Sisters

by Prue Leith

  “Carrie, lay off.” His eyes, she noticed, immediately looked for Poppy, and registered relief that she was gone.

  Carrie laughed, and turned to Karl. “Karl, Eduardo is squeamish about helping me out of these things for some reason. But you’ll help, won’t you?”

  “Sure,” said Karl, “At your service.”

  Conscious of Eduardo’s eyes on her, she gestured with her greasy hands at her double-breasted chef’s jacket. “The buttons are rubber. You have to bend them to get them through the holes.”

  “Sure,” he said again. And did so. He did it quickly and efficiently, and without looking up to catch any signals from her.

  “There’s another row,” she said, ducking her chin at the second line of six buttons from shoulder to hem. Karl looked at her for a second, then turned to Eduardo. Taking the rolled-up apron from him, he pushed it at Carrie and said: “Why don’t you wipe your hands on your apron? Then you can do them yourself.” She had no option but to take the apron and do so.

  And then she had to take the jacket off, otherwise it would be obvious that her motive had been more about wooing Eduardo, or flirting with Karl, than getting cool. She undid the rest of the buttons and slipped out of the jacket, her eyes on Eduardo. She was wearing a black bra, edged with lace and with narrow lace ribbons for shoulder straps.

  “That’s better,” she said, too brightly. She undid her jeans, then sat on the corner of the traveling chest to pull them awkwardly over her trainers.

  “If the striptease is over,” said Eduardo, “I’m off.” Karl gave a general wave to as he followed Eduardo. “See you.” he said.

  Working in her bra and pants was a lot cooler. And she told herself it was no different from wearing a bikini. Eduardo and Karl were just too old: they had the puritan attitudes of her grandparents. No one of her age would have looked as po-faced as that at someone taking off a few clothes. For God’s sake, this was the African bush, not Knightsbridge. They’d not have been so boring if they’d been by the pool. It was illogical and bigoted. Her bikini was a lot skimpier than these knickers, for a start.

  And besides, Jannie, Sam’s assistant, was only wearing shorts. Why one rule for the boys, another for her?

  While she cleared up the debris of the shoot, and organized a couple of the kitchen staff to lug Piet’s possessions back to his house, she was still arguing her case to herself. She knew she’d somehow made a fool of herself. But she wasn’t quite sure why. And she found she minded Karl’s disapproval as much as Eduardo’s.

  *

  “Poppy, for God’s sake, it’s not much money. With the rand so weak, it’s nothing in real money. A couple of hundred quid.”

  Poppy looked at the assortment of intricate baskets, heavy clay pots, wooden salad bowls, cast-iron potjies and woven tablecloths on the floor of Carrie’s rondavel.

  “But they’ll cost a fortune to crate up and ship home. And there’ll be duty on them.”

  Carrie put her hands on her slim brown hips, in the gap between her cropped top and her bikini bottoms. “No there won’t. They’ll be used by then. I’ll say they’re the tools of my trade.”

  Poppy ignored this. She went on. “And the pots will arrive smashed—if everything isn’t stolen by the baggage handlers, which is more than likely.”

  Carrie was only half listening. She twirled around, admiring her tan in the mirror, and said, “What a little ray of sunshine you are, Oh sister mine!”

  Poppy frowned. Carrie’s sarcasm hurt, and for a second she was nonplussed.

  Carrie pulled her eyes off her mirror image, and pursued her advantage. “Why do you both have to be so critical? Eduardo went on as if I was asking him for a mortgage, not a measly few hundred.”

  Poppy, nettled now, said “Maybe he’s rumbled that you aren’t too good at paying back the money you borrow.”

  “What money? I don’t owe him anything.” Carrie jutted her chin at her sister.

  “Oh come on, Carrie, I’ve been signing checks on and off for . . .”

  Carrie interrupted, “Poppy, for Christ’s sake, you’re my sister. That’s nothing to do with Eduardo . . .”

  Poppy saw she had Carrie’s attention now. More than attention. Carrie’s eyes had a slightly desperate look. Her voice softened. “Carrie, darling. Grow up. Eduardo’s my husband. His money and mine are the same thing.”

  “But he doesn’t know about the money you’ve given me, does he?”

  “Lent you. And yes of course he does.”

  “Why? What did you tell him? What did he say?” Carrie clutched a fistful of her hair on the crown of her head, then let it go. “What does he think?”

  Carrie’s distracted air and earnest questioning puzzled Poppy. “Look, Carrie, you know what Eduardo thinks. He’s told you often enough. He thinks you’re extravagant and unreliable.” Poppy smiled, trying to soften her words. “He’s probably right.”

  Carrie could not help herself. She said, “Not any more. I don’t believe it. Eduardo wouldn’t say that. He . . . he . . .”

  Poppy tried to put an arm round Carrie, but Carrie swung away. Poppy said, “C’mon, sis, why so upset? You know Eduardo. Nothing’s changed. He just thinks you’re a bit self-centered . . .”

  Carrie cut in, accusing, “When did he say that? When?”

  Poppy didn’t want to have this conversation. She could see Carrie’s mounting distress, and though she did not understand it, she sought to mitigate it. “ Oh Carrie, I don’t know. He’s always saying it. Nothing’s new.”

  Carrie changed tack with an effort. She waved her hand at the African artifacts and said, “Well, he’ll get his precious money back as soon as I can sort out my bank. I wouldn’t have asked him at all if my Visa card had worked.”

  Poppy’s big-sister act was maddening. All that patronizing calm. It had taken a real effort not to tell her that Eduardo, far from being the censorious respectable paterfamilias, was in fact sleeping with Poppy’s unreliable, extravagant, self-centered little sister. But she had just enough control not to. She would tell her, but calmly, and not until she was sure of Eduardo.

  *

  “Come, darling. Out now,” said Poppy, standing by the pool with a towel. Lorato was determined not to hear. She was kicking her powerful little legs behind her like a frog, and dog-paddling with her arms. She was making impressive headway across the pool.

  The child was fearless in the water. She was wearing armbands, of course, but her bravery astonished Poppy. She would run headlong from the grass, over the crazy paving and leap into the pool with such momentum that she’d go right under. Then she’d pop up like a cork, shrieking with pleasure.

  Poppy watched her with a sense of awe. Lorato was a miracle. Two months ago the child would not speak, clung like a limpet, peed hysterically. Now she chattered non-stop, was sturdy, determined and emphatically happy. Poppy had been vaguely uneasy that the smell and sound of Africa might somehow set her back. That long-buried memories of terror and loss would resurface to cloud her confidence. But no, Lorato had turned a corner and she wasn’t going back. She was a joyous child, that’s what she was.

  Poppy called again, “Lorato. Out now.” But Lorato had now reached the floating child’s rubber ring she’d been aiming for, and was bashing it happily with her fists, splashing and shouting.

  Poppy could not reach her from the edge, and jumped in. She lifted Lorato and sat her bottom in the ring. “Got you, young lady,” she said. Lorato bounced up and down in the ring. “Mumm-ee. Mumm-ee.”

  Poppy, laughing and averting her face from Lorato’s splashing, pushed the ring toward the shallow end.

  Suddenly she heard Maisie’s shout behind her, and turned to see Tom running toward the pool. He was not wearing armbands.

  “No, Tom,” shouted Maisie and Poppy together as Tom slithered in. He slipped without a splash into the deep end and disappeared,
sinking like a stone.

  Poppy was with him in two fast strokes. She ducked under the water and put her hands round the child’s body. But Tom was greasy from sun cream and flailing in panic. He slipped from Poppy’s grip and for a second Poppy saw his open mouth belching bubbles, eyes wide with terror.

  Poppy took a breath and went under again, this time grabbing Tom round one wrist and by his trunks. She pulled him above water and in seconds he was in Maisie’s arms.

  That evening, the sight of the sleeping children undid Poppy. Lorato, as usual, had crawled into Tom’s bed and the pair were curled up like puppies, Lorato’s snuffling face against Tom’s bottom, Tom’s elbow cradling a plastic tipper-truck.

  Angelina slept silently, her face unwontedly pink in spite of Poppy’s diligence with the sunblock.

  The thought that these children’s happiness depended on her, on her and Eduardo, suddenly scared Poppy.

  What if Tom had drowned? It happened. Children died. Or what if Eduardo left her for the condom woman?

  For nearly two weeks she’d been trying not to think about Eduardo’s condoms, but she did it all the time. It must mean, she thought, that his love was shallower than hers, his commitment less.

  She thought she could live, maybe, without the theater, but she couldn’t live without Eduardo and the children.

  Eduardo found her sitting on her heels by Tom’s bed, her head in her hands.

  “What’s the matter, mia cara?” he said, putting his hands under her elbows to help her up. “What is it?”

  Poppy put the back of her wrist against her mouth to hide its trembling. Her eyes were dark and shiny. She said, “Oh darling. It would kill me if we lost one of them. Or if I lost you.”

  Chapter 14

  Eduardo had stayed in bed. He’d said he didn’t share the sisters’ enthusiasm for dawn drives: for rising at 5 a.m., struggling into jeans so glassy cold they raised goosebumps on warm legs, drinking milkless coffee round the remnants of last night’s fire, then trawling the bush for four hours before breakfast. He had barely stirred as Poppy and Angelina dressed, and was soon fast asleep again. The “babies” hadn’t woken either.

  Carrie drew the rough Basuto blanket across her face, trying to exclude the freezing wind as the jeep bucketed along the track. In spite of gloves and a fur-lined anorak, icy air blew into every crack and gap. As Karl accelerated out of a sandy skid and over a narrow bridge, she needed both hands to hold the handrail. She grinned at Poppy as she abandoned the attempt to keep the blanket round her ears.

  Reflected in her sister’s face she saw the exhilaration she felt herself. Poppy’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes glittery with excitement. Karl’s assistant, driving the other tourist jeep, had radioed with news of a cheetah sighting. If they went flat out they’d be there in ten minutes.

  Angelina, her nose blue with cold and pale eyes streaming, was huddled close to Poppy, their striped blankets enveloping them both in one family parcel. Carrie felt the old twinge of envy as she watched Poppy duck her head to press her cheek against her daughter’s.

  When they arrived, Danie’s jeep was in pole position, its occupants leaning this way and that to take pictures of the cheetahs. The extended body of the jeep allowed four rows of seats, each one higher than the one in front to ensure unimpeded views without anyone having to stand up. Standing up was not allowed. Karl said the animals were used to the outline of the jeeps, but a different profile might make them nervous—and dangerous.

  The male cheetah was sitting upright on a concrete switch-box beside the road, eyes blinking as he faced the weak morning sun. His mate lay in the sand of the road just ahead of them, her dappled coat gleaming as her belly rose and fell with her breathing, her small, neat head perfectly still. They take your breath away, thought Carrie. Is there anything so beautiful?

  After ten minutes, during which the cheetahs hardly glanced at the jeeps, the male poured himself elegantly off his perch and ambled down the road, followed by his mate, long tails just clear of the ground, legs liquid in a high, undulating gait.

  The tourists followed at a respectful distance. After a while, and with no apparent excitement, the cheetahs peeled off the track into the brown grass and began to hunt: they split up, their paths slowly diverging until they were 300 yards apart, both approaching the same scattered herd of zebra, one from each flank.

  At first the herd grazed unconcerned, round fat bottoms striped like Bridget Riley paintings, short black tails spinning. But suddenly their heads shot up, and they began to trot in all directions, noses held high, their manes rigid hedges along their necks. One cheetah broke into a loping run to separate a group of mares and foals from the rest. But the group circled back to the thick of the herd, and the play began again. It was like watching a wildlife movie, thought Carrie, except that your own heart beat faster.

  They didn’t see a kill. After another forty minutes of cat-and-mouse, with the action getting more difficult to follow as the herd trotted further away, the tourists began to get bored, and to think of breakfast. Karl drove to a waterhole and they drank Thermos coffee, dunking chunks of sweet mosbolletjie rusks into their mugs. It tasted wonderful, thought Carrie, their childhood distilled in a flavor.

  “Look,” said Karl, pointing. Carrie took the binoculars from him and watched the jacana birds stepping delicately on the lily pads, a brood of little ones under their parents’ long legs. Karl picked up a pebble and tossed it to land a few feet from the waterlillies. Immediately one of the adult birds squatted low and spread its wings to scoop up the chicks huddled below. The bird straightened up, and looked about, daring the world to suggest any babies were hidden anywhere.

  “Wow,” said Carrie, “I’ve never seen that.”

  “It’s the male,” said Karl. “Men can be fierce protectors of the family too.”

  There was something in the way he said it. Carrie looked sharply at him, but Karl was repacking the Thermos jugs and the mugs, and did not look up. Carrie studied his sun-lined face, not sure whether to challenge him. Karl sensed her eyes on him and turned to look at her.

  She asked, “What did you mean by that? About the male?”

  “Why? Didn’t you understand?” His voice was steady and gentle but matter of fact.

  “Of course I understood what you said. But you said it as if it was meant to mean more.” It didn’t come out as cool as she wanted.

  Karl swung the picnic basket into the back of the jeep, slammed the trunk shut, and walked round to the driver’s seat before he answered. Carrie followed and climbed in behind him. As he sprang lightly into the jeep he said, his voice low so no one else would hear, “I was just making the point that few males really want their nests torn to bits. Most of them, in nature anyway, go for the quiet family life.”

  The noise of the engine mercifully stopped the conversation, and Carrie was silent as they drove on. She looked at the back of Karl’s head, thinking vicious thoughts. How dare he? What business was it of his? She knew he was referring to her and Eduardo, but how dare he imply that she was trying to shred Eduardo’s nest, as if Eduardo had nothing to do with it?

  But as they drove on, some degree of shame overtook her anger. Was it so obvious? It was true that, ever since they’d got here, she had been desperate for Eduardo, and he had seemed more concerned to play happy families than the ardent lover. He was attentive and loving to Poppy and affectionate to the children, while his attitude to her seemed to have reverted to his old, pre-love stance of big brother: sometimes indulgent or affectionate, but mostly irritated.

  She had tried everything. She’d even resorted to asking him to rub sun-tan oil into her back by the pool, but he’d obliged as if she was made of wood, smearing the stuff on fast then wiping his hands on the grass as though he’d just rubbed flea-powder into a dog. She twice suggested an evening game walk at the time she knew Poppy would be busy bathing the younger childr
en and putting them to bed. Once he’d agreed, and when she’d whispered that they could go to her cabin instead, he’d said no, he thought a game walk would be great, and had called Karl and Angelina, and they’d gone . . . walking. The other time he’d just said no, he didn’t feel like it. And he’d sat drinking Castle lager at the bar with Karl.

  The truth was, they’d only made love once in the fifteen days they’d been here, and that was when Karl had driven Poppy into Nelspruit to do some shopping, taking Angelina with them, and left Carrie in charge of Lorato and Tom. Carrie had seized her chance and asked old Maisie to look after the children. Maisie had been sitting on the stoep step, dehusking mielies. Carrie tipped a pile of toys onto the floor, and left them to it.

  But it had not been like London. Eduardo had looked trapped and uneasy when she’d appeared in his and Poppy’s rondavel. She’d undone her sarong and let it fall to the floor, and stood there, sunburned and naked. But he’d not moved to her. He’d sat at the desk and said, “Christ, Carrie. Not here, for God’s sake. What have you done with the children?”

  She’d moved in on him then, putting her arms round his head so that his face was between her tits. She knew she smelt of Georgio. It was a perfume he’d given her, and it worked. His arms came up round her bottom and caressed her waist, her back, down to her thighs. Then he said, his voice a tone deeper, “Not here. I’ll come to you.”

  And she’d had to wrap up in her sarong again, and go along the raised wooden walkway to her rondavel. She passed the security guard, posted there to keep a look-out for elephants or lions, and wondered if he’d guess she had nothing on, and if he’d tell the other guards and trackers that Eduardo had followed her.

  She lay naked on her bed under the mosquito net. There were no mosquitoes in mid-winter, but she thought she’d look good half hidden behind white tulle.

  When Eduardo didn’t appear at once she feared he’d had second thoughts. But in five minutes the door opened and he was there, dark silhouette against the blinding light of the doorway.