Solitaire

by Masterton, Graham

  A stocky red-haired diamond-buyer called Nathan Golden squatted down on his haunches and offered, ‘All right, Barney. I’ll take his arms.’

  ‘Don’t you lay one finger on me,’ cautioned Joel.

  Barney reached down and grasped Joel’s ankles. ‘You can say whatever you like, Joel – you can’t stay here on the dining-room floor, surrounded by fruit. You’re sick, and we’re going to carry you through to the drawing-room. Now – you got him, Nathan?’

  Nathan forced his thick-fingered hands under Joel’s armpits, and half-hoisted him off the floor. ‘Barney!’ shouted Joel. Then, in a screech that paralysed everybody in the whole dining-room, and sent cold prickles dancing all over Barney’s back, ‘Barney! For the love of God! Barney!’

  Wide-eyed, terrified, the veins bulging on his forehead, Nathan Golden stared at Barney in mute alarm. Barney looked down, and Joel’s face had the appearance of a rubber carnival mask that had been pulled mercilessly inside-out. Joel was in such agony that he could not speak any more, could not do anything at all but lie on the floor and pray that Nathan and Barney would not try to pick him up again.

  Barney said to Nathan, ‘Put him down, gently.’ Then, to Sara, ‘Bring me some cushions, will you, to prop up his head – and, Horace, go find me some sharp scissors from the kitchen, quickly, and some towels.’

  Sara brought two or three silk-xovered cushions and lifted Joel’s head on to them carefully. Joel was almost unconscious now, and saliva was running from the corner of his mouth. Every now and then, though, his whole body would jerk with a muscular spasm, and his eyes would flicker open and stare at Barney with that strange inhuman neutrality that you only ever see in the eyes of the nearly-dying or the just-born.

  Horace came at a bow-legged run, and handed Barney the scissors they used for clipping chickens’ wings and parcel-string. The party guests stood in utter silence as Barney took hold of the cuff of Joel’s left trouser-leg, and sliced it all the way up to the crotch. Some of the ladies turned away, but most of them stayed where they were, fascinated by the sight of Joel’s circumcised penis, and by a sense of impending horror. These were not Capetown ladies.

  The fabric of Joel’s trouser-leg was already stuck to his thigh by a crust of blood and dried lymph. When Barney tried cautiously to pull it away, Joel crammed his hand into his mouth and uttered a single gargling sound. He kept his hand between his teeth: he obviously understood that there was worse to come. Barney picked up one of the towels that Horace had brought from the kitchen, and tucked it under Joel’s thigh before trying to peel the trousers back any further. Then he said to Nathan Golden, ‘Whiskey. Bring me a whole bottle of whiskey.’

  Everybody waited like a collection of well-dressed tailors’ dummies while Nathan went over to the liquor cabinet on squeaky shoes and came back with a bottle of scotch. Barney said, ‘Pour it down his throat. Get him as drunk as you can,’ and Nathan hesitantly held the neck of the bottle to Joel’s lips. Barney snapped, ‘I want him drunk, for God’s sake, not merry,’ and reached over to press the bottle roughly against Joel’s teeth, tipping it upright so that the liquor gushed down Joel’s throat, and all over his shirt front. Joel coughed, and made a loud retching noise, but he managed to keep most of the whiskey down.

  Then, with a single unhesitating tug, Barney pulled away Joel’s trouser-leg, along with a makeshift bandage made of torn linen, and revealed his wound. There was a cry of ‘Oh!’ throughout the whole room, and almost all of the remaining ladies retreated from the dining-room with their faces as white as the walls. One or two of the men stepped back, too, particularly when the stench of gangrene rose from Joel’s leg, and they saw the hideous extent of what Joel had done to himself.

  Halfway up Joel’s thigh, there was a moist and gaping wound, swollen, tinged with green, and clustered with watery blisters. The wound was weeping effusively, and the smell of rot was almost more than Barney could stand. Out of the wound protruded the pointed corner of what looked like a large fragment of glass.

  With the points of the scissors, Barney touched the edges of the wound and the piece of glass. Surprisingly, Joel scarcely flinched. The flesh that formed the fishlike lips of his self-inflicted incision was dead, and the pain that he felt came mostly from the reddened area further around, where the gangrene was just beginning to attack.

  Barney had suspected for days what Joel had done, but the reality of it shocked him so much that he found himself unable to speak, or to do anything but lay down the scissors on the towel, and kneel in front of Joel with his head bowed and his eyes closed.

  Rhodes said, ‘I’ll send a boy to bring Dr Tuter.’

  Barney raised his eyes. ‘Thanks. I don’t think I can handle this on my own.’

  ‘Is that what I think it is? asked Rhodes, nodding towards the wound.

  ‘You’ve heard the rumours, too,’ said Barney.

  ‘They make jokes about the bush-telegraph,’ Rhodes said, ‘but if you keep your ear to the ground you can get to know almost everything. My kaffirs have been all of a-twitter for weeks about a giant diamond that was found on the Jewfella’s claim at Kimberley.’

  ‘It seems like the Jewfella was just about the last person to know,’ said Barney.

  ‘That scarcely matters,’ smiled Rhodes. ‘He who laughs last, don’t you know. And there it is, it’s all yours, if you care to dig it out.’

  ‘Joel is my brother,’ said Barney.

  ‘Haven’t you heard Harold’s wonderful stories about brothers who blinded other brothers and locked them away for the rest of their miserable lives, simply for the sake of diamonds?’

  Barney nodded. ‘I guess I have.’

  ‘Well, there you are,’ said Rhodes. ‘There in front of you is the living proof of what men will do for the sake of a large lump of crystallised carbon. Not only to each other, but to themselves.’

  Barney knelt in silence for a minute or two, with Rhodes watching him with the very slightest smile on his face – the kind of smile that would have had him caned for smirking, if he were still a schoolboy. Then Barney picked up the scissors again, gripped Joel’s leg just below the knee to steady it, and slowly inserted the points in between the lump of glass and the bleb-smothered edge of Joel’s skin. Joel was practically unconscious now, and as Barney thrust deeper into the soft, dead flesh, Joel did nothing but whistle softly between partly-closed teeth.

  At last, the huge stone dropped out on to the towel. Barney took his handkerchief out of his breast pocket, and disgustedly wrapped it up. Rhodes gave a small grunt that could have been amusement, or irony, or simply relief that it was all over.

  Barney stood up. Dr Tuter was walking unsteadily through the doorway, led by the sleeve by a small barefoot Hottentot boy. Dr Tuter blinked at Barney as if he did not quite recognise him.

  Over in the corner, Sara was standing with her hands clasped in tension, her face set like plaster. Not far away, in an emerald green sari, stood Nareez. Barney held the handkerchief up, not in triumph but in that ordinary human gesture that means, here it is, I’ve found it.

  Rhodes said, ‘Well done,’ with unexpected smugness, and pushed his way back through the crowd of guests with his hands in his pockets, to rejoin Alfred Beit, and to help himself to more champagne.

  Mr Ransome was sweeping his small back yard when Mooi Klip walked up to his fence in a wide summer bonnet, a basket of okra and purple kale under her arm, and stood watching him in the dusty, dappled sunlight. He propped his broom against the wall, and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. ‘Natalia! It’s good to see you.’

  Mooi Klip smiled. ‘I’ve been meaning to come to talk to you for days,’ she said.

  Mr Ransome opened the gate, and ushered her in. ‘I try to keep the place tidy, but there are so many other things to do, so many souls still to be converted. Mind you, I think we’re going to find it easier to bring all of South Africa into the Christian fold when the new Governor has done his stuff.’

  �
�I didn’t even know there was a new Governor,’ said Mooi Klip. ‘That just shows how ignorant I am.’

  ‘There isn’t any particular reason why you should have known,’ Mr Ransome replied. ‘But do come in and have some tea. I had some excellent Keemun sent up from the Cape.’

  He led her across the overgrown verandah of his bungalow, under a tangle of creepers and bougainvillaea, and in through the open door to his modest sitting-room, which had been furnished strictly according to a Church of England budget. There was a clutter of dark, cheap chairs, and a mock-Jacobean sofa with sagging cushions. Twine-bound bundles of missionary Bibles and hymn books were stacked up untidily against the side of the bureau, which itself was surmounted by a tea-stained doily, a wooden cross, and a tin of Huntley & Palmers’ Albany biscuits.

  The only personal touch in the whole room was a water-colour of a redbrick suburban street, planted with trees. ‘That’s a view of my home,’ said Mr Ransome. ‘My mother painted it when she was recovering from the scarlatina.’

  Mooi Klip laid down her basket, and sat on the sofa. The sun lined her profile in light, and poured two careful measures of shadow into the hollows of her collarbone. Mr Ransome looked at her with his hands slightly raised as if he had been going to say something emphatic, but had completely forgotten what it was.

  ‘I’ve come about Coen,’ said Mooi Klip.

  ‘You want to fix a day, I suppose?’ asked Mr Ransome. ‘Well, let me get my diary, and let me put on the kettle. I gave Elretha the day off to visit her cousin. Very family-minded, Elretha. A good Christian.’

  ‘I’ve decided not to marry Coen,’ said Mooi Klip.

  Mr Ransome stared at her. ‘You’ve decided not to marry him? But, my dear Natalia, why? Has something gone terribly wrong?’

  She looked up, and gave Mr Ransome a small, brave smile. ‘We decided it together. He’s a good man, and he’s gentle like a lamb, but he’s not for me. Barney did so much to bring me out, to show me what I could make of myself. If I married Coen, I’d be nothing but a farmer’s wife; and I’d probably never speak English again for the rest of my life, except to you.’

  Mr Ransome sat down next to Mooi Klip and took her hand. ‘My dear, there is no shame in being a farmer’s wife. It is one of the holiest of occupations, farming. It says in Proverbs that “he who tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread: but he, or in this case she, who followeth vain persons is void of understanding.” ’

  Mooi Klip turned and frowned at him. ‘I’m not sure that I know what that means,’ she said.

  Mr Ransome’s face, inspired by his recitation from the Bible, gradually subsided, until he was frowning too. ‘I’m not sure that I do, either.’ He stood up. ‘I’d better make some tea. You’ll feel – calmer – after some tea.’

  ‘I’m calm now,’ she said.

  ‘Well, excellent,’ said Mr Ransome. ‘But what are you going to do? Have you thought about that? Here you are with a six-year-old son, unmarried, and having to depend entirely on your parents. Surely the life you are living now is even more imprisoning then being a farmer’s wife would have been: and it will grow even more burdensome to you when your parents grow old.’

  Mooi Klip said nothing, but brushed out her flowery skirt with her hands.

  ‘I don’t usually say this to young women,’ Mr Ransome went on, in a more cautious tone. ‘You see – the official line is that it is most desirable for at least one daughter to remain at home, unmarried, to care for the parents in their dotage. That is what the bishop approves of. But, in your case, I think things are different.’

  ‘Why should they be?’ asked Mooi Klip.

  ‘My dear girl, they are different because you are different. You are a Griqua, a living symbol of this country’s oneness under God, the mixing of the black and the white races. Did you know that one of the very first Christian marriages ever solemnised at the Cape in the seventeenth century was between a Hottentot woman and a white employee of the Dutch East India Company? You are an inheritor of that wonderful tradition, the acceptability of one race to another. And apart from that, you are beautiful; and for you to let your beauty wither away unseen in your parents’ house for the rest of your life would be a criminal waste of God’s bounty.’

  ‘I’m still not sure what you’re trying to say,’ said Mooi Klip, gently.

  Mr Ransome clapped his hand to the back of his neck in exasperation, as if he were swatting a mosquito. ‘I’m trying to say, Natalia – I’m trying to say that you are a most exceptional young lady. I’m trying to explain to you that you ought to be married. Your son needs a father, after all. And you need to express, in the fullest proportion, your beautiful and intelligent womanhood.’

  He stopped, and licked his lips. ‘I hope I haven’t embarrassed you.’

  Mooi Klip shook her head. ‘I’m not embarrassed by compliments. I’m very pleased for them. But why are you so angry? I’ve never seen you like this, not even when you’re preaching. You don’t have to be angry about me. I can find a way to live my life happily, you know that.’

  ‘I’m angry because you’ve been so badly treated,’ said Mr Ransome. ‘It seems to me that your Barney didn’t know a good thing when he saw one. To give you a child like that, and to throw you on the rubbish heap!’

  Mooi Klip looked aside. ‘Mr Ransome,’ she said, ‘that kind of sad affair happens all the time. It hurt me. It still hurts me, after all these years. Perhaps it wouldn’t if I didn’t have Pieter to remind me. But we can’t cry over spilled milk. We can’t be angry just because a man has done to a woman what men have been doing to women since Adam and Eve.’

  Mr Ransome lowered his head, and when he spoke his words were very indistinct. ‘It’s never happened before to somebody I love.’

  The small sitting-room was silent. Outside the open door, the leaves on the creepers rustled in a breeze that was as gentle as a secret whisper. The bar of sunlight which had been illuminating the crucifix on the bureau gradually crept across to the tin of Albany biscuits.

  Mr Ransome looked up. Mooi Klip was gazing at him in the pose of a dark-skinned madonna. Her bonnet formed a halo.

  ‘The new governor’s name is Sir Bartle Frere,’ said Mr Ransome, abruptly, loudly, in a violent change of subject. ‘He’s an old India hand, the bishop tells me. They’ve given him the job of gathering together all these ill-assorted colonies and native kingdoms and individual Boer states, and forming a single dominion, subject to the British Crown. And to British religion, of course.’

  ‘What did you say?’ asked Mooi Klip.

  ‘I said, “subject to British religion, of course,” ’ Mr Ransome stammered, stepping backwards and stumbling over a heap of Bibles, scattering them all over the floor.

  ‘No, before that. Before you started telling me about the new governor.’

  ‘I didn’t say anything. Did you hear me say something?’

  ‘Mr Ransome, you’re a man of God. You shouldn’t tell tales.’

  Mr Ransome hiked up his cassock, and got down on his hands and knees to pick up the Bibles. ‘I said something out of turn, that’s all. I promised my mother years and years ago, when I first entered the church, that I would abstain, that I would keep myself pure, and so what I might have said was quite improper of me, and I would prefer it if you would kindly forget I ever opened my mouth. My mouth was given to me in order that I should sing the praises of the Lord: not for making indecent proposals.’

  ‘You said you loved me,’ persisted Mooi Klip.

  ‘Then I was quite out of order. Please forgive me.’ Mr Ransome had disappeared behind the sofa now, and all Mooi Klip could see were his black worn-out shoes and his black laddered socks.

  ‘Mr Ransome –’ said Mooi Klip. ‘Do you have to ask forgiveness for loving someone? Didn’t you always tell me that love is the mainstay of the Christian religion?’

  Mr Ransome scuffled and snuffled for a moment, and then emerged from behind the sofa red-eyed, with tears sliding down each cheek
.

  ‘Mr Ransome, what on earth is the matter?’ asked Mooi Klip, reaching her hands out for him. ‘Why are you crying?’

  ‘I’m crying because I’m unhappy,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, it’s quite ridiculous. I shouldn’t have said anything at all, and then none of this would have happened. You won’t tell anyone, though, will you? If it gets back to the bishop … I mean, they chose me for Klipdrift because of my self-avowed celibacy. They thought it was advisable to send out somebody chaste … as a sort of example.’

  Mooi Klip smiled. ‘An example of what? Of an unhappy man? Of a man who believes in marriage but doesn’t practise it?’

  Mr Ransome stood up, and poked around under his cassock to find a handkerchief. He blew his nose, and wiped his eyes, and then he said, ‘I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’

  ‘Stop telling me you’re sorry. I was fond of you long before I met Coen Boonzaier. I liked you the day you first came to Klipdrift. You always seemed like a breath of the outside world. We can be friends, can’t we?’

  Mr Ransome cleared his throat. ‘Of course. Yes. I mean, we always were, weren’t we?’ He put the Bibles back against the bureau, and came around to sit down beside Mooi Klip, leaning forward, with his knee clasped in his hands. ‘I’m surprised to hear you thought so well of me.’

  ‘Why? You’re good-looking. You know all kinds of interesting things. I always thought that if you hadn’t been a priest, you would have made a perfect husband.’

  ‘Natalia … you really mustn’t speak this way. I’m – well, I’m susceptible.’

  ‘I don’t know that word.’

  ‘It means that you affect me, in a physical manner.’

  Mooi Klip stared at him seriously. She was so feminine and soft and pretty that Mr Ransome could hardly bear to look at the way her chest rose and fell as she breathed. He knew this was all absurd. He was being tempted by the flesh. But the trouble was that Mooi Klip was so direct and innocent in the way she spoke to him, so frank in the profession of her affection, that he found it impossible to believe that what he was feeling was the work of Satan. He closed his eyes, but all he could think of was that moment when he had seen the dark shade of Mooi Klip’s nipple through her gauzy blouse; and of the native women he had seen by the Vaal River, their big breasts bare and their Hottentot bottoms protruding through the brightly-coloured wraps they wore around their waists; and of the curious time when he had happened to glance down a side-alley in Klipdrift and seen an astonishingly beautiful longhaired girl of no more than thirteen or fourteen, a half-caste, quite naked except for a chain around her ankle. He had dreamed of that girl afterwards, as he had dreamed of Mooi Klip, and her slanting eyes had followed him unblinking down a thousand wretched and sweaty struggles with his chastity.