep the room tidy, and now she clucked her tongue with disapproval as she saw two green Armscor files piled haphazardly on the central table. She tidied up quickly, locked the strongroom and then stopped in the ladies’ washroom on her way back to her own office.

  As she settled into the driving-seat of the Mini, she sighed. It had been a long day, and she still had the election meeting after dinner. She wouldn’t be in bed until long after midnight.

  For a moment she considered the shortest route back to Weltevreden. However, the Mini took the road up the slope of the mountain almost of its own volition, and fifteen minutes later she parked in the side-street round the corner from the Camps Bay post office.

  She felt that familiar heavy rock of dread in the pit of her stomach as she approached her post-box. Would it be empty, as it had been for so many weeks? Would she never have word of Nicky again?

  She opened the box, and her heart seemed to bounce against her ribs with a single wild lunge. Like a thief she snatched out the slim envelope and thrust it deep into her jacket pocket.

  As was her habit she parked above the beach, under the palms, and read the four lines of typewritten instruction with a mixture of dread and anticipation.

  This was something new.

  In strict accordance with her standing instructions she memorized the contents of the letter and then burnt it and crushed the ashes to dust.

  On the Friday morning three days after receiving the Red Rose letter, Isabella left the Mini in the carpark of the new Pick ’n’ Pay supermarket in the suburb of Claremont.