by Tony Salter
‘Very pleased to meet you, Joseph,’ said Simon, reaching out his hand.
‘And you too, Mr Simon,’ said Joseph, shaking Simon’s hand firmly. ‘We’re all very excited to have you here.’
As the Mercedes glided past the huge, stone gateposts, the driveway stretched through immaculate vineyards and up the gentle slope of the hill. Perfect white roses dotted the end of each row, but there were no buildings in sight.
‘Is this all part of the estate?’ said Simon, struggling not to be impressed.
‘I said it was big,’ said Shuna, smiling.
‘Yes, but not this big,’ said Simon.
‘Two thousand, four hundred and thirty-six hectares,’ said Joseph, as the car reached the top of the hill and the house, gardens and lake unfolded below.
Shuna would always remember that moment. After ten years away she’d forgotten how beautiful Kleinbosch really was.
‘I was wondering if we might have the wedding here?’ Shuna had found her mother on the front lawn, pruning her already-immaculate rose bushes. It was already the second day and, despite an excess of polite formality, things were going better than Shuna had expected. Even the announcement that she and Simon were engaged hadn’t provoked the expected reaction.
Shuna’s mother didn’t turn away from her roses, but Shuna could see her back and shoulders stiffen. She’d known this would be a bad idea, but Simon had been insistent; he’d fallen in love with the place. The pruning shears carried on, moving almost by themselves and with practiced ease while the dead heads dropped to the ground soundlessly.
At last, Shuna’s mother turned and looked at her. ‘Do you know how long our family has lived here?’ she said.
‘Of course I do, Mum. That’s a stupid, rhetorical question.’
‘It may not be such a big deal in England, but traditions and family count here. That’s what has held us together through good times and bad.’
‘I get that, but I still don’t see your point.’
‘The idea of a family holding an estate like this in stewardship through the generations is important. Especially these days.’
‘I know you believe that. I’m not quite as convinced, but I understand,’ said Shuna. ‘And what do you mean by “especially these days”?’
‘I know we don’t see eye-to-eye on these matters, but surely you can see that the country is falling apart? And what can anyone expect with a string of self-declared terrorists running the show?’
Shuna took a deep breath. ‘I’m not going to dignify that with a response, Mum,’ she said, suddenly wanting to be far, far away. ‘I was only asking if we could have the wedding here.’
‘… And I was trying to explain how much it saddens me that I will be the last of our line to look after Kleinbosch.’
Shuna could feel the old frustrations reach critical mass as she listened to her mother’s self-aggrandising bigotry. ‘Isn’t that up to you? I’m sorry that you don’t have a son to carry on the line, but it’s not my fault I’m female.’
Her mother’s eyes flared wide. ‘Do you think I care about not having a son? My parents lost both of my brothers in the war, but it didn’t matter. I was there, and I’ve taken care of Kleinbosch as well as any man.’ A lone airplane flew low overhead, and she took a long breath. ‘I always thought I would have you, but you had other ideas.’
‘But we haven’t talked about this, Mum. I never said that I was leaving for good. I know it’s been years, but I’ve enjoyed my time away and there’s nothing wrong with seeing the world.’
‘Of course there isn’t, and I’ve never expected you to come home twice a year. It’s just that everything’s changed now.’
‘What do you mean changed?’ said Shuna. ‘The government and the economy will sort themselves out. Zuma can’t last for ever.’
‘I don’t really care about the government. We’ve dealt with worse and we’ll deal with this one.’ She paused and looked at Shuna with something almost approaching affection. ‘Do I really need to spell it out, darling?’
Shuna had been away too long and had allowed herself to believe that things had moved on. ‘Spell what out?’ she said. ‘If you’ve got something to say, just say it.’
‘All right,’ said her mother, dropping the shears and taking Shuna’s shoulders in her hands. ‘Let’s speak plainly. You’re a grown woman and you make your own choices, and so do I. Simon seems nice enough, but he’s black. I’m sorry darling, but no-one – living or dead – would forgive me if I allowed a kaffir to be master of Kleinbosch. Surely you can see that?’
Shuna could still remember the white hot flash of anger which actually blinded her for a couple of seconds. How could she have been so stupid? She’d known deep inside that her mother would never change, but it had been so much easier to believe that she might. Too angry even to scream and shout, she twisted out of her mother’s grasp and ran down to the edge of the lake.
Simon found her two hours later, still sitting on the damp grass looking at the ducks and listening to the wind rustling the leaves of the gum trees.
‘I’ve been looking for you all over,’ he said. ‘I spent a couple of hours working in the winery. It’s amazing.’
‘We need to leave,’ said Shuna, ‘Now.’
Simon knelt in front of her. ‘What’s wrong, darling,’ he said. ‘What happened?’
‘I really don’t want to talk about it. It’s just me and my mum. I can’t stand it.’
‘But she seems really nice,’ said Simon. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘You don’t need to understand. This is my problem. You just need to help me pack and get us a taxi. We’ll find a hotel in Cape Town.’ She stood up, pulling Simon with her. ‘Please.’
And that had been that. They were in a taxi less than an hour later and Shuna had never been back to South Africa.
She hadn’t even gone to her father’s funeral a year later; her mother had insisted that he be buried in the family cemetery at Kleinbosch even though Shuna had told her repeatedly that he wanted his ashes scattered from the East Head at Knysna. Words had been spoken, words that couldn’t be unspoken and Shuna had cancelled her flight.
She would never forgive herself – or her mother – for that.
Dan
The last Vicodin was taking its time and Dan’s breath was coming in short, tight gasps through clenched teeth. It was supposed to be fast acting, for Christ’s sake.
After a few minutes, he felt the pain ease back like a resentful tiger cowed by cracks of the tamer’s whip; it would return, but each time it slunk back into its cage, he was a little more grateful – and a little more fearful of the next time.
Rachel wouldn’t be long – she was the most reliable person he’d ever met – and Dan sighed gently as he sank back against the smooth mahogany. He felt his breathing returning to normal and his eyelids sagged lazily as he enjoyed the sensation. For a few moments he was able to forget what was growing inside him.
His head sank forward and the in-out, in-out of his gentle snoring was as soft as the memories of the sea inside a beachcombed shell.
Dan could feel the Texas sun beating down as he stood like an island in the sea of people. The noise was overwhelming; the organisers had loudhailers, the police had loudhailers and the voice of the mob was louder than either.
The girl had disappeared, and the crowd was surging back and forth against the police lines with increasing anxiety. Dan came to his senses and pushed his way through the tangle of bodies into the main building; he must have then found his way to the library on autopilot.
He couldn’t free his thoughts from the moment when she’d handed him the leaflet; it was replaying itself over and over and over in an almost-hysterical mental loop. Had their fingers actually touched? He thought so. Had she felt the jolt of energy surge through her as well? He hoped so. Was he just behaving like an overworked fool? Probably.
He spread the crumpled sheets of paper out on the table in front of him. They wer
e trying to promote the big march on Washington that everyone seemed to be talking about. The arguments were well-written and self-evident and Dan found himself stuck on one section
WHY WE MARCH
We march to address old grievances and to help resolve an American crisis.
That crisis is born of the twin evils of racism and economic deprivation. They rob all people, Negro and White, of dignity, self respect and freedom. They impose a special burden on the Negro who is denied the right to vote, economically exploited, refused access to public accommodations, subjected to inferior education and relegated to substandard ghetto housing.
Discrimination in education and apprenticeship training renders Negros, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans and other minorities helpless in our mechanized, industrial society.
It was so obvious. How could this country, supposedly a beacon of light to the world, still be treating so many of its citizens with less respect than had been shown to nineteenth century Russian serfs?
There was a blue stamp on the back cover:
UT Organising Committee meeting - Tuesday 2nd June, 7:00 p.m. at the Riverbend Church. Come and register your support.
Dan had gone to the meeting of course.
He convinced himself that he went to show solidarity, but it was all about the girl. During the days after the demo, he’d not stopped thinking about her. He couldn’t sleep more than an hour or two in the night; all food tasted dry and barren in his mouth and burned acid in his stomach and a constant “she loves me, she loves me not” pendulum swing threw him back and forth between joy and despair hundreds of times a day. As always, Dostoevsky had it right –‘To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise’.
At first he’d been terrified she wouldn’t be there. He would probably have been beaten to a pulp if he’d walked up to one of those passionate, inflamed activists and said ‘Do you remember a girl from the demonstration last week. Mexican-looking, black hair, brown eyes …? She was handing out leaflets.’
But, if she hadn’t walked through that door at a quarter past seven, he would have walked up to every last one of them and damn the consequences.
Dan hadn’t been able to talk to her straight away as the meeting had already started. Four or five African Americans, or Blacks as they were still known back then, had stood up in turn and described their lives. The purpose wasn’t to pick out extreme examples – no stories of rapes or Klan lynchings – but rather the struggles and indignities of ordinary daily life.
As he sat there, Dan realised how easily he’d turned a blind eye to the reality around him, hiding behind his smug Canadian liberalness. For half an hour, he almost forgot why he was there as he let the simple, eloquent truths flow through him.
Almost forgot, but not quite. He thought he saw her look at him once or twice, but it may have been wishful thinking.
She was sitting behind a long trestle table, along with two others, taking down the names and contact details of everyone who wanted to march on Washington in August. As Dan took his turn and scribbled his name with hesitant fingers, he looked up. She was more beautiful than he’d imagined; his memory had served him poorly.
When he’d finished writing, he held out his hand. ‘I’m Dan,’ he said, leaning against the table for balance as the adrenalin coursed through his veins.
‘Rosa,’ she said, looking him in the face with no hint of shyness. ‘Pleased to meet you, Dan.’
‘Could I …? Could I … speak to you afterwards,’ he said. He could hear his voice was trembling even more than it had when he’d invited Angela Babinski to the High School Prom.
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘I’ll be half an hour or so.’
Nadia
Nadia had made an effort that morning – smart trousers, sky-blue silk blouse and a half-length jacket from Hobbs. By her usual work standards, she was dressed up, although after six months wearing nothing but shalwar kameez and dupatta, anything normal was an improvement.
Her usual standards were clearly not up to South Kensington expectations and, as she walked into the restaurant, she felt as though every eye was on her – she was slim, fit and pretty enough but, as she looked around the room, there was no doubt that she was coming up short. As for Ed, with his floppy, badly cut hair and crumpled jacket, the two of them might as well have been wearing flashing lights on their heads.
She’d forgotten what it was like. Her civil servant’s salary was just enough to cover a small flat in Balham, but once upon a time South Ken had been home. Nadia had spent her teenage years living with her aunt in Onslow Mews and, for seven years she’d studied at the French Lycee just up the road from Muriel’s Kitchen.
Leila – calling her Auntie Leila was strictly forbidden – was her mother’s younger sister although it was difficult to imagine they came from the same family. Nadia’s mother hadn’t been a strict traditionalist – she’d married a Catholic Frenchman after all – but no-one would ever have accused her of being a rebel either; she’d been modest and sensible, well-educated without showing it, conservative with a small “c”, full of fun without needing to be the life and soul of the party and devout without making it a big deal.
Leila couldn’t have been more different. She was much too young to be a true child of the ’60s, but that didn’t stop her trying to be. Her frizzy hair hadn’t seen a headscarf since the day she left Lebanon and she wore her intellectual feminist credentials proudly on her sleeve. She smoked weed in front of teenage Nadia, probably took cocaine when her niece wasn’t around and seemed to believe that the best way to get even with the patriarchy was to party harder and sleep around more than most men.
As for her faith, it seemed to Nadia that Leila was only really Moslem when it suited her. Religion for her was like an umbrella or one of the Burberry trench coats she loved so much. When the sun was shining, it would sit alone at the back of the cupboard, but when it rained …
Strip away all the over-intellectualised bullshit and Leila was, even at forty, not much more than a selfish child who loved to party. A million miles from the mother figure Nadia had missed and needed. That had been clearer than ever the last time they’d seen each other face-to-face.
Leila had flounced into Nadia’s bedroom while she was knee deep in history revision.
‘Nadia?’ she’d said. ‘Nadia, darling?’
Nadia had looked up and seen the make-up and excited eyes. Leila was off partying again by the looks of her … And then Nadia saw the two big bags in the hall behind her.
‘What’s going on, Leila?’ she’d said, smelling the tension fill the room like ozone after a lightning storm. ‘What’s with the suitcases?’
‘Well, sweetie. The thing is … the thing is … I know you’ve got your A-levels coming up, but I’ve been offered this amazing job with Vogue in New York …’
And then, as Nadia sat stunned silent in her chair, it all came out. Leila had a car waiting for her outside and was leaving immediately. The flat was paid for until the summer and Leila had transferred five hundred pounds to Nadia’s bank account. After that, she would come into a small inheritance on her eighteenth birthday and would be, quite literally, on her own.
‘But you can’t just leave,’ Nadia had said as reality started to bite. ‘Who’s going to look after me? You promised Mama that if anything happened to her …’
‘… And I have looked after you,’ said Leila. ‘For seven years. I’ve done my best, but you’re almost grown up now and I need to get back to my own life.’
‘You can’t,’ sobbed Nadia. ‘It’s not right. It’s not fair.’
Leila had walked over to her, taken her face in both hands and smiled. ‘You’re so much like your mother,’ she’d said. ‘Always looking for justice and honour.’ She’d dropped her arms to her sides and stepped backwards. ‘You need to learn that life isn’t fair. People are bastards and you have to step up and take what you want or you’ll always be screwed over.’
And with that, she’d walked out and left Nadia
alone in the flat, six weeks before her A-levels.
Nadia tried not to think about that time. A part of her had wanted to break the world with her anger – to drink, to sleep with every boy in her class, to trash the beautiful flat, to forget about her A-levels and university. To show Leila the consequences of being a stupendously selfish bitch.
Unfortunately – or fortunately – Leila had been right. Nadia was her mother’s daughter and, in spite of the loneliness and pain, she’d done none of those things. She’d studied hard and had won her place at Oxford as planned.
But, as she packed her bags and locked up the flat for the last time, she’d made herself a promise. She would leave that self-absorbed privileged world behind her, start a new life and never look back.
Nothing about South Kensington had changed while she’d been away; even though Muriel’s Kitchen hadn’t existed back then, the local clientele was the same. It wouldn’t have surprised her to find out she’d been at school with half of these women.
They hadn’t changed, but Nadia had. It wasn’t much more than ten years since she’d left, but Nadia looked around and struggled to believe that the younger version of herself had ever really existed. What would she have thought of Nadia today? A different person leading a different life.
The middle-aged woman at the counter looked as though she might be the eponymous Muriel. She smiled at Nadia. ‘Can I help you?’
‘Yes. I hope so,’ said Nadia. ‘I’m from the police.’ She held out an ID card. ‘I’m in a bit of a hurry, I’m afraid. We’re looking for someone. This man.’ She showed the woman her phone with an image of Snowflake enhanced and blown up from the CCTV footage. ‘We believe he was in here earlier.’
