A Wedding at Leopard Tree Lodge

by Liz Fielding

  ‘Go on a walking safari in Botswana,’ she prompted when he stopped. Because that was where all this was leading. Here. To this riverbank.

  ‘A walking safari in Africa,’ he agreed. ‘I’d met someone at university whose father worked here for the diamond people. She’d raved about the Okavango delta, the birds, the wildlife and when I called her, asked for her advice, she invited me to visit, offered to be my guide.’

  She?

  ‘She brought me to the places she knew. We walked, camped, made notes. Made love.’

  Yes. Of course they had. She’d known it from the minute he’d said ‘she’.

  ‘On our last night, we pitched camp here. Cooked over an open fire, sat out beneath the stars and, as the moon rose, just like this, I caught the glint of a pair of eyes in a tree on the far side of the river. A leopard lying up, waiting for dawn to bring its prey to the water’s edge. We thought we were the watchers, but it must have been there all evening, watching us.’

  Josie felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She shivered, glanced nervously across the river as she remembered Marji saying that the area was famous for leopards.

  ‘Will it be there now?’

  ‘Not that one but a descendant will certainly be out there, somewhere close. It seemed like an omen. The walkers love the birds, the insects, everything, but everyone wants to see the cats.’

  ‘Do they?’ She gave a little shiver. ‘I love my little tabby, Cleo but I’m not sure about the big, man-eating kind.’

  ‘I’ll show you, tomorrow,’ he said.

  She didn’t bother to argue. Tell him that a London sparrow was about as exciting as she wanted the wildlife to get. She knew that this had nothing to do with her; she was just a conduit for his thoughts.

  ‘That’s why you built this lodge?’ she prompted. ‘Because of the leopard?’

  ‘Lissa…Lissa immediately spotted the potential for a permanent camp. A destination. Somewhere to mark the end of the journey, to relax after the walking, the hard camping in the wild.’

  Lissa.

  Beautiful? It was a name that fitted a beautiful woman. Elegant, sophisticated, unlike her own solid, workmanlike name.

  Interesting?

  And clever too, she thought with a pang of envy that tore at her heart. Not jealousy. She had no right to be jealous. But something in his voice invoked a longing to claim that special tenderness in his voice as he’d said Lissa’s name for herself.

  ‘I was thinking about something fairly basic. Tents with plumbing similar to those I’d seen at smaller campsites in Kenya,’ he said. ‘Lissa was dreaming up this.’

  He lifted a hand, no more than that, but it encompassed her vision.

  Beautiful, interesting, clever and he loved her…

  ‘She sounds like a very special woman,’ Josie said, doing her best to hold herself together. Trying not to think of the way his mouth had tasted, the way his body had fitted hers or how he’d told her there was no one waiting for him. That he was no different—

  ‘She was an extraordinary woman,’ he said. ‘She knew so much. When she was out here she seemed to feel things, notice things that I would have missed.’

  Was?

  No…

  He wasn’t looking at her now, but at the riverbank below them.

  ‘We opened a bottle of champagne on the day we drove in the first deck supports. Drank a glass, poured one on the hot earth in gratitude for letting us be here. Then I asked her to marry me.’

  Everything was beginning to fall into place and she didn’t want to hear it, hear his heart breaking. But it was equally obvious that this was why he was here. And why he was in such pain.

  He needed to talk and she had always known how to listen.

  ‘What happened, Gideon?’

  He turned from the river, looked directly at her.

  ‘I was here, overseeing the final work on the lodge. Bedding in the systems, testing everything, getting to know the staff. Lissa was at home, organising the wedding.’

  He turned away, looking across the water, but she doubted if he was seeing anything.

  ‘We were going to come here afterwards for our honeymoon. Just us, with the whole place to ourselves for a few days before the first guests arrived.’

  They’d have spent their honeymoon in the last tree house, she thought. As far as they could get from civilisation. Making love. Making a life. Watching the leopards watching them.

  ‘The communications systems had finally been installed and my first call was to let her know what flight I’d be on. She wanted to come and meet me but I told her to stay home in the warm, that I’d make my own way from the airport.’

  No…

  ‘I let myself in, called her name. When I didn’t get an answer I went upstairs. Checked all the rooms. She’d picked up her wedding dress and it was hanging up in the spare room in a white cover—’

  Her hand flew to her mouth as she tried to stifle the groan, but he didn’t hear her. It was clear that he was somewhere else, in another world, another life…

  ‘—and I was just thinking that she wouldn’t want me even that close before the big day when the doorbell rang. It was a policeman. Apparently, Lissa had decided to surprise me, meet my plane.’

  No, no, no… She didn’t want to hear this.

  ‘She must have been lying there on the freezing road, dying while I was travelling warm and dry on the train. If I hadn’t called… If I’d just got on the damn plane…’ Something snagged in his throat.

  ‘You’ve never been back here, have you?’ she asked.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Why now?’ she asked, not for her—she understood the need for closure—but for him. Because anyone with half a brain cell could see that this was the stress, the cause of all his pain. He’d locked up all that grief, blaming himself and it was breaking him apart. He needed to say the words, open up.

  ‘I had an offer for the Lodge from a hotel group a while ago and I thought well, obviously, that’s the answer. Cut it away, set myself free.’

  ‘It’s not that easy.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘it wasn’t easy at all. There were just so many things that kept cropping up. The security of tenure for the staff. Paul’s Sundays. And Francis had been here, taking care of us from the start. He was the first person to congratulate us on our engagement. Lissa was godmother to one of his children…’

  ‘You take care of them.’ Not a question.

  ‘I send them things. Pay school fees,’ he said. ‘I don’t give them what matters. What they deserve. But when it came to selling this place cold…’ He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t do it. Not until I’d been here, told them face to face. Told Lissa…’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Gideon.’

  ‘Me too,’ he said, doing his best to make light of it. ‘It was a damn good offer.’

  ‘Good enough?’ she prompted.

  And the attempt at a smile faded. ‘No. Now I’ve been here I know that I can never let it go,’ he said. It’s part of her. Part of me. I was wrong to stay away.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You were.’

  Because he wasn’t looking for sympathy, only truth.

  ‘It’s a very hard thing to acknowledge, but I’m a lot more like my father than I ever wanted to believe,’ he said, reaching out, taking the hand that had been aching to reach out to offer some human comfort. Afraid that if she touched him it would shatter the moment. Now he took it, held it, as if he was the one comforting her. ‘Avoiding painful reality is, apparently, a family failing.’

  ‘That’s a little harsh.’

  ‘Is it? His displacement activity is dressing up and raising money for charity. Mine is to discover ever more exotic holiday destinations. We are both very good at ignoring what we don’t want to face.’

  ‘Most people do that,’ she said. Her mother had blanked out the blindingly obvious until she couldn’t ignore it any longer.

  Her own tragedy was that she couldn’t. But
this wasn’t about her.

  ‘What would Lissa have done?’ she asked.

  ‘If she’d been the one left behind?’ He didn’t have to think about it. ‘She wouldn’t have run away from Leopard Tree Lodge. She’d lived close to nature all her life and understood that death is part of life. Something to be accepted.’

  Thinking about that did something to his face. He wasn’t smiling exactly, but it was as if all the underlying tension had drained away.

  ‘She’d have come here,’ he said. ‘She’d have lit a fire, cooked something special, opened a bottle of good wine. She’d have scattered my ashes on the river, poured a glass of the wine into the water to see me on my way. One into the earth to thank it for what it gave us. One for herself. Then she’d have eaten well and got on with her life.’

  Josie thought that the wine would have been watered with tears, but he surely knew that. It was being here, making a fitting end that was important.

  ‘We all deal with loss in our own way, Gideon. You’ve built an empire on her vision,’ she reminded him. ‘She lives in that.’

  ‘I wish that were so, Josie, but the truth is that I was so busy making new places that I forgot this one. Running,’ he said. ‘That’s what my doctor told me before I left London. That I was running on empty…’

  ‘You’re not running now,’ she said. ‘You could have left at any time. A private air ambulance would have taken you anywhere you wanted to go. You fought me to stay here.’

  ‘That isn’t why I fought you.’ His hand tightened imperceptibly over hers and she caught her breath. ‘You know it’s not. It’s been ten years, Josie. I haven’t been celibate in all those years, but you are the first woman in all that time that I’ve…’ he paused, searching for the right word ‘…that I’ve seen.’

  ‘Yes…’

  That was the word. She had seen him, too. From that first glimpse of him through the leaves, it was as if a light had come on in her brain.

  A red light. Danger…

  ‘It’s the purple hair,’ she said quickly. ‘And now I understand why you were so angry about the wedding.’ She’d never forget the look on his face when he’d looked up and seen Cryssie’s dress hanging over the wardrobe door. She’d have to find another home for it… ‘It must have been like coming face to face with your worst nightmare.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’ve already been there, Josie. This is just a wedding. Speaking of which, we still have work to do,’ he said, releasing her hand, easing back his chair so that he could stand up. Then, as she joined him, he caught her arm. ‘There!’ he said. ‘Do you see him?’

  She didn’t want to take her eyes off Gideon, but his urgency was telegraphing itself from his hand to her brain and she turned to look across the river. It took her a moment, but then she saw the cat’s eyes reflected back from the safety lights.

  ‘What is it?’ she whispered. But she already knew and he didn’t answer, only his hand tightened in warning as the big cat streaked to the ground, struck some hapless creature near the water’s edge. It happened so fast that before she could react, think, it was over; cat and prey were back in the tree.

  ‘What was it?’ she asked, turning instinctively to bury her face in his sleeve.

  ‘A small deer. A dik-dik probably. It’s nature’s way,’ he said, putting his arm around her as, sickened by the savagery of it, she shuddered. ‘It’s the food chain in action. When a leopard kills, everything feeds. Jackals, birds, insects lay their eggs, the earth is enriched.’

  She looked up into his face. ‘Life goes on?’

  He hesitated but, after a moment, he nodded. ‘Life goes on. It’s a circle. Birth, marriage, death… This weekend it’s marriage. Something to celebrate. Come on. Let’s finish those favours.’

  ‘It’s very late.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ He picked up the mugs and, taking her arm, he said, ‘You can keep me awake by telling me a fairy story.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Who waved the magic wand and transformed you from scullery assistant Cinderella to partner princess?’

  The teasing note was back in his voice, a little gentler than before, maybe, but the black moment had, apparently, passed.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ she said, grabbing for that and responding in kind. ‘You’ve shown me yours, now I’m supposed to show you mine?’

  ‘We could do that instead, if you prefer,’ he replied with a questioning tilt of the head, that break-your-heart grin that assured her he was kidding.

  ‘Let’s stick with Plan A,’ she said, glad that there was only the flickering candlelight as the heat rushed to her cheeks anyway. Betraying a need that he had touched within her to be a whole person. Not in the physical sense, although that was undoubtedly part of it; she was attracted to him in ways that she’d never dreamed possible.

  It was the emotional vacuum within her that ached tonight. A longing to reach out to someone you could trust, love with your whole heart and know that he would be there, no matter what.

  Not the role for a man eaten with guilt because he wasn’t there. For a man still in love with his dead fiancée.

  ‘But if you’ve got that much energy, you can make a start on the sugared almonds while I wash up,’ she said, taking the mugs from him. ‘One net in each box. Don’t miss any.’

  She didn’t wait for the comeback. She needed a back-to-earth moment on her own, her hands in hot dishwater while she composed herself.

  She didn’t get it.

  ‘Well, you were quick,’ she said as he followed her into the kitchen, turned on the tap at the handwash sink.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d want bacon fat all over your pretty boxes,’ he said, soaping his hands, drying them on a paper towel.

  She swilled the plates, rinsed them, put them to drain, accepted the paper towel he pulled from the dispenser and offered her.

  ‘Thanks.’

  He was looking at her quizzically, as if wondering what on earth was so bad about a Cinderella rags-to-riches success story that she wouldn’t talk about it. And obviously, if that was all it had been, there wouldn’t have been a thing.

  But that wasn’t the story. Beloved daughter to rags was the story and the only person she’d shared that with was Sylvie.

  ‘Do you want to help me get the rest of the stuff from the office?’ she asked, hoping that the more he had to think about, the less he’d bother about her. ‘Since I’ve got an extra pair of hands, we might as well do it all at the same time.’

  ‘The guests don’t just get the sugared almonds?’

  ‘Oh, right—’ she laughed ‘—that would go down well. No. Five sugared almonds to represent health, wealth, long life, fertility and happiness. And, to reinforce the wishes, we have five favours. The almonds, a packet of seeds—love-in-the-mist is popular—a mint silver coin with this year’s date, something individual to mark the day and the box itself to keep them all in.’

  She picked up a paperknife and ripped open a box that was packed with dozens of small turquoise chamois leather pouches.

  ‘Tiffany?’ Gideon said, taking one and tipping the contents into the palm of his hand. It was a stunning sterling silver key ring with a fob in the shape of a football, enamelled with Tal’s colours and engraved with both their names and the date. ‘Very pretty.’

  ‘Everything done in the best possible taste,’ she agreed as he replaced it. Then, as he made a move to pick up the box, ‘No!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your back. Here, take these,’ she said, thrusting the feather-light box of seed packets at him before he could argue. ‘I’ll bring these last two.’

  Arguing over that did the trick. By the time she’d conceded, allowed him to carry the heavier boxes, they were off the dangerous subject of her past and for the next hour conversation was minimal as they concentrated on filling the boxes as quickly as possible before stowing them safely away under lock and key in the office.

  By the time she’d staggered back to the tree house, Gi
deon at her elbow, she was too tired to worry about sharing a bed with him.

  It was all she could do to remove her make-up, brush her teeth, pull a nightie over her head. She didn’t even bother to ask him which side of the bed he preferred. Just staggered out of the bathroom and fell into it.

  Gideon waited on the deck until he heard Josie’s bare feet patter from the bathroom to the bed. He’d asked Francis to have it—and Cryssie’s bathroom—checked thoroughly for anything that might have fallen onto the deck and crawled in there, although she was so exhausted she probably wouldn’t have noticed an elephant hiding in the corner.

  He stayed for another moment, looking out across the river, remembering the past. Remembering that it was the past, that nothing he could do would change it. That he could only change the future.

  Then he went inside, closed the doors, rolled up the sidings, fastening them in place so that the air could circulate, leaving only the screens between them and nature to keep out flying insects.

  For the first time in years, he wanted nothing to come between him and the sounds of the earth coming to life at the beginning of a new day.

  The rooms would all have been sprayed while the guests were at dinner, but he lit a coil to discourage any mosquito that had escaped. Straightened the nets where Josie had collapsed through them and crawled beneath the sheet.

  She was lying on her stomach, her arm thrown up defensively, her shoulders, her cheeks, her eyelids luminous in the candlelight.

  Why hadn’t he thought her beautiful when he’d first seen her? he wondered. Was the perception of beauty changed by knowing someone? Cryssie was stunning, sweet too, but twenty minutes had been enough for him to know that an hour of her company would be too long.

  Josie, on the other hand, kept him on his toes. Challenged him every step of the way. Never gave an inch. Had the toughness of tensile steel. A natural tenderness. A fragility that called to every protective instinct.