The Prey

by Tony Park

  Wellington laid his cigar in the ashtray and fixed his cousin with his eyes. The man was a moron. Wellington raised his right hand in a clenched fist. ‘Pamberi ne revolution, comrade.’

  ‘Pamberi,’ his cousin smiled with relief, also raising his hand in the black power salute.

  The idiot thinks I’m serious, Wellington thought. ‘It is late, cousin, and I have work to do.’

  Albert winked and nodded. ‘I understand. It was good seeing you again, cousin.’

  Wellington stood and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You too. Fambai zvakanaka.’ Go well, my arse, Wellington thought as his cousin shook his hand. ‘I will take care of the bill.’

  Wellington took a final puff of his cigar before he stubbed it out, drained the last of his cognac and left a fistful of greenbacks on the bar for the barman. He did, indeed, have work to do in the privacy of his room.

  *

  Cameron sent Jessica an SMS from his room in the Royal Livingstone. He had been chauffeured there in a golf buggy driven by an African man in white shorts and safari jacket and a matching pith helmet. The luxurious room overlooked a manicured lawn that rolled gently to the Zambezi River. He could see the spray rising from the falls, just beyond the bar. You would love this place.

  Gee, thanks, she messaged back.

  At least she hadn’t lost her sense of humour. Heard from Mom?

  The reply pinged back a few moments later. She was faster with her slender, nimble fingers than he was with his miner’s stubs. Hectic, Dad. She phoned all afternoon. I’m meeting her for coffee after school.

  Cameron shook his head. What had happened to their family that mother and daughter had to schedule an appointment for coffee? He wished Tania had never come back and, at the same time, suddenly felt guilty for running away and leaving them to sort things out. His room phone chirped.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s Kylie. I’m going for a drink before dinner. Do you want to come along?’

  He had hardly slept the night before – apart from lying all over her – and he had been sick as a dog that morning. What he should do was have a shower and go to bed, but right now it seemed like a cold beer was the only thing that would save him. ‘Sure, thanks.’

  ‘OK. See you at the bar.’ She hung up, abrupt as ever.

  Cameron checked himself in the mirror. His face was stubbled and his shirt creased from the flight, but he couldn’t be bothered changing and assumed Kylie wouldn’t either. He walked out and hailed a passing golf buggy. The driver took him back to reception. Off to his right was a colonial-themed bar: slow-turning overhead fans, dark wooden panelling and matching furnishing. The long, polished bar looked inviting, but even more so was the view he glimpsed outside, beyond the lawn. He walked past the pool, where a couple of blonde European tourists were treading water in each other’s arms, and down to another bar set on a wide wooden deck overhanging the Zambezi. An African man was playing show tunes on a flute, but not even that could distract from the magnificence of the Zambezi and the curtain of spray that hung over the point where the river disappeared into the gorge.

  ‘Mosi, please,’ he said to the waiter as he sat down in a deep armchair. He’d beaten Kylie to the bar. A dark-haired woman walked past him and smiled. He smiled back. He hadn’t even had time to think of himself as single before his wife had come back into his life. Self-consciously, he looked over his shoulder, checking to see if Kylie was in sight yet. She wasn’t, and he wondered why he’d felt strangely guilty making eye contact with the brunette. The waiter brought his chilled Mosi lager, named after the waterfall.

  The sun was melting into a haze of oranges and reds beyond the spray and the Mosi worked its soothing magic. For a minute it was almost possible to forget Tania, the mine, Wellington and the horrors they had been through. He wondered if Kylie would ever bother to come back here once she returned to the safety of predictable Australia.

  ‘God, it’s beautiful, isn’t it?’

  He turned and saw Kylie, her skin bathed in the reflected glow of the sunset. She had changed into a black cocktail dress that ended above her knees. She smiled and her teeth shone like polished ivory. For the first time he noticed, really noticed, how attractive she was. Even her business clothes had been mannish and the mine overalls she’d worn underground had cloaked her figure. He stood. She smiled, a little self-consciously.

  ‘You look …’

  She waved a hand. ‘Forget it. It’s the last clean stuff in my bag.’

  ‘Drink?’

  ‘Gin and tonic, please.’

  He beckoned to the waiter and moved an armchair for her to sit in. She had high heels on and smelled of soap and perfume. She had showered. Her hair was straighter than he remembered from the flight.

  ‘Thanks.’ She lowered herself into her chair and crossed her legs. The waiter brought her drink and they raised their glasses. ‘What shall we drink to?’

  He shrugged. ‘Africa.’

  She smiled. ‘Crazy fucked-up beautiful place that it is.’

  He laughed. His boss was a stunner and he hadn’t noticed. ‘That it is.’

  ‘I walked down to the falls just after we arrived. Pretty spectacular,’ she said.

  He set his beer down. ‘I’ll have to take you to the Zimbabwean side some time. The view’s different over there. On this side you’re on the edge, looking down; on the Zimbabwean side you can see the breadth of the falls. It’s spectacular from both sides.’

  ‘That might be nice,’ she said. She took the swizzle stick from the glass and sucked it dry.

  Cameron ordered another beer. He felt unsettled suddenly and craved the relaxation the alcohol would bring. Only natural, he thought, given what they’d been through lately. He caught her perfume again, on the slight breeze.

  He looked out at the view, not knowing what to say. He wanted to try again, to compliment her on how she looked, but it seemed the moment had past. He was hopeless with women. No wonder Tania had left him.

  ‘We got off on the wrong foot, you and I,’ she said.

  He looked at her but stayed quiet.

  ‘Even in the video conferences I was always talking over the top of you. I thought, Jan thought – we all thought – we knew better than you when it came to the zama zamas.’

  ‘I can understand you people in head office not wanting to authorise an underground war.’

  She shook her head. ‘We were wrong. We should have trusted you, Cameron. It’s only now that I see that.’

  He nodded. ‘We were making headway. The armed security guys were only part of the strategy I was working on. With that crooked Sindisiwe Radebe in charge of the local police I knew we had to go around her. I was briefing the prosecutors and the Department of Mineral Resources on the problem and we were bypassing the police. My guys and I were filling out the charge dockets for the zama zamas that we would arrest from time to time, and we would work direct with the prosecutors to get them into court. It was working, although on several occasions Colonel Radebe arranged for the prisoners to “escape” or walk on so-called technicalities with the paperwork. It was two steps forward, one step back, but we were making some slow headway. When you guys in Australia stopped us using armed security we lost our ability to take the criminal miners into custody, and the prosecutions stopped.’

  ‘I can see that,’ she said. ‘We all thought you should leave it to the police, but the police were working against you.’

  Finally, he thought, she was beginning to understand.

  ‘We arranged an amnesty,’ he said, and explained how his men had posted leaflets around the mine and handed them to zama zamas in person when they passed them in the tunnels, as sometimes happened. ‘But only half-a-dozen illegals took advantage of it. We found out that Wellington was threatening to kill the families of anyone who deserted him. These men were single and desperate to get out. In the end, we would have had to go down there with the armed security. It would have been the only way to bust Wellington’s hold on the m
ine and his men.’

  She sat there, taking it in, saying nothing for a while.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, nothing. Well, not something I want to talk about. It’s just strange, the whole sequence of events.’

  He didn’t press her for more clues as to what she was processing in that sharp mind of hers. She really was the whole package, he thought: brains, beauty, balls.

  ‘What are you smiling at?’

  ‘My own joke,’ he said and looked over his shoulder, across the lawn to the terrace restaurant. ‘Looks like they’re ready for dinner.’

  The sun had set, turning the Zambezi from molten gold to rippling lead. They finished their drinks and walked across the lawn to where tables had been laid out on the verandah of the hotel. A waiter in a black tie showed them to a table for two lit by a paraffin lantern, whose light danced on the cutlery.

  ‘The company’s paying, but you’ll know the wines better than me,’ she said, indicating for the waiter to give him the wine list.

  Cameron scanned the list and ordered his favourite red, a Zandvliet shiraz from the Cape, as well as another beer and gin and tonic.

  *

  Tania McMurtrie lit another cigarette and finished the bottle of wine. She went to the fridge, hoping she’d missed a spare bottle the last time she had looked. There was none in the linen cupboard, which had served as their cellar.

  She wanted another drink. She needed another drink to keep the despair from rising up inside her again. She looked around the home where she had lived for fifteen years and she knew she had been wrong to come back.

  Cameron was away. His work was everything to him. Her daughter was away – her mother meant nothing to her. Tania drew back her arm and threw the empty glass at the wall. It shattered. She felt the tears roll down her cheeks.

  Chuck – she’d thought his name manly when they’d first met online and now it reminded her of vomit – had emailed her, pleading with her to come back. The perversions they’d shared via cyberspace had been exciting, at a distance, but ridiculous in the flesh. He was an overweight, overbearing, balding bully with no money. She had been mad to think her life could be better with him.

  She had come home with good intentions and full of contrition. She would make her marriage work. She would not complain about life in the small dorpie of Barberton. She would try and make her daughter like her. She would be faithful this time. She would be sober.

  Tania wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. To hell with them all. She picked up her phone, opened a new SMS and scrolled through her contacts until she came to Barend, the plumber. She tapped in the letters. Back in town. Are you free?

  She wondered if he was in the pub. He was divorced, and swore he would never marry again. It only took three minutes for her phone to buzz. For you, always. Free and hard.

  Tania didn’t smile. She felt no shame, as she stood, a little unsteadily, and rummaged in her handbag for her keys. Then she remembered there was no car parked behind their home. Cameron had sold it. He didn’t want her back. They hated her. She remembered him saying she should use his mine bakkie. Ordinarily there was no way she would have been seen parking the mine vehicle outside a hotel. That was just too obvious in a small town. Now she didn’t care. She had told Cameron, when he’d asked her if she had cheated on him, that she hadn’t. That had been a lie.

  She found his keys in the wooden bowl by the front door. She didn’t bother changing. It was only Barend, and he would most likely rip a few buttons off when she walked through the hotel room door. It was the way he liked it, the way she liked it. Fast. Uncaring. Exciting. She hiccupped as she bounced off the doorframe and walked out into the night.

  When she sat in the Toyota and started the engine she did have a pang of guilt. She took her phone out of her handbag and scrolled through the recent calls until she came to Cameron’s number. She sniffed. She wanted so much to be good, and for them to be happy, but she never had been. Why had he left her, when she had come home to him? Her thumb hovered over the call button, but then she thought of Barend’s hard body and the way he did her from behind so she wouldn’t have to look into his eyes. She tossed the phone on the passenger seat.

  Tania released the handbrake, reversed, then let the car roll down the drive in neutral. She knew every centimetre of the winding gravel road and how fast she could take each bend, regardless of her level of sobriety. Sometimes, coming back from an afternoon of drinking and fucking, when she could barely speak, it had felt like the car had driven itself home. She had always allowed enough time for a short nap, to sober up a little before Cameron came home from work and Jess came back from whatever friend she preferred to her mother.

  She accelerated into the first bend and took it with ease, although the Toyota’s rock-hard rear suspension made it bounce a couple of times through the corner. She liked the loss of control. It made her shriek with excitement. She pushed the pedal harder as the next bend approached.

  A genet darted into the beam of her headlights and Tania swerved to miss the spotted catlike creature. The rear of the bakkie drifted and Tania yanked the wheel back the other way, overcorrecting.

  ‘Shit!’

  She put her left foot on the clutch and stabbed the brake pedal with her right. There was plenty of room to stop, but the car didn’t respond. There was a squishy feeling and her right foot went to the floor. The Toyota didn’t slow. The edge of the cliff raced towards her.

  Too late, she remembered the handbrake, but as she yanked on it the front wheels went off the edge. This couldn’t be happening, she thought, and it felt like the end of her life was coming, not in a rush but in slow motion.

  Then the truck stopped.

  Tania screamed, then forced herself to think. The Hilux teetered on the edge of the precipice. The drop, almost sheer, was two hundred metres and the steep hillside was studded with boulders. The truck creaked as she breathed. She reached behind her for the seatbelt and fastened it. She never wore a belt on the drive from their house down to the main road, and if she thought the police weren’t patrolling she didn’t bother at all. She didn’t know if the seatbelt would save her if the truck tipped over the edge, but without it she would surely die. Even the tiny movement of fastening the belt made the vehicle rock. It settled.

  Slowly, carefully, she leaned towards the passenger seat, but her phone was just out of reach.

  ‘Damn it.’

  She unclipped the belt again. She needed to call for help. As she leaned, the car creaked again. Tania pressed the dial button, then tossed the phone into the foot well as the vehicle started to slide. This was it, it was going over the edge.

  Tania reached for where the door handle would be on her little car, but the Toyota was different. By the time she had found it the bakkie was bouncing down the slope, rocks and trees racing towards her.

  ‘Cameron! Jess!’

  She must get out, she thought, or she would die in the truck as soon as it ended its fall.

  Just as she opened the door, the nose of the Hilux slammed into a tree. The airbag exploded in front of her, hitting her side on and pinning her. The engine had smashed through the firewall and her legs were numb. Tania breathed and screamed. Her ribs, she guessed, were shattered, but at least she was alive. The phone was out of reach.

  She heard a voice, somewhere.

  ‘Tania?’

  Then the spark of the shorting battery lead caught a dribble of petrol and the Toyota exploded.

  26

  Cameron saw Tania’s name flash on the screen of his phone and cursed inwardly.

  It had, surprisingly, been a fantastic night. The food had been excellent and they had ordered a second bottle of wine.

  A band had been playing, a female singer crooning jazz and slow songs from the fifties and sixties. Three couples had got up from dinner to dance on the wide verandah.

  ‘That’s something I’ve always wanted to do but have never learned,’ Kylie had said.
/>
  ‘My wife made me learn to dance for our wedding. I actually enjoyed it and we went to lessons regularly for a while.’

  ‘I’m hopeless,’ she said. ‘When I have to dance, at weddings and things like that, I end up stepping on my partner’s toes. But I love all those shows on television, you know, where the minor celebrities you’ve never heard of try to dance.’

  He watched her, leaning over the back of her chair, watching the couples. They were into the second bottle and the candlelight made her exposed arm shine like a seam of free gold. ‘Come, let’s dance.’

  She looked back at him. ‘Is that how you ask a girl for a dance in South Africa?’

  ‘Ja.’ He stood and held out his hand.

  Kylie looked nervous, almost scared. He liked her on the back foot, but this wasn’t about a power exchange. He wanted to dance with her. He bowed at the waist. ‘Please, Dr Hamilton, may I have the pleasure?’

  She smiled, still unsure, and for a second he thought he would have to resume his seat, looking like a fool. ‘OK.’

  He led her by the hand, the skin smooth but warm with uncertainty, to the fringe of where the other couples were gliding by. She gripped his hand as he laid his other on her hip. She felt stiff and tense as he started to move. He moved closer to the band, but she fought him and tried to steer back to the outer area.

  He moved his mouth closer to her ear and felt her body go even more rigid. ‘You have to let me lead.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry. It doesn’t come naturally.’

  ‘I know. Relax.’

  She exhaled and he felt her start to ease into the music a little more. A stiletto heel stabbed his right foot and he tried to hide the grimace.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You’re doing fine.’

  ‘I’m rubbish.’

  ‘Let me lead you.’

  ‘OK,’ she said.

  He held her tighter and she let him draw her into him, finally giving in as he took her deeper into the rhythm. He twirled her and she gave a small shriek, causing another couple to titter, but her face was flushed with joy when he brought her back into his arms.