I WARNED YOU, BUT YOU WOULD NOT LISTEN.
EXPECT ME.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Stephen took the letter from her and his face paled.
‘What does it mean?’ she asked.
‘Tarring and feathering was a punishment used by the Ku Klux Klan as part of their campaign to restore white supremacy. The victim was painted with molten tar and rolled in feathers. . . The aim was to inflict enough pain and humiliation to make him either conform to the mob’s demands, or leave town.’
They looked at each other, truly afraid.
‘This is a step too far,’ he said. ‘I’m going to the police.’
41
Catherine, Rhodesia, 1950s
My mother winced as she carried a heavy frying pan to the sink. She had burnt her arm while cooking, and it had been wrapped in bandages for almost two weeks.
‘Surely that should have healed by now?’ said Dad. ‘Let me have a look.’
I expected Mum to be grateful for his concern, but she wasn’t. Her eyes flitted back and forth and she looked trapped, resentful.
‘It’s nothing,’ she protested, ‘I’m fine.’ She tried to move away from him, but she was caught by the sink at her back. Dad took hold of her arm and peeled the bandages away.
He gasped when he saw the wound. Raw, sticky flesh covered most of her forearm, oozing pus. There was a clump of feathers stuck to it and blobs of black, congealed stuff. It smelled awful.
‘Lord help us,’ breathed Dad, and I could see connections sparking in his brain. He gritted his teeth. ‘It was you who sent the tarred feather to the Courtaulds.’
He spoke half in anger, half in sheer wonder.
‘Yes,’ said Mum. Her face was white, her eyes were like dark holes. ‘I spilled hot tar on myself and couldn’t clean it properly, so it got infected.’
Dad looked at her with fury and disgust and took a step towards her.
‘You wrote the letters.’
‘Yes,’ she said again, and she made a motion with her hands, either to shove him away from her or to draw him closer.
‘Why?’
‘I’ve nothing against Stephen, but Ginie – that’s a different story. I wanted to hurt her. She was taking you away from me.’
For a moment, I thought Dad was going to hit her.
‘I couldn’t stop thinking about the two of you,’ Mum went on. ‘It kept going round in my head.’ She gave a low moan and shut her eyes, pressing her knuckles into them as though she could crush out the bad thoughts. Dad gave her a deadly look.
‘Sending the letters made me feel better,’ she said, opening her eyes wide, ‘but you see, the good feelings never lasted.’ She sighed, shaking her head regretfully. ‘So I had to write again and again. I was addicted.’
Dad’s face was twitching. ‘Are you quite mad?’
Mum’s blue eyes had a new light in them and an ugly flush bloomed on her thin cheeks. ‘I’m mad for you, Mark,’ she said, in a high-pitched tone I’d never heard before. She tossed her hair in a gruesome show of flirtatiousness.
‘Dear Christ in hell,’ muttered Dad.
‘You haven’t touched me in so long. . . so long!’ she wailed.
Everyone was silent. When Mum began to speak again, it was in a soft, resigned voice that made me hope she wasn’t crazy after all.
‘I felt you slipping away from me and it just about destroyed me. Oh, the pain was awful – I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. Just raw waves of pain. In here.’ She pushed a hand against her chest.
Dad shook his head slowly.
‘I shouldn’t have written those letters. I don’t know why I did. But everything changed.’ She swallowed. Her face was wretched. ‘I don’t know what’s happening anymore. Why have things turned out like this? I didn’t want them to turn out like this. But when I saw how you looked at her. . . It’s Ginie’s fault,’ she snarled. ‘She deserves to be punished for what she has done to us.’
Dad stared and stared at Mum without speaking, until she began to shuffle her feet and her eyes grew shifty, but there was a glint of sly satisfaction in them that made my blood run cold.
‘All I ever wanted. . .’ she began, but her face went blank and empty. She had forgotten what she was going to say. Then she drew a sharp breath, for Dad was gripping her wrist tightly.
‘Stop it,’ she gasped, struggling to break free. ‘Stop! You’re hurting me!’
Dad dropped it. Red marks flared on her skin and Mum massaged them with the other hand. She was shaking and her face was twisted.
‘I hate her,’ she hissed.
‘I know,’ he said. He spoke very clearly and with emphasis; each word a barb designed to hurt her as much as possible.
‘I am in love with Ginie, I can’t help myself. I would have left you in a heartbeat if she’d have me.’
Mum’s body slumped as though he had struck her and she broke into violent, shuddering sobs. I stared at her convulsing shoulders, her bloodshot eyes and crumpled face, sick with horror and with pity. Dad towered above her, lean and dangerous.
‘Get out,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘get out now, or I won’t be responsible for my actions.’
She ran blindly into their bedroom. I heard a loud crash, followed by a shower of breaking glass. Moments later, she emerged with a bag. There was a desperate look on her face. She drew me to her, pressing her cheek hard against the top of my head.
‘Sweet girl. . . My sweet girl, I’m so sorry.’
And then she was gone, the front door slamming shut behind her. Not daring to look at Dad, I ran to my room. Panic seized me. I’d been treading a path and exactly where I was planning to take another step, there was now nothing. I was horrified at what my mother had done and I was terrified for her. I knew how menaced she felt by Africa – the scale of it, the extremes of weather, the black faces. . . it all filled her with dread. I didn’t know what might happen to her alone in the forest. There were animals getting ready for the night’s hunting, animals with red claws who would not leave a defenceless woman alone. And there were spirits. Mufaro had spoken of a sacred mountain not far from us that was home to the amadhlozi, the ancestral spirits of the land. Travellers lost their way on it and would wander in a trance until they were driven to death, or if they were lucky were returned, mute and blank-eyed, to their loved ones. I slunk into bed.
I don’t know how long I lay there for, tearful and sweating. I seemed to have dropped out of time. I became aware of Dad, a dark shape outlined in the doorway. He was jingling the keys to the truck in his hand.
‘Come on, Cathy, I can’t leave you here alone.’
Groggy from tears, I slowly got to my feet, assuming we were setting off in search of Mum.
‘We’re going to La Rochelle. I have to talk to Ginie,’ he said, and dread settled into my chest like lead.
My mind was exhausted and overwrought by the stress of the last few months. I was also faint from not eating – it had been hours since I had any food. No one had been taking care of me, and I didn’t have the will to do it myself. As I sat in the truck, staring out of the window, my thoughts twisted and knotted, and I was afraid that I was going mad, too.
42
Catherine, Rhodesia, 1950s
After Ginie was shot and Dad drove away with her, I sat with my back against a tree trunk, waiting for someone to remember me. It was dark, but the garden was lit by floodlights, which cast eerie shadows on the grass. I began to feel strangely light, as though my body weren’t there at all. Part of me seemed to have cut loose and drifted off, looking down from the branches of a tree. From there I could see myself, a tiny huddled shape. This strange double perspective stayed with me until the rushing wings of a large bird overhead startled me back to myself. I looked up and saw it was an owl; a creature the Africans associate with witchcraft.
I became aware of an icy chill, colder than anything I had ever experienced. It crept over my limbs and clung to my eyelashes and hair, makin
g my teeth chatter and my flesh crawl. I felt a freezing finger of wind brush my cheek, as though someone had touched me. I scrambled to my feet, but found myself unable to walk forwards. It was the strangest sensation, it felt as though I was pushing against an invisible barrier. There was a girl slipping through the trees towards me. She was younger than me and her skin was very pale, almost translucent. At first, it looked like she was wearing red tights, but as she drew nearer, I realised that her legs were covered in blood. She halted in front of me, her eyes boring into mine. I felt that she was talking to me, but her lips weren’t moving. Hardly daring to breathe, I heard her voice whispering like a lullaby. Go to sleep, nobody cares for you. Sleep. . . you’re better off asleep. Don’t wake up.
I don’t know if I blacked out from fear or lack of food, but when I woke up I was still huddled by the tree. The girl had gone, as had the dreadful cold. My mother was bending over me. I felt such relief when I saw her, it was like coming into a safe harbour after being lost at sea. For several moments, I simply smiled up at her. I pulled myself into a sitting position and saw the gun in her hand. A pit opened up in my stomach.
She started to say something, but it was as though she was speaking a different language. Half of my mind struggled to follow her, while the other half shied away from connecting the gun she was holding to the ugly, gaping wound in Ginie’s side. She began to pace up and down, tearing flowers and leaves to pieces with her trembling fingers.
‘I know; I do know,’ she was saying, feverishly, ‘there now, do you see? I wasn’t deceiving myself.’ Her shrill, disjointed voice was ghastly.
She stopped talking abruptly and clapped her hand over her mouth, shaking her head as if to clear it. My father’s truck had swung in at the gates and was speeding up the driveway. I watched Dad get out and hurry towards us. A look of hatred and dread passed over my mother’s face and a vein bulged in her forehead, but the corners of her lips twisted up into a smile.
‘Hello, Mark,’ she said, brightly.
Dad didn’t reply. His eyes travelled from her face to the gun and back again. My stomach lurched, for I realised Mum was pointing the gun right at him. She gripped it with both hands, but they were shaking so badly, she could scarcely hold it. I screamed at her to stop.
Dad was looking at her with a strange, weak gaze, as though he was repelled by her, but couldn’t tear his eyes away.
‘Go on, Di,’ he said, his features distorted in pain. ‘Do it.’
For the longest moment, she stared back at him, an expression of stubborn wistfulness on her face. ‘You’ve destroyed us,’ he said. ‘Go on, pull the bloody trigger. It would be a relief.’
The gun was still wobbling in her hands and there was no sound except for her ragged breathing. Then a nightjar shrieked, making her jump. I braced myself for the gunshot, but it did not come. Mum’s head drooped, her legs buckled and she sank to the ground in a foetal crouch, the weapon falling uselessly from her grip.
43
The Courtaulds, Rhodesia, 1950s
The pain in Ginie’s side felt like she was being struck by lightning. Like falling through the sky, wrapped in layers of flame. She tried to scream, but her lips had become dead-weights, her jaw clamped shut. She felt the sharp prick of a needle and sunlight began to flow through her veins. Her body grew lighter, her mind loopy and euphoric. . . She lay in a hum, floating off into a memory that was as fresh and vivid as if she were living it there and then: her first sight of the land that would become La Rochelle.
She was with Stephen on the crest of a hill, looking down into a beautiful valley. There was a farmstead in need of renovation or demolition. Hills stretched out on all sides, peak after peak, fold after fold, fading into a blue haze on the horizon. She stood revelling in the lushness, the space, the promise. Something fell into place deep inside her. She was home.
The valley gave her space to dream, and her dreams were of a place more just and beautiful than anything else that existed in the world. She glanced at Stephen and saw an expression on his face that she recognised. It was the look he had the first time he saw Eltham Palace; the look of the creator.
He held out his hand to her and together they walked down the hill into the valley.
Stephen refused to leave Ginie’s bedside. The hospital staff urged him to sleep, to eat; they said he would break down if he didn’t look after himself, but he was deaf to their advice. He sat in an uncomfortably upright chair, his eyes on Ginie who lay motionless, her face like a wax figure. There was a frame underneath the bedsheets, keeping their weight off her. Her chest rose quickly and fell slowly, he could hear the breath whistling in her lungs.
The bullet was a flesh wound; it had passed through her side, missing all the vital organs. She’d been lucky, the doctors said, but she had lost a lot of blood. She wasn’t out of danger yet.
Who could have foreseen that a gentle, cultured person like Diana was capable of such violence? She was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Stephen had seen her briefly at La Rochelle, before she was led away in handcuffs. She had been incoherent and gibbering pitifully, like a cornered animal. He couldn’t blame her for what had happened any more than he blamed Ginie for being oblivious to the effect she had on others.
What an almighty mess it was, so many lives destroyed. He could barely contain the wrenching blend of love and fear and anger inside him. Sunlight fell against the drawn curtains, making it look like they were on fire. A nurse in a starched blouse, linen skirt and cap came in to take Ginie’s blood pressure and temperature. Stephen forced himself to smile at her, but Ginie didn’t stir the whole time she was being treated. A cart clattered in the corridor. The nurse kneaded the base of her spine with her fingers and said there was no change in Gine’s condition. Her shoes squeaked across the linoleum floor as she left.
Stephen slumped in his chair and let his thoughts drift back to the time he and Ginie had just bought their Rhodesian land and were wondering what to call it. The early history of the Courtaulds in western France was in their minds: the family originally came from La Rochelle in Île d’Oléron. “Oléron” seemed an awkward name for an English tongue to get around, but “La Rochelle” was sonorous and easy. He and Ginie privately agreed on the name.
After they had concluded the deal to buy, the old title deeds were brought to them in the lawyer’s office, and they were astonished to find that the property’s original name was La Rochelle.
‘Well blow me down, this is meant!’ Stephen exclaimed. It seemed like a small miracle, another confirmation that this was the right place for them.
But how could it have been right if it ended like this? After all the years spent reading and writing, trying to understand the world, trying to understand his place in it, the only thing Stephen felt sure of was how was how little he truly knew about anything.
A fresh wave of grief swept through him. Don’t leave me here. Don’t make me live the rest of my life without you. He pressed his knuckles into his eyes so hard that brilliant specks of light began to fizz and dance in front of them. He shook his head and forced himself to banish what he had found to be the worst poison of all; self-pity.
And at that moment, Ginie opened her eyes.
EPILOGUE
Catherine, England, 1990s
My mother was sent to a secure mental institution in Salisbury. I visited her a few times, she was submissive and vacant. Seeing her like that I couldn’t help but wonder if she had derived any release or satisfaction from shooting Ginie. In her scrambled mind, I hoped there had been one moment when it had been worth the price she paid.
No sign of feeling showed on her face. She was a good patient, the matron told me, co-operative and easy. The matron was a scrap of a girl who looked too young to have the responsibility of running an entire institution. In fact, Mum was so well-behaved that none of the staff noticed that she was quietly hoarding her pills. They didn’t notice her swallow the whole lot one night, before she went to sleep. She never woke up. Her
ashes were sent to her beloved Surrey to be scattered.
Up until the moment I heard Mum had died, I hoped against all odds that my father would forgive her, that she’d get better and we would live together as a family again. But when my mother took her life, I realised that the worst can happen. I was able to hang on until my aunt came from England to look after me, but I fell ill shortly after she arrived. I had a sort of nervous collapse and was in bed for months. I don’t remember much about that time – it was like being inside a tunnel where everything was grey and depthless. My aunt took me back to England, and there, I slowly recovered.
I wish I could tell you that Mufaro became a political leader, that I went back to Rhodesia and married him and together we steered our country towards a bright, new future. It would make a good story, but it wouldn’t be true. I stayed in England. I wanted to be as far away from Africa as I could get. I never heard from him again, though I expect he was one of the first to volunteer for the Liberation War. I only hope he survived it. I still have the elephant hair bracelet he gave me. I keep it in a blue, velvet-covered jewellery box, along with my mother’s engagement and wedding rings. I don’t open the box very often, because whenever I do, something in me starts weeping.
Dad never left Rhodesia. He grew reclusive as the years passed and our letters dwindled. We didn’t know what to say. We were unsure if words would bridge the chasm between us, or send us plunging back into darkness and grief.
His contributions to the natural history of Africa were published in zoological and botanical papers and were publicly acknowledged by the Natural History Museum in London. Some of his beautifully prepared specimens, along with his detailed notes about the habits of various species, are still held in the Museum. I think that part of his life, the pursuit of knowledge and his passion for the natural world, was the only part that remained pure and safe for him.
The Dragon Lady Page 23