Edge of the Rain

by Beverley Harper

  ‘They threw you out for that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘I hated the bloody place and I hated the bloody people. When the headmistress had me on the mat and told me that nice young ladies don’t climb out of windows, particularly in their nightdresses and especially not in full view of the townsfolk, I sort of let fly.’

  ‘Let fly?’ he was grinning. He felt his mouth widen and his spirits lift. The last time he felt this good was so long ago, too long ago.

  ‘Sort of.’ She smiled at him. ‘I . . . uh . . . well I kind of implied that she ate too much, was of the canine variety and she could stick her manners and rules someplace no-one had ever been.’

  He laughed out loud, he could just imagine her exact words. It felt good to laugh. ‘So you stayed in Europe?’

  ‘No. I went home.’

  ‘But now you’re back.’

  She avoided his eyes. ‘I felt like a break from Africa. Been working my way around Europe.’

  She was hiding something, he could tell. But he didn’t care. He was too happy at being happy again. ‘I’ve been drinking my way around it.’

  ‘I heard what happened. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Yeah well. It was a long time ago.’ Suddenly that’s how it felt. The crushing weight of grief was lifting.

  ‘You must have loved her very much.’

  ‘I did.’ He did not want to talk to Madison about Chrissy.

  She placed toast and Marmite in front of him and sat opposite. ‘Haven’t got anything else, sorry.’ The homely smell of toast and melting butter had his mouth watering again.

  Her accent made him homesick. Suddenly he wanted to go home. He wanted to smell the bush again, feel the freedom of being the only person for miles, listen to the wind whispering through the sand dunes, talk the clicking language of the San. He wanted to taste the tangy tsamma melon and feel the juicy tenderness of Botswana beefsteak in his mouth. ‘I’m going back.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I think I’ve got money there. I’ll send for some.’

  ‘You think?’ She was incredulous.

  ‘I might have already sent for it.’

  ‘You don’t remember?’

  ‘I don’t remember much at all. It’s like I’ve been asleep.’ He frowned. ‘This is weird, Madison. To suddenly wake up and you’re here. It’s the strangest feeling.’

  ‘I guess it must be.’ Again, she was avoiding something.

  ‘I need to get home. I need to be myself again.’ He looked at her. ‘Do you understand what I mean?’

  ‘Yes.’ She passed him more hot toast and sat opposite him. ‘Anything’s better than what you’ve become.’

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ he said drily.

  ‘You’ll see changes. Gabs has grown a great deal.’ She nibbled a piece of toast. ‘Do you know the date?’

  He was insulted. ‘I’m not that far gone, Madison. It’s January seventeenth, 1969.’

  She pounced. ‘Eighteenth, actually. Saturday the eighteenth.’

  ‘Oh.’ He had finished the toast. ‘Feel like a walk?’

  ‘Where to?’

  He stood up. ‘I’m still starving.’

  She laughed at him. ‘You’re not so sick.’

  ‘Not any more. I’ve just woken up. It’s a nice feeling.’

  She handed him some money. ‘I found this in your pocket. Nothing else. I burned your clothes by the way.’

  He counted the notes: eighteen pounds. Enough for breakfast anyway. ‘I have to find a bank.’

  ‘It’s Saturday.’

  ‘Don’t they open Saturday in Scotland?’

  ‘In the mornings. It’s 1.15 in the afternoon. You’ll have to wait until Monday. You’re welcome to stay with me but I get the bed, you have the sofa.’

  ‘Fine with me.’

  ‘And don’t get any ideas. I’m helping because I know you.’

  ‘Madison?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re full of shit.’

  For a brief moment the watcher was back, wondering what she would do and not caring very much one way or another. But when she threw back her head and laughed, it was Alex who was relieved. The watcher was on the way out.

  After the weekend she left him to himself, alone in her flat with his thoughts, while she went to work as a receptionist at a doctor’s surgery. He thought of Chrissy and the terrible ache in his heart was gone. Instead he found himself smiling at a memory. He thought of Marv and Pru and the baby Alexander James who had caused him such pain. He would no longer be a baby. He thought of Paul and of his parents. By mid-week his mind was clear. It was time to go back.

  The bank arranged to ascertain his account balance in Gaborone. ‘Come back the day after tomorrow,’ the teller told him. ‘We’ll have an answer by then.’

  That evening Madison smiled when she saw his determination to go home. ‘I miss it too. I’ll probably go home soon. Mummy is lonely.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘My father died last year. He got caught up in a stampede at Kang.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Are you?’ Her smile was wry.

  ‘Yes.’ He found he was. ‘There’s no point in trying to hide the fact that I didn’t like him. I didn’t. You know what happened. I’m sorry he died like that and I’m sorry for the pain it would have caused you and your mother. That’s all.’

  ‘He always regretted what he did to you.’

  ‘You wanted to talk about it that night we . . .’ he left it hanging, wondering what she would say.

  ‘The night we made love.’ She smiled briefly. ‘It’s okay, Alex, you can say it.’

  ‘I wasn’t using you. I know you think I was but it wasn’t like that.’

  She took two beers from the refrigerator, then put one back when he shook his head. ‘I know that now.’ She popped the can and drank straight from it. Lowering it she grinned at him. ‘I probably knew it then as well. I was just too bloody full of myself to admit it.’

  Alex laughed. Then, ‘I still don’t want to talk about your father. There’s no point.’

  She swigged her beer and he watched her hair. ‘I don’t either.’ She put her beer down. ‘We had a sort of falling out a few years back. I thought I knew him but . . . ,’ she shrugged. ‘Let’s drop it.’

  He stared at her. ‘You’re different somehow.’

  ‘Older and wiser.’ She grinned. ‘Had to happen.’

  ‘Do Pat and the rest of them still work at your place?’

  ‘Artie has gone, he’s returned to Rhodesia. The rest are still there although I don’t know for how long. Mummy’s got the farm up for sale.’ She looked at him. ‘What will you do when you get back?’

  ‘Probably go back to Shakawe. I expect Pa could do with some help on the farm. He’s not getting any younger. Mum’s been trying to get me home for years.’

  She nodded. ‘That Bushman scheme of yours is off the ground. It’s doing very well from what I gather.’

  He was glad to hear it. ‘Anyone found diamonds yet near Jwaneng?’

  ‘Kel?’ She laughed. ‘He went broke.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Sent most of his family broke as well.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘You’re a charming little dear, aren’t you?’

  He shrugged. ‘I guess I don’t like bullies and cheats.’

  She looked angry but said nothing.

  ‘That wasn’t a dig, Madison.’

  ‘You’ll never forgive Dad, will you?’

  ‘It’s over.’ He saw she was waiting to hear more. ‘You’re right, I’ll never forgive him. I’ve tried but I can’t.’

  ‘He was always sorry about it.’

  Again, he changed the subject. He did not want to fight her. ‘What will you do when you get back?’

  ‘Try to get back my old job with Game Department. I liked that work.’ She seemed pleased to talk of something else.

  He realised how hard it must have
been for her, loving her father as she did, to learn of his darker side. One day they might be able to speak of it together. Not today. ‘Will you work in Gabs or Maun?’

  ‘Wherever they send me, I don’t mind.’

  Alex discovered he didn’t mind where he went either. The desert, the Okavango, Gaborone, Francistown, he loved it all. The freedom of space, the open people. He looked out through her window: a wintry scene in Scotland. It was beautiful but it wasn’t for him.

  The bank informed him he had 8,000 rand in his account in Gaborone. The teller seemed surprised he didn’t know that, with independence, Botswana had moved into the Rand Monetary Area. Alex remembered there had been talk of it. He did not bother to enlighten the man as to why he needed to have the figure converted into pounds.

  ‘Four thousand approximately,’ the teller said.

  Four thousand. More than enough to fly home. More than enough to get him back to Shakawe. He had money in Francistown too, unless he’d spent it on alcohol.

  He arranged a transfer of 5,000 Rand. The Botswana High Commission in London told him over the telephone that a passport to replace the one he had lost along the way would take two weeks to arrange. It seemed like a very long time.

  His body showed the ravages of neglect. He felt white and flabby. He spent the two weeks trying to get into shape. He jogged for an hour every morning and evening. He swam daily at the local swimming baths. He ate plain food with lots of fruit and vegetables. He avoided alcohol completely.

  Madison appeared happy enough for him to stay with her. They spent most evenings either talking or playing scrabble. She was easy to be with but he was wary of her. There was something she was not telling him. He tried once to find out what it was.

  ‘How come you have a place in Stirling?’ It seemed strange to him that she lived where Chrissy had lived.

  She was making a salad and did not look up as she spoke. ‘Guess I had to end up somewhere. Stirling seemed as good a place as anywhere.’

  ‘Why not London or Edinburgh?’

  ‘I spent time in both.’ She was paying close attention to a tomato.

  ‘Madison, look at me.’

  She looked up, eyes wary.

  ‘You’ve known pain too, haven’t you?’ he asked softly.

  She bit her lip, went to say something, changed her mind, shrugged, then said, ‘I’ll tell you about it some time.’

  He left it. He knew about pain.

  Chrissy stayed at the forefront of his mind. She lay in his memories, warm and loving. There was sadness but it did not consume him. Instead, he invited the memories. Madison remarked on it one evening.

  ‘You’ve been talking about her a lot in the past few days.’

  ‘Do you mind?’

  She shook her head. ‘Of course not. It’s good for you. You’ve bottled it up for so long. Grief has to be expressed.’

  ‘It’s no longer grief.’

  ‘Yes it is. But it’s only grief. The anger and guilt have passed.’

  ‘What are you? Some kind of shrink?’

  She smiled. ‘When Dad died I felt he’d somehow betrayed Mummy and me. I was very angry about it and that made me feel guilty. I’ve been there.’

  Yes she had. He put his hand across the table and took one of hers in it. ‘I’m sorry. I have been very self-absorbed, haven’t I?’

  She removed her hand. ‘Very.’

  ‘Ouch!’

  She put some scrabble pieces on the board. She had turned his word ZOO into ZOOLOGICAL and picked up a triple word score bonus. ‘Bitch!’

  She laughed at him and he grinned back.

  Madison drove him to Glasgow airport. She hugged him goodbye and said, ‘Go well, Alex Theron.’

  ‘Stay well, Madison Carter.’

  It was an old African greeting and farewell and it made both of them friends. So he kissed her cheek.

  He changed terminals at Heathrow and returned to Johannesburg in a bright orange and white Boeing 707 with a flying springbok on the tail. Air Botswana then took him to the land of his birth in a blue, black and white DC3 which shook and rattled but did nothing to stop the rising tide of feeling as he stared down at the barren brown land beneath him. The cluster of low buildings which did for an airport terminal at Gaborone never looked better.

  He stepped out of the aeroplane and breathed in the heat and dust of Africa. He looked out across the flat-topped acacia trees to the hills near Kgale Mission. He took in the evidence of new building, sprawling outwards, the ever-increasing suburbia of Gaborone. The braying of a donkey. The greeting ‘duméla rra. A o sa tsogile sentlé?’ The low fence running up to the terminal. Paul just the other side. He was home. He was home. He was home.

  Paul looked tanned and slim and healthy. Next to him, despite exercise and plain food, Alex still felt white and flabby.

  ‘I’m taking a month off work,’ Paul said, delighted to see Alex. ‘We’ll go home. Mum and Pa will love it—both of us there together.’

  Paul lived in the newly established Extension 11. Alex was glad he did not live in The Village. He did not want to see the old house. Gaborone, as Madison had warned, had changed and grown. New streets, new houses, a shopping mall. ‘Expats are pouring in,’ Paul explained. ‘There’s an estimated 20,000 and it’s growing every day. This is a boom town.’

  ‘How about Francistown?’ Alex didn’t much fancy the idea of a boom town.

  ‘Hasn’t changed. Sleepy as hell.’

  ‘Good.’

  Paul had a swimming pool. Alex spent the next few days relaxing around it, trying to get some colour back into his winter white body.

  They headed north at the weekend in Alex’s Land Rover which Paul had kept in his garage. A couple of suitcases and Paul’s dog, Ralph. They called in and saw Marv and Pru. Marv had put on weight and patted his girth self-consciously. ‘She feeds me too well,’ he said, his arm around Pru.

  Pru was expecting their third child. ‘One every two years,’ she said, ‘that’s the ticket.’

  Alexander James, or ‘AJ’ as he was called, was a shy three-year-old. His sister, Christine Priscilla, a chubby one-year-old baby.

  The farm was doing well. Marv had extended their house as the babies came. ‘Can’t keep up with them,’ he complained happily. He proudly showed them around. The original rectangle had been extended at both ends so the house was now U-shaped, with scaffolding and trusses where a further extension was planned. Marv seemed to be in his element; his farm was flourishing, as a father, he was a natural. With AJ, he was stern but fair and had a lot of time to play games or read to the youngster. With the baby Christine, he was an unashamed bumbling pushover. She had him around her little finger and he knew it. Disciplining this little dimpled charmer was left to Pru. Alex immediately referred to her as Chrissy and, after an awkward silence, everyone else did the same.

  Marv and Pru hadn’t changed. They were as in love now as they had been when they married. Their mirth bubbled out at the slightest thing. They touched each other constantly and the love on their faces when they looked at each other, or at their children, left Alex feeling mellow and gentle. He was glad of that. He had been afraid of jealousy.

  They spent three days with Marv and Pru. The dog, Ralph, befriended Alexander James to such an extent that Paul left him with the boy. ‘Bloody traitor,’ he muttered, as they drove off while Ralph stood next to AJ with his tail wagging madly. ‘To think I rescued him from death row.’

  ‘Dog’s gotta do what a dog’s gotta do,’ Alex chanted, feeling relaxed and happy.

  Paul was right. Francistown hadn’t changed much. Aunty Dorie insisted they spend a night with her and produced enough food to feed a small army. ‘Your mum’s real sick,’ she told them. ‘She’ll be glad to see you both.’

  Paul admitted the next day that he hadn’t been home for several years. ‘Just got caught up with things.’

  ‘Makes you feel guilty, doesn’t it?’

  Paul sighed. ‘Yeah. If it were only Pa then.
. .’ He let it hang in the air. Both knew they would go home more often if only their mother were not so strange.

  ‘Does she go on at you about coming home and helping Pa?’

  ‘No.’ Paul glanced at him. ‘I have a profession. She saves that for you.’

  ‘You know all that stuff about our having black blood?’

  Paul laughed. ‘Only a South African could get hung up about black blood. It’s ridiculous. Look at you—blond, blue-eyed—any black blood in us is long gone.’

  ‘But it’s the key to it. That’s why she’s like that.’

  ‘She went to the Kirk every week to listen to the Dominie yelling fire and brimstone about the inferior blacks. She grew up with it.’

  ‘If Pa had stamped on it early . . .’ It was the only time in his life he felt critical of his father.

  ‘If Mum told Pa to jump in a fire he’d do it, you know that.’

  Alex grimaced. ‘Sad isn’t it? When I get married I’ll make damned sure my wife and I are on the same wavelength.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Paul agreed. ‘Me too.’

  Maun was still the same except safari lodges were springing up to the east of town. ‘It’s big business now. Brings a lot of foreign exchange into the country. The Delta is becoming a great tourist attraction.’ Paul’s job with the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning was diverse. He had just completed a feasibility study on the financial benefits of tourism and professional hunting if they were promoted more vigorously.

  ‘I’ve recommended that the government spend rather more than they’re doing now. The Okavango has to be Botswana’s best kept secret. It needs more promotion.’

  ‘What about the ecology of the place? Can the swamps handle it?’

  ‘Ecologists are swarming all over the swamps.’ Paul grinned. ‘One lot suggested dredging the river. Another guy is studying blind worms. Someone wants to cut down the trees along the river, someone else wants to plant more. One poor bastard lost a leg trying to prove that crocodiles were not aggressive. It’s mayhem.’

  ‘So what will happen?’ They were driving along the Panhandle, along the road they both hated so much as schoolboys. Alex watched the scenery, not wanting it to change so much as a leaf.

  ‘What will happen is what usually happens. Nothing.’ Paul grinned again. ‘Even the tsetse stays.’