by Peter Rimmer
“Grandfather, you don’t have to go on.”
“We had run out of money. Hastings Court was down to a few acres around the old house. Promised to bring it back to its old glory. He was going to live there with his eldest son and my daughter. He was going to buy himself a baronetcy, which any fool can do if they approach the right politician with enough money. The Tories sold him his. With his blood mingled with ours, you, his grandson, would have been rich and Lord of the Manor. He would have made himself and his family the owner of an old home and the blood of the ancient Mandervilles would run in the veins of his grandchildren. In his obsession, the old Pirate would have made himself legitimate. And his heirs for a thousand years.
“He paid me two hundred thousand pounds for my daughter, your mother. There were conditions. The money had to be left in my will to my grandchildren. That way in his twisted mind it would not cost his family a penny… I knew your father and Emily had always been friends. I did not know they were lovers. I swear to you. She was sixteen. He was seventeen. On that subject, I say no more. That is for your mother to tell you. I do know she has not told you. Many times she has agonised to me what to say to you and what not to say. Are some secrets better taken to the grave? If James had not left you Hastings Court and all the Pirate’s ill-gotten gains, I would have let it die with me and your mother. Now I can’t. You are the Manderville heir though your name is Brigandshaw. The current knight in our meander through history. You will not be Sir Henry Brigandshaw, Bart. That will go to your Uncle Nat, the Bishop of Westchester and one-time hopeful Archbishop of Canterbury. You will never be the next Sir Henry Manderville, Bart, that will go to Cousin George in America when I die. But what you will be is Lord of the Manor. That goes with Hastings Court. The bloodline will not be broken even though I never had a son.”
“So you want me to go to England?”
“You must.”
“Even if I don’t want to?”
“It is your duty.”
“Did Uncle James know all this?”
“Yes. Arthur, his elder brother, never consummated his marriage to your mother. I used the two hundred thousand pounds to make him annul his marriage to my daughter. All he had wanted was money. They had your father in a Cape Town prison for abducting you and your mother. The authorities were going to send him back to England. Your grandfather had bribed enough people to make sure of that. No one was going to dirty his plans. In those days, kidnapping was a capital offence. The Pirate was going to have them hang his youngest son to keep his direct line free of scandal. To let them walk freely in the highest society. You see your Uncle James is now trying to make amends for his father by leaving you his estate.”
“I always knew who was my father. I believed that all through the war. He flew with me in the cockpit. Much of my instinct came from my father. The instinct to hunt and know when I was being hunted in the air. I just never understood why Arthur was married to my mother… I wonder what my father would have done now?”
“It is your decision, Harry. You have to work out where your duty lies. I did all I could to preserve Hastings Court.”
“Was it worth all that?”
“It was to the generations before us. We are the product of their lives.”
“My mother was pregnant with me when she married Arthur?”
“Yes.”
“She didn’t tell you then.”
“She was frightened. Society dictated what she had done was a mortal sin. She was sixteen years old.”
“You didn’t ask her?”
“Whether she was pregnant? Fathers don’t ask daughters such questions.”
“No. Whether she loved my father?”
“Duty comes before young love. Young love dies early in life. Duty remains. I foolishly thought your mother deserved the wealth and privilege that would come with marrying the heir to a fortune. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“You didn’t think my father would come to anything on his own?”
“I didn’t. We usually judge other people by ourselves. How was I to know he would do all this? How was I to know they would go on loving each other? Most people hate their wives and husbands a few years into their marriages. Love dies, Harry. Money stays behind. I may be a damn old fool but that much I know. Look around you. Look at your sister. Look at the whole damn world. Mostly they hate each other. Envy. Greed. Jealousy. All the human frailties. Love is the precious one, and it’s as rare as hen’s teeth. How was I to know? How was I to know they’d love each other all their lives?”
Harry stood and looked at his grandfather who was holding himself across the chest, rocking backwards and forwards in the armchair. A wretched old man at the end of his life with nothing to show for it. Harry looked around the small cottage. Outside there was only the African bush. Inside on the display tables were his grandfather’s butterfly collections in neat, glass-topped wooden display boxes. There were his books on the shelves. But not even a portrait of his wife, Harry’s grandmother he had never met. Harry wondered about that. There should have been something. He had heard throughout his life how much his grandfather had loved his grandmother. Were there more skeletons in the family cupboard?
“What happened to Arthur?”
“He died of debauchery in 1901. Drink. Food. Fat as a pig, they said. Heart failed him. He was forty-four. Then that self-righteous uncle of yours condescended to marry your mother and father. The bishop was only a missionary then. The same church he built where you and Lucinda were to repeat your English vows of marriage… Oh, I’m sorry, Harry. I’m a mess. You do what you think is right. Maybe none of it matters. Maybe there is no truth to life.”
“So, my parents were not married in the Salisbury Magistrates’ Court?”
“No, they weren’t. They put that out for the benefit of the locals. The colonials believed it I think. No one cared about that sort of thing in Africa during the pioneer days. Too busy surviving to gossip. There were so few of us in a vast and hostile country. Prowling lions in the cattle. The Shona rebellion they called their Chimurenga. War of liberation. Some witch doctor with power in jeopardy. Told them to kill us… No, they only married in 1901.”
“So all of us are bastards.”
“You could put it that way… Do you know the witch doctor was a woman? May have been a rumour. Propaganda. We hanged the ringleaders. Been quiet ever since I think. You never know. You never know what they are thinking.”
“George, dead in France. Little James buried next to little Christo Oosthuizen in the graveyard here on Elephant Walk. Madge. Me. All bastards. Well, that’s something to think about.”
“Please, Harry.”
“Oh, I don’t care. What I don’t understand is why everyone is suddenly so interested in some bastard in the middle of Africa. Why me? Why not the bishop’s son? He has one, I remember. Must be twenty-one by now. Cousin Archibald. Even named after my paternal grandfather. Far more appropriate, I would have thought… Why did Uncle James not leave it all to Archie? In the end, he’ll be the one to get the Brigandshaw baronetcy. He’ll be Sir Archibald. Why couldn’t Uncle James let the ghosts lie peacefully in their graves? We were all right in Africa. We have our own place. A great future, I hope.”
“He thought he was doing the right thing, like me.”
“I love Elephant Walk. This is my home. The only home I’ve ever known… Bishop’s son. Even the Archbishop’s son will have nothing of material wealth. Just a hollow title. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Archibald’s a fool.”
“Who told you? He’s only twenty-one the poor sod.”
“Don’t swear, Harry.”
“I’m sorry. Yes, I’m sorry for swearing. I’m sorry for a lot of things.”
“So am I.”
“I’m going to take a gun and walk the bush.”
“You won’t have a whisky?”
“Not now.”
“Don’t hate me, Harry. I couldn’t stand that. I would die now of lonelin
ess. Emily hates me. I’m sure, underneath it all. Wouldn’t you?”
“She loves you. As we all do. Madge. The children. George loved you. Life’s the mess, Grandfather. Not you. We are what we are despite ourselves, not because of ourselves. We all have sins. Did I ever tell you mine? I made love to Lucinda before we were married. She too was pregnant when we married. That bloody Braithwaite killed my son. I’m sure it was a son… Don’t blame yourself. Let me just go and walk. If I had an aeroplane, I would go up in the sky. The clear sky and the African bush have a lot in common, Grandfather. Both the virgin bush and the sky in heaven are unsullied by man.”
“You don’t hate me?”
Harry put a hand on his grandfather’s shoulder, looking down on the bent, nearly bald head. He was silently crying for the old man. Unable to speak any more, he squeezed the shoulder and left the house. The Purdey was locked in a gun safe in the main house. He walked across the lawn seeing nothing, tears blinding his vision.
Harry looked up at the sun. It was three o’clock with three more hours of sunlight. No one had been around when he unlocked the gun safe. It was not going to rain. Hot and humid with the thunder far away. He wondered if Madge knew the truth. He certainly was not going to tell her.
For the first time in his life, he knew why people told so many lies. The truth hurts. The truth was mostly better hidden.
Half an hour later and deep in the bush, Harry began to laugh.
“Whatever the truth, without the old Pirate you wouldn’t be alive,” he said out loud to himself. “Life, despite everything, is good.”
The thought made him feel a whole lot better. Who was he to judge? To ever think he was different from the rest of them was absurd. If only he had known his paternal grandfather, he might have understood him. The man must have been something to come from nowhere to be what he was. For good or evil, his Grandfather Brigandshaw had been a success if money were the criterion.
When he called back at his grandfather’s house, the sun was laying long shadows from the msasa trees on the lawn up from the river. He was much better. Knowing the truth was good after all. He would give it a while and then make up his mind as to what he was going to do with his uncle’s will.
The drinks tray was on the side table with a bucket of ice and the tall soda syphon. They were back to normal, he and his grandfather. He knew neither of them would ever speak of his birth again.
“Your mother’s coming over for a drink.” The old man was smiling at him. “She’s cut some flowers. Putting them in vases. You know how your mother loves flowers.”
Harry had unloaded the bullets from the gun before reaching the family compound. He rested the Purdey in the corner and took the glass of whisky from his grandfather.
“Cheers,” they said in unison.
The rules were back in place. They were two civilised men about to enjoy a sundowner. Harry smiled with a wry smile that nothing could be less normal, stuck in the middle of Africa. He wanted to laugh.
When his mother and Madge came into the room, they were both smiling. Outside on the lawn, the children were playing with the dogs.
He and his grandfather drank too much after supper, sitting on the veranda. Tembo had put the fly screens in place before the sun went down. The oil lamp threw flickering shadows out towards the black of the African night. Bugs battered the fly screens to get at the lights. The crickets were singing loudly all around the house. From the village came the beat of the drums. It was Saturday night and there was no work to be done on the farm in the morning. The sound of the African drums was therapy to the frayed nerves they were hiding from each other and themselves.
When Harry found his bed he was quite inebriated.
They had all survived another day, Harry drunkenly thought to himself. Much like everyone else in the world. He was verging on the philosophical. Drink usually did it to him. He was still smiling when he finally went to sleep. Outside it was pitch dark. There was no moon. Thunderclouds obscured the stars. He woke once in the night with a splitting headache and then fell back into sleep.
The next morning everything looked so different. Brilliant sunshine outside Harry’s bedroom window. No one had drawn the curtains the previous night. The children were shouting with excitement. Tinus was spraying his sisters and the dogs with a garden hose, the pressure from the header tank letting the boy spray a long distance. The dogs ran in front of Harry’s window in a race away from the water. All of them were barking. Standing only in his pyjama bottoms at the open window, Harry felt cold water drench his face and chest.
“Do that again!” he shouted.
“Spray Uncle Harry!” screamed Paula. She had her bare back to Tinus who had turned the hose on his sister, soaking her small naked body. “Not me! Uncle Harry!”
Harry felt the full force of the water on his chest and considered getting out of the window to give chase. All three children stamped on the wet grass and screamed with excitement. They could have run away but didn’t. They were bursting with the anticipation of Harry coming through the window and racing after them.
“Breakfast is ready,” called Madge.
The children stopped the game in mid-flight and ran for the house, the hose left spurting water on the grass.
“Turn the water off, Tinus… Now!… Harry. Make him turn off the hose.”
Harry got out through the low window of his bedroom as he had done all through his life. At the tap under the msasa trees, he turned off the water. He made up his mind to build the children a small, shallow swimming pool where they could play without wasting the water. Harry knew drought was more common than floods on Elephant Walk. The children had to be taught the preciousness of water.
By the time Harry got back in through his window, he was dry. The hangover had gone. He was thirsty. The smell of fried bacon made him hurry into a pair of khaki shorts. He then put on an old shirt and walked barefoot to the kitchen. It was the rule in the Brigandshaw house that the servants had the day off on Sundays. Madge was doing the cooking, leaving the dirty pans for the next day. Mondays were always bad days for the cook, a Kalanga whose family and village had died from some disease. Harry had asked and found out little more than that the cook’s family were dead. No one asked further questions. Madge had taught him how to cook. They called him Smiler. No one in the house could pronounce the name he gave himself. He was always smiling, showing big, perfectly white teeth. The whites of his eyes were as white as his teeth.
“Does Smiler regret being off on Sundays?” asked Harry. He could see the kitchen was going to be a mess by the end of the day.
“Probably. Sleep all right?”
“Passed out. Grandfather not in for breakfast?”
“I take him a tray. He’s getting old, Harry. Sit down at the kitchen table. Scrambled eggs. Devilled kidneys. Bacon. Tomatoes. Kudu chop. Toast. Coffee. All at your service, sir.”
“They should have made you a wife and mother years ago.”
“I wanted to be his wife before he ran away the first time… I’m grateful now though. I have three of his children. Will you take the tray in to mother? Tea and toast. She doesn’t eat properly.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Are you going away again?”
“Not for a while. We’ll get in the tobacco crop. I have to work for my food. I’ll think again what I have to do after the grading. Let’s have a pact, sis. No talking about Uncle James. No talking about Barend.”
“Suits me. With Barend, there’s nothing to talk about. He doesn’t want to come home. I can’t force him. If he doesn’t want us what can I do?”
“We’re starting to go round in circles… Who is this Jim Bowman bloke who says he wants a job? Why’s it addressed to me?”
“Barnaby St Clair owes him ten pounds. Gave him your name.”
“He wants me to pay?”
“He wants a job. To learn farming. Mother talked to him. It was just after Christmas. Said he would come back. Another drifter. There a
re so many drifters after the war. He said something to mother about being commissioned in the field, whatever that is about.”
“When they make you an officer without putting you through an officer’s training course. They did it a lot at the end of the war. Jerry always picked off the officers first even when they weren’t wearing insignia. In an attack, you can usually tell which are the officers. Junior officers were in short supply… He might be useful. Did he have a contact address? Is he married?”
“You’ll have to ask mother. There was something about a girl from England but I wasn’t listening… You can take mother her tray… Tinus, if you don’t stop making that noise you won’t get any breakfast! Get those dogs out of the kitchen!”
“He’s always naughty, Mummy.”
“You’re a wicked little girl, Paula. One more word like that about your brother and I’ll give you a clip round the ear, girl or no girl.”
“Doris is crying,” answered Paula.
“She’s always crying. She’s a blubber,” piped up Tinus.
“Tinus! Get those the dogs out… Now!”
“Is it always like this?” asked Harry happily. “The place is bedlam.”
“They bully Doris. Just because she’s the youngest. She’s three next month. I wanted twelve of them. Can you imagine?”
