Sunstroke

by Madge Swindells

  It was the same yet not the same. I circled the Land Rover cautiously. ‘Someone’s been in our vehicle. Searched it, maybe.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  I glanced curiously at Wolf. ‘Can’t you see the difference?’

  ‘I cleaned it.’

  There was that uptight expression again. The look that told me to back off. I climbed into my seat, leaned back and tried to imagine what was different.

  ‘Did you bring the bucket, Nina?’

  ‘Yes. It’s in the back.’

  ‘Are you feeling okay right now, or would you like it with you?’

  ‘I’m okay.’ Was he trying to switch my attention to something else?

  ‘Why did you have the carpet removed?’

  ‘What carpet?’

  I sighed. ‘The fluffy bit that goes under my feet. Remember?’

  ‘Perhaps I shook it out and forgot to put it back.’

  ‘While you were changing the screws, polishing the brackets, replacing my broken mirror, and fixing the windscreen wiper, as well as the wobbly handle and the tear in the upholstery, and dripping oil all over the place.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  I got up and walked round to the back. The numberplate was the same, the colour schemes hadn’t changed, we even had the same stickers on the windows.

  ‘New vehicles for old. Where’s the magic lamp?’

  ‘Same year, same model, same mileage. Believe it or not, this is our vehicle.’

  I sat staring straight ahead, tight-lipped and furious. Then I snapped my fingers under his nose. ‘Come on, Wolf, what are we into? Gun-running? Diamondsmuggling? Drugs?’

  I glanced at my watch. It was precisely seven a.m. and the day, which had begun so promisingly, was already ruined. We had swum in the hotel pool, breakfasted, checked out, and we were about to leave for South Africa, via the Victoria Falls. This would take a few days. Days of tension, by the look of things. Wolf didn’t seem in the least tired although he had been up for most of the night.

  ‘Once and for all, tell me the truth, Wolf.’

  ‘Relax. Just hang on to the bucket.'

  I hurled the bucket out of the vehicle and clenched my fists feeling horribly aware that this wasn’t my kind of behaviour. Was that what pregnancy did?

  Wolf braked slowly and pulled in to the kerb. With a dead-pan face, he walked back along the track to retrieve the bucket.

  ‘Just get rid of it, Wolf. Don’t dare to bring it in here.’

  ‘I assume you’re pregnant,’ Wolf said quietly. ‘Pregnancy is a trying time for both parties, I’ve been told.’ He placed the bucket on the back seat. ‘Try not to make it too dreadful. You seem to have undergone a personality change. That’s why I couldn’t sleep last night. I spent the night renovating and servicing this vehicle. As for the so-called ‘Russian’, he’s one of the hotel’s porters and he helped me with the service. I can understand how irritated you must be, Nina. This heat, the awful nausea, but I’ve heard it doesn’t last all that long. We could pop in to see a doctor here in Chobe, if you like.’

  His story was absolutely unbelievable. ‘You do remember the point of this conversation, I assume?’

  ‘Nina, don’t be too angry with me. I’m sorry that I have to be so secretive. Part of my contract work is to buy and sell for Armscor, which, in case you don’t know, are South Africa’s only armaments manufacturers. It’s top-secret work. I even buy spare parts and fuel for weapons. And I’m not allowed to tell you even that, so keep it quiet. At least I can tell you that I love you.’

  ‘Right.’ I’d never felt so inadequate to cope. ‘I just feel… Well, I feel I’ve turned into someone else.’

  ‘Perhaps. You’ve never looked so lovely.’

  ‘I don’t want to be lovely. I just want to be me.’

  *

  Wolf humoured me on the long drive to Johannesburg, via the Victoria Falls and Messina. He bought an old, hand-painted chamber-pot from a junk shop in Bulawayo, and presented it to me, filled with flowers. ‘Now it really is goodbye to the bucket,’ he said, smiling anxiously. Lately, he had been going to extraordinary lengths to make me happy.

  ‘Half your holiday was spoiled,’ he said, when we had booked into a hotel near the Falls and were sitting in the beautiful gardens eating lunch by the pool. ‘I’ll make it up to you, darling. I promise. As soon as we get home we must get married.’

  ‘That’s not what we agreed, Wolf. We said we’d live together first.’

  ‘But, Nina, you’re pregnant. If we don’t marry I won’t even be a relative of my own child. I would have no rights of guardianship. If anything happened to you, God forbid, I wouldn’t even be able to take him home.’

  ‘Don’t put a guilt trip on me. I don’t want to feel trapped.’

  ‘How about a guilt trip for your child? Doesn’t it have the right to a father?’

  What did I have against commitment? Was it because of my parents’ unhappiness? I sipped my soda and fresh lime juice and gazed out towards a group of Africans in tribal dress, who were setting up their drums for a concert.

  ‘Right now, I don’t want to hear another word about it.’

  Wolf looked hurt, but I felt scared and trapped. But why? There was no stigma in being a single mother and I wasn’t short of money. I had to face the truth. I was scared of myself, this new self. Once again I was changing, becoming dependent, motherly, craving Wolf’s love and protection, longing for a conventional home. I was looking forward to getting back to create a nursery, rather than hunting out new investment possibilities.

  ‘Clearly you were reared in a happy home or you wouldn’t be so keen,’ I argued. ‘Why don’t you tell me about it?’

  Despite my obvious ploy to change the subject, Wolf played along. ‘I was the son of a beautiful, strong woman, who ran her matriarchal family with an iron rod yet retained our love and loyalty because she was just and gentle. I was an only child, and although I was spoiled I was never lonely, I had so many friends. Most of all, I loved to be with my father. He taught me to fish, to skate, to ski, to hunt, everything a father is supposed to teach his son, but he was more like a friend, and he adored my mother. Everyone did. Father never understood why he’d been so lucky as to marry her.’

  He went on at great length about his mother. From his many descriptions over the past weeks, she didn’t seem real to me, more like the good fairy in a child’s story. Or an orphan’s dream of a mother. I wondered why I had thought that.

  After two days at the Falls, we drove home. As we neared South Africa the nausea lessened and then stopped altogether. I was reborn. The nerd disappeared and Nina Ogilvie took her rightful place inside my head.

  I had put my problem out of my mind when Wolf reminded me, with a statement that was totally unexpected and unwelcome.

  ‘Nina, I think it’s time I met your parents.’

  I tried not to show my reluctance. I didn’t want my sad childhood to contaminate my present happiness. ‘My parents and I aren’t close, Wolf. I’ve run my own life for too long.’

  I might as well have saved my breath. Wolf was determined to meet them. The ‘honeymoon’ was over.

  Chapter 21

  We flew to Edinburgh where I called Mother from the hotel. Her husband, John, answered the telephone.

  ‘Oh, Nina. What a shock to hear your voice. I’m so sorry, my dear. How did you find out?’

  ‘Find out what?’ Panic surged.

  ‘About Rebecca’s illness.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Oh, Lord! I hate to break the news to you like this. Your mother had a stroke ten days ago. Unbelievable, isn’t it? She’s recovering, but she has a long way to go. She can’t manage the phone just yet. Talking is a problem for her.’

  I stood in stunned disbelief, as John explained that the stroke had paralysed her right side so he had hired day and night nurses.

  ‘You should have called me.’

  ‘You know your mother. She was em
phatic that you shouldn’t be told. We can only pray, Nina.’

  ‘I’ll be right over. Can I bring someone with me?’

  ‘Better not.’

  ‘Will she recognize me?’

  ‘Yes, but her eyesight is badly affected.’

  ‘Oh, God!’

  ‘Why are you here, Nina? Holiday?’

  ‘Sort of. A pre-marriage honeymoon.’

  ‘Good for you. Why didn’t you let us know?’

  ‘That’s why I’m here. Should I tell Mother?’

  There was a pause. ‘No. I think not. Better wait. It might be too much of a shock. Come on over. She’ll be so glad to see you.’

  *

  I was moved to tears by my mother’s appearance. All pretence at youth had fled. She looked haggard, and deformed by her partial paralysis. I tried not to show my shock or my tears as I smiled and said the right words, complimented her on her recovery, and tried to hide my grief.

  ‘I look old, don’t I? I can read it in your eyes.’

  I shook my head. ‘Just ill.’ I’d been asked that question so many times. Mother had always dreaded my school holidays, for her second husband had been fourteen years younger than her.

  Perhaps to obviate my mother’s fears I never grew beyond the gangly schoolgirl stage until long after I left school, never wore cosmetics or high-heeled shoes.

  Now her humiliation hurt me like a gangrenous sore in some hidden part of my psyche. I could not get to grips with my feelings, but I had to acknowledge a deep emotional tie with my mother of which I had been unaware.

  She gazed at me sorrowfully and I stroked her frozen cheek, murmuring white lies as I wept inwardly. She wanted more, much more, from me, I could read it in her eyes, but what else was there to say?

  The weather and I were conspiring to present a cold, loveless canvas. Bitter, vengeful clouds raced across the sky, reminding me of lost summers, missed chances and love denied.

  As I sat holding her hand and nursing her ego, little incidents, major wounds and harboured grudges rose to the surface of my mind, like rubbish from a sunken wreck newly ripped apart.

  I helped with a jigsaw puzzle, which she was pretending she could manage, but I noticed she was only shuffling the pieces quietly from side to side. All the while, I was trying to come to terms with the fact that although I wanted to be there helping her, I also wanted to go and never return – and both with equal and astonishing passion. Was it guilt shading my soul with sorrow? Or love? I longed to know.

  That night I wanted to be loved and made love to again and again. I had to feel youth and life surging through my veins… and I needed to convince myself that she, not I, was dying. I remained unconvinced.

  *

  The next morning, we flew to Inverness, where an icy scene greeted us both outside and within Ogilvie Lodge. I was reminded that there is no compensation for loneliness, only a slow shrivelling of the soul. My father’s face was set in a grimace of welcome as I introduced him to Wolf. I could see that he had taken trouble with his clothes. When he wished, he could play the role of country squire to perfection, but his eyes mirrored his bleak existence.

  ‘Come in. Make yourself welcome, Wolf. Lunch will be ready soon, trout and spinach. Hope you don’t mind plain food. At least it’s home-grown.’

  Having said that, Father took a long, hard look at Wolf and folded his lips into an unspoken verdict of disapproval.

  Wolf, ultra-sensitive to other people’s moods, tried to woo him.

  ‘Lawrence Ogilvie,’ he murmured, staring at a painting in the hallway. ‘That’s you, I assume. So you paint? How beautifully you’ve caught the winter light and the bleakness of the mountains. It’s just as I saw the scene when we drove here.’

  ‘Hmm! Come this way. What would you like to drink? We have some very good Scotch. A gift from a friend on the Isle of Skye.’

  ‘Nina tells me that you breed cattle. I’d thought of having a shot at it in Botswana. Of course, the problems we face there are quite different from yours but either way it’s a tough business.’

  Wolf was determined to demonstrate his know-how of problems facing Scottish farmers. Perhaps he’d looked them up, but Father remained unimpressed.

  ‘Did you know about Mother’s stroke?’ I asked, interrupting Wolf.

  ‘John wrote to tell me. I don’t know why. There is no link between us.’

  I gripped my father’s arm. ‘Dad, Mother’s so ill. You should go and see her.’

  ‘Whatever for? It would be an impertinence.’

  ‘To forgive?’

  Sensing that we needed to be alone, Wolf announced that he would walk down to the loch. His eyes met mine. He understood. He always did, and I blessed him.

  Scanning my father’s expression, I picked up his genuine concern. ‘Don’t worry. I’m very happy, Father. Wolf is the most wonderful person. When you get to know him you’ll like him. He’s kind and sincere, a real champion of the underdog, a most sensitive man, and so clued up on ecology and wildlife.’

  ‘Well, he certainly goes out of his way to appear concerned and understanding, Nina. I wonder why.’

  ‘Father, for God’s sake. Try to meet him half-way.’

  ‘Be careful, Nina.’ He put one hand over mine. I was astonished. ‘I can see how taken you are, my dear, but Wolf is a man with hidden agendas. Keep your money in England. You might need it. Remember that, will you?’ His words put a dampener on my joy.

  I halted the angry words that threatened to spill out, realizing that after this I would not see my father for a long time.

  ‘You don’t trust anyone and you never truly loved me.’ I tried to make light of that statement.

  He smiled, a funny, tight-lipped, bitter smile and it haunted me for the rest of the day, while the three of us inspected the cattle, the sheep, and tramped around the loch, returning for tea and cake by the fire.

  After supper, we said goodbye and drove back to our hotel.

  *

  ‘Only Father can cut emotional ties so effectively and permanently,’ I began angrily, when Ogilvie Lodge was still in sight. ‘Everyone else learns to cope with a new set of rules, adding exes and their spouses to their wider family circle. Finally they settle somewhere between siblings and cousins. You tolerate them for the sake of the kids, and because they offer a sense of continuity in a scary world. But not in Father’s case, of course. He never forgives.’

  ‘I found him heavy-going, but he’s your father so I tried.’

  Our gloom lasted until we reached our hotel room and switched on the TV where we saw a replay of Nelson Mandela stepping out of prison after a twenty-seven-year incarceration.

  ‘I have a longing to go home. Let’s get out of this place,’ Wolf said, throwing his arms about me.

  ‘Oh, yes. First thing in the morning.’

  ‘Tonight!’

  ‘Let’s go!’

  ‘First things first,’ Wolf said, as he pounced on me. We made love with frenetic energy, threw our clothes into our cases and called the astonished night porter.

  As we sipped our drinks in the first-class cabin, I curled up close to Wolf and tried to relax, but my father’s warning kept coming into my mind. He was so bitter and empty, perhaps because he had been betrayed, and his nature was unforgiving. There and then I decided to put my love first. From now on, I vowed, I would guard my home with my life, make any sacrifice necessary. I hugged Wolf’s arm.

  ‘I love you,’ I murmured sleepily. ‘Nothing matters except you and me.’

  Chapter 22

  Morgendauw, Wolf’s run-down old manor, was now my home, so my first few days in the Cape were spent recruiting staff and a housekeeper, the very Irish Mrs Mallory, as capable as she was pleasant. I embarked on a massive renovation, and after three weeks’ hard work, the house was beginning to regain some of its former glory.

  Right in the middle of a busy morning, Joy arrived. ‘Darling, this is an official invitation to a garden party next Saturday afternoon. Wolf ha
s accepted on your behalf, but I thought I’d better check with you.’

  ‘Sorry, Joy. Next time. Just look at this mess.’

  ‘But I need you, Nina. This is my first proper English garden party, as in Buckingham Palace. You know the ropes. Must I beg you?’ She wouldn’t give in.

  ‘Well, if it’s so important…’ Groaning inwardly, I capitulated.

  ‘Everyone will be titled.’

  ‘Not everyone, Joy. There’s you and me, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Almost everyone.’

  ‘What if it rains?’

  ‘We’ll do like you English, darling. We’ll simply ignore the weather. You must, repeat must, wear a large hat, gloves and an absolutely super outfit. I’m counting on you.’

  *

  By Saturday, I was exhausted. I had coped with plumbers, electricians, building inspectors, interior decorators, landscape gardeners, carpenters, and usually all at the same time. On top of that, I’d had to go out and buy a new dress, a stupid extravagance of beaded lace in pale lilac with a large hat to match. Wolf had sensibly absented himself on a business trip to Namibia. When he called me late on Friday night I was thrilled to hear his voice.

  ‘Come home. I’ve missed you, darling. Besides, I need you here.’

  ‘I’ll be landing in Cape Town around lunch-time, Saturday. That’s the best I can do. I’ll drive straight to the Fortunes’ and meet you there. Don’t be late.’

  ‘I’ve never been to a garden party, let alone the Queen’s.’

  *

  At precisely two p.m. on Saturday, Caesar arrived in Bernie’s new Rolls-Royce.

  ‘Joy’s being daft, I’m walking there. It’s only five minutes away and it’s a lovely day for a walk, Caesar.’

  ‘You’ll get me into trouble,’ he said bluntly.

  Sighing, I climbed into the Rolls.

  ‘Jesus!’ I burst out laughing as we drove up the driveway and caught sight of Joy, absurdly dressed like a youthful bridesmaid. I should have helped her choose something more suitable. Oh, God! This was going to be ludicrous.

  How dumb could anyone get? I only cottoned on when a handful of premature confetti blew into my face, and the good wishes poured in.