Keepers of the House

by JH Fletcher

  Shongwe escorted Anna courteously to the High Commissioner’s private entrance, stood watching until she had driven away. He went back to his office and sat behind his desk, dark eyes focused not on the elegant trappings of the silent room but on the opportunities that had opened so unexpectedly before him.

  Chris Tembe was an old enemy, had outmanoeuvred him when the ministries were being allocated. Tembe had ended up with Agriculture, Adam with Canberra. He liked what he had seen of Australia but, in the scheme of South African politics, it was undeniably second best. Tembe had real power, whereas he had only influence. Now, perhaps, there might be a chance to change that.

  He thought of the woman who had just left him. It was the second time she had done him a favour, even if this time she hadn’t realised it. She has put the gun in my hand, he told himself, with Tembe in the sights. I always hoped his greed would trip him up; now it has. All I have to do is press the trigger. I shall need to be careful, though. He has friends in high places. It would be good to have another card up my sleeve. If I decide to fire the gun, I had better be very sure I don’t miss.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Anna kept in touch with Pieter Wolmarans but for the moment could do no more; things were out of her hands. The temptation to badger Adam Shongwe was ferocious but she would not allow it to overwhelm her. She would hear when he had something to tell her. These things took time; nagging would not help and might do a great deal of harm. So she reined in her impatience and, as far as possible, got on with her life.

  She had phoned Mark as soon as she got back to Sydney to let him know what had happened. After Pieter Wolmarans’s frantic phone call, she did so again; already it seemed natural to turn to him for help and consolation, for that feeling of friendship that she had sensed so strongly during their lunch together. She did not expect him to come up with any miracle cures nor did he, but keeping in touch gave them the excuse they needed to start seeing each other again. They did not need excuses for long.

  For a second time, Mark became part of her life. No fireworks; a cautious progression from lunch to dinner, from meeting in the company of others to meeting alone. Later still, to being alone when surrounded by others.

  They became friends, then more than friends.

  Neither said or did anything that might endanger the equilibrium of their togetherness. Their memories were still tender; they had learned to value what they had, to allow it to develop at its own pace, to permit nothing to damage what it seemed they had succeeded in recapturing from the past.

  One weekend they were caught by a sudden squall, found shelter in the entrance to the Concert Hall. They shook off raindrops, looked at the bills announcing a concert.

  ‘Starts in half an hour,’ Mark said. ‘A string quartet. Fancy it?’

  ‘Not my line.’

  ‘Give it a go.’

  ‘There may not be any seats.’

  There were. They found their places, sat amid a murmuring surf of voices. Silence punctuated briefly by applause. The music began.

  Anna had never been interested in music, had agreed now only because Mark had asked. She tried to make sense out of what she was hearing, found it hard going.

  At the interval, Mark asked what she thought.

  ‘Okay. I suppose.’

  ‘Want to leave?’

  Some inner stubborness would not let her admit defeat. ‘I’ll stick it out.’

  The second half was better. She looked at the programme. Dvořák’s American quartet. She had never felt any relationship between herself and music but now the mingled serenity and yearning of the slow movement sent a message directly to her heart. What the message was she could not be sure, only that it was there.

  ‘Better,’ she said as they left.

  It was dark. They ate at a restaurant they knew, shared a bottle of wine, sat staring at each other across the table. She was surprised by the intensity of her feelings. ‘Desire is alive and well,’ she said, amazing herself.

  ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘The question is what we do about it.’

  His smile was so faint that it barely creased his lips.

  ‘Oscar Wilde said the only way to overcome temptation was to give in to it.’

  Thoughtfully she said, ‘I’ve always admired Oscar Wilde.’

  ‘Absolute genius,’ he agreed.

  Any minute now, I’m going to make a fool of myself, she thought. Found she did not care. ‘What say we put his theory to the test?’

  The flippant exchange glittered, inconsequential as fireworks.

  ‘We’ll never find out if we don’t,’ he said, laughing.

  She opened her mouth to share his laugh, found suddenly that she could not. Instead was repelled by this game they were playing. If they were serious about the relationship, they should say so. If not … The anguish of yet another failure was too terrible to bear. With shaking fingers she held her glass tightly and was silent.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  A look of concern as he sensed something of her feelings, yet she saw that he did not fully understand, was baffled by her change of mood. She could not put into words how she felt, was furious with herself, with the doubts that had suddenly engulfed her. If the two of them were going anywhere, they had to take the next step. Without it, there could be no hope for them at all. Yet terror remained.

  As though she could control doubt by movement, she stood abruptly. Astonished, he did the same. She tried to walk past him towards the door but staggered, blundering against him.

  He grabbed her hand. ‘We don’t have to do anything. If we don’t want.’

  His appeal tore her. ‘Please,’ she begged. ‘Please …’

  She waited by the door while he settled the bill. Eyes watched; Mark, the waiter, other diners. Nerves like hot wires skewered her flesh.

  I am fine …

  She had to force herself not to scream the words into the speculative faces. Mark came towards her. She yanked open the door and staggered, almost running, into the street.

  He caught up with her outside. ‘Whatever’s wrong?’

  She shook her head furiously, willing the tears not to fall. ‘Nothing’s wrong, nothing.’

  She turned and walked away down the hill towards the harbour. She found herself walking faster and faster until she was close to running, her high heels skidding on the steep pavement. She was gasping, could barely breathe at all. The warm air was stagnant, as sticky as glue. Thank God that in the inner city you were never far from water. She longed so much for its coolness, the breath of wind that, even on the hottest nights, came intermittently out of the darkness.

  At the bottom of the hill, she reached it at last. She could hear the pounding of her heart as she stood between two warehouses, their blank walls blocking the glitter of the city’s lights. From the jetty before her, silver beneath a sickle moon, the harbour stretched away. There was indeed a breeze; its breath cooled her skin, calmed her tormented mind.

  She was aware of Mark beside her. He radiated concern, but said nothing. She was grateful, both for his presence and his silence. She breathed deeply, drawing into her lungs the salty coolness of breeze and water. She turned to him, tried to smile. ‘Sorry about that.’

  He shrugged it away.

  She wanted to explain how frightened she was that things might once again go wrong between them. The words trembled, but she held them back. She had to make up her own mind.

  ‘I was warm,’ she apologised, ‘but I’m better now.’

  She hoped that he might understand her feelings; might even share them, perhaps, but could not be sure. Like herself, he was trapped in a conspiracy of silence.

  They were always so polite with each other.

  Nothing’s wrong, nothing …

  Sorry about that …

  I was warm, but I’m better now …

  Polite phrases, signifying nothing. She felt herself drowning in a rising tide of hysteria. Does it always have to be like this? she demanded,
silently. Are our hearts never to be naked to each other?

  She could no longer bear the stilted silences, the words devoid of feeling behind which they hid. Emotion was a scream rising, deafeningly, to overwhelm her.

  She told herself that this was what love was, the willingness to be naked before each other, in trust. I trust him, I do, but no one can forget the past. Lack of trust, of nurturing, destroyed us before. Surely it cannot happen again? Surely we have learned from our mistakes? Oh God, I am so frightened.

  Frightened or not, she saw that they had to take the next step at once. Not to do so would be failure, from which the relationship would never recover.

  She seized his hand, drew him to her, kissed him passionately. There was no one to watch; she would not have cared had there been ten thousand.

  Her heart was pounding in terror but she forced herself to smile, tasting his lips on her own. ‘Come,’ she said.

  Lying in darkness, in the moments before Mark came to her, Anna went over the steps that had led to this moment. The meal, the brittle laughter, the sudden avalanche of doubt. A taxi had brought them to his apartment overlooking Circular Quay. Without a word they had taken it for granted that was where they were going; Anna’s house was too far, peopled by too many discordant memories.

  Perhaps I shall sell it, she thought. If … But would not permit herself to consider ifs, or the future.

  For the whole journey she had sat, half-lying, while Mark cocooned her in gentle words. Now that taxi drivers had learned to cut themselves off from their passengers they had been private, almost secret in the darkness; he talked softly about nothing, kissing her tenderly before speaking again, everything so gentle that she felt herself rocked in a silken cradle of words and acceptance and hope, experienced again the yearning fulfilment of the music they had heard that afternoon.

  Now, lying in the dark, she remembered nothing of what Mark had said, only the texture of the tender words. That was all that mattered, that she should understand with both love and fear the language he had spoken, that henceforth they would speak together.

  A circle restored, she thought. A circle representing truth. The lost years mattered nothing now. She remembered her great-grandmother at the very end of her life, how in Anneliese’s case the circle had not been closed, how her last thoughts had been of the home from which she had been driven all those years before.

  From her Anna had learnt something of what truth meant, the sacrifices that truth demands. Pray God I am never put to such a test, she thought.

  At the end of her long road at last, Anneliese van der Merwe, born Anneliese Wolmarans, for sixty-six years known to the world as Anneliese Riordan, was dying.

  She had fought and fought, now had decided to fight no longer. It was her decision; she did not yield weakly to death but accepted it, calmly, as an equal. When she had been young, the horizons of her life had seemed boundless, filled with hope and glory and challenge. Over the years they had contracted, little by little, until all that now remained was the cessation of all things that must come soon.

  For the little time that was left, as long as her brain remained alert, it was important to remember all that had happened in her life.

  Because when death takes me, she thought, all the people and events that have made up my existence will cease also. It will be peaceful, like visiting friends. Or enemies. Her body had gone beyond the ability to smile, yet in her brain a smile flowered, resolute, derisive, unafraid. By all means, let me not forget my enemies.

  All the buildings I have known. Oudekraal and Uitkyk. Jack Riordan’s wooden house in the cold ranges; even now I can feel those splintery boards under my backside. The sugar plantation called Huntingdon. Paradise Downs. Finally this rotting house with the rags and tatters of my family about me; I, dying in the midst, as rotten as the house. The buildings, the thousands of nights on the road. A lifetime of sleeping, of lying awake. Of joy and regret, sorrow and anger. For what purpose? All roads end in death. What can joy or anger do about that?

  The people, too. Dominic, so much a man in Africa, yet of little substance after he had returned to his father’s shadow. Jack Riordan; that devil. Like none before or since, he had the power to draw the marrow from my bones. I was right to leave, yet the imprint of his body remains after all these years. I never loved him, hated him too much for that, but as a man of power he had my respect. Yes, indeed.

  Sean is his. Never would I admit it to a living soul, I cannot prove it even to myself, but I know. Sean, my blessing and my curse. He chewed up and spat out everyone who came in contact with him. Dermot, Sylvia, Scott.

  Dermot took refuge in flight, and died. There is peace in that knowledge, a cure for what had been a festering sore in my life.

  Sylvia, who thought to find security by raising barriers against the world — how clearly I could read her — but ended like the rest, broken on the iron wheel of Sean’s will.

  Even Scott Macdonald became his victim. Scott was a hard man but, after his son died, something died in him, too. Before the end, Scott had become Sean’s dog.

  I did what I could; after Dominic’s death, we came to each other in our loneliness. We found warmth without fire, consolation without enrichment. When, a year or two ago, I heard that a stroke had carried him off, I felt none of the desolation I had known after Dominic’s death.

  Dominic, whom I had threatened to abandon so many times, who in the end, through my neglect, abandoned me. After his death, I understood how full our existence together had been, rich with the juices of life. After Dominic, after Dermot, there remained only the winnowed husk of my being.

  Husk or not, I was the one person Sean could not break. I had loved him more than any other and, before the end, came to hate him with equal fervour. Sean needed to destroy in order to fulfil his own destiny. I would not let him destroy me. In time he came to hate me, too, because of it.

  I seldom think of my first husband, that blank page in my memory. As for Stoffel and Amalie … There are days when I hear their voices, a silent calling without words. I shall see them soon enough, if what the preachers tell us is true. I have always doubted, but am content to wait, having no choice.

  Sean’s daughter was as weakened as the rest by that ruthless man. All her life she has been ineffectual, fluttering, a butterfly with a broken wing. I should not despise her, but cannot help it; I have always despised weakness, in myself and in others. As a child she was never beautiful — you need strength for that — but pretty, like a picture on a chocolate box. I called her Rëen, as I have said. To everyone else she was Margaret. Call her what you will.

  She was born to be a victim. Her solitary act of rebellion was to flee from a brutal father into the arms of the weakest man in the Territory. Archer Fitzgerald, the eternal passer-by, a head rattling with dreams, devoid of the slightest ability or even inclination to put them into practice. Who in failure, eternally renewed, embraced the bottle, like so many of his kind. In drink found visions of splendour to bewitch himself.

  If Margaret was born to be a slave of life, Archer has become the slave of drink and vanity. A man — if that is what he is — of petulant rages, of tears. To this have the Wolmarans come.

  Almagtige God, thank you for Tamsin. This child, the last of my blood, will do what must be done. She must; certainly I cannot. I feel the steady dissolution of the flesh, even as my thoughts burn like coals.

  Tamsin is the one who will bring me back to Oudekraal.

  My spirit must return to the mountains of the Cape. It is too hot here; in those parts the snows lie late and, in winter, the cold strikes your flesh like a brand. The morning sun casts the mountain’s shadow across the vines. They are glossy green in summer, red as blood in autumn. I shall be at peace in that cold valley. This must happen, but how can it, while my body lies in another place? My thoughts whirl frantically, the sheet that imprisons my worn-out flesh clammy with anguish.

  Tamsin will do what must be done. Dermot could never have managed
it. Sean had the strength but not the inclination; everything Sean has ever done has been for Sean, no one else. I pitied that poor wife of his; a fine time he gave her. She’s gone too, now, all her worrying over, although she’s the sort who will worry even in Paradise. Another one with no strength. What’s the matter with modern people? The strength is leached out of them.

  The preachers go on and on about the meekness of the Lord. Don’t believe it. Could He have done all He did without strength?

  I have sinned, as we all have, and for my sins will doubtless find God’s punishment. I do not let thoughts of hell trouble me. What’s the use? Given the same circumstances, I would do everything again. I have told Him often enough. It’s your own fault, God. If you didn’t want me to behave the way I did, why did you make me the way I am? There is another thing I shall want to say to him. Surely, Lord, if you had been in my place, you would have done the same thing? You threw the money-changers out of the temple, and they were only doing their job. What would you have done about the Hennings?

  In the end, I miss none of them. Death consumes all. The one thing we do alone in our lives: the crossing of that bridge into eternal solitude. Two things matter, nothing else. Oudekraal. And Tamsin. Tamsin of the dark hair and flashing eyes. Would she have burnt the Hennings, in my place? Yes, she would; my throat chokes with pride because of it.

  My voice is too feeble to summon even ghosts, but I can still handle the bell beside the bed. I ring it now.

  Come, child. Before my eyes close for the last time, let me talk to you again of Oudekraal, the white gable amid the towering hills. Let me charge you once again with your duty.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Nicki had always heard that divorce was one of the most traumatic of experiences, but she hadn’t found it so bad. All the same, there were limits. After she’d been through the hoop twice, each one a catastrophe, she decided she was better off staying single. Why not? She had always liked to play the field, and now there was nothing to stop her.