by Various
Ford called out to Tricia, ‘Come on or we’ll be late.’
She got into the car, dropping her flowers on to the roadway. Ford had been going to leave her there, that was how much he wanted to be rid of her. Her body began to shake and she clasped her hands tightly together so that he couldn’t see. He had been going to drive away and leave her there to the darkness and the lions, the leopard that hunted by night. He had been driving away, only the Americans’ car had come along.
She was silent, thinking about it. The Americans turned back soon after they did and followed them up the dirt road. Impala stood around the solitary fever tree, listening perhaps to inaudible sounds or scenting invisible danger. The sky was smoky yellow with sunset. Tricia thought about what Ford must have intended to do – drive back to camp just before they closed the gates, watch the darkness come down, knowing she was out there, say not a word of her absence to anyone – and who would miss her? Eric? Malcolm? Ford wouldn’t have gone to the restaurant and in the morning when they opened the gates he would have driven away. No need even to check out at Ntsukunyane where you paid weeks in advance.
The perfect murder. Who would search for her, not knowing there was need for search? And if her bones were found? One set of bones, human, impala, waterbuck, looks very much like another when the jackals have been at them and the vultures. And when he reached home he would have said he had left her for Marguerite ...
He was nicer to her that evening, gentler. Because he was afraid she had guessed or might guess the truth of what had happened at Sotingwe?
‘We said we’d have champagne one night. How about now? No time like the present.’
‘If you like,’ Tricia said.
She felt sick all the time, she had no appetite. Ford toasted them in champagne.
‘To us!’
He ordered the whole gamut of the menu, soup, fish, Wiener schnitzel, crème brûlée. She picked at her food, thinking how he had meant to kill her. She would never be safe now, for having failed once he would try again. Not the same method perhaps but some other. How was she to know he hadn’t already tried? Perhaps, for instance, he had substituted aspirin for those quinine tablets, or when they were back at the hotel in Mombasa he might try to drown her. She would never be safe unless she left him.
Which was what he wanted, which would be the next best thing to her death. Lying awake in the night, she thought of what leaving him would mean – going back to live with her mother while he went to Marguerite. He wasn’t asleep either. She could hear the sound of his irregular wakeful breathing. She heard the bed creak as he moved in it restlessly, the air conditioner grinding, the whine of a mosquito.
Now, if she hadn’t already been killed, she might be wandering out there in the bush, in terror in the dark, afraid to take a step but afraid to remain still, fearful of every sound yet not knowing which sound most to fear. There was no moon. She had taken note of that before she came to bed and had seen in her diary that tomorrow the moon would be new. The sky had been overcast at nightfall and now it was pitch-dark. The leopard could see perhaps by the light of the stars or with an inner instinctive eye more sure than simple vision, and would drop silently from its branch to sink its teeth into the lifted throat.
The mosquito that had whined stung Ford in several places on his face and neck and on his left foot. He had forgotten to use the repellent the night before. Early in the morning, at dawn, he got up and dressed and went for a walk round the camp. There was no one about but one of the African staff, hosing down a guest’s car. Squeaks and shufflings came from the bush beyond the fence.
Had he really meant to rid himself of Tricia by throwing her, as one might say, to the lions? For a mad moment, he supposed, because fever had got into his blood, poison into his veins. She knew, he could tell that. In a way it might be all to the good, her knowing; it would show her how hopeless the marriage was that she was trying to preserve.
The swellings on his foot, though covered by his sock, were making the instep bulge through the sandal. His foot felt stiff and burning and he became aware that he was limping slightly. Supporting himself against the trunk of a fever tree, his skin against its cool, dampish, yellow bark, he took off his sandal and felt his swollen foot tenderly with his fingertips. Mosquitos never touched Tricia; they seemed to shirk contact with her pale dry flesh.
She was up when he hobbled in; she was sitting on her bed, painting her fingernails. How could he live with a woman who painted her fingernails in a game reserve?
They didn’t go out till nine. On the road to Waka-suthu, Eric’s car met them, coming back.
‘There’s nothing down there for miles, you’re wasting your time.’
‘Okay,’ said Ford. ‘Thanks.’
‘Sotingwe’s the place. Did you see the leopard yesterday?’ Ford shook his head. ‘Oh, well, we can’t all be lucky.’
Elephants were playing in the river at Hippo Bridge, spraying each other with water and nudging heavy shoulders. Ford thought that was going to be the high spot of the morning until they came upon the kill. They didn’t really see it. The kill had taken place some hours before, but the lioness and her cubs were still picking at the carcass, at a blood-blackened rib cage.
They sat in the car and watched. After a while the lions left the carcass and walked away in file through the grass, but the little jackals were already gathered, a pack of them, posted behind trees. Ford came back that way at four and by then the vultures had moved in, picking the bones.
It was a hot day of merciless sunshine, the sky blue and perfectly clear. Ford’s foot was swollen to twice its normal size. He noticed that Tricia hadn’t left the car that day, nor had she spoken girlishly to him or giggled or given him a roguish kiss. She thought he had been trying to kill her, a preposterous notion really. The truth was he had only been giving her a fright, teaching her how stupid it was to flout the rules and leave the car. Why should he kill her, anyway? He could leave her, he would leave her and once they were back in Mombasa he would tell her so. The thought of it made him turn to her and smile. He had stopped by the clearing where the fever tree stood, yellow of bark, delicate and fern-like of leaf, in the sunshine like a young sapling in springtime.
‘Why don’t you get out any more?’
She faltered, ‘There’s nothing to see.’
‘No?’
He had spotted the porcupine with his naked eye but he handed her the binoculars. She looked and she laughed with pleasure. That was the way she used to laugh when she was young, not from amusement but delight. He shut his eyes.
‘Oh, the sweetie porky-pine!’
She reached on to the back seat for the camera. And then she hesitated. He could see the fear, the caution, in her eyes. Silently he took the key out of the ignition and held it out to her on the palm of his hand. She flushed. He stared at her, enjoying her discomfiture, indignant that she should suspect him of such baseness.
She hesitated but she took the key. She picked up the camera and opened the car door, holding the key on its fob in her left hand and the camera in her right. He noticed she hadn’t passed the strap of the camera, his treasured Pentax, round her neck. For the thousandth time he could have told her but he lacked the heart to speak. His swollen foot throbbed and he thought of the long days at Ntsukunyane that remained to them. Marguerite seemed infinitely far away, farther even than at the other side of the world where she was.
He knew Tricia was going to drop the camera some fifteen seconds before she did so. It was because she had the key in her other hand. If the strap had been round her neck it wouldn’t have mattered. He knew how it was when you held something in each hand and lost your grip or your footing. You had no sense then, in that instant, of which of the objects was valuable and mattered and which did not. Tricia held on to the key and dropped the camera. The better to photograph the porcupine, she had mounted on to the twisted roots of a tree, roots that looked as hard as a flight of stone steps.
She gave a little
cry. At the sounds of the crash and the cry the porcupine erected its quills. Ford jumped out of the car, wincing when he put his foot to the ground, hobbling through the grass to Tricia who stood as if petrified with fear of him. The camera, the pieces of camera, had fallen among the gnarled, stone-like tree roots. He dropped on to his knees, shouting at her, cursing her.
Tricia began to run. She ran back to the car and pushed the key into the ignition, the car was pointing in the direction of Thaba and the clock on the dashboard shelf said five thirty-five. Ford came limping back waving his arms at her, his hands full of broken pieces of camera. She looked away and put her foot hard down on the accelerator.
The sky was clear orange with sunset, black bars of the coming night lying on the horizon. She found she could drive when she had to, even though she couldn’t pass a test. A mile along the road she met the American couple. The boy put his head out.
‘Anything worth going down there for?’
‘Not a thing,’ said Tricia. ‘You’d be wasting your time.’
The boy turned his car round and followed her back. It was two minutes to six when they entered Thaba, the last cars to do so, and the gates were closed behind them.
Parking Space
Simon Brett
‘Your wife tells me you’re going to take up shooting,’ said Alex Paton, during a lull in the dinner party conversation.
Kevin Hooson-Smith flashed a look of annoyance at his wife, Avril, but smiled casually and responded, ‘Well, thought it might be rather fun. You know, at some point. When I’ve got time for a proper weekend hobby. Old Andersen keeps us at it so hard at the moment, I think that may be a few years hence.’
He laughed heartily to dissipate the subject, but Alex Paton wasn’t going to let it go. ‘But Avril said you’d actually bought a shotgun.’
‘Well …’ Kevin shrugged uncomfortably. ‘Useful thing to have. You know, if the opportunity came up for a bit of shooting, one wouldn’t want to say, No, sorry, no can do, no gun.’ He laughed again, hoping the others would join in. Surely he’d got the words right. If Alex Paton or Philip Wilkinson had said that, the other would certainly have laughed. But they didn’t, so he had to continue. ‘You shoot at all, Alex?’
‘Not much these days. Pop off the occasional rabbit if I go down to the country to see Mother. Father left me his pair of Purdey’s, which aren’t bad. What make was the gun you got, Kevin?’
‘Oh, I forget the name. Foreign.’
‘Dear, dear. Some evil continental pop-gun.’ They all laughed at that.
‘Absolutely,’ said Kevin. At least he’d got that right. ‘More wine, Alex?’
‘Thank you.’
‘It’s a seventy-one – Pommard.’
‘I noticed.’
Kevin busied himself with dispensing wine to his guests, but Alex was still not deflected from the subject. ‘Avril said she thought you were going off shooting this weekend ...’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe. Will you have a little more, Elizabeth? Fine. No, I saw something about one of these weekend teaching courses, you know, in shooting ... We all have to learn some time, don’t we?’ Kevin laughed again.
‘Oh yes,’ Alex agreed. ‘If we don’t already know.’
Philip Wilkinson came kindly into the pause. ‘You know, anyone who’s keen on shooting ought to chat up that new girl who’s just started cooking the directors’ lunches. Davina Whatsername ...’
‘Entick,’ Kevin supplied.
‘Yes. Her old man’s Sir Richard Entick.’
Alex Paton was impressed. ‘Really? I hadn’t made that connection. Well, he’s got some of the best shooting in the country. Yes, keep on chatting her up, Kevin.’
Kevin laughed again, but again alone. They were silent, though there was quite a lot of noise from the cutlery. Avril hoped the steak wasn’t too tough. She had done it exactly as the cordon bleu monthly part-work had said. Well, except that had said best grilling steak, but the best was so expensive. The stuff she had got had been expensive enough. She was sure it was all right.
Maybe they weren’t talking because they were too busy eating. Enjoying it. The other two wives hadn’t said much all evening. Maybe the wives of stockbrokers from Andersen Small weren’t expected to say anything. Well, she wasn’t going to be totally silent and submissive. Particularly with an empty wine glass. ‘Hey, Kev, you missed me out on your rounds. Could I have a bit more wine?’
Kevin somewhat ungraciously pushed the wine bottle towards her.
‘Kev,’ Alex Paton repeated. ‘That’s rather an attractive coining.’
Kevin was immediately on the defensive. Though he smiled, Avril recognised the tension in his jaw muscles. ‘Actually, the name Kevin is quite old. Came across something about it the other day. Means “handsome birth”. There was a St Kevin way back in the sixth century. A hermit, I think. In Ireland.’
‘Ah,’ murmured Alex Paton. ‘In Ireland.’
They all laughed at that, though neither Kevin nor Avril could have said exactly why. Emboldened by his success, Alex Paton went on, ‘And tell me, what about Hooson-Smith? Does that name go back to the sixth century?’
After the laugh that greeted that one, they were all silent again. Kevin didn’t start any new topic of conversation, so Avril decided it was her duty as hostess to speak. The sound of a car at the front of the house provided her cue.
‘I bet that’s our next door neighbour moving his car. You know, he’s really strange. Very petty. He gets terribly upset if he can’t park his car exactly outside his front door. And I mean exactly. We have known him to get up at three in the morning and move it, if he hears someone moving theirs and leaving a space. I mean, isn’t that ridiculous? It’s no trouble just to walk a couple of yards, but he always wants to be exactly outside. I hope we never get as petty as that.’
They were all looking at her. She didn’t know why. Maybe she had spoken rather louder than usual. She felt relaxed by the wine. It had been a long day. All the usual vexations of the children and tidying the house and then, on top of that, cooking this dinner party. Kevin insisted that everything had to be just so for his colleagues from Andersen Small. She didn’t really see why. It was not as if they had ever been invited to them. And the wives didn’t seem real, just exquisitely painted clothes-horses, not real women who you could have a good natter with.
Alex Paton broke the pause and responded to her speech. ‘Yes, well, fortunately that’s a problem we don’t have to cope with. We are blessed with a rather quaint, old-fashioned device called a garage.’
After the laugh, Philip Wilkinson started talking about the intention of Andersen Small to open an office in Manila, and the attention moved away from Avril.
Only Kevin was still looking at her. She seemed to see him through a swimmy haze. And there was no love in his expression.
‘I don’t like to leave the washing-up till the morning, Kev.’
‘Well, do it now, if you feel that strongly about it.’ He was already out of his suit and unbuttoning the silk shirt that had been a special offer in the Observer. ‘All I know is, it’s after one and I have a heavy day tomorrow. I have a long costing meeting with Andersen first thing.’
‘I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow too.’
‘Having coffee with some other under-employed woman, then tea with someone else.’
‘No, not that. I’ve hardly met anyone since we’ve been in Dulwich. Not like it was in Willesden.’
‘Equally the people here are rather different than those there were in Willesden. Better for the boys to grow up with.’ Kevin was now down to his underpants. He turned away from her to take them off, as if ashamed.
‘But the boys don’t grow up with them. They spend all their time travelling back and forth to that bloody private school and don’t seem to make any friends.’
‘Don’t say “bloody”. It makes you sound more Northern than ever.’
‘Well, I am bloody Northern, aren’t I?’
‘T
here’s no need to rub everyone’s face in it all the time, though, is there?’
‘Anyway, I’m no more Northern than you are. I just haven’t tarted up my vowels and started talking in a phoney accent that all my posh friends laugh at.’
‘They do not laugh at me!’ Kevin was dangerously near the edge of violence.
Avril bit back her rejoinder. No, calm down. She hadn’t wanted the evening to end like this. She lingered in front of the dressing table, unwilling to start removing her make-up. It had used to be a signal between them. Well, more than a signal. She would start to remove her make-up and he would say, ‘Come on, time enough for that. We’ve got more important things to do’, and pull her down on to the bed. Now he rarely seemed to think they had more important things to do. Now, she felt, he wouldn’t notice if she never even put on any make-up.
He was in his pyjamas and under the duvet, his back unanswerably turned to her side of the bed. (Why a duvet? She hated it. She loved the secure strapped-in feeling of sheets and blankets, the tight little cocoon their bed had been back in the flat in Willesden.)
Then she remembered their new chore. ‘Have you potted James?’
‘No.’
‘But I thought we’d agreed you’d do it.’
‘You may have agreed that. I haven’t agreed anything. Anyway, it’s ridiculous, a child of six needing to be potted.’
‘If he isn’t, he wets the bed.’
‘If he is, he still seems to wet it. It’s ridiculous.’
‘It’s only since he’s been at that new school.’
‘I don’t see what that has to do with it.’
‘It has everything to do with it. He hates it there. He hates how all the other boys make fun of him, hates how they imitate his accent.’
