Storms Over Africa (7 page)

‘What about you?' he asked Janie. Although there were fences between Janie's place and Pentland, Janie's farm also bordered onto the game reserve and, like Pentland, that border remained unfenced.

‘Beats the hell out of losing my farm,' Janie said in a hard voice.

The deal was struck. Janie and Richard would each supply two good men to do the actual poaching. Each man would share the risk of being caught by storing tusks and skins on their property. They would only shoot animals on their farms, something they were legally entitled to do provided they then declared the death of each animal to Game Department. The only way they were breaking the law was that neither man had any intention of reporting it to anyone.

‘Just until I'm out of debt,' Richard told himself.

The prospect of saving Pentland Park had a positive effect on him. It breathed new life into him and gave him the strength to stop
binge drinking. The workers on his farm saw the change in him and began to pull their weight along with their boss. Fences and pumps were repaired. With his share of the profits from the first consignment of trophies, Richard purchased a new pedigreed bull and a handful of two-year-old registered cows. Nor did he stop there. He organised the planting of flowers in his garden and insisted on fresh flowers in the house. He arranged for the house to be repainted. He coerced Penny into helping him choose new curtains. And as the owner of Pentland Park first stirred, then charged with renewed vigour, his staff charged with him. Pentland returned to life.

Janie, on the other hand, appeared to sink deeper into melancholy. He could afford to pay his workers so his farm responded. But he ran things from a wheelchair with a bottle of scotch in his hand. His farm boys obeyed him out of fear, not the respect they once held for him.

Within two years both men had paid off their debts.

With his farm no longer a financial millstone, Richard went to Janie. He had not seen much of the younger man since he had stopped drinking. The sight of Janie, once a fine strapping young man, now reduced to drunken ill temper and more or less permanently confined to a wheelchair, reminded
Richard how close he came himself to going the same way. He tried once, about a year earlier, to point out to Janie the folly of his behaviour but Janie, who was having a bad day with his back, snarled at Richard, ‘Who are you to talk?'

Richard had no argument then, and could not think of one now.

He found Janie in tears. The empty bottle of scotch at his feet provided the reason. The man was stinking drunk. ‘My friend, my friend,' Janie blubbered. ‘No-one else ever comes to see me. No-one cares.'

‘Perhaps it's because you're so bloody obnoxious,' Richard snapped. With the new lease of life, his impatience had returned.

‘Nobody likes me,' Janie cried pathetically.

‘For Christ's sake, pull yourself together.'

‘I can't, I can't. You don't understand. No-one understands.'

‘If you stopped boozing and had that back looked at by a proper surgeon it'd help.'

‘It's all right for you to talk. You've still got your kids.'

‘If you sorted yourself out, you'd have your kids too.'

Janie shook his head drunkenly. ‘Lost my kids,' he mumbled. ‘Lost my wife and she turned them against me.'

‘You've got your farm back,' Richard pointed out.

Janie sneered. ‘What good does that do?'

Fed up, Richard pulled up a chair in front of Janie. The man's sordid self-absorption, something he had identified with before, now both irritated and disgusted him. Richard had regained his own self-respect and, typically, failed to understand why others could not do the same. ‘We need to talk.'

‘What for?'

‘I've paid off my debts. So have you. I'm not going to kill any more animals on my farm.'

‘Are you mad? We're making stacks of money.'

‘I don't need it. Pentland is paying its way now. I'm finished poaching. Besides, it's too bloody risky.'

‘Well, I'm not finished yet,' Janie said petulantly. ‘It's all right for you to talk. You're not in a wheelchair. I need more money.'

‘No you don't. Don't you see, man? Your farm is fine. It's money for booze you need.'

‘So what if it is?' Janie sullenly acknowledged his dependence on alcohol. A year ago he would have denied it.

Richard rose. ‘Be it on your own head, then.' He looked down at Janie, slumped in his chair. ‘I'm no longer involved. I don't want animals killed on my farm and I won't store any trophies.' He reached out to touch Janie's shoulder but the man jerked away, causing him to gasp as pain shot through his back. ‘I
won't shop you,' Richard said quietly, feeling a rush of pity for the mess in front of him, ‘but I'll come down bloody hard on you if you poach on my land.'

Janie waved him away. ‘Fuck off,' he said vehemently. ‘Fuck off and damn you to hell.'

It had been a relief to Richard in a way. He had not really enjoyed the idea of poaching although he had been unable to think of any other means of saving his farm. He found Janie's company tedious and it appalled him to think he had once been the same. Although he had been unable to see it at the time, he now viewed a dependence on alcohol as weakness, unforgivable weakness. It was not the way he liked to think of himself. He knew Kathy would have been horrified.

He told his two men, Samson and Philamon, there would be no more killing on Pentland, but a network of people had developed who now relied more heavily than he on the profits from poaching. So he turned a blind eye to the fact that some of his men carried on poaching on Janie's farm. ‘What can I do?' he justified it to himself. ‘They've always poached. I can't stop them. They only do it to make extra money for clothes and food.'

And now his son had jumped on the bandwagon. His son whose very education once depended on the profits Richard made. He wondered if David knew.

In the face of his father's aggressive outburst, David did what he usually did. He backed down. Besides, they were approaching the house and his attention had been captured by the sight of its familiar and comforting bulk. It had grown a great deal from the original modest cottage. Over the years Richard had added two large wings and a second floor. The house was as solid as an elephant and just as African, having been built entirely of rock and timber from Pentland Park. Kathy's garden, fully mature and living proof of her artistic yet practical nature, provided shade, texture, contour and shape. It was a beautiful sight. Set on the plateau, the hills across the valley on one side, the high, almost treeless plateau on the other, the house and garden somehow looked as though they had always been there. From the house, not another sign of civilisation could be seen and sometimes it felt to Richard as though he were the only man left in the world, especially when mist rolled up the valley cutting out the sight of all but the highest peaks which seemed to float, like disembodied granite heads, above the mist and added to the illusion of isolation. David leant forward to catch a first glimpse of the house.

Winston came bounding out to the car, barking hysterically, running at Richard's side of the vehicle and trying to bite the tyres in a
strange canine show of extreme joy. Wellington, stooped, frail and white-haired, waited in dignified patience on the verandah to greet ‘the young Master' whom he loved like his own son. Elizabeth, his wife, the children's nanny, who, once her services in that capacity were no longer required, had been kept on to attend to the laundry and mending, waited with him—tears streaming down her cheeks in a wholly African display of emotional pleasure. David leapt from the car and ran to embrace them both and his greeting, husky with feeling and spoken in their own language, demonstrated the depth of his emotion. Thomas, their son of similar age to David, hung shyly back, waiting to greet him but ever mindful that his friend of last school holidays might have grown into ‘a boss'. David's hugging, shoulder-thumping greeting, however, reassured him and the two boys went off together, speaking Shona, holding hands in the African way of friendship, watched with indulgent smiles from Wellington and Elizabeth and a worried frown from Richard.

Wellington turned to Richard. ‘Master, the young madam telephoned from Salisbury.' Try as he might, Richard could never get Wellington to call the capital by its new name.

‘When?'

‘One half of an hour ago, master.'

‘Thanks.'

He bounded up the wide steps of the verandah with Winston closely at his heels. Kathy had never allowed the dog in the house but Richard, out of a need for companionship, had been letting him in lately. He went directly to the telephone and called Penny's number at work.

‘Good afternoon. This is Inglewright, Jones and Alcock Advertising. How may I help you?'

‘Penny Dunn, please.'

‘One moment, sir.' There were several clicks and then the tinkling and totally sterile computer music of the telephone played ‘Greensleeves' for a full ninety seconds before he was, mercifully, rescued. ‘Penny Dunn.'

‘You rang?' Until he knew what sort of mood she was in he intended to keep his conversation short and noncommittal.

‘I'll be up at the weekend.' Penny was crisp and businesslike. ‘I'm bringing a friend. Male. Okay?'

‘What's the sleeping arrangement?' Richard grinned. He loved to stir his daughter up.

Penny was more than a match for her father's shock tactics. ‘One room,' she said briefly, before hanging up, leaving him staring at the receiver in his hand in open-mouthed surprise.

‘Like hell,' he muttered, banging the receiver down. ‘Like hell, missy. You can do what you
bloody-well like in Harare but I'm buggered if you'll get away with it here.' And, huffing and puffing in sheer outrage, Richard stomped to the bar and poured himself a stiff whisky and water. He took his drink to the window at the far end of the room. From there he could see right up the valley. It was a stupendous view but Richard was not looking at it. ‘Wretch,' he muttered, sipping his drink. ‘Damn it but that girl knows just how to piss me off. And she didn't even ask after her brother.' He stood still for a while, deep in thought. Then his shoulders began to shake. Penny often had this effect on him. Her behaviour would infuriate him but then, the balls of the girl, her defiance of him, both amused and impressed him.

The laughter lifted his spirits until he caught sight of David and Thomas walking together in the garden. They were smiling at something Thomas said and Richard's lips curled in disgust when he saw David lay his hand on the black boy's arm and let it rest there while he pointed at something in the distance with his other arm. It might be the African way but Richard did not hold with men touching each other. Nor, for that matter, did he hold with whites getting too friendly with blacks. It could only lead to trouble.

He tossed back the rest of his drink, annoyed and frustrated. There was no point in
saying anything to David about his friendship with Thomas. Richard knew he would come off second best from such a discussion. David would just gently ignore him. He turned from the window and made his way back to the drinks cupboard but changed his mind about having another one. It was David's first day home. No point in alcohol loosening his tongue and getting into a row. Besides, after allowing alcohol to nearly ruin his life, Richard tended to avoid drinking too much these days.

He went in search of Wellington. Last time he cooked roast beef it was overdone and, as they were having it tonight, he wanted to make sure it was cooked the way he liked it, rare. That was the nice thing about Africa, he decided on his way to the kitchen. When all else fails you can always take it out on the servants. Then he chided himself. ‘Sorry, Kath,' he said to his dead wife, talking to her in his head as he often did. ‘Didn't mean it, honest.'

Rarely did a day go by at Pentland Park when Richard's head man, Samson—an immensely charming rogue who had been with Richard over twenty years—did not present one problem or another for him to solve. So it was, the day after David arrived home, that Richard had been busy most of the day trying to fix a pump which drew water from a bore and pumped it into a dam. Samson had, rightly, seen the level of water in the dam was low and he started the pump without first checking to see if there was enough oil in it. The engine had seized. He had then, in his own unique style, informed Richard.

He found his boss in the dining room and approached him, as he usually did, without knocking or in any other way announcing his presence. ‘Ah, but master, how are you this day?'

Richard loved the old man. They had hunted together, toiled together and cried for Kathy together. He knew Samson as well as he
knew anyone. He also knew this approach meant a problem. The only time Samson asked after Richard's health, or called him master, was when he had bad news about the farm. ‘I am eating my breakfast, old one. I do not want to hear your troubles.' He looked up briefly then back at his plate.

Samson clapped his hands softly together. ‘Ah, but master, they are not my troubles.'

Richard thumped the table in a mock display of elation. ‘No troubles! Wonderful! Surely the sun will shine all day if we have no troubles.' He shovelled a forkful of toast, bacon, egg and tomato into his mouth and chewed vigorously, watching Samson.

‘Ah, but master, I did not say there were no troubles.'

‘Yes you did.'

‘No, master, I said they were not my troubles.'

Richard put down his knife and fork, swallowed, took a sip of coffee, leaned back in his chair and said, ‘So, you do not have troubles. But there are troubles. Am I to understand then that
I
am the one with troubles? Tell me, old friend, what are my troubles?' It was always like this. The roundabout way of getting to the real issue was a part of African etiquette and Richard always enjoyed the preamble, whether it was bad news or not.