by Wilbur Smith
‘All right, I am an ineffectual dilettante.’ Tara flopped down on the rug again. She had regained her composure and sat cross-legged facing him. ‘But what if I refuse to give up? What if I continue to follow the dictates of my conscience?’
‘Tara, don’t try and force a confrontation,’ he said softly.
‘You always get what you want, don’t you, Shasa?’ She was goading him, but he shook his head, refusing the challenge.
‘I want to discuss this logically and calmly,’ he said, but she could not prevent herself flouting him, for the insult rankled.
‘I would get the children – you must know that, your clever lawyers must have warned you of that.’
‘God damn it, Tara, you know that’s not what I had in mind,’ Shasa said coldly, but he hugged the child closer and Isabella reached up and touched his chin.
‘You are all scratchy,’ she murmured happily, unaware of the tension. ‘But I still love you, my daddy.’
‘Yes, my angel, I love you also,’ he said, and then to Tara, ‘I wasn’t threatening you.’
‘Not yet,’ she qualified. ‘But that comes next, if I know you – and I should.’
‘Can’t we discuss this sensibly?’
‘It’s not necessary,’ Tara capitulated suddenly. ‘I had already made up my mind. I had already seen the futility of our little protests. I have known for some time that it was a waste of my life. I know I have neglected the children and during this last visit to Johannesburg I decided that I should take up my studies again and leave politics to the professionals. I had already decided to resign from the Sash and close down the clinic or hand it over to somebody else.’
He stared at her in amazement. He distrusted any victory too easily won.
‘What do you want in return?’ he asked.
‘I want to go back to university and take a Ph.D. in archaeology,’ she said crisply. ‘And I want complete freedom to travel and pursue my studies.’
‘You have a bargain,’ he agreed readily, not even attempting to conceal his relief. ‘You keep your nose clean politically, and you can go where and when you want.’ And then despite himself his eyes dropped back to her breasts. He was right, they had filled out beautifully and bulged from the thin silken cups of her bikini. He felt a quick hot need of her.
She saw that look on his face. She knew it so well, and she was revolted by it. After what he had just told her, after the insults he casually offered her, after his betrayal of that which she held sacred and dear, she knew she could never take him again. She pulled up the top of her bikini and reached for her robe.
Shasa was delighted with their bargain, and though he seldom drank more than a glassful, this afternoon he finished the rest of the Riesling while he and the boys cooked their lunch on the barbecue pit.
Sean took his duties as assistant chef seriously. Only one or two of the chops landed up in the dirt, but as Sean explained to his younger brothers, ‘Those are yours, and if you don’t let your teeth touch, then you won’t even feel the grit.’
At the table in the summer house Isabella helped Tara prepare the salads, dousing herself liberally with French dressing in the process, and when they sat down to eat Shasa had the children shrieking with laughter at his stories. Only Tara sat aloof from the general hilarity.
When the children were given permission to leave the table with the injunction not to swim again for an hour while their food was digested, Tara asked him quietly, ‘What time are you leaving tomorrow?’
‘Early,’ he replied. ‘I have to be in Johannesburg before lunch. Lord Littleton is arriving on the Comet from London. I want to be there to meet him.’
‘How long will you be away this time?’
‘After the launching David and I will be going on tour,’ he replied. He had wanted her to attend the launching party which would celebrate and publicize the opening of the subscription lists for shares in the new Silver River Mine. She had found an excuse but she noticed that he did not repeat the invitation now.
‘So you’ll be gone about ten days?’ Every quarter Shasa and David made a tour of all the company’s operations, from the new chemical factory at Chaka’s Bay, and the paper pulp mills in the Eastern Transvaal to the H’ani Diamond Mine in the Kalahari Desert, which was the company’s flagship.
‘Perhaps a little longer,’ Shasa demurred. ‘I’ll be in Johannesburg at least four days,’ and he thought happily of Marylee from MIT and her IBM 701.
David Abrahams had persuaded Shasa to hand the Silver River launching over to one of those public relations consultants, a breed that had recently sprung up but which Shasa viewed with suspicion. Despite his original misgiving he was now reluctantly prepared to concede that it wasn’t such a bad idea as he had first believed, even though it was going to cost over five thousand pounds.
They had flown out the editors of the London Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, with their wives, and afterwards would be taking them on for five days in the Kruger National Park with all expenses paid. All the local press and radio journalists were invited and as an unexpected bonus the television team that had come out from New York to do a series called ‘Focus on Africa’ for North American Broadcasting Studios had also accepted an invitation to attend the launching party.
In the entrance lobby of the Courtney Mining Co. offices they had set up a twenty-five-foot-high working replica of the mine headgear that would be erected above the Silver River main, and had surrounded it with an enormous display of wild proteas designed and executed by the same team which had won a gold medal at the Chelsea Flower Show in London the previous year. Appreciating that journalism is thirsty work, David had laid in one hundred cases of Moët & Chandon, although Shasa had vetoted the idea of a vintage cru.
‘Even non-vintage is too damn good for them.’ Shasa did not have a lofty view of the profession of journalism.
David had also hired the chorus line from the Royal Swazi Spa to provide a floor-show. The promise of a flash of bared bosom would be almost as big a draw as the champagne; to the South African censors the female nipple was every bit as dangerous as Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto.
On arrival every guest was handed a presentation pack which contained a glossy colour brochure, a certificate made out in his or her name for one £1 share in the Silver River Mining Co. and a genuine miniature bar of twenty-two carat South African gold, stamped with the company logo. David had sought Reserve Bank authority to have these bars struck by the South African Mint, and at almost thirty dollars each they had been a major part of the advertising budget, but the excitement they created and the subsequent publicity fully justified the expense.
Shasa made his address before the Moët & Chandon could soften the wits of his guests or the floor-show distract them. Speaking in public was something that Shasa had always enjoyed. Neither the fusillade of camera flashes nor the sultry brilliance of the arc lights set up by the NABS television camera team detracted from his enjoyment this evening.
Silver River was one of the major achievements of his career to date. He alone had recognized the chance that the gold reef spurred at depth from the main run of the Orange Free State series, and personally he had negotiated the drilling options. Only when the diamond drills had finally intercepted the narrow black band of the gold-bearing carbon leader almost a mile and a half below the surface of the arid plain had Shasa’s decision been vindicated. The strike was rich beyond even his expectations, running at over twenty-six pennyweights of pure gold to the ton of reef.
Tonight was Shasa’s night. It was his particular gift that he was able to extract from everything he did the last ounce of enjoyment, and he stood in the arc lights tall and debonair in his immaculately tailored evening dress, the black eye-patch giving him a rakish and dangerous air, so obviously at ease and in control of himself and the company he commanded, that he carried them all along with him effortlessly.
They laughed and applauded at the right places, and they listened with fascin
ated attention as he explained the scale of the investment that was called for and how it would help to strengthen the bonds of kinship that tied South Africa so securely to England and the British Commonwealth of Nations, and set up new lines of friendship with the investors of the United States of America from where he hoped almost thirty per cent of the necessary capital for the project would come.
When he ended to prolonged applause, Lord Littleton, as head of the underwriting bank, stood up to reply. He was lean and silver-haired, his evening dress just that touch archaic in cut, with wide cuffs to the trousers, as if to underline his aristocratic scorn of fashion. He told them of his bank’s strong relationship with Courtney Mining and the intense interest that this new company had aroused in the City of London.
‘From the very beginning we at Littleton Bank were pretty damned certain that we were going to earn our underwriting fees very easily. We knew that there would be very few unsubscribed shares for us to take up. So it gives me a deal of pleasure to stand before you here this evening and say, I told you so.’ There was a buzz of comment and speculation which he raised a hand to silence. ‘I am going to tell you something that not even Mr Shasa Courtney knows yet, and which I only learned myself an hour ago.’ He reached into his pocket and brought out a telex flimsy which he waved at them.
‘As you are aware, the subscription lists for shares in Silver River Mining opened this morning at 10 a.m. London time, two hours behind South African time. When my bank closed a few hours ago, they sent me this telex.’ He placed gold-rimmed reading glasses on his nose. ‘I quote: “Please convey congratulations to Mr Courtney and Courtney Mining and Finance as promoters of Silver River Mining Co. Stop. As of 4 p.m. London time today the Silver River issue was oversubscribed by four times. Ends Littleton Bank.”’
David Abrahams seized Shasa’s hand, the first to congratulate him. In the roar of applause they grinned at each other happily, until Shasa broke away and jumped down off the dais.
Centaine Courtney-Malcomess was in the first row of his audience and she sprang lightly to her feet to meet him. She was dressed in a sheath of gold lamé and wearing her full suite of diamonds, each stone carefully picked from thirty years’ production of the H’ani Mine. Slim and glittering and lovely, she went to meet her son.
‘Now we have it all, Mater,’ he whispered as he hugged her.
‘No, Chéri, we’ll never have it all,’ she whispered back. ‘That would be dull. There is always something more to strive for.’
Blaine Malcomess was waiting to congratulate him, and Shasa turned to him with an arm still around Centaine’s waist.
‘Big night, Shasa.’ Blaine took his hand. ‘You deserve it all.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘What a pity Tara couldn’t be here,’ Blaine went on.
‘I wanted her to come.’ Shasa was immediately defensive. ‘But as you know she decided she couldn’t leave the children again so soon.’
The crowd surged around them, and they were laughing and replying to congratulations, but Shasa saw the public relations director hovering and eased his way through to her.
‘Well, Mrs Anstey, you have done us proud.’ He smiled at her with all his charm. She was tall and rather bony but with silky blonde hair that hung in a thick curtain over her bare shoulders.
‘I always try to give full satisfaction.’ Jill Anstey hooded her eyes and pouted slightly to give the remark an ambiguous slant. They had been teasing each other ever since they had met the previous day. ‘But I’m afraid I have some more work for you, Mr Courtney. Will you bear with me just once more?’
‘As often as you wish, Mrs Anstey.’ Shasa played the game out, and she placed her hand on his forearm to lead him away, squeezing just a little more than was necessary.
‘The television people from NABS want to do a five-minute interview with you, for inclusion in their “Africa in Focus” series. It could be a wonderful chance to speak directly to fifty million Americans.’
The TV team were setting up their equipment in the boardroom; the lights and cameras were being trained on the far end of the long room, where Centaine’s portrait by Annigoni hung on the stinkwood panelling. There were three men in the camera crew, all young and casually dressed but clearly highly professional and competent, and with them was a girl.
‘Who will do the interview?’ Shasa asked, glancing around curiously.
‘That’s the director,’ Jill Anstey said. ‘And she’ll talk to you.’ It took him a moment to realize that she meant the girl, then he saw that without seeming to do so, the girl was directing the set-up, indicating a camera angle or a lighting change with a word or a gesture.
‘She’s just a child,’ Shasa protested.
‘Twenty-five and smart as a bunch of monkeys,’ Jill Anstey warned him. ‘Don’t let the little-girl look fool you. She’s a professional and a strong comer with a big following in the States. She did that incredible series of interviews with Jomo Kenyatta, the Mau Mau terrorist, not to mention the Heartbreak Ridge story in Korea. They say she’ll get an Emmy for it.’
South Africa did not have a TV network, but Shasa had seen Heartbreak Ridge on BBC television during his last stay in London. It was a gritty, totally absorbing commentary on the Korean War, and Shasa found it hard to believe that this child had done that. She turned now and came directly to him, holding out her hand, frank and friendly, a fresh-faced ingénue.
‘Hello, Mr Courtney, I’m Kitty Godolphin.’ She had an enchanting Southern accent and there were fine golden freckles across her cheeks and her small pert nose, but then he saw that she had good bone structure and interesting planes to her face that would render her highly photogenic.
‘Mr Courtney,’ she said. ‘You speak so well, I couldn’t resist trying to get a little more of you on film. I hope I haven’t put you out too much.’ She smiled at him, a sweet engaging smile, but he looked beyond it into eyes as hard as any diamonds from the H’ani Mine, eyes that were bright with a sharp cynical intelligence and ruthless ambition. That was unexpected and intriguing.
‘Here’s a show that will be worth the entrance fee,’ he thought and glanced down. Her breasts were small, smaller than he usually chose, but they were unsupported and he could see their shape beneath her blouse. They were exquisite.
She led him to the leather chairs she had arranged to face each other under the lights.
‘If you would sit on this side we’ll get right into it. I’ll do my introduction later. I don’t want to keep you any longer than I have to.’
‘As long as you like.’
‘Oh, I know that you have a room full of important guests.’ She glanced at her crew and one of them gave her a thumbs-up. She looked back at Shasa. ‘The American public knows very little about South Africa,’ she explained. ‘What I am trying to do is capture a cross-section of your society and figure out how it all works. I will introduce you as a politician, mining tycoon and financier, and tell them about this fabulous new gold-mine of yours. Then we’ll cut to you. OK?’
‘OK!’ He smiled easily. ‘Let her roll.’
The clapper loader snapped the board in front of Shasa’s face, somebody said ‘Sound?’ and somebody else replied, ‘Rolling,’ and then ‘Action.’
‘Mr Shasa Courtney, you have just told a meeting of your shareholders that your new gold-mine will probably be one of the five richest in South Africa, which makes it one of the richest in the world. Can you tell our viewers just how much of that fabulous wealth will be going back to people from whom it was stolen in the first place?’ she asked with breath-taking candour. ‘And I am, of course, referring to the black tribes who once owned the land.’
Shasa was off-balance for only the moment that it took him to realize that he was in a fight. Then he responded easily.
‘The black tribes who once owned the land on which the Silver River Mine is situated were slaughtered, to the last man, woman and child, back in the 1820s by the impis of Kings Chaka and Mzilikazi, tho
se two benevolent Zulu monarchs who between them managed to reduce the population of Southern Africa by fifty per cent,’ he told her. ‘When the white settlers moved northwards, they came upon a land denuded of all human life. The land they staked was open, they stole it from nobody. I bought the mineral rights from people who had clear undisputed title to it.’ He saw a glint of respect in her eyes, but she was as quick as he had been. She had lost a point but she was ready to play the next.
‘Historical facts are interesting, of course, but let’s return to the present. Tell me, if you had been a man of colour, Mr Courtney, say black or an Asiatic businessman, would you have been allowed to purchase the concessions to the Silver River Mine?’
‘That’s a hypothetical question, Miss Godolphin.’
‘I don’t think so—’ She cut off his escape. ‘Am I wrong in thinking that the Group Areas Act recently promulgated by the parliament of which you are a sitting member, prevents non-white individuals and companies owned by blacks from purchasing land or mineral rights anywhere in their own land?’
‘I voted against that legislation,’ Shasa said grimly. ‘But yes, the Group Areas Act would have prevented a coloured person acquiring the rights in the Silver River Mine,’ he conceded. Too clever to labour a point well taken, she moved on swiftly.
‘How many black people does the Courtney Mining and Finance Company employ in its numerous enterprises?’ she asked with that sweet open smile.
‘Altogether, through eighteen subsidiary companies, we provide work for some two thousand whites and thirty thousand blacks.’
‘That is a marvellous achievement, and must make you very proud, Mr Courtney.’ She was breathlessly girlish. ‘And how many blacks do you have sitting on the boards of those eighteen companies?’
Again he had been wrong-footed, and he avoided the question. ‘We make a point of paying well above the going rate for the job, and the other benefits we provide to our employees—’ Kitty nodded brightly, letting him finish, quite happy that she could edit out all this extraneous material, but the moment he paused, she came in again:
