Sisters

by Prue Leith

  But Cathy shot a bright smile at Karl. That’s the first time I’ve seen her smile, thought Carrie. Cathy said, “It won’t be Karl’s fault if I get it wrong. He’s brilliant.”

  Then she said, tracing the even twin lobes of a largish spoor with her gloved finger, “That’s buffalo. And this is elephant of course. A really big bull.”

  “How do you know?” asked Carrie, impressed.

  “Because an elephant is twice as high as the circumference of one of his footprints and this one must be almost 2 meters.” Her hand circled the crushed-velvet pattern of the footprint. “Which makes it a 4-meter bull. 4 meters to the shoulder, which is much too tall for a cow.”

  Cathy stood up, and wandered to the edge of the track, her head still down, eyes on the ground. “This is a bachelor herd. No cows and no babies.”

  She kicked over a fresh pile of elephant dung. It would have filled a wheelbarrow, and was full of undigested straw. “Yup. A pretty big boy, I guess. Thabo, do you think?” She looked at Karl for an answer and he nodded yes.

  “Thabo?” asked Carrie. “After Thabo M’beke?”

  “No.” Karl shook his head, smiling. “Old Thabo was Thabo when apartheid was in fashion. Probably before Mandela went to jail. Thabo means happy.”

  Karl turned right round slowly, checking the water, the track, the bush, near and middle distance, letting his eyes run full circle. He said, “Thabo used to have a fair-sized harem. But he lost them to a younger rival, and now he hangs out with a bunch of young bulls. Some people say the old tuskers teach the young ones. But, who knows?” He shrugged and turned back to Cathy, nodding at her to go on with her tracking lesson.

  She crouched again and said, “This long handprint is a baboon. These deep hoof prints are duiker, I think?” She looked for confirmation from Karl, who nodded.

  After a while Carrie stopped listening to what she was saying and just watched her. The girl adored Karl, that was obvious. The only question was whether it was grown-up love, or schoolgirl hero-worship. Carrie felt a little twist of anguish. I can’t be jealous of a kid, can I? But she knew she was.

  Chapter 25

  One afternoon Carrie was half asleep on a lounger by the pool. She had her eyes closed as the cicadas’ incessant tinnitus, and the soft crroo crroo of the pigeons lulled her. Kaia Moya, she thought. It means House of the Wind. But that seemed too restless a name for it. Kaia Moya was the most restorative place on earth. No South Sea Island or Caribbean hideaway could beat it.

  As she drifted into sensuous semi-sleep, her sunhat covering her face, she felt a light fluttering on her legs. She opened her eyes without lifting her hat. It was Karl carefully draping her sarong over her. She watched him through the open weave of the hat. His expression was open and tender.

  She lifted the hat and smiled at him.

  His face hardened. “Sorry,” he said. “I was trying not to wake you. But you are an idiot. If you get sunstroke it will be a right bore.”

  “I’m covered in sunblock.” She shifted up in the lounger, drawing up her legs to make room for him to sit down.

  As he did so he said, “Sleeping in the sun is crazy. Especially when there is no one around. Lions occasionally drink from this pool, you know.”

  “I’m sorry.” She was still sleepy, and didn’t say anything more. Then he said, “I’ve got to check the fences on the west side. Do you want to come? It’s a pretty ride.”

  She’d imagined they’d have a gang of fence-menders, tools and kit with them, but when she climbed into the jeep the back was empty and there was just a big coolbox between them on the front seat.

  As they pulled out of the camp and onto the corrugated dirt road she tapped the box and said, “What’s in here?”

  “Padkos,” he replied.

  Food for the road? It was only 2:30, and they’d just had lunch. But she was pleased. This looked like an outing, a treat. And she was glad it was just her and Karl. No Cathy. No tracker, no tourists.

  “If we aren’t coming back for supper, who is doing the evening game ride?”

  “Cathy’ll take them.”

  Carrie looked at him in astonishment. He took ranging so seriously. How could he be sending tourists out with a slip of a girl, a student? She said, “But you always take a gun. And you are so, so, grown-up!”

  Karl laughed. A big-throated full laugh. Carrie saw he wasn’t laughing at what she’d said. He was laughing at her.

  “Oh Carrie, you are an ass. Cathy is grown-up. She’s a lot more grown-up than you in many ways. And she could drop a charging buffalo at 50 meters. She’s a terrific shot.”

  Carrie felt the familiar cramp of anxiety. Every time Karl talked of Cathy it was in glowing terms. Every time Cathy looked at Karl it was with love, or something very close to it. Cathy was cucumber-cool with everyone else, her stillness and self-possession creating a little barrier between her and the others. But when Karl spoke to her those ice-maiden eyes flooded with warmth.

  Karl changed the subject.

  “Have you decided about the magazine job?” He sounded casual, polite. Carrie wondered if it mattered to him at all.

  “No,” she said, “I like doing the monthly column. And I like the crowd in the office. But Oh Karl, I’ve never liked Johannesburg. And there’s much more editing and management than I’d reckoned on. I’d hoped it would be mostly writing and photo-shoots. Hands-on stuff.”

  Karl’s eyes were straight ahead.

  “I’ve a rival proposal for you.”

  “What proposal?” she asked, trying to read his profile as the truck shuddered over the corrugated road.

  “Stay here and sort out the Kaia Moya kitchens. Almost all our visitors are from overseas and they don’t want boerewors and steak from the braai every night. Some of the safari lodges have Californian and Mediterranean stuff now. And the punters love it.”

  Carrie shook her head, thinking international fashion food was exactly what Kaia Moya should not serve.

  Karl saw the gesture and said “No? Ah well, it was just an idea. You’d be good at it an. . . .”

  Carrie interrupted, “I haven’t said no. But it’s daft, Karl. The lodge could not afford me for a start. Sixteen is the maximum number of guests, isn’t it? If it was a forty-seater restaurant, maybe. But we aren’t exactly in the middle of a metropolis.”

  Karl did not answer at once, and she turned in her seat to look at him more squarely. He drove like most South Africans, with his window down and elbow leaning on it, his fingers holding the big juddering wheel lightly. He glanced at her and said, “You’re right, of course, but I’ve got plans which I need to discuss with you and Poppy. We could build another dozen cabins at the lodge, deeper into the bush by the waterhole. And since active eco-tourism is growing faster than luxury-lodge stays, we should also build a more primitive camp for sixteen or so on the western boundary, by the river. And then organize two-day safaris, with an overnight stay in the camp. The tourists would love it, and it would get them out of the lodge for a night, and allow us to take more one-nighters. We could build the trek into a five-day package, but make it at the start or the end, so we don’t have to pack and unpack their gear to let someone else into their rondavels.”

  It was the longest speech Carrie had ever heard Karl make, and she wasn’t sure she’d got it all, but she felt at once how important the scheme was to Karl. In spite of his coolness and almost laid-back air, she could feel his excitement.

  The more they discussed it, the more sense it made. Karl had done his research and made good contacts on his trip to London, and had since had the rep from a major US travel agent to Kaia Moya. He’d had discussions with the African Experience group of luxury hotels and they were keen to form a marketing partnership. He’d submitted a business plan to the Standard bank—they’d need to borrow the capital to build the extra cabins and the new camp—and it looked like th
ey’d get the money, albeit at very high interest rates.

  “Could Poppy put up the money instead, do you think?” asked Karl. “I imagine she and Eduardo could afford it if they wanted to.”

  The introduction of the Santolinis into the conversation dampened Carrie and she answered, “God knows. You’d better ask them, not me.”

  The terrain was changing now, becoming more hilly and wooded, greener in the riverbeds, with lumpy outcrops erupting from the grassland. They were driving steadily higher, and the road twisted and turned as they climbed. The massive stones were rounded and piled one upon each other. Perfect cheetah or baboon country, thought Carrie, narrowing her eyes as she scanned the rocks. But she could not see any. Too hot, she supposed. They’d all be dozing in the shade somewhere.

  They inspected the fence, which was indeed trampled down over a stretch of twenty yards, two great concrete posts uprooted, the wires broken and electrics wrecked. Karl took notes. He’d come back tomorrow with a gang and the gear to fix it.

  Karl swung himself into the driver’s seat, saying, “Right, now I’ll show you where the overnight camp will be.” Carrie felt a little flutter of excitement. She liked new projects, and she liked Karl treating her as a serious partner.

  After ten minutes Karl pulled the jeep off the track and drove across the veld. They went slowly, the vehicle heaving and sighing over boulders and grassy hummocks. They headed for a rocky hill with a deep ravine up one side and an apparently flat top. When they could go no further they got out, and climbed to the top on foot, Karl carrying his gun in one hand with the coolbox slung over his shoulder.

  Carrie pulled herself up the last rounded rock, panting. It was hot work and the ascent had taken twenty minutes of exertion. She was sweating and the cool air on her face was delicious. She stood up, and her mouth dropped open in wonder.

  So that is the meaning of breathtaking, she thought: the view blows the breath out of your body. She was silenced by the expanse and grandeur of it.

  Finally she said, “God, Karl. How come I’ve never been up here before? I lived here, damn it.”

  “I guess you had your own kopjes to climb when you were kids, and this tract of land belonged to the Coetzees. We only bought it six years ago, remember?”

  They were standing on a ridge looking northwest. Immediately in front of them the rocks, red and yellow streaked with gray and black, tumbled down 20 feet to a grassy plateau, about the size of a cricket ground. Beyond that the kopje fell away steeply, a dangerous drop.

  They walked in silence to the edge. Carrie stood a few yards back, not wanting to disrupt the wonder with nervousness. Karl walked easily to the rim, and swung the picnic box off his shoulder.

  Below them, way below, was the river, invisible in the green and tangled gorge, widening in a shallow meander as it flowed out across the valley floor. Now, in the dry season, it was not much more than a waterhole, but Carrie could see from the width of the riverbed how spectacular it would be after the rains. Beyond the river were the plains: vast, dun-colored acres of veld. And in the distance range upon range of blue mountains shimmering in the heat and disappearing into the sky.

  Carrie looked at a herd of wildebeest perhaps two miles away. They looked like tiny toys, hundreds and hundreds of them. Karl passed her his binoculars and she focused on a big bull, thinking how primitive he looked, with that outline familiar from rock-paintings: heavy head with massive brow-like horns, shoulders sloping to narrow hindquarters and a fly-whisk tail.

  “Good place for a camp, don’t you think?” said Karl. “And there is a pool too. Come.”

  Carrie followed Karl as he sprang from rock to rock, down toward the ravine. She scrambled awkwardly behind him, grateful for his outstretched arm when the jumps were too big. They could hear the sound of water splashing and sucking below them.

  Soon they emerged from overhanging trees and stepped onto a wide ledge over the river. Opposite was a narrow waterfall, falling 40 feet at least into the dark pool beneath. The rock face behind the waterfall was washed shiny black, punctuated with ferns and dripping creepers. Up here they were in baking sun, but the pool, only 20 feet across, was in deep shade.

  “Oh God, Karl. It’s magic. We’ve got to swim in it. But how do we get down there?”

  Karl leaned the gun carefully against the rock-face and wedged it upright with the picnic box. “We dive,” he said.

  Carrie shook her head vigorously, and said, “Not a chance. I don’t know how deep it is.”

  Karl put his arm round her shoulders and said, “Nor do I. But I know it’s too deep to reach the bottom. I’ve tried.”

  Karl pulled off his shirt, and bent over to unlace his boots. He twisted his head and squinted up at her, teasing.

  “Come on, Carrie. I’ve seen you in your bra and pants before.”

  Carrie knew he was referring to the photo-shoot when she’d made such an ass of herself. She didn’t reply.

  She stood, hesitating, while Karl stripped to his boxers. He took off his shoes and stood on his shirt—the rock was too hot for his feet. Then he dived in. An elegant, almost professional dive, hands together over his head, arms and legs perfectly straight.

  As he hit the water the force of his entry pulled his underpants right down his legs, and Carrie watched his white bum winking in the limpid water as he struggled to pull them up again.

  He looked up at the grinning Carrie. Gasping and laughing, he called, “God, it’s cold. Come on, Carrie. Jump.”

  Carrie saw her chance. She pulled off all her clothes as fast as she could, before she could think better of it, and jumped in.

  The shock of the cold water was terrifying. She plunged down, down, down, into freezing blackness. She opened her eyes and struggled for the surface. Then her head was in the air and she was gulping air. But the iciness of the water took her breath away and her eyes were wide and scared.

  But then it was heaven. She looked at her body and her long legs, brown and exotic in the Coca-Cola clear water. She lay on her back and felt the water, silky and cool, caress her belly, her tits, her bum. How could she have forgotten the pleasure of skinny-dipping?

  She swam toward Karl, her face flushed, exhilarated. “Come on, Karl. Don’t be a prude. Get your kit off.”

  But Karl didn’t answer. He swam across the pool to where the water ran over the rock-lip to tumble down into a further shallower basin. He called to her, “Here, Carrie, the next pool is in the sun. And it’s shallow enough to stand.”

  He climbed out of the pool, and turned to help Carrie, exactly as if she wasn’t stark naked.

  Carrie could not believe it. He’d not even replied to her invitation to swim in the buff.

  Beginning to feel foolish, she slipped as quickly as she could into the second pool and took an exaggerated interest in the ferns growing above her.

  And then she had to climb out and sit with him on the dry rocks, warming up. Carrie tried not to think about her nipples, shriveled to raisins from the cold, and the way Karl ignored them and her. He talked of his plans for the camp, and how he’d leave this pool exactly as it was. He said, “The camp has to be a real bush experience, tin plates round the camp-fire, sleeping bags under the stars, hurricane lamps and candles. No Walkmans, watches, telephones, faxes. And no swimming pools.”

  Karl talked as though they were sitting fully clothed in a meeting room. If he took no notice of her nakedness, maybe he didn’t find her attractive at all? But she knew she looked good. Apart from the untanned bits that gave her a white bikini, she was as evenly brown as an Ambre Solaire model. Her belly was flat, and her bum and bits round and firm. How could he just ignore her?

  It must be, she thought, because he’s shagging that Cathy. She wanted to go now, but she was embarrassed to move, and she didn’t want to ask Karl to climb up and get her clothes from the ledge.

  But after fifteen minut
es or so, Karl did so without being asked. He tossed her things to her with a smile.

  “At least you’ve got dry underpants. My shorts have to go on top of wet ones.”

  She had no option but to get dressed and pretend to herself that she always swam naked. No big deal. She hadn’t done it to turn Karl on.

  That night she wrote to Poppy:

  Dear Poppy,

  This is business, so I hope you’ll reply, if not to me, then to Karl.

  We want to double the size of the lodge and build a safari camp for overnight game treks. The figures stack up, and the market looks good. But you need to agree.

  If I had the money I’d stump up the capital for the new build. But I don’t. We can borrow it from the bank, but obviously the interest means a longer payback—though it still looks viable.

  Do you want to put up the money (maybe R300,000) in return for more shares? Instead of a third each, you could have 60 percent and Karl and me 20 percent each, or something.

  Love (and I do mean that)

  Carrie

  PS I’ll probably take the My Mag job. Keep me out of your hair, and I can help Karl with Kaia Moya. He wants me to train the cooks. And no, before you ask, he still wouldn’t touch me with a bargepole.

  Chapter 26

  Through the kitchen window Poppy watched Karl’s long legs appear out of the hire car and the rest of him unfold after them. His sun-ruined face was exactly as she thought of him, and she felt a sharp surge of pleasure. Poppy opened the door wide, and threw herself into his arms.

  “Oh Karl, I’m so glad to see you. I’ve meant to ring or write a dozen times. Come in.”

  They went into the drawing room and almost immediately Lorato appeared at the door wearing knickers but nothing else. She stood on one leg, weaving the other one round it like a snake round a pole. She said, “Mum, it’s too hot. Tom can’t sleep. He wants a glass of water.”