The Sea Cave

by Alan Scholefield

  ‘Charles, you shouldn’t let this thing eat into you. People have told you about it, you’ve overheard talk. The important thing is what you yourself remember.’

  ‘That’s the bloody problem. I don’t know what I remember. Hugo was sick. I remember that. It was winter and he often had bronchitis in winter. He had a weak chest. He was sleeping in the room next to yours. I was sleeping in your room because he was sick. They had lit a fire in his room and left the door ajar. I remember that because I saw things in the light of the fire.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Shadows. I woke up and heard a noise and saw shadows and I was frightened. I put my head under the blankets. I don’t know how long. Maybe I even fell asleep. The next thing I knew, I was smelling smoke and there were more shadows. I suppose they must have been made by the flames as they caught the washing hanging in front of the fireplace. Big, jumping shadows. So I ran. I wasn’t running away from the smoke, so much as the shadows. I wasn’t running to anyone, but away from things that frightened me. I ran down the stairs looking for Lena. She used to sleep in the house in those days because she was our nanny, but she wasn’t in her room. Of course, by that time the fire must have been blazing. My mother ran in and got Hugo out, but he was dead from the smoke and her nightdress had caught alight.’

  She had been listening with growing horror. ‘But couldn’t your father have helped?’

  ‘He was out at the incubator shed.’

  ‘Yet he blamed you?’

  ‘Because I hadn’t called for help.’

  ‘You ran for Lena. You did go to get help.’

  ‘Yes. Only she wasn’t in either.’

  ‘But you tried!’

  ‘Not hard enough.’

  *

  He left for Cape Town on Sunday evening and she watched the plume of dust from the red roadster as he speeded along the cliff road. In a way, she was sorry to see him go.

  During the week she had a letter from her mother. It was stiff and formal, like the ones she had infrequently received at school:

  ‘Dear Catherine, Your brother had his operation on Friday. Your father and I went to see him when he came out of the ether. He was in pain. I spoke to Mr. Fincham, the surgeon, and to Dr. Milner. They told me that they had removed a piece of bone six inches long. They do not know if the operation has been a success, but are hoping. It will be some weeks before we know. I prayed, and so did your father. I hope you will, too.

  ‘Douglas comes out of hospital in a few days and he will be taken by ambulance to the False Bay Convalescent Home at St. James. We have booked him in for three weeks. It is very expensive. Your father has not worked since before Christmas. Your loving Mother.’

  Kate read the letter twice. Now that she was away from her family, she felt a stronger emotional tie than when she had lived with them. She felt great pity for Duggie. The awareness of her own role in the family fortunes, which had come to her so sharply at New Year, had not left her. She felt increasingly responsible for them. Every penny she could spare was already being sent. She cast her mind over her possessions. She had nothing to sell, but she regretted buying the black dress at Christmas. That had been a terrible extravagance. To help her mother and father, she would have to borrow. She decided that the next time she went into Helmsdale she would approach the bank manager. She wondered how much she would need. Fifty pounds? Would that pay for the surgeon and the specialist and the doctor and the hospital and the convalescent home; would it enable her mother to pay the rent and buy food? She realised she would need closer to a hundred. But how could she pay it back? She felt a kind of dread at the thought of borrowing. In spite of the fact that her father had spent a proportion of his wages on drink in Edinburgh, he had been in work, so that he had not needed to borrow. Debt was a terrible word in the lexicon of her childhood. She could remember other families on the stair on which they lived, who had struggled against debt all their lives. One fifty-year-old woman, the wife of a labourer, who had seven children, had been found at the bottom of the basement area one day. Some people said she had fallen, others said she had thrown herself down. When the bailiffs came, they had taken everything. Nothing belonged to the family. Kate did not know what had happened to them after that, but she had seen the woman’s body. Now violent death was associated in her mind with debts. She felt she was moving into a world of which she had no experience and which she feared.

  *

  ‘They say they’ve had to move that coloured man to a gaol in Cape Town,’ the bank manager said, ‘They found him trying to rip out the window-bars last night. He must be a powerful chap.’

  Kate nodded, remembering the strong body she had seen so often on the beach.

  ‘They say the hearing’s to be held in the autumn. Did you hear about the scarf?’

  ‘The scarf?’

  ‘Miss Sachs’ scarf. They say it was found in his shack. That’s why they arrested him in the first place.’

  She recalled vividly the black and white headscarf which Miriam had been wearing at the picnic. She could see in her mind’s eye Miriam taking it off and shaking her head to settle her hair before she swam.

  ‘They’re all talking about it,’ he said.

  ‘Poor Miriam.’

  ‘A terrible tragedy.’

  Mr. Hamilton had emigrated to the Cape from England two years before and felt that this gave him something in common with Kate. He was a plump, middle-aged man with a Kitchener moustache and had a habit of smoothing it to the sides of his mouth with his hand. The bank was in his house, or his house was in the bank, whichever way one preferred it. He liked to tell his customers that he ‘lived above the shop.’ His staff consisted of one teller and one secretary. Now, sitting in his office, Kate could hear someone washing dishes beyond the wall.

  He received her story about Duggie sympathetically. ‘That is bad luck. A war wound, too. I was in the infantry. Well, now, do you have any insurance?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No policies you could borrow against?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You say your family has a house in Cape Town; they could borrow against that.’

  ‘It’s rented. That’s why I’ve come to you.’

  He looked down at her bank statements. ‘And this is the money you send your mother every month. It doesn’t leave you much, does it?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘Do you have any collateral, Miss Buchanan?’

  She had never heard the word before.

  ‘When we lend money, we need something to lend it against: a house, jewels, land . . . just in case something goes wrong, you understand. For instance, say I lent money to someone and that someone was knocked down by an omnibus, I would have the house or the jewels or the land to sell in order to recover my loan. You see that, don’t you?’

  She looked at him, stony-eyed. ‘I don’t have a house or jewellery or land. If I had any of those things I wouldn’t be here now.’

  ‘Banks have certain rules, Miss Buchanan. We do not offer unsecured loans. I’m sure you can appreciate . . .’

  ‘It’s only a hundred pounds. I’m not asking for a fortune.’

  ‘If it was my money, I can assure you . . .’

  She rose. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘Remember me to Mrs. Preller,’ he called as she went out.

  It had taken her a couple of days to screw up her courage to go to him and now she was angry and humiliated. Later, she would feel the touch of fear again, though this time it was not so much fear of borrowing as fear that no one might lend. She went down the main street, her strides long, her dark hair blowing in the wind. Now there was only one person she could go to: Mrs. Preller. But what if she said no? Would it not make her position in the house awkward? She could not risk creating any such difficulty. She and her family only existed because of Mrs. Preller.

  She hated indecision above all things, but she had never faced such a problem as this. When she reached Saxenburg she decided she
must sleep on it, perhaps tomorrow she might be able to see a solution.

  But the following morning she had other things to think of: Smuts was injured.

  One of the labourers had hooked a big male ostrich called Red Wing and was putting it into the plucking box so Smuts could examine a gash on its thigh. The bird was angry and fought every step of the way. Eventually it was forced into the triangular pen and Smuts was about to tie a leather strap around its neck and put a sock over its head to quieten it, when it broke loose. Kate was standing a few yards away and saw it burst from the plucking box and lash out at Smuts.

  Its single long claw caught him in the chest and ripped downwards. He was flung back and the bird began stamping on his chest and arms. In a moment, one of the labourers had caught it with his crook and pulled it aside, but the damage was done. Smuts lay in the dust, unconscious. Two of the hands carried him into the house and put him in his bedroom. Kate hurried to Mrs. Preller’s apartment.

  ‘How bad is he?’ she said. ‘Have you telephoned to Dr. du Toit?’

  ‘Lena is doing that.’

  Mrs. Preller followed her downstairs. She was not often seen out of her rooms in the mornings, especially in a dressing-gown and with her hair awry. The scarring on her cheeks was very visible. ‘Don’t touch him,’ she said to Lena. ‘Wait for the doctor. Bring me water and a rag.’ She sat by Smuts’ side, gently washing his face with cool water. Twenty minutes later, Dr. du Toit arrived.

  ‘Hennie, do your best for him, then come and tell me,’ she said.

  She went upstairs as he cut away Smuts’ clothing. The single claw had gouged the flesh from the bone in a long rip down the chest. The force of the kick had caused purple bruising that extended on either side of the wound and covered the heart. There were other cuts and bruises where the bird had stamped and kicked when he was on the ground.

  ‘Lucky he’s a small chap,’ du Toit said, cleaning the wound and beginning to strap up the chest. ‘If he’d been much taller the kick would have landed on the abdomen. I doubt that he could have recovered from that. I’ve seen the results of an ostrich kick before; worse than a horse in some ways.’ He worked on. ‘He probably has a couple of cracked ribs, but it’s the internal damage I’m worried about.’

  When he had finished he sat down by the bed and Lena brought coffee.

  ‘I’ve never seen Mrs. Preller so upset,’ Kate said.

  ‘He’s been with her a long time. He’s special. He worked for Boss Charles. In fact, he worked for the Prellers even before Boss Charles took over. He came from a family of poor whites in the Knysna yellow-wood forests further up the coast. He really lost his heart to Augusta when she arrived from Austria. I mean it. I think he was in love with her. Oh, he didn’t do anything about it, couldn’t, but I suspect he saved her once or twice from Boss Charles.’

  ‘Saved?’

  He seemed to sense that he might have gone too far. ‘I don’t mean saved. But Boss Charles was not an easy man, if you know what I mean. And when he was drinking he sometimes became violent. You know how it is with people like that. And Smuts would try to calm him down or get between him and Augusta. She’s never forgotten what he did.’

  ‘You mean her husband would hit her?’

  ‘Listen, I’ve talked too much. Forget what I said. These things happen. As I say, he wasn’t an easy man.’

  After he had left and Smuts was resting more easily, Mrs. Preller sent for her, wanting a full description of the accident. Then she said sadly, ‘It would never have happened in the old days. He was like a cat then. But it has happened and now there are things I have to do. Hennie tells me that it will be a month, perhaps two months before he can be back at work. Even then he will not be able to take on as much as he does now. No one knows exactly how old he is, not even Smuts himself, but he must be sixty-five. So I will have to find . . .’

  ‘Mrs. Preller, let me try.’

  ‘Take over Smuts’ work? A young woman like you?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it. You know I’ve worked with Mr. Smuts ever since the boom began. I’ve still got a lot to learn, but at least let me try.’

  ‘You’d be taking on a man’s job.’

  ‘Not entirely. The boys know what to do and Mr. Smuts is here to help with advice. After that it’s just hard work, and if that’s what a man’s job is, I’m capable of it, too.’

  ‘And money?’

  ‘That’s the other thing. You wouldn’t have to pay me as much as you’d pay a man.’

  Kate watched her. This was the crux, for Mrs. Preller was sharp about money. A calculating look came into her eyes.

  ‘Give me an idea of what you would want.’

  Kate knew what Smuts was paid because she helped Mrs. Preller with her accounts and she knew that any other competent foreman would command the same wage, if one could be found, for now that the boom was under way experienced men were scarce.

  ‘Half what you’d pay a man,’ she said – knowing this would be three times what she was presently making – ‘and if you’re satisfied after two months, we can discuss it again.’

  Mrs. Preller smiled. ‘All right. You may try.’

  *

  It was then that Kate discovered, for the first time in her life, what hard work was. She had known that once the plucking was over and the feathers sorted and cleaned and sent off there would be a nine-month break before it all came round again. What she had not realised was that, like any other organisation, the farm had layers of work of different kinds. She had to keep the books and pay the hands; see that the house had enough food; see that the food supplies were ordered for the hands and their families; if something went wrong with a tap or a fence or a door, one of the servants would come to her and say, ‘The tap doesn’t work, Miss Kate,’ or ‘The fence is broken, Miss Kate,’ or ‘The door is stuck, Miss Kate’ and would wait for her to do something about it. Apart from such duties she was expected to drive Mrs. Preller into Helmsdale most days.

  Had anyone told her she would enjoy working as hard as this, she would have laughed. But now her slender, long-striding figure was to be seen all over the farm. She hardly ever sat down. She ate like a horse and slept like the dead and had never felt so alive in her life.

  Smuts improved, but the periods between her visits to him for advice grew longer as she learned the running of the farm. A fortnight after he had been injured, she drove him around the camps. It was his first expedition outside the house. She showed him the birds, she showed him the lucerne coming up green after rain, she showed him the incubators and the last of the sorted feathers. He was silent for a long time and at last he spoke. ‘It’s not bad, my friend, not bloody bad at all.’ She felt as though she had won a major prize.

  The hard work was not without its lighter moments. She would never forget her first incubator hatchings. The eggs were put into a different kind of incubator for the last two weeks, called a ‘finisher,’ and one morning she heard unfamiliar sounds coming from it: faint tappings, like the point of a pencil being tapped on a table. She leaned down and put her ear to the eggs and heard squeaks and scrapings. Ten days later the eggs were broken and the new chicks pecked their way to freedom. She was as delighted with the small, grey, fluffy bundles as if she had personally created them.

  Occasionally when parents abandoned a chick in one of the camps the orphan would be brought to the house and reared by hand. She did this with a chick she christened Jackie. He was a pleasure to have around the place when he was small, but when he began to grow he quickly became a nuisance. He developed a taste for human food and would go into the kitchen and harass Lena while she was preparing a meal, snatching things from the table. In this way, he swallowed a tea-strainer, several coffee spoons and a small salt cellar. He enraged Lena, who would drive him from the kitchen with an iron frying-pan. Finally, she took to closing the kitchen door, but that made the room, with its big black range, so hot in summer that she had to leave the window open. Jackie, with his long neck, found
he could often reach through it to loaves of bread and other foodstuffs left on the work tops. Lena fought a war of attrition for many months against his incursions.

  When he was not harassing her, he would wander around the sheds, grabbing anything that caught his fancy. He liked to snatch pipes out of the mouths of the coloured labourers and once pulled a scarf from Kate’s neck.

  Eventually, he came to an unpleasant end. Lena was careless one day and left the kitchen door ajar.

  He pushed his way in and found a pot boiling on the stove. It was rice. In an instant he had scooped up a large lump with his beak and swallowed it. He flailed about in agony for a few seconds and then charged from the kitchen, flapping his wings and roaring in pain. He tried to jump a fence, broke his leg and had to be shot.

  Kate remembered how she had felt when Smuts had ordered a bird to be shot soon after her arrival. She had fewer qualms now. The life was making her tougher, both physically and mentally.

  Chapter Three

  Summer drew to its end. The south-east wind dropped away and the days became still. The sea was a translucent green over the slowly shelving sand, but once the water grew deep, around the India Reef, the green gave way to the deepest blue. The air became filled with creamy sea mists, so light that they could only be seen at a distance, but they held the tang of the kelp and brine so that to stand on the verandah of Saxenburg House and breathe in deeply was to taste the distillation of the sea itself.

  But Kate had little time to stand on the verandah and indulge such fancies. The work never ceased, for the farm was not only an area of land divided into ostrich camps, but also a complex of buildings of which Saxenburg House was the largest, the fabric of which was Kate’s responsibility too. And there were the families who lived and worked on the estate; there were feuds to be settled and sick children to be cared for. There were arguments about food rations and requests for higher wages. One or two of the men tried to test Kate’s nerve and found, to their chagrin, that she was as perceptive as Smuts had been and as quick to pounce on any dereliction.