Gold Mine

by Wilbur Smith

  The bedroom door was open and so she could not help seeing the double bed as she went back to the lounge. She stood in front of the painting.

  "I love his work," she said.

  "Not too photographic for your taste?"

  "No. I love it." He gave her the drink and stood beside her, studying the painting. She tinkled the ice in her glass, and he turned towards her. The feeling of unreality was still holding Terry as she felt him take the glass from her hand.

  She was conscious of his hands only, they were strong and very practised. They touched her shoulders, and then moved onto her back calmly. She felt a voluptuous shudder shake her whole body, and then his mouth came down over hers and the sense of unreality was complete.

  It was all warm and misty, and she let him take control.

  She never knew how long afterwards she jerked back to complete, chilling reality. They were on the couch. She lay in his arms. The front of her slack suit was open to the waist and her bra was unhooked.

  His head was bowed over her and with a handful of thick springy hair she was directing his lips in their quest. His mouth was warm and sucky on her breast.

  "I must be mad!" she gasped, and struggled violently from his arms.

  She was trembling with fright, horrified with herself Nothing like this had ever happened to her before.

  "This is madness!" Her eyes were great dark pools in her pale face, and her fingers were frantic as she buttoned her blouse. As the last button slipped into its hole, anger replaced her fright. "How many women have you seduced on that couch, Rodney Ironsides?"

  Rod stood up, reaching out a hand to reassure her.

  "Don't touch me!" She stepped back. "I want to go home!"

  "I'll take you home, Terry. just calm down. Nothing happened."

  "That's not your fault," she blazed.

  "No, it's not," he agreed.

  "If you had your way, you'd have- she bit it off.

  "Yes, I would have." Rod nodded. "But only if you wanted the same thing." She stared at him, starting to recover her temper and her control.

  "I shouldn't have come up here, I know. It was asking for trouble, but please take me home now."

  The telephone woke Rod. He checked his wrist watch as he tottered naked and half asleep through to the lounge. Eight o'clock.

  "Ironsides!" He yawned into. the mouthpiece, and then came fully awake as he recognized her voice.

  "Good morning, Terry. How's your hangover?" He had not expected to hear from her again.

  "Just bearable." "I called to thank you for an amusing and instructive evening."

  "Hark at the girl!" He grinned and scratched his chest.

  "She changes with the wind. Last night I expected a bullet between the eyes. "Last night I got one big fright," she admitted.

  "It comes as a bit of a shock to discover suddenly that you are quite capable of acting the wanton. Not all the names I called you were meant."

  "I am sorry for my contribution to your distress," Rod said.

  "Don't be, you were very impressive." Then quickly, changing the subject, "You are picking up your daughter today?"

  "Yes."

  "I'd like to meet her."

  "That could be arranged." Rod was cautious.

  "Does she like horses?"

  "She's crazy about them."

  "Would you like to take her and me out to my stud farm on the Vaal river?" Rod hesitated. "Is it safe? I mean, being seen together?"

  "It's my reputation, I'll look after it.

  "Fine!" Rod agreed. "We'd love to visit your farm."

  "I'll meet you at your apartment. When?"

  "Half past nine!" Patti was still in her dressing-gown and she offered Rod her cheek casually to be pecked. There were curlers in her hair and from her eyes he could tell she'd had a late night.

  "Hello, you're getting thin. Melly is dressing. Do you want some coffee? Your maintenance cheque was late again this month." And she took a swipe at the spaniel pup as it squatted on the carpet. "Damn dog pees all over the place.

  Melanie." She raised her voice. "Hurry up! Your Papa is here."

  "Hello, Daddy!" Melanie's voice shrieked delightedly from the interior of the apartment.

  "Hello, baby."

  "You can't come in, Daddy, I haven't got any clothes on."

  "Well hurry up! I've come a million miles to see you." "Not a million!" You couldn't fool Melanie Ironsides.

  "Did you say you wanted coffee? It's no trouble, it's made already.

  "Pattie led him through into the sitting-room.

  "Thanks."

  "How are things?" she asked as she filled a cup and gave it to him.

  "They've made me General Manager of the Sander Ditch." He could not prevent himself, it was too good. He had to boast.

  Patti looked at him, startled.

  "You're joking!" she accused, and then he saw her mind beginning to work like a cash register.

  He almost laughed out loud. "No. It's true."

  "God!" She sat down limply. "It will nearly double your salary." He looked at her dispassionately, and not for the first time felt a great wash of relief as he realized he was no longer shackled to her.

  "It's usual to offer congratulations," he prompted her.

  "You don't deserve it." She was angry now. "You are a selfish, philandering bastard, Rodney Ironsides, you don't deserve the good things that keep happening to you." He had cheated her. She could have been the General Manager's wife, first lady of the gold fields Now she was a divorcee, stuck with a miserable four fifty a month. It had seemed good before, but "not now.

  "I hope you will "have enough conscience to make a suitable adjustment for Melanie and me.. We are entitled to a share." The door burst open and Melanie Ironsides arrived at a gallop to wrap herself around Rod's neck. She had long blonde hair and green eyes.

  "I got nine out of ten for spelling!"

  "You're not clever, you're a genius. Also you're beautiful."

  "Will you carry me down to the car, Daddy?" "What's wrong? Your legs in plaster?"

  "Please, please, pretty please times three." Patti interrupted the love feast. "Have you got your jersey, young lady?" And Melanie flew.

  "I'll have her back before seven," said Rod.

  "You haven't answered my question." Patti was surly. "Do we get a share?" "Yes, of course," said Rod. "The same big juicy four fifty you've had all along." They had been in Rod's apartment ten minutes when the doorbell announced Terry's arrival. She was in jeans and a checked shirt with her hair in a plait, and she greeted Rod self-consciously.

  When he introduced her to Melanie, she did not look much older than his daughter.

  The two girls summed each other up solemnly. Melanie was suddenly very demure and refined, and Rod was relieved to see that Terry had the good sense not to gush over the child.

  They were in the Maserati and half way to the village of Parys on the Vaal River before Melanie had completed her microscopic scrutiny of "Can I come up front and sit on your lap?" she asked at last.

  "Yes, of course." Terry was hard put to conceal her relief and pleasure. Melanie scrambled over the seat and settled on Terry's lap.

  "You are pretty," Melanie gave her considered opinion.

  "Thank you. So are you."

  "Are you Daddy's girlfriend?" Melanie demanded. Terry glanced across at Rod, then burst out laughing.

  "Almost," she gurgled, and then all three of them were laughing.

  They laughed often that day. It was a day of sunshine and laughter.

  Melanie Terry and Rod walked together with fingers almost touching through the green paddocks along the willow lined bank of the Vaal.

  Melanie ran ahead of them shrieking with glee at the antics of the foals.

  They went up to the stables where Melanie fed sugar lumps to a winner of the Cape Metropolitan Handicap and then kissed his velvety muzzle.

  They swam in the pool beside the elegant whitewashed homestead, laughter mingling with the sp
lashes, and when they drove back to Johannesburg in the evening Melanie curled in exhausted slumber on Terry's lap, her head cushioned on Terry's bosom.

  Terry waited in the Maserati while Rod carried the sleeping child up to her mother, and when he returned and slipped into the driver's seat, Terry murmured, "My car is at your apartment. You'll have to take me with you." Neither of them spoke until they were back in Rod's sitting-room. Then he said, "Thank you for a wonderful day." And he took her to his chest and kissed her.

  In the darkness she lay pressed to his sleeping body, clinging to him, as though he might be taken from her. She had never felt such intensity of emotion before, it was a compound of awed wonder and gratitude. She had just been admitted to a new level of human experience she had never suspected existed. The sheets were stil damp.

  She felt bruised internally, aching, a slow voluptuous pulse of pain that she cherished.

  Lightly she touched his body, not wanting to wake him, running her fingertips through the coarse curls that covered his chest, marvelling still at the infinity that separated this from what she had known before.

  She shuddered with almost unbearable pleasure as she remembered his voice describing her body to her, making her proud of it for the first time in her life. She remembered the words he had used to tell her exactly what they were doing together, and the feel of his hands, so gentle, sure, so lovingly possessive upon her.

  He was so unashamed, taking such obvious joy in her, that the reserves which the barren years of her marriage had placed in her mind were swept away and she was able to go with Rodney Ironsides beyond the storm into that tranquil state where mind and body are completely at peace.

  She became aware of him awakening beside her, and she touched his face, his lips and his eyes with her fingertips.

  "Thank you," she whispered, and he seemed to understand, for he took her head and drew it gently down into the hollow of his shoulder.

  "Sleep now," he told her softly, and she closed her eyes and lay very still and quiet beside him, but she did not sleep. She would not miss one moment of this experience. RROD's letter of appointment lay on his desk when he arrived at his office at seven-thirty on the Monday, morning.

  He sat down and lit a cigarette. Then he began to read it slowly, savouring each word.

  "Duly instructed by the Board of Directors," it began, and ended, it remains only to render the congratulations of the Board, and to voice their confidence in your ability." Dimitri came through from his office, distracted.

  "Hey! Rod! Christ what a start to the week! We've got a fault in the main high voltage cable on 90 level, and-"

  "Don't come squealing to me," Rod cut him short. "I'm not the Underground Manager." Dimitri gaped at him, taken by surprise.

  "What the hell, have they fired you?" "Next best thing," said Rod and flipped the letter across the desk.

  "Look what the bastards have done to me." Dimitri read and then whooped, "My God, Rod! My God!" He shot down the passage to carry the news to the other line managers. Then they were all in his office, shaking his hand. He judged most of their reactions as favourable though occasionally he detected a false note. A twinge of envy here, one there who had recently had his ears burned by the Ironsides tongue, and an incompetent who knew his job was now in danger. The phone rang.

  Rod answered it, his expression changed and he cleared his office with a peremptory wave.

  "Hirschfeld here."

  "Morning, Mr. Hirschfeld."

  "Well, you've got your chance, Ironsides."

  "I'm grateful for it."

  "I want to see you. I'll give you today to sort yourself out.

  Tomorrow morning at nine o'clock, my office at Reef Buildings." "I'll be there."

  "Good." Rod hung up, and the day dissolved into a welter- of activity and reorganization, constantly interrupted by a stream of well-wishers.

  He was still running the Underground Manager's job in addition to the General Manager's.

  It would be some considerable time before a new Underground Manager would be transferred in from one of the other group mines. He was trying to arrange his move to the big office in the main Administrative Block up on the ridge, when he had another visitor, Frank Lemmer's secretary, Miss. Lily Jordan, looking like a wardress from Ravensbruck in a severe grey flannel suit.

  "Mr. Ironsides, you and I have not seen eye to eye in the past." This was the understatement of the year. "It is unlikely that we will in the future. Therefore, I have come to render my resignation. I have made arrangements." The phone rang. Dan Stander's voice, breezy and carefree.

  "Rod, I'm in love."

  "Oh Christ, no!" Rod groaned. "Not this morning."

  "I've got to thank you for introducing me to her. She's the most wonderful-"

  "Yeah, yeah!" Rod cut him short. "Look, Dan, I'm rather busy. Some other time, all right?"

  "Oh yes, I forgot. You are the new General Manager they tell me.

  Congratulations. You can buy me a drink at the Club. Six o'clock."

  "Right. By then I'll need one." Rod hung up, and faced the hanging-judge expression of Miss. Lily Jordan.

  "Miss. Jordan, in the past our interests have conflicted. In the future they will not. You are the best private secretary within a hundred miles of the Sander Ditch. I need you, the Company needs you." That was the magic word. Miss. Jordan had twenty-five years service with the Company. She wavered visibly. Please Miss. Jordan, give me a chance."

  Shamelessly Rod switched on his most engaging smile. Miss. Jordan's femininity was not so completely atrophied that she could resist that smile.

  "Very well , then, Mr. Ironsides. I'll stay on initially until the end of the month. We'll see after that." She stood up.

  "Now, I'll get your things moved up to the new office."

  "Thank you, Miss. Jordan." With relief he let her take over, and tackled the problems that were piling up on his desk. One man, two jobs. Now he was responsible for surface operation as well as underground. The phone rang, men queued up in the passage, memos kept coming through from Dimitri's office. There was no lunch hour, and by the time she rang he was exhausted.

  "Hello," she said. "Do I see you tonight?" Her voice was as refreshing as a wet cloth on the brow of a prize-fighter between rounds.

  "Terry." He simply spoke her name in reply.

  "Yes or no. If it's no, I intend jumping off the top of Reef Building." "Yes," he said. "Pops has summoned me to a meeting at nine tomorrow morning, so I'll be staying overnight at the apartment. I'll call you as soon as I get in." "Goody! Goody! said she.

  At five-thirty Dimitri stuck his head around the door.

  "I'm going down to No. 1 shaft to supervise the shoot, Rod."

  "My God, what time is it?" Rod checked his watch. "So late already."