The Fire Portrait

by Barbara Mutch

  Or perhaps this is for her. A tribute to the husband lost here, in Africa.

  ‘It is the star to every wand’ring bark.’

  Aunt pressed her fingers to her eyes. I thought of Mother and her grief for her son – the brother I’d never met. I waited. The newly familiar chatter echoed from the garden once more. Extravagantly tailed males, modestly plumed females – nature’s impish division between the sexes.

  ‘Do you know about the Boer War, Frances?’ Aunt lowered her fingers. ‘Did they teach you in school? The dastardly Boers, the heroic English? The triumphs and the betrayals? You’ll hear different opinions in this country, my dear. Best to keep a closed mouth and an open mind.’

  ‘Father has a poster of Kitchener on his wall. He says it’s a reminder to hold powerful men to account, whichever side they’re on. To be wary of following blindly.’

  ‘Indeed. A valuable lesson.’ She touched a heavy gold ring on her left hand.

  ‘I’m so sorry for your loss, Aunt Mary.’

  ‘Thank you, Frances. Never give all of your heart away. Retain some for yourself. Shall we continue?’

  The Kelvin Grove Club, according to Aunt, was the most prestigious club at the Cape and the best place to launch an arrival. It commanded spacious grounds overlooked by Devil’s Peak mountain.

  Why did it get that name? I wrote in my diary afterwards.

  There is so much here that I don’t know – quite aside from the myriad proteas.

  This place looks and sounds English … but I sense conflicting forces.

  A hard segment that wants nothing to do with the home country.

  ‘An Afternoon Tea to welcome Miss Frances Whittington of Hampshire, England, to Cape Town,’ the invitation on stiff card had said. ‘RSVP Mrs Mary Donnelly, Protea Rise, Bishopscourt, Cape Town.’

  Oak trees lined the driveway. I sized them up for climbability.

  No, Frances!

  The wife of the deputy governor general headed the guest list, flanked by the wives and daughters of other dominion high-ups and the acquaintances of Daphne Phillips’s family who represented the burgeoning business community. Regarding dress, the mature ladies wore flowered costumes and a variety of hats ranging from saucer to cloche. Their daughters wore tea dresses and heeled sandals. The waiters wore buttoned suits and mirror-polished shoes, and carried napkins over their arms.

  ‘The cream of young Cape womanhood,’ observed Aunt Mary. ‘Keen to meet the new competition.’

  ‘Aunt!’

  ‘Forgive me, Frances, but these young ladies are intent upon marriage. They will want to see if you could distract their intendeds. As,’ she cast an approving glance over my pink-and-cream stripes and my hair held back by a pair of tortoiseshell combs, ‘you most certainly could.’

  ‘Don’t bother with the dominion girls,’ whispered Daph, ‘they’re never here long enough. This is Mary Clough,’ she guided me to a tiny girl in navy and white spots. ‘She’s a student teacher.’

  ‘Hello,’ the little one said. ‘I heard you like to swim?’

  Tea was poured from silver teapots, and the napkinned waiters offered trays of cucumber sandwiches and slices of Victoria sponge. The event was as proper as I imagine a tea would be at Buckingham Palace – except for the dark-skinned staff.

  ‘How is the weather in Hampshire?’ asked an elderly lady. ‘I heard last year was unbearably wet.’

  ‘It was,’ I replied. ‘We had some local flooding. The Itchen broke its banks.’

  ‘I love the way you talk,’ said a girl with a strong local accent. ‘My father wants me to take lessons.’

  ‘Is it true the Prince of Wales can dance the Charleston?’ asked Penelope Chisholm.

  ‘I believe you sing?’ This from a matriarch with a lorgnette. ‘We need more sopranos.’

  ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t. I draw and paint.’

  ‘Pity.’

  ‘Why, how do you do, Miss Whittington. Welcome to the Cape. Do you ride?’

  They assume I come from a privileged background. They believe I’m here to do a little light minding of my aunt before settling down. No one knows the truth, or if they do, they’re keeping quiet. Or perhaps they are used to precarious fortunes in Africa.

  ‘Reverend, this is my niece, Frances Whittington, newly arrived from England,’ said Aunt Mary on my first attendance to St John’s Church in Wynberg, where I recognise some of the girls from the Kelvin Grove. They nod and smile and, if Aunt is correct, they wonder who I’ll set my cap at.

  ‘I hope you’ll introduce Frances to your young flock.’

  ‘Why, certainly,’ replied the reverend, a short man with a rolling gait. ‘It just so happens we’re having a walk this coming Saturday. Would you care to join us?’

  ‘Thank you, yes. Where do you walk, Reverend? You must be spoilt for choice.’

  ‘We are! This time it’s Skeleton Gorge. Meet us at the main gate.’

  ‘The main gate?’

  ‘Kirstenbosch,’ said the reverend. ‘8 a.m. Don’t forget to bring a hat, Miss Whittington.’

  He moved on down the line of parishioners.

  Kirstenbosch.

  The name on the card given to me by the man on the Edinburgh Castle.

  And the place I happened to walk to on my first free afternoon, having seen its grassed slopes from the lower branch of a tree I surreptitiously climbed at Protea Rise. Almost as famous as Kew, Aunt said.

  I found shade beneath an arching shrub, fell down on the grass, pulled out my sketchbook and began to draw. A brilliant, miniature bird with iridescent red and green feathers; the backdrop of forested mountains; stands of tree proteas. The heat rose. I wiped my neck and continued. My fingers trembled, not with fear but with greed.

  Later, from Aunt’s reference book on Cape flora, I identified some of what I’d drawn and felt a secret triumph: Protea nitida, a stocky, gnarled tree bearing dried, spiky blooms, contrasting with Protea repens, a rambler adorned with thin, pink flowers; all part of the fynbos, a collective term for the fine-leaved plants of the paradise kingdom into which I’d tumbled.

  And, ornithologically, a handsome double-collared sunbird.

  The place seduced me again when I joined the reverend’s group.

  ‘Frances Whittington, fresh off the mail ship!’ the reverend announced before he and his assistant, Father Ben, led us up Skeleton Gorge between towering yellow-wood trees and mounds of creamy lilies called arums. I touched their waxy petals, ran my fingers along their strappy leaves.

  ‘Look!’ Father Ben pointed out a dassie, a lazy, rattish creature basking in the sun.

  Silver trees tossed their heads against the sky like attenuated angels. My sinews strained and my heart pounded, not just with the effort but with an overwhelming, joyous relief.

  I can be happy here, I’d boldly written to Mother before I knew if it would actually be true.

  We stopped at a stream and I followed the rest in cupping the chilly water in my hands and drinking it.

  ‘Purest water in the world!’ shouted Father Ben. ‘Direct from heaven!’

  The group laughed and I warmed to them. Perhaps they also preferred their God outdoors.

  ‘Not far to go!’ the reverend mopped his forehead with a handkerchief as we set off again.

  Flocks of white-eyed birds swerved through the forest. We pressed ever upwards.

  ‘Can I call on you?’ panted Jonathan Pringle, a serious young man reading chemistry at university.

  And then the land fell away and we were at the top, easily the highest vantage point of my life. Blue-grey mountains stretched in a jagged spine to the far southerly tip of Cape Point. Treed suburbs graced the foothills; cupped lakes filled their hollows.

  ‘False Bay.’ A girl called Doris pointed to a distant, glittering sweep of sea.

  ‘See the Hottentots Holland mountains?’ Jonathan came to stand at my side. ‘Far away to the east?’

  I was so close to the cliff edge I could feel updraughts in my
face.

  ‘Careful, Frances!’ Father Ben called.

  While the others ate their sandwiches, I pulled out my sketchbook and drew as fast as possible, before anything could escape. The rocks painted with lichen. The arum lilies. The trees draped with what looked like stringy cotton wool. ‘Old man’s beard,’ said the reverend, looking over my shoulder.

  Capture the moment – a darting white-eye, a silver protea – fix it in your mind, draw it just so, as Mr Cadwaller once advised.

  I have found a hiding place for my diary.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I’ve been here for three months.

  It feels longer because I find myself deeply at home, especially at Protea Rise.

  I yearned for a destination like this from the branches of the English oak, but I never expected it to be so glorious. I’ve even dreamt of my brother, beckoning me through the riotous garden, and I’m relieved.

  I don’t want to forget him.

  I want him to be part of this future, too.

  I wrote to Sue, but it’s hard to convey the spectacle without seeming to gloat.

  Aunt is a fair employer, tolerant of the young men who call on me, for it appears, once again, that I am popular. Jonathan Pringle is keen. But I don’t fall for the early enthusiasts. I know my popularity may not outlast the discovery that I’m actually a poor girl, albeit with a cut-glass accent and good manners.

  The Crash apparently claimed victims here, too.

  It’s just not so obvious amid the splendour, which is free.

  Daphne was wearing a new pale blue swimsuit and a matching frilly cap. A gentle southerly breeze met our faces as we got out of her father’s motor car at Muizenberg. Children were flying kites along the shore, their colourful, triangular faces dancing in the air, taking me back to the kites I’d drawn for Susan.

  ‘Be careful, girls!’ Mr Phillips called as we ran towards the water. ‘Not too far, Frances!’

  Father used to shout at me in a similar fashion when I fancied I could swim all the way to the Isle of Wight. But African sea is wholly different. I ducked my head under and felt the cool shock of it on my scalp and the tug of its foreign currents. ‘Daph! Come on!’ I swivelled, treading water, and waved to her in the shallows where several younger children were playing. A swell lifted me with a cushioning surge and deposited me into the following trough. The wave rode towards the beach, gaining height as it approached the shore and broke in a welter of foam.

  I struck out into deeper water and flipped over onto my back.

  ‘Aren’t you scared?’ A young man surfaced next to me. ‘Being out so far?’

  I blinked water and examined him. He had dark, almost black, eyes. ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘If you go beyond where the waves break, you won’t get tumbled. And you can float all day.’

  He grinned and rolled on his back, too. The sea lifted us up and down and I closed my eyes and listened for the crash of the breakers as they reached the shore. You had to take the risk of getting beyond the breaker line, of course. That required bravery the first time.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he addressed the sky. ‘You’re English, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Frances. And you?’

  ‘Mark,’ he replied. ‘Mark Charleson. Was that your father on the beach, talking to mine?’

  I heard a call and looked back. It was Daph, bravely swimming towards us.

  I waved an arm to beckon her closer.

  Mark lifted his head and squinted. ‘Watch out!’ he shouted.

  I rolled over and saw a massive wall of water bearing down. ‘Swim!’ I screamed. ‘Swim!’

  Towards the danger, I wanted to shout but the words stuck in my throat, towards the danger!

  If he swam backwards in the direction of the beach he’d be caught. But it seemed he knew that already and pulled away in a quick crawl towards the monster. There was no time to dive beneath the rearing wall. I felt myself being borne aloft, my arms flailing as I clawed up the face. Just when I thought it was too late, I was grabbed and hauled over the curling crest. With a mighty roar the wave broke.

  I fell into the trough, seawater gurgling in my nose and ears.

  ‘Great!’ yelled Mark, letting me go.

  I coughed and swiped my hair out of my face. Usually I kept watch for rogue waves, but the sea had seemed too smooth for trouble. And I was distracted, like in the oak—

  What about Daphne?

  I began to thrash towards the shore. Hands were waving at us and faint calls echoed on the air. The instinct to swim towards the wave had come to me without thinking. Mark had reacted in the same way. Were some people wired with a kind of intuition that saved them?

  ‘Are you alright?’ he shouted beside me.

  A lone female figure was struggling in the shallows. Every time she tried to get up, she fell down.

  ‘You could say it was my fault,’ Mark panted, swimming beside me. ‘I made you go too far out.’

  I launched myself with the next swell and the wave swept me towards the beach.

  Daphne was being carried by her father out of the water.

  A woman ran into the shallows and pointed past me.

  ‘Come, Frances.’ Mark Charleson took my hand.

  We reached hard sand and I let go of his hand and rushed to where Daph was lying on her side, her face white, her hair soaked. There was no sign of the blue bathing cap.

  ‘I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!’

  She shook, and began to retch. Seawater dribbled out of the side of her mouth.

  ‘Stand back, Frances,’ boomed Mr Phillips, bending over her. ‘Let her cough the water out.’

  I felt someone behind me – Mark? Mr Charleson? – wrap a towel around me. The kite flyers were pulling in their kites. Someone yelled about an ambulance but Daph, after several minutes of coughing, regained some colour and sank against her father. She lifted her face to me and, in that moment, I thought about the soldier on Father’s wall, urging people to follow him. The Kitchener reminder, Father called it. ‘I’m sorry,’ I fell down beside her, ‘I should’ve come for you.’

  A woman screamed.

  I turned back to the sea.

  A man was carrying a young boy out of the water.

  His legs were dangling; his head was lolling over the man’s arms.

  ‘He swam to you,’ the woman yelled, and pointed straight at me. ‘You waved and he swam to you!’

  I scrambled to my feet. Mark held me back.

  ‘Take him to the first aid tent!’ Mr Charleson called. ‘Up the beach! They’ll help!’

  The man struggled across the sand, the woman sobbing at his side, the boy inert in his arms.

  ‘Fran?’ Daph whispered, touching my arm. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘Come.’ Daphne’s father found her sandals and put them gently onto her feet. ‘Let’s get you home.’

  ‘We’ll be going, too.’ Mr Charleson squinted up at the cloud beginning to blot out the sun.

  ‘Thank you, young man,’ Mr Phillips looked up at Mark, ‘you saved Frances from a certain injury.’

  ‘No problem, sir. She’s a good swimmer. She’d have made it on her own.’

  I opened my mouth to protest but no words came. Without Mark’s help I’d have been swept into the depths of the wave and then flung onto the seabed from a height, and perhaps drowned like Daph had almost been. And the boy—

  Did God see me? Did he see my moment of distraction?

  Why did he choose to hurt someone else?

  ‘Do you come here every weekend?’ Mark leant down to me.

  ‘If Daph wants to—’ I can barely get the words out.

  ‘What about your parents? Don’t they bring you?’

  ‘My parents are in England. I stay with my aunt.’

  Mark touched me briefly on the shoulder and gathered his shirt and shoes.

  ‘What about the boy?’ I could see a crowd outside the first aid tent.

  I began to r
un. The dry sand was deep and clinging and I stumbled several times.

  ‘Wait, Frances!’ He caught up with me, grabbed my hand and we ran together.

  ‘Is the boy alright?’ I called. ‘Is he alive?’

  The crowd turned and stared at me. A few had accusation in their eyes.

  ‘Ja,’ said an old man in a shabby jacket. ‘They saved him. Listen.’ He cocked his head and I heard coughing and crying from the inside of the tent and the low murmur of a woman’s voice.

  I sank onto my haunches on the pavement. The crowd turned away.

  It took some time for Mr Charleson and Mr Phillips, supporting Daphne, to reach us. Mr Phillips might not want me to be Daph’s friend after this. The Hodgsons avoided me after I fell out of the tree and Mrs Atkins said – I heard this from Mr Jacobs – that young Frances was accident-prone.

  ‘The youngster has recovered?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mark. ‘He’ll be fine.’

  Mr Phillips opened the car door and helped Daphne in. ‘Come, Frances. It’s time to go.’

  Mark guided me in beside her. ‘I’ll catch you next time.’ His black eyes examined me and I thought, for one disconcerting moment, that he was going to kiss me.

  I don’t remember much of the drive home. I just remember noticing that my feet were covered in sand that was pooling on the floor. I hadn’t brushed my feet before getting into the car.

  I also knew, as clearly as if he’d been beside me, what Father would say.

  There’s a pattern here. You’re bold, Fran, which is not a bad trait, but you also have a talent for dangerous distraction.

  I don’t look for trouble, Father, I’d reply. Or lead anyone else into trouble. The wave came out of nowhere—

  But that wasn’t the whole truth.

  I wasn’t paying attention. I took the wild African sea for granted.

  Mr Phillips glanced at me in the rear-view mirror. ‘You need to think before you go too far next time, Frances. There may not be anyone around to save you.’

  ‘I promise, sir. And I’m sorry.’

  If Daph or the boy had died, would that make me a murderer?