Storms Over Africa (16 page)

They put off the moment for as long as they both could bear, tantalising themselves and each other with exquisite longing. Warmth and excitement flooded Richard's entire body. Tenderness mingled with pure animal need. The agony of wanting her, and of denying himself the pleasure, became sensually painful. They were walking back to Meikles and she stumbled. He caught her arm and she looked at him. Her eyes said ‘now' and they hurried to the hotel. An elderly woman shared the lift and they stood stiffly apart, not willing to touch, fearful of the consequences.

They walked towards his suite, not speaking, not touching, not looking at each other. Once there he reached out for her, pushing her
against the door, fumbling with the key, kissing her face, her neck, her breasts. When he finally unlocked the door they fell into the room, lurching against each other, rubbing their bodies together. So desperate was their need, their hands got in the way, trying to unbutton her blouse and unzip his trousers. They stood back, panting. Finally, with feverish haste, locked by a kiss, they fumbled out of the rest of their clothes. Richard picked her up and she wound her legs around his waist. On unsteady legs he carried her through to his bed. They fell and he entered her immediately and she cried out with relief and pleasure and he felt her climax burst through her body and shake her to the core. Richard let his own climax pick him up and he soared with her, joined and rocking and desperate to get deeper and closer.

They stayed joined, stroking and calming and in wonder. They lay twenty minutes in gentle intimacy before their bodies, once again, urgently needed each other in ragged breath, thrusting togetherness. Richard had never known anything like it. Not even with Kathy.

She went with him back to Pentland Park. From there, he promised, she would have access into the game reserve and an introduction to Adam Robinson. It was his mention of the reserve which convinced her to go with
him. ‘How big is it?' she asked when he invited her.

‘Huge.'

‘How big is huge?' she persisted, then added, ‘I have to start work.'

‘Positively gimungous.' He felt absurdly light-headed.

He was impressed with the way she travelled light. Apart from her camera bag and a portable computer, her possessions were carried in a small satchel. For Wellington's and Elizabeth's sake, she was put in the downstairs guest room. But Wellington remarked to his wife after a couple of days, ‘That young madam must make her own bed, and the master must be having nightmares because his bed is always a mess.' And he and Elizabeth chuckled together at the attempt being made to cover up what was obviously a raging affair. They liked the master's new woman.

In the end Steve spent two weeks at Pentland Park. Richard loaned her the Land Rover and she would drive into the game reserve and spend hours taking pictures, talking to the rangers and jotting down notes. Sometimes he went with her. She was the only woman, aside from Kathy, who did not bore him after the first couple of hours. Richard was a hunting man. The excitement for him was in the chase. In his experience since Kathy died, any attempt at a sustained relationship quickly
caused that relationship to become tedious. He always thought it was because no-one could replace his wife. So he was surprised to feel constant enjoyment in her company. Her quick mind was a challenge to him. Her open and guileless lovemaking was refreshing and more exciting than he thought possible. She had no girlish tricks up her sleeve as far as he could tell. Even Winston liked her.

He talked about his family and showed her photographs of Kathy and the children. He had no recent pictures of Penny or David, Kathy had taken all the family photographs and Richard had not bothered after her death. Steve did look closely at a shot of David, taken when he was twelve. He was standing under the sprinkler in the garden, hands on hips, hair plastered down, head thrown back and laughing. ‘That's funny,' she said.

‘What is?'

‘I feel I've met him before.'

‘He must look like someone else you know.'

‘Yes,' she agreed, but she spent some time studying the photograph before shaking her head and handing it back to him. ‘Damn, but he looks familiar.' But she did not make the connection.

When the time came for her to move on, Richard found he did not want her to go. He was enjoying himself as he had not done for years. So he arranged for them to spend some
time on Lake Kariba. ‘You can get some great pictures up there,' he told her. ‘And a tale of African animals can't be properly told without mentioning Kariba.' A friend had a 37-foot cruiser on the lake which he had borrowed before. They raided the pantry and freezer at Pentland, much to Wellington's distress until Richard promised he would bring food back when he returned, and drove the six long, hot hours to the lake.

Lake Kariba was a feat of astonishing foresight. Man made, it stretched nearly 300 kilometres into the distance like an ocean. It was 32 kilometres wide in parts, nearly 6,000 square kilometres of blue water. Bordered by Zambia and Zimbabwe, a gigantic natural basin had been allowed to fill with water from the mighty Zambezi river. In places it was 60 metres deep. In others, the keel of the cruiser scraped over submerged trees, still standing, fossilised by the water and as hard as any rock. Travelling around the lake took five days, although going too close to the Zambian side was not recommended as residents of that country had a tendency to shoot.

Richard told Steve how over 5,000 animals had to be rescued as the lake filled. ‘Operation Noah', as it was called, attracted world attention as frightened creatures from elephants to snakes found themselves marooned on hilltops while the lake rose around them.
He also told her how the BaTonga people had to be removed and how they believed that the river god, Nyaminyami, would one day destroy the dam and allow the Zambezi to run free again.

Steve fell in love with the lake instantly. From the small and picturesque harbour with its wooded shores, hotels and caravan sites, nestled into a natural cove and protected by heavily timbered hills, the lake widened dramatically. Once away from the harbour, they found animals grazing along the shores. Here, in the Matusadona National Park, herds of buffalo, elephants, zebra and wildebeest grazed in numbers so great she exclaimed, ‘I thought I'd never see this! I understood that most of the game had gone.'

‘A lot of people think that. It's rubbish of course, as you can see. Mind you, twenty years ago the herds were bigger.'

She was frowning over her camera, trying to allow for the glare coming off the water. ‘I suppose hunting and poaching is responsible for that.'

‘I think you should learn to separate hunting from poaching,' he told her, wishing he did not feel so guilty. ‘Hunting is controlled. It's a way of bringing revenue into Zimbabwe and a lot of the money goes back to benefit the wildlife.'

‘What about poaching?'

‘It happens. It's a fact of life in Africa. Where there is money to be made, man will find a way to make it. The African people have always had access to the animals. They see no reason to change their ways just because a handful of people tell them not to do it any more.'

‘It's so cruel.'

‘Poaching isn't responsible for the decrease in animal herds,' he said, remembering the wholesale slaughter of the elephants and hoping it had been an isolated incident. ‘Humanity is. The spread of man, the need to feed more people. The animals lose because man is the dominant species.'

‘There should be a place for each.' She sounded just like David.

‘That's why we have game reserves.' They were watching a herd of elephants. The idling engine of the cruiser made scarcely any noise. The elephants paid no attention to them. Some were in the water cooling off with trunkfuls of water. Others ambled in and out of the forested area about 100 metres from the shoreline. There were at least fifty elephants milling around together. Richard saw a big old tusker and automatically calculated the worth of his tusks. They had to weigh thirty kilos a side. ‘Look at that old fellow,' he pointed, ‘those tusks are worth a fortune.'

‘Is that what you see when you look at elephants?' She sounded disapproving.

‘It's what most people in Africa see.'

‘I don't,' she said. ‘I see huge and gentle creatures communicating with each other, in harmony, in a way they've been doing for centuries. I see the hand of God. I see . . . oh, look at that.' A baby had decided to show off. It careered around in circles, throwing dust and leaves with its feet. Its small trunk was held up and its ears flapped wildly. It galloped three times around the main body of elephants before stopping suddenly and leaning against its mother. The rest of the herd ignored the antics.

He was grateful to the baby for heading off what would probably have become their first argument. He was coming to the conclusion that, while preservationists had a point, they tended to become emotional and give animals human characteristics. African animals were part of Africa's wealth but they were still only animals. As much as he wanted to avoid a confrontation with Steve, she had to see his point of view. However, he was content to postpone the moment of truth, he was happier than he had been for years and, much to his surprise, he was prepared to admit that Steve was starting to mean a great deal to him.

They seemed to be attuned to each other. When he brought her a beer she said, ‘I was
just going to get you one.' When she prepared his steak rare, without asking how he liked it and he teased her about it, she replied, ‘You are a rare steak kind of man.'

‘What kind of man is that?'

‘Rugged, good taste and sophisticated.'

‘How about a well done steak kind of man?'

‘Yuck! He's fastidious, narrow-minded and boring.'

‘Medium?' he inquired, amused.

‘Sitter-on-fences type.'

Steve liked to tread water in the lake and clean her teeth. She loved to trail her toes in the water. Sometimes she would lie in the little runabout they towed, being pulled along behind the cruiser, happily photographing herons, cormorants and storks as they perched on limbs of drowned trees protruding up from the water. Naked, she would splash around, duck dive and float to her heart's content. It was quite safe out in the middle, no crocodiles or hippopotamuses to worry about. Very often, after swimming, they would lie on towels on the top deck and allow the sun to dry them off. This usually led to their making love. After the first day they tended to leave their clothes off, only grabbing them for modesty if another boat came too close. She had a hard, slim body and, despite her blondness, went a deep, golden tan. The contrast between her tan, her blue eyes and white blonde hair
was striking, particularly as her eyebrows and lashes were quite dark.

They ate with their fingers, sitting cross-legged opposite each other, talking and laughing and being at ease. He felt he had known her forever. He enjoyed watching her work. She agonised for hours over words and camera angles. She took risks to get good shots. A buffalo paid them a visit one day when they were moored in a small cove. Steve calmly hopped off the cruiser to get a better background for her shot, the only thing between her and the buffalo being the mooring line. The animal watched her suspiciously. It snorted and pawed the ground. Steve took her time. The beast took a step towards her. Still she had not taken the shot. ‘For Chrissakes, get back on the boat,' Richard yelled, ‘it's not a bloody moo cow.'

‘Relax,' she called back.

The buffalo swung its massive head towards the sound of his voice, and then looked back at Steve. Richard jumped up and down on the deck to attract its attention again. He waved his arms and made hooting noises. ‘Bugger off, hoo hoo hoo, get out of here,' he shouted. The animal took an uncertain step backwards. Encouraged, he jumped down to the shore. The buffalo charged. In his scramble to get back on the boat, Richard missed what Steve later described as ‘the once-in-a-lifetime shot'.
The buffalo tripped over the mooring line, sprawled unceremoniously on the ground, rose shakily, turned around and tripped over the line a second time. Totally humiliated, it galloped off at high speed. She took pictures of both events.

‘Damn it, woman,' he raged at her, ‘have some bloody respect for these animals. They can kill you.'

She was pale beneath her tan. ‘I didn't know they could move that fast.'

‘If it hadn't been for the mooring line he'd have had you inside of two seconds. You took an insane risk.'

‘I'm sorry,' she said meekly. Then her humour returned. ‘I got a couple of great shots, though.'

And, angry as he was at the risk she had run, he admired the way she had coolly taken her photographs. ‘Well listen to advice next time,' he huffed, slightly mollified. ‘Great shots are no good to you if you've been reduced to raspberry jam.'

The next morning she crept to within ten metres of a lion and photographed him while he was asleep under a tree. Luckily for Steve, the lion was so startled by the sound of her camera it ran away. Encouraged by her good fortune and excited by the shots she was taking, Richard was only just in time to prevent her from trying the same trick on a sleeping
crocodile. ‘But he's asleep,' she protested as he firmly propelled her back to the boat.

‘Watch this.' He took a piece of steak from the refrigerator and threw it so it landed about 2 metres from the reptile. The crocodile moved so fast it was a blur.

‘Christ! He's dynamite.'

‘They all are. They depend on their speed to fill their bellies. Stop taking chances, you don't understand these animals. They're not cute little koalas.'

‘But I'm getting such great shots.'

‘I'm taking you home if you don't behave. My heart can't stand the excitement.'

‘Poor old bugger,' she said unfeelingly.

‘You have some kind of a death wish?' he asked dryly.