by Wilbur Smith
"Three times. Such virility and athleticism., Oliver Kendrick smiled and crossed the room with the springing gait of the ballet-dancer, and offered Michael his hand. It was surprisingly narrow and cool, and his bones felt light as those of a bird. It was appropriate, for they called him 'the Black Swan'. His neck was long and elegant, as that of the bird, and his eyes were as luminous as a mountain pool reflected in the moonlight. His skin had the same dark lustre.
Michael thought that close up he was more beautiful even than he had appeared in the romantic lighting of the stage set, and his breathing cramped. The dancer left his hand in Michael's grip, as he turned his head to Raleigh. 'Don't rush away, Raleigh,' he pleaded in that musical West Indian lilt.
"I must go.' Raleigh shook his head. 'I'm afraid that I have a plane to catch." Oliver Kendrick turned back to Michael, still holding his hand. "I have had a beastly day. I swear I could simply curl up and die. Don't leave me alone, Michael. Do stay and distract me. You can be entertaining and distracting, can't you, Michael?" Raleigh Tabaka left him and let himself out of the flat. One of his men was waiting for him outside the door, but they did not leave the building.
Instead the man led Raleigh only a short distance down the passageway to a less ostentatious doorway. This second flat, beyond it, was much smaller and starkly furnished. Raleigh went through to the inner room, and the second of his men made to stand up from the chair beside the lit window in the side-wall.
Raleigh gestured to him to remain seated and crossed to the window. It was of unusual shape, tall and narrow, like a full-length dressing-mirror. The glass was shaded with that slightly opaque tone that was characteristic of a twoway mirror viewed from the reverse side.
The room beyond was a bedroom, lavishly furnished like the rest of Oliver Kendrick's apartment. The colour theme was pale oyster and mushroom, and the satin bedspread matched exactly the shade of the deep pile of the carpet. Hidden lighting glimmered and glowed on the mirrored tiles of the ceiling. Set in an alcove facing the bed was an ancient phallic symbol, carved from amber-coloured obsidian, a precious antique from a Hindu temple.
The room was empty, and Raleigh turned his attention to the camera equipment that stood ready, aimed through the two-way mirror.
The apartment and the camera equipment belonged to Oliver Kendrick. He had loaned it to Raleigh on previous occasions. It was odd that a man of Kendrick's talent and fame would consent to take part in an arranged tableau such ag this. However, not only did he do so willingly, but he had also actually offered his equipment and his services to Raleigh.
He participated with such unfeigned enthusiasm and inventive delight that it was obvious that this was very much to his particular taste. His only stipulation was that Raleigh hand over to him a copy of the videotapes and photographs to add to his huge private collection. The video equipment was of the very finest professional standard. Raleigh had been impressed by the quality of reproduction even in this low-light environment.
Raleigh glanced at his wristwatch again. He could safely leave the rest of it to his two bodyguards. They had done this before. However, a perverse curiosity made him linger. It was almost half an hour before the door to the bedroom opened. Kendrick and Michael Courtney entered. Raleigh's two assistants moved quickly to their positions, one to the video-recorder and the other to the big black Hasselblad camera on its tripod. The still camera was loaded with monochrome theatrical film, rated at 3ooo ASA which rendered crisp prints in the poorest light conditions.
In the room beyond, the two men embraced, a long lingering kiss with open mouths, and the video-recorder emitted a faint electric hum. The sound of the shutter of the Hasselblad was much louder, almost explosive in the quiet dark room.
At one stage, as the white man lay expectantly in the centre of the oyster satin bedspread, Kendrick crossed naked to stand in front of the two-way mirror. He pretended to examine his own body, in reality flaunting it before the men who, he knew, were watching on the far side of the glass.
His musculature was extraordinarily developed by long hours at the practice barre. His calves and thighs were disproportionately massive.
He gazed arrogantly into the mirror, and the diamond ear-rings in his lobes glittered as he turned his head on its long swan's neck, striking a theatrical pose. He ran the tip of his tongue along the inside of his parted lips and stared through the darkling mirror into Raleigh Tabaka's eyes. It was the lewdest gesture he had ever witnessed, with a chill of evil to it that made even Raleigh shiver briefly.
Kendrick turned away and sauntered back towards the bed. His velvety black buttocks swayed in that stylized mincing gait, and the man on the bed raised both arms to greet him.
Raleigh turned away and left the apartment. He rode down in the lift and walked out into the chill of evening. He drew his overcoat tighter across his chest and took a slow breath of clean cold air. Then he gathered himself and walked away with the long determined stride of a with important work to do.
When Michael left London he took with him a little of the special joy that had filled Isabella's LIFE over these last weeks.
She drove him out to Heathrow. 'We always seem to be saying goodbye, Mickey,' she whispered. 'I shall miss you so, as I always do." 'I'll see you at the wedding." 'There will probably be a christening before that," she answered, and he held her at arm's length.
"You didn't tell me,' he accused.
"His wife,' she explained. 'We are moving to Spain at the end of January.
Ramsey wants the baby to be born there. He will adopt it under Spanish law." 'You must let me know where you are - at all times -and remember your promise." She nodded. 'You'll be the very first one that I'll call on for help, if I need it." At the doors to the departure-hall, he looked back and blew her a kiss.
When he disappeared she felt chilled with loneliness.
This was a feeling that evaporated swiftly in the Iberian sunlight.
The apartment that Ramsey found was in a tiny fishing village a few miles down the coast from Mdlaga. It occupied the top two floors, and had a wide paved terrace that looked out over the tops of the pines to the blue Mediterranean beyond. During the day, while Ramsey was at the bank, Isabella in her tiniest bikini lay out on a protected corner of the terrace where the cold wind could not reach her and the sun tanned her face and body to the colour of dark amber while she wrote the final section of her thesis.
Born in Africa, she was a child of the sun, and she had missed it desperately during the London years.
Ramsey was called upon by his bank to travel as frequently as when they had lived in London. She hated to see him go, but between his trips there were lyrical interludes spent together. While in Mdlaga his bank duties were light and he could slip away for the entire afternoon and take her to secret and unfrequented coves along the seashore, or to out-of-the-way restaurants that served the local seafood specialities and country wines.
His wound had healed cleanly. 'It was the expert nurse I had,' he told her.
It left a pair of dimpled scars on his chest and back that were glossy with a pink cicatrice. The sun tanned the rest of his body to a much darker tone than hers, like oiled mahogany. In contrast to the tan, his eyes seemed a lighter brighter green.
While Ramsey was away she had Adra for company. Where Ramsey had found her she was never able to ascertain. However, the choice was a master-stroke, for Adra Olivares was a marvelous substitute for Nanny. In some ways, she surpassed the original, for she was not as garrulous and prying and domineering as the old woman.
Adra was a slim but physically robust woman in her early forties. She had jet hair with just a few strands of dead white that she wore sleeked back into a bun the size of a cricket ball behind her head. Her face was dark and solemn, but at the same time kind and humorous. Her hands were brown and square and powerful when she performed the housework, but quick and light when she cooked or ironed Isabella's clothes to a crisp crackling perfection, or again they were gentle and infinitely
comforting when she massaged Isabella's aching back or anointed her bulging sun-browned belly with olive oil to keep the muscles supple and the skin smooth and young and free of stretch-marks.
She took over Isabella's tuition in the Spanish language, and their progress was so rapid that it surprised Ramsey. Within a month, Isabella was reading the local newspapers with ease, and arguing fluently with the plumber and the television repair man, or supporting Adra as she haggled with the stall-holders in the local marketplace.
Although she loved to question Isabella about her family and Africa, Adra was not forthcoming about her own origins. Isabella presumed that she was a local woman, until one morning she noticed amongst the mail in their postbox an envelope addressed to her that was stamped and franked in Havana, Cuba.
When she remarked, 'Is it from your husband or family, Adra? Who is writing to you from Cuba?' the woman was brusque.
"It's only a friend, sefiora. My husband is dead.' And for the rest of the day she was withdrawn and taciturn. It took until the end of the week for her to return to normal, and Isabella was careful not to mention the Cuban letter again.
As the weeks passed, and the time of Isabella's parturition drew closer, so Adra's anticipation of the event increased. She took an intense interest in the layette that Isabella was assembling. Michael had made the original contribution. An airmail parcel arrived from Johannesburg with a set of six cot-sheets and pillow-slips in finest cotton piped with blue silk ribbon, and an exquisite pair of woollen baby-jackets. Each day Isabella added to the collection and Adra helped her with her selections. Together they scoured every possible source of babywear within a radius of an hour's drive in the Mini.
Whenever Ramsey returned from his business trips, he always brought a further contribution. Although the clothing was often large enough to fit a teenager, Isabella was so touched by his concern that she could not bring herself to point out the discrepancy. On one occasion, he returned with a pram whose capacity, suspension and glistening paintwork were worthy of the Rolls-Royce workshops in Crewe. Adra presented Isabella with a silk christening-robe that she had made herself with antique lace that she told Isabella came from her grandmother's wedding-dress. Isabella was so touched that she broke down and wept. Her tears seemed to come closer to the surface as her pregnancy progressed, and she thought often of Weltevreden.
When she telephoned her father and Nana, it was difficult to prevent herself blurting out something about Ramsey or the baby. They believed that she had merely gone into retreat in Spain to finish the thesis.
On several occasions before her pregnancy made it unwise for her to travel, Ramsey asked her to undertake errands for him during his absence. In each case, she had merely to fly to a foreign destination in Europe, North Africa or the Middle East, there to make a rendezvous, receive an envelope or small packet and return home. When she flew to Tel Aviv, she used her South African passport, but in Benghazi and Cairo she showed her British passport. All these trips lasted only a day and a night and were uneventful, but served to vary her lifestyle and give her a fine opportunity to shop for the baby. Only a week after her trip to Benghazi, the monarchy of King Idris I was overthrown by a military coup ditat led by Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi, and Isabella was appalled when she realized how close she and her baby had come to being caught up in the revolution. Ramsey shared her concern and promised not to ask her to undertake another errand until after the baby was born. She never asked him if her journeys were in connection with bank business or the darker clandestine side of his life.
Once a week, she went for a check-up at the clinic that Ramsey had selected for her. Adra always accompanied her. The gynaecologist was a suave and cultured Spaniard with an austere aristocratic face and pale competent hands that felt cool against her skin as he examined her.
"Everything proceeds perfectly, sefiora. Nature is doing her work, and you are young and healthy and well formed for the task of childbirth." "Will it be a boy?" 'Of course, sehora. A beautiful healthy boy. I give you my personal guarantee." The clinic was a former Moorish palace, restored and renovated, and equipped with the most modern medical equipment. After the doctor had taken her on a tour of the facilities, Isabella realized the wisdom of Ramsey's choice. She was sure that it was the finest available.
During one of her visits, when the doctor had finished his examination and Isabella was dressing in the curtained cubicle, she overheard him discussing her condition with Adra in the waiting-room. Isabella's Spanish was by this time good enough for her to appreciate that the exchange was technical and specific, like that of two professionals. It surprised her.
On the drive home, she stopped at a sea-front restaurant and, as was their established custom, ordered ice-cream and chocolate sauce for both of them.
"I heard you talking to the doctor, Adra,' Isabella said, with a mouthful of ice-cream. 'You must once have been a nurse, you know so much about it - all those technical words." Once again, she encountered that strangely hostile reaction from the woman.
"I am too stupid for that. I am just a maid,' she said harshly, and retreated into a sullen silence from which Isabella could not dislodge her.
The doctor anticipated that the baby would arrive during the first week in April, and she made a spurt on her thesis to finish it before that time. She typed the final pages on the last day of March and sent it off to London. She was undecided whether it was arrant nonsense or sheer genius. After it had gone she agonized endlessly over fancied omissions and possible improvements which she could have made to the text.
However, within a week she had a reply from the university inviting her to defend her thesis during a viva with the examiners of the faculty.
"They like it,' she exulted, 'or they wouldn't bother." Despite her advanced pregnancy she flew to London for three days to attend the viva. It went better than she could have hoped but by the time she got back to Milaga she was exhausted.
"They promised to let me know as soon as possible!' she told Ramsey. 'But I think it's going to be all right - hold thumbs for me." She made Ramsey give his solemn promise not to leave her alone from now onwards. Thus, she was lying in his arms, both of them naked under the sheet in the moonlight, the doors to the terrace wide open to catch the faintest breeze off the sea, when the first pain woke her.
She lay quietly, not waking him, while she timed the intervals between contractions, feeling smug and accomplished as she entered the final stages of the long fascinating process. When at last, she shook Ramsey awake, he was most gratifyingly solicitous. He hurried away in his pyjamas to fetch Adra from the servant's room on the lower floor.
Isabella's suitcase was ready, and the three of them climbed into the Mini.
With Isabella seated in splendid isolation on the tiny rear seat, Ramsey drove them out to the clinic.
As her doctor had predicted, it all went forward naturally and rapidly.
Although the baby was large and Isabella's hips were relatively narrow, there were no complications. When the doctor called upon her from between her raised knees for a final effort, she thrust down with all her strength and then as she felt the enormous slippery rushing release within her she uttered a joyous and triumphant cry.
Anxiously she struggled up on one elbow and brushed the sweaty tangle of hair out of her eyes. 'What is it?' she demanded. 'Is it a boy?' And the doctor held the skinny glistening red body high, and they all laughed at the petulant birth-wail.
"There you are.' Still holding him dangling by the ankles, the doctor turned the infant so that Isabella could see him better.
The child's face was scarlet and creased, the eyelids swollen tightly closed. His hair was dense and jet black, plastered wetly over the skull.
His penis stuck out half as long as her forefinger in what seemed to be, to Isabella's partisan appraisal, a full and impressive erection.
"It's a boy!' she gasped, and then with a chuckle of wonderment: 'He's a boy and a Courtney!" Isabella was unprepared for the overwhelming
strength of her maternal instincts as they laid her firstborn son at her breast and he took her engorged nipple between his rubbeo little gums and tugged at it with an animal strength that aroused sympathetic contractions in her distended womb and a deeper, more primeval pain in her heart.
He was the most beautiful creature she had ever touched, as beautiful as his father. In those first days, she could not take her eyes off him, often rising in the night to bend over 'his cot and examine his tiny face in the moonlight, or while he suckled, opening his pink fists and studying each perfect little finger with an almost religious awe.
