Jackal's Dance

by Beverley Harper

  He waved a tired hand and kept walking.

  She noticed he was quite good-looking.

  A roll in the hay

  And a bloody good lay,

  But hey, not today.

  ‘Bad girl.’ The airport, for some reason, was about fifty kilometres east of Windhoek. All she had to do was find her way into the capital and pick up the main road north. There might be a bypass. No point in getting lost – why not ask somebody? She rolled down her window and called to the man she’d nearly knocked down. ‘Excuse me.’

  He stopped and turned.

  ‘Which way is town?’

  He pointed to a sign she hadn’t noticed.

  ‘Thanks.’ Up went the window, its sunscreening tint hiding her grimace of embarrassment. He must think her blind as well as stupid. Felicity backed more cautiously this time, slid the gear into D for drive, and followed the road into Windhoek. More by good luck than anything else, she noticed signs for the B1 motorway and Okahandja. Pulling into a bus stop and consulting the map supplied with her vehicle, Felicity discovered the place. ‘Oka . . . what?’ At least it was the direction she wanted to go. Beyond that, if she stayed on the B1 she’d eventually reach Otjiwarongo. ‘How can people give places names like that?’

  ‘Hang a left at Otjiwarongo onto the C38. I can do that. Outjo to the Andersson gate, on through Okaukuejo rest camp and follow a dirt road around the pan to Logans Island. Piece of cake.’ She nearly jumped out of her skin when an impatient bus driver behind leaned on his horn. With a feeble wave of apology, Felicity did an illegal U-turn and swung left to pick up the B1.

  As she cleared the city suburbs, a feeling of freedom swept through her. This wasn’t so bad after all. She was in control of her own destiny, not tied to a husband who, if he didn’t get his own way, inevitably resorted to sarcastic sulking. The more Felicity thought about it, the more appealing her near-single status became. She could please herself from now on – eat, sleep, go, say, whenever, wherever, whatever she liked. Her clenched fist thumped the steering wheel. ‘Way to go. Yessss! I like it.’

  The sun was shining, her head as clear as the road, a spirit as free as the wide open land around her. Felicity wound down the driver’s window and opened the sun roof. Hot dry air had little impact on closely cropped blonde hair. A pair of Serengeti sunglasses protected her powder blue eyes. She sang, Kristofferson mainly, switching to Simon and Garfunkel before belting out a couple of Tina Turner numbers until her voice gave up.

  About two hours later, Felicity stopped at one of the numerous roadside resting places, deserted but for a shady tree, concrete table and rubbish bin. She stretched, went to the back and opened up her suitcase. Rummaging until she located a pair of shorts, Felicity dropped her slacks and changed, completely unconcerned about being on a main highway which, while it wasn’t busy, certainly carried enough traffic to make such an exercise daring. A bus passed, going in the opposite direction. The occupants waved enthusiastically, knowing they’d just missed a peepshow.

  Feeling more comfortable, and not giving a damn about her near miss, Felicity set off again. The vehicle’s all-terrain tyres made a monotonous whine on the tarred road.

  The song of tyres never expires

  But when they’re screaming it’s pretty demeaning.

  ‘Oh, Mr Nash, I do apologise.’

  Demeaning. Screaming. There’d been a bit of that around lately. The Turd – Felicity no longer thought of her nearly ex-husband by his given name. Martin Honeywell became The Turd simultaneously with an announcement that he was leaving her for his secretary. The Turd demeaned and she screamed. The Turd left and she stayed. The Turd moved in with his secretary and she wasn’t going to get him back. Nor did she want him back. But, oh Christ, through the courts she had made him pay!

  Here lies The Turd

  Shaken, not stirred

  Now that he’s broke

  He’s bloody absurd!

  The irreverence of Felicity’s mind poems were an escape valve, a way to reduce life and all its little oddities to one common denominator – humour. It was the way she had come to cope with things, both pleasant and unpleasant. When Martin left with one small overnight bag, saying, ‘I’ll come back for the rest tomorrow. It might be better if you weren’t here,’ and the front door closed behind him, she’d been powerless to stop herself.

  You can come back with monotonous regularity,

  But by morning, your things will have gone to a charity.

  They had too. In his cupboard, dangling from a coat hanger, all Martin found was a receipt from the Red Cross detailing their grateful acceptance of his possessions. He was not amused when they refused to return a single item, forcing him to buy back what hadn’t already been sold.

  As well as her ditties, Felicity had one other little quirk. She read number plates. A car was approaching. It had a South African registration, CFM1086. CFM. Cash from Martin. That pleased her.

  Questioning the relevance of her creative career, Felicity also had to face the reality of a new financial position. Who exactly read her poems? University students, literary pretenders and school children, that’s who. Royalty cheques were regular but would hardly keep her afloat. While married to The Turd she could pursue her passion for poetry. But now was rethink time. She had a reputation, a known name, a publisher, but they weren’t going to pay the bills. She’d discussed it with her agent, who was also a friend.

  ‘How about a novel?’ he suggested.

  ‘Fiction? That’s a novel idea.’ She’d grinned at him.

  ‘Seriously. You are fluent in English and Afrikaans, with a great command of both languages. There’s no reason why your words can’t flow in narrative just as beautifully as they do in your poems. Think of it as a career extension.’

  So that’s what she was doing. The idea was daunting. In poetry she could flit from one subject to another. Her poems could be two-liners or carry on for pages. A novel was so different. Sticking to the same theme for perhaps one hundred and forty thousand words. Could she do it?

  Felicity put the idea on hold while she wrestled with the complexities that inevitably accompany the break-up of a lengthy relationship. It was an acrimonious settlement and she admitted to being the main cause of dissension. It was all very well for The Turd’s lawyer to claim, ‘My client only wants to do what’s best. Sell the house then split the money and all possessions down the middle.’

  ‘What am I expected to do with half a dog?’ Felicity demanded when her attorney repeated Martin’s oh-so-smug let’s-be-reasonable suggestion.

  The man didn’t know her very well and found such lack of respect for the law disconcerting. ‘I’m sure he doesn’t mean it literally.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, I was joking. You deal with it. But I want the front half.’

  Through their respective representatives, Felicity and Martin went head-to-head over the small issues while bigger ones went through uncontested, although Felicity made damned sure that the lion’s share went to her. She found within herself an unexpected capacity for retributory nitpicking. It drove The Turd nuts. She was actually having a bloody good time at his expense. Sweetly agreeing, ‘Of course he can have the Mercedes, it’s his car after all,’ Felicity dug her toes in over Martin’s precious and much-prized collection of classical music. She had plans for those old 78s, collector’s items or not. They would make excellent clay-pigeons for target practice. They had too, and Felicity posted the pieces she could find to Martin’s office.

  Temporary insanity, triggered by a sense of humiliation, had made Felicity Honeywell the nearly ex-wife from hell. She knew it, but was having too much fun to stop. Seventeen years of turning a blind eye to The Turd’s numerous indiscretions – now she wanted blood.

  With the legal wrangling all but complete – Martin got the dog but only because Felicity knew his secretary bred Siamese cats and Fido detested felines with a fervour bordering on psychotic – Felicity decided it was time to grow up again. Her attention
turned back to the immediate future and the question of a novel.

  Scanning a Sunday newspaper she’d noticed an advertisement for Etosha National Park. ‘Why not treat yourself? Get into the bush and clear your head? Wipe the slate and start again?’ Without thinking it through she booked a flight, hire car and accommodation. Five days. Within that time she expected to make a decision. In five short days she might veer off into another creative genre, though God knows which, or she might stop writing altogether. No. Not quite. Words burned in her head and she had to put them on paper. The thought of never writing again was too frightening to contemplate.

  A faster vehicle pulled out and overtook her. She wasn’t sure, but its driver looked like the man she’d nearly run over.

  Philip Meyer glanced at the blonde as he swept past. It was the woman who had nearly backed into him at the airport. She drove casually, arm resting on the open window, left hand low on the steering wheel. Head back, not fussed by the wind in her short cropped hair. Philip liked windswept women almost as much as he approved of those who got their hair wet when they swam.

  Sue had never put her head under water. She swam in a ridiculous sideways doggy-paddle, neck stretched out, head sticking up, like a seal searching for land. Philip smiled. Hair had been her only vanity. Everybody should be allowed at least one.

  Philip pressed down on the accelerator and his vehicle pulled away. Attractive, he thought. The notion surprised him. He hadn’t really noticed anyone in that way since Sue died.

  This would be Philip’s third trip to Etosha. The first without his wife. A nostalgic tracing of the past to see how it affected him. A test of how far he’d come over the past twenty months. An author’s mind had to probe emotion, even if it was his own. Philip knew what he was doing. He was drawn to extremes, fascinated by the workings of hearts and minds. How ordinary people reacted to extraordinary circumstances had always intrigued him. And since he was prepared to explore other people’s pain, he could not shirk examining his own, no matter how much it hurt.

  Sue had loved Namibia. She should have been with him now, devouring the scenery, excitedly anticipating that at any moment something wild would come into view. On her first visit she expressed disappointment that elephants and lion were nowhere to be seen.

  ‘This is cattle country,’ Philip had explained, smiling at her enthusiasm. ‘The popular concept that Africa is crawling with wild animals is a bit over-the-top. Once was, but not any more. These days you won’t see much outside the reserves.’

  ‘Oh.’ She had been dismayed. ‘Like in zoos?’

  Philip laughed. ‘If you like to call twenty thousand square kilometres a zoo, then yes.’

  ‘It’s just that I thought . . .’

  ‘That you’d see lion walking down the main street of Windhoek?’

  ‘No.’ She hit his arm playfully. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Let me put it this way, darling. You stand as much chance of seeing elephants on someone’s farm as you do of being hit on the head by a stray boomerang in Australia. Don’t worry, though. You’ll see plenty of game in Etosha.’

  She did. And fell in love with Africa. ‘How could you bear to leave all this?’

  Philip was South African. Like so many of his countrymen, he’d emigrated to Australia some twenty years earlier as a kind of personal protest against the government’s policy of apartheid. He could see that if change ever did come it was still a long way off with a lot more suffering still ahead. He’d met Sue shortly after arriving in her country. They married and settled in Sydney. Philip’s first book, published a few years later, was an instant success. He gave up his job as a journalist and became a full-time author, contracted to one new book a year. Taking on Australian citizenship, Philip was perfectly happy in his adopted country.

  Their first trip to Etosha had been Sue’s idea. She wanted to see Africa. Philip was reluctant to visit South Africa, having heard reports that the level of violence had changed his country of birth beyond recognition. However, he did agree that his wife should experience Africa at least once. So they settled on Namibia.

  ‘I never said this continent wasn’t special,’ he’d said in response to her question. ‘But it has a lot of problems and I’m happy where I am.’

  Sue found the lump on her left breast shortly after they returned home. A biopsy confirmed their worst fears. A radical mastectomy and six months of chemotherapy followed, but the cancer had already spread to her bone marrow. When it became obvious that Sue would not recover, she told Philip that if there was one thing she wanted, it was another look at Etosha. Two months after that second trip, Sue was dead.

  Philip shifted his thoughts back to the present. He wondered if his friend Dan Penman was still at Logans Island. He hoped so. They’d found a sort of kindred spirit. Well, they certainly shared the same spirit. Two bottles of J&B, if Philip remembered correctly. A litre and a half of Scotland’s finest and the drunken, weeping revelation burst from him that his wife was dying of cancer.

  The alcohol released a need to tell someone. Of all the people it might have been, Dan seemed an odd choice. A total stranger who didn’t say much and gave the impression of being a loner. But Philip, as an observer of human nature, his mind liberated of everything but instinct, sensed he’d never meet a better person in whom to confide all those things he kept hidden inside. He dumped it all on Dan – the fear, anger, pain, sense of betrayal, wishing it were over, dying inside himself as Sue grew thinner and weaker, hating her for being vulnerable, despising himself for feeling that way. And above all, he spoke of the loneliness that had settled around his heart, a dull ache, even though he was not yet alone.

  Dan heard him out in absolute silence. When Philip was finally empty of words, all he said was, ‘I had someone taken from me once, a long time ago. I know what you’re going through.’

  It was all Philip needed to hear. Someone understood.

  Dan’s understanding was a kind of sharing. Even though they lived in different worlds, Philip drew strength from the friendship. It helped him through those last few terrible weeks. He sent Dan a note telling him that Sue had finally given up the fight. He received no reply. He hadn’t expected one.

  Grief manifests itself in such unpredictable ways. Philip hadn’t cried at the funeral, hadn’t cried when he returned to the silent house. He’d waited a couple of weeks then gone through her clothes and personal possessions with almost clinical detachment. Mid-book when Sue died, he got straight back into writing, into another world. It was a typical Philip Meyer – a rollicking tale of the West Australian goldfields, of intrigue, lust, hate and love. Without even being aware that it was happening, his characters developed a depth he’d never found the necessity for in the past. Philip was passing on his grief through the people he was creating. Eight months ago, on a final re-read of the manuscript before sending it to his agent, Philip’s pent-up emotions surfaced. He suffered with his creations, their sorrows became his.

  A sensitive and intelligent man, Philip could see what had happened. He debated whether to post the manuscript or destroy it. He posted it. His publisher was elated. ‘You’ve entered a whole new phase, Philip. This is movie material. Best yet. It goes further than any of the others. It’s brilliant.’

  Philip knew he would never reach so deep inside himself again, but he said nothing. The book was scheduled for release in another month. Prepublication hype had retailers eagerly awaiting the latest Philip Meyer. Literary critics who received advance reading copies were already seeking press, radio and television interviews to coincide with the launch date. They were raving about it.

  Instead of taking his usual break while the manuscript went through the editing process, Philip had only allowed himself a week before starting work on the next novel. The raw emotion that emerged in his writing after Sue died scared him. Something different was needed. And so he decided to set the new book in Africa. The location would also give him a legitimate excuse to travel there for research. He’d al
ready created a swashbuckling, hairy-chested, seemingly indefatigable hero, a haughty, smell-like-lavender, never-go-to-the-toilet heroine, and a set of circumstances guaranteed to throw them into danger often enough to defy the laws of physics and still come up with an essential outcome of human chemistry. Working six to seven hours a day, six days a week, the story had romped along. And now, here he was, on his way to Etosha to finetune a few facts. So why was he thinking that a woman who had bloody nearly run him over was actually quite attractive?

  He wondered if she too was heading for Etosha. The vast game reserve had five different camps at least seventy kilometres apart so, even if she were, the chances of bumping into her were fairly remote. Philip was going to his favourite, Logans Island, which, along with the usual pool, bar and restaurant, offered five-star accommodation with all modern conveniences.

  How did he feel about finding a complete stranger attractive? The question was examined as honestly as he knew how. Grief, Philip concluded, doesn’t make you blind. But it most certainly does impose restraint on your actions. And for why? Guilt? Like, your dearly loved departed one cares? Get real! No, what it comes down to is the expectations of others. What others? Sue’s parents? My agent and publisher? A few friends? They’re all a long way from here. So what’s really holding you back?

  It suddenly hit Philip that his reluctance to explore the possibility of a relationship with someone else might have something to do with fear. A reluctance to let go. As if sharing intimacy with another woman could cause Sue to slip from the proximity of his memories. He wasn’t ready for that. Sue had been gone for nearly two years. At forty-two and extremely fit, Philip had perfectly normal sexual needs. When the urges became too strong to ignore, he simply relieved himself and went about his day. The idea of being with a woman for the same purpose would have meant cheating on Sue. Philip had always needed to like a partner before anything physical occurred between them. As a younger man, his friends had called him picky. But it wasn’t that. As far as he was concerned, the sexual act was such an intimate thing that the thought of indulging in it with a woman he felt nothing for held no appeal. Philip was happy with who and what he was. He saw no need to be one of the boys and chase after anything in a skirt. Now, for the first time since he’d been alone, some unknown blonde had stirred his interest. Perhaps he was being just a shade wimpish?