Storms Over Africa (25 page)

Wellington had strong, hot coffee waiting, bacon and egg rolls and, for those who cared to join Richard as he shed his civilised skin and embraced the spirit of adventure which always prevailed before setting off on a hunt, a shot of cognac. The liqueur warmed his belly and enhanced the feeling of wellbeing. Not even David's sullenness could dull his excitement. Steve and Greg joined him but Penny declined, pulling a face that she could not face alcohol so early in the morning and Joseph Tshuma shook his head and patted his liver. Richard did not offer David a shot.

Philamon was to drive the lorry which was piled high with camping and hunting equipment. Samson sat next to him and, at the last minute, David announced he would travel with them.

‘Why?' Richard asked. The lorry was slow and uncomfortable.

‘I want to.'

‘On your own head, son.' Richard wondered just how far David would carry his dislike of Steve.

Richard drove the Land Rover with Steve sitting next to him. Greg sat alone on the seat behind them. Penny and Joseph Tshuma took the back seat. They pulled away from the house just after 5.30, as the sun's first probing fingers of shining light appeared over the mountains in the distance, behind the game reserve. The air was crisp and cool and pure and had an autumn feel and smell about it. The hills beyond the flatlands were still mysterious and dark. Richard wound down his window and breathed deeply, enjoying the chilly breeze, until entreaties from everyone else in the vehicle made him wind it up again.

‘Where's your spirit of adventure?' he joked.

‘Frozen to bloody death.' Greg's voice was muffled as he spoke through the turtle neck of his jersey.

Joseph Tshuma laughed, a deep rich laugh but one which sounded strangely empty. It seemed to Richard like the man was playing a part. Penny was snuggled against him, almost asleep again.

Richard took one of Steve's hands in his.
‘Enjoying it?' His eyes were shining with excitement, making him look almost boyish.

She looked over at him, loving him. ‘Every minute of it.' And it was true, she was enjoying herself. Until this morning she had only thought about hunting and killing. Now she was caught up in the adventurous feeling of getting away from it all, being on holiday. Richard's enthusiasm was infectious. In fact, she could not remember ever feeling so excited.
True
, she acknowledged to herself,
being in love helps
. But it was more than that.
It must be the element of danger
, she thought.
Africa is unpredictable, just like the people in it.
Without knowing it, she had come closer to understanding the man at her side than ever before.

By the time they reached Harare, Richard had them all singing, ‘She'll be Coming Round the Mountain When She Comes'. Even Penny woke up and joined in, appearing more relaxed and happier than the night before. They skirted the capital and proceeded south, along the A4. Richard took a detour which took them into the Robert McIlwaine Recreation Park, a game reserve created both for tourists (who either did not have the time or the inclination to venture further into the country to view the animals) and for occupants of Harare as a weekend resort. The drought had shrunk the large lake in the
centre to a quarter of its normal size and boats, normally moored close to shore, leaned drunkenly on dry mud. Steve got busy with her camera, taking pictures of every zebra, eland, kudu and wildebeest they passed. With the water holes all but dried up, most of the animals remained close to the lake making spotting them easy. Richard obligingly stopped the Land Rover every time she saw an animal, or a particularly imposing baobab tree. She mused at the way the strange bottle-shaped trees looked as though they were growing upside-down. ‘We have something similar in Western Australia called “boabs”, she told Richard. ‘But they never get to grow this size.'

They stopped to watch a troop of baboons playing in a couple of dead trees for so long that Richard had to remind her the trip had only just begun. ‘You'll run out of film before you get to Tuli,' he told her dryly, as she clicked off another succession of shots of a large baboon sitting, sentinel-like, on the very top of the tree.

Reluctantly, she put her camera away. ‘I have never seen so much to photograph all at once.' She was alight with excitement. ‘You are so lucky in Africa. All the magic, all the majesty, God has given you everything.'

Joseph Tshuma leaned forward. ‘Don't you have wild animals to photograph in Australia?'

She twisted around in her seat to answer
him. ‘We have plenty of animals over there but nothing as exotic as you have. All our animals are furry and shy and little. They're sweet of course . . .' She cocked her head sideways and thought a minute. ‘Put it this way,' she went on, ‘if you sit quietly in the bush in Australia and catch a glimpse of something, you're filled with tenderness. Most of our wildlife is vulnerable. If you're lucky enough to watch one of them you become aware of how fragile and endangered they are. They make you want to stroke them and protect them. But here . . .' she threw out her arm, ‘. . . just look at them. They're bold and big. They seem secure. They fill you with respect.' She grinned when she realised she was lecturing. ‘Sorry, I'm getting carried away.'

‘I've seen a documentary about your kangaroos,' Penny joined in. ‘They're really different to anything else in the world. I'd love to see one in the wild.'

‘They're different,' Steve agreed. ‘You see a lot of them and yes, they're more solid and exotic. But they're not dangerous. Here you have to show respect for most of the animals. It kind of adds another dimension to them.'

‘Pleased to hear you're finally coming to that conclusion,' Richard said, grinning. ‘I was beginning to think I'd have to scrape you up and send you home in an envelope.'

‘Ah, but the results, the results!' Greg
chipped in. ‘The way this woman uses her camera makes the risks worthwhile.'

‘Just not too many risks, okay?' Richard still shuddered when he remembered her Victoria Falls shots.

‘We'll see,' was all she would concede.

Around lunchtime they passed through Masvingo, the oldest town in Zimbabwe which, up until independence, had been called Fort Victoria, and stopped just the other side to eat the lunch Wellington had packed for them. ‘The Kyle Recreation Park is a few miles out there,' Richard told Steve once they were under way again, waving his hand to a tarred road on their left. ‘I thought we might stay there on our way back. It's quite beautiful, surrounded by mountains and on the shores of Lake Mutirikwe. We can stay at one of the Mutirikwe Lakeshore Lodges, they're very luxurious, just the thing after roughing it in the bush for a week.'

‘Sounds wonderful.'

A short while later they turned off the A4 and followed the signs to the Great Zimbabwe National Monument. Once they arrived there, Steve, and her camera, shifted into overdrive. From the eighty metre high stone wall of the Hill Complex, to the circular Great Enclosure with walls as thick as five metres, to the Valley Complex where Zimbabwe's national emblem, a soapstone carving of a bird, was
found, she was a blur of movement. ‘Was Zimbabwe named after this place?' she asked, between shots.

Amused at her ducking and dodging, bending and twisting to get the angles she wanted, Richard answered, ‘It was—want to know what it means?'

She was on her back photographing up the ten metre high tower in the King's Quarters, trying to catch the rays of the sun bursting around the corner of the massive round structure. She nodded that she wanted to know.

‘There are several translations.' He bent down and placed his hands under her head so she did not have to lie with her head in the dirt. ‘One is “venerated houses”, the other is simply “house of stones”. The local people still carry out their ancestor-worshipping ceremonies here, the place holds great spiritual meaning.'

She squinted backwards at him before putting her eye to her camera again. ‘You mean they worship the dead here?'

‘Oh, thank God!' Greg had walked up behind them and heard Steve's voice. ‘For a minute there, old Didd, I thought you were talking to your feet.'

‘Just trying to keep the lady's hair clean.'

‘Such a gentleman.' She scrambled up and disappeared around the curving wall of the tower.

‘Where's Penny?' Richard asked Greg.

‘In the Land Rover. There seems to be trouble brewing. They're having a hell of a row about something.' Greg hesitated, went to say something, shook his head and frowned. ‘She's not the Penny I remember.'

Richard agreed. ‘You've got that right. One minute she seems fine, then she's over-the-top excited, the next she's silent and introverted, it's so unlike her. And that bloody man Tshuma hovers around her as though he's afraid she'll disappear. I'm really worried about her, Greg.'

‘She's in your company for a week. He can't stay glued to her side the whole time. If I get a chance, or you do, we should try to talk to her.'

‘Like I said before, Greg, best of British luck. If I say anything she's likely to fly off the handle. Mind you, I'd almost welcome it the way she's acting at the moment.'

‘You should try. If she were my daughter I'd be worried enough to chance it.'

Richard glanced sharply at Greg. ‘Do you know something I don't?'

Again Greg hesitated before shaking his head and repeating that, in his opinion, Penny should be questioned.

He was about to press Greg for more information, convinced he knew more than he was saying, but Steve came running back. ‘Come and see this.' She was excited and laughing.

She dragged them out to where a small boy had set up a stand and was selling miniature soapstone birds. ‘He says he found them in a cave. They must be centuries old,' she bubbled.

Richard and Greg grinned at each other.

‘Why are you grinning?'

‘Darling girl, this young scamp has a workshop back in his village which manufactures hundreds of these things every week.' Richard looked down at the boy and winked. The boy gave him a toothy response.

‘You mean they're not authentic?' Steve sounded disappointed.

‘Oh, they're authentic,' he said. ‘Authentically crafted by authentic Africans in authentic soapstone. They're just not authentically old.' He delved into his pocket for some change. ‘How much?' he asked the boy.

The child had been watching them but had not understood much of what had been said. ‘Twenty-five dollar.' He knew a good thing when he saw it, having realised Steve's accent was not one belonging to his country.

Greg gave a loud bark of laughter.

‘Twenty-five dollars!' Richard cried, in mock outrage.

‘Yes,
baas
. These things very old. Not too many left.'

Richard treated him to a one-minute lecture in rapid Shona.

The boy's face fell but, a born salesman, he
soon recovered. ‘Ah, but master, my mother she is very sick,' he said in English for Steve's benefit. He knew a soft touch when he saw one.

‘And is your sister pregnant, young one?' Richard asked in Shona.

‘Yes, sir, and her husband beats her.' The boy replied in the same language.

‘And is your father dead?'

‘Yes, sir, and my sick mother has many mouths to feed.'

‘And have your cattle run away, young one?'

‘Very bad, master. All gone, along with our goats and chickens. We have nothing to eat, sir.'

Richard laughed at the enterprising young scoundrel. ‘Here is ten dollars,' he said in English. ‘Go and buy your sick mother some
muti
to make her better.'

‘Thank you,
baas,
' the boy handed Steve one of the carvings.

Walking back to the car admiring the bird, Steve said, ‘The poor child, his mother is sick and he has to go out to work.'

‘That's not all.' Greg had followed the exchange in Shona. ‘His sister is pregnant, his sister's husband beats her up, his father is dead, his family is starving, his cattle have run away and so have his goats and chickens.'

Steve opened her mouth to express sympathy but she caught a look passing between the
two of them and realised she had been expertly conned by the young boy. ‘The little devil,' she laughed. ‘Do you suppose he spins that line to everyone?'

‘Not really,' Richard replied. ‘He probably doesn't have to. I imagine he does a roaring trade selling his carvings.'

‘Ten dollars seems so little.' She held up the bird and turned it in her hand, admiring the craftsmanship.

‘Steve, the soapstone is lying all over the place here, it costs him nothing, he's been carving and whittling since he was three, it's not a very good carving and he's delighted to get ten dollars. That young boy probably makes several hundred dollars a day.'

She was tempted not to believe him, the child was grubby and dressed in rags, but she could see from his face, and Greg's, that he was telling her the truth. ‘I guess I have a lot to learn about this country.'

‘Don't be in too much of a hurry,' Greg said kindly. ‘It's a magic place. Spin out the learning process and enjoy it.'

‘What a lovely concept.' She wished she could.

In the car, the argument between Penny and Tshuma was raging. As they approached from behind Richard heard the black man say, furiously, ‘. . . Just don't overdo it, that's all I'm saying.'

‘You don't own me,' Penny said loudly.

‘I'm not trying to own you, you damned fool. Why do you always push things to the limit?'

‘What makes you such a bloody authority?' Penny spat back. ‘Besides, I'll do what I like.'

‘That's my girl,' Richard thought privately. The argument delighted him. Any dissension, any sign that all was not rosy between the two of them, was welcome.