by Tony Park
It had felt odd, though, accepting money from the hunters – almost as though she were prostituting herself on behalf of the animals she cared for. To his credit, Fletcher had sensed this, telling her on one occasion, ‘Don’t feel bad. We do what we have to do to survive in Africa these days. There’s no shame in surviving, or honour in failing.’ She had seen the sadness behind his eyes then, for the first time. Or perhaps it was loneliness, as she knew his wife and children had left him.
She wondered, as she stood in front of the mirror, what was behind this one-on-one invitation for dinner tonight. Perhaps he fancied her. Critically, she appraised herself, and frowned at the reflection. Too tall. Small boobs. She had a nice tan, though, and it had brought out her freckles, which she kind of liked. The funding for her project had never been lavish and she’d learned to survive on less food than she’d ever before had to in her life. Shortages of basic commodities such as sugar and flour had meant no sweet tea and no bread for months. That, at least, had been a blessing in disguise. She pirouetted slowly in front of the mirror, and stood up on her tiptoes. If nothing else, she’d lost a dress size or two in Zimbabwe. She sighed. If Fletcher were interested in her, he had left his run too late. She would have to tell him, tonight, that she would be leaving for Canada in a few short weeks. Silly, anyway, she mused, as she could never imagine herself seriously interested in a hunter.
Michelle rummaged through her pack and found the only dress she possessed. She dropped the sarong and pulled the simple flowered frock over her head. She riffled through her meagre supply of underwear and laid a pair of cotton briefs beside one of her two g-strings. ‘What the hell,’ she said out loud.
Fletcher Reynolds heard the rumble of the four-litre diesel and walked out onto the stone flagged veranda at the front of Isilwane Lodge. He saw the headlights bouncing up the dirt road from the gate. A nightjar winged its way out of the vehicle’s path. His mouth was dry, his palms sweaty.
‘Mary, light the candles, please,’ he called to the maid. He imagined her smiling as she replied. He hadn’t been alone, at dinner, with a woman since his divorce three years earlier. His failing business had cost him his marriage and, apart from the occasional unrequited amorous advance from a client’s wife and a one-night stand in Houston, Texas, with a lonely American businesswoman when he’d still had enough money to visit the international hunting shows, the question of sex had rarely come up since his wife had left. He’d found himself thinking about Michelle Parker in that way often over the last few months, but he’d been in no position to take things further with her. He had determined, after his split with Jessica, that he would not even entertain the idea of becoming seriously involved with a woman again until his financial affairs were in order. That had seemed a remote proposition until a couple of days ago.
The night was warm, the moon on the rise drenching the bush in a ghostly blue wash. He felt his heart quicken as he saw those long legs swing out of the cab.
‘Hi, Fletcher,’ she called.
He sucked in his tummy a little and strode across to her.
‘How’s it, Michelle.’
‘I hate coming empty-handed,’ she said as he took her hand in his.
‘No, don’t mind that,’ he said. Her skin was soft and cool. He wondered what it might taste like. ‘Your company’s enough.’ The compliment came out awkwardly and he thought she might be blushing under her thin veil of makeup. ‘Come in, come in.’
He followed her up the stairs into the lodge, unable to refrain from noticing the way the thin cotton rode her body. She wore sandals and her toenails were bright, bright red. He wondered if she’d done them especially for tonight. He wanted to blurt his news out to her. ‘Thanks, Mary,’ he said to the maid, who laid a tray with cold beers, spirit bottles, mixers and a silver ice bucket on a carved antique sideboard. The dining table was set for two. ‘Can I offer you a drink?’
‘My God,’ she exclaimed. ‘Tonic water! Who did you have to kill for that?’
He smiled and explained he’d been shopping across the border, in Botswana. ‘I had to get some parts for the Land Rover,’ he added, so she didn’t think he had gone out to find a supermarket just for her. The truth was embarrassing. Tonic water was as rare as flour, diesel and single white women in this part of Africa.
‘Bliss,’ she said, sipping the drink from a tall glass, eyes closed in rapture.
He led her back outside, and said, ‘How are your murderous hounds doing?’ He’d teased her before about her research, explaining that for decades the wild dog had been viewed by livestock farmers and hunters such as himself as a pest that needed to be eradicated. A pack of wild dog could ruin a farmer’s livelihood and clean a private game reserve or a hunting concession out of small buck in very quick time. She didn’t bite, however, and he suddenly realised he’d said the wrong thing. ‘What is it, Michelle?’
She looked away from him, unable to hold his gaze, and told him. The news about the cessation of funding for her research, the death of the alpha female, the inevitability of her return to Canada. He thought it silly that she gave her animals names – though he held his tongue now. He was touched by her sensitivity, by the vulnerability she tried to disguise with unconvincing matter-of-factness, and was secretly overjoyed that the news he had for her would now carry even more weight than he had expected. What he was about to do, tonight, would not only help him, it might change the course of this pretty girl’s life forever. And she would be in his debt.
‘I’m sorry, I’m being terribly self-centred. How are things with you?’ Michelle asked.
He smiled. ‘Oh, I’m fine. In fact, I haven’t been quite so fine in some years.’
‘More business?’ She looked at him over her drink, trying to push aside her sadness.
‘Yes, thanks to my last client. He’s referred several new ones on to me.’
‘Was that the one who shot that ex-parks guy, Patrick?’ News of the dentist’s run-in with the former-ranger-turned-poacher had spread throughout the national park even before the news media picked up on it.
‘Yes, that’s the one. I’ll tell you more about him later. Are you hungry?’
‘Famished,’ she said.
He led her to the table and opened the wine, a South African Alto Rouge, as Mary served an entrée of Mozambican prawns the size of small lobsters, with an avocado vinaigrette.
He noticed the way she stared, wide-eyed, at the prawns, an extravagant luxury so far from the coast, in the wilds of a nation where people faced starvation daily. He noted, too, the effort she made to compose herself, as though she didn’t want him to see how mere food could stun her so. She did offer some praise, however: ‘This wine is my favourite.’
‘I thought I remembered you saying that last New Year’s Eve.’
She blushed for the second time that night, and he was secretly pleased. New Year’s had been nine months ago. He topped up her glass.
‘Fletcher, I don’t mean to sound rude, but is there a particular reason why you invited me here tonight, why you’ve laid on this lovely meal and wine?’
She was direct, as well as gorgeous. He wasn’t arrogant enough to assume she would follow him to his bed that evening, but he realised he did genuinely want to impress her. He was sure his news would please her – it had to after what she’d told him earlier – but he also wanted her to like him, as a man, as a person. Sheesh, but he was getting soft in his old age. He’d never had a problem attracting women when he was younger, in the army, and later as a professional hunter. Many women were drawn to men in uniform, or to hunters, and not all of them had been locals. Foreign women often fell prey to ‘khaki fever’, a fixation on a safari guide or hunter. Where that became dangerous – and off limits as far as Fletcher was concerned – was when the woman was a client’s wife or girlfriend. But Michelle was different. She’d been in the bush long enough to have gotten over any such romantic fixations on men like himself and, to make matters even more complicated, she was a green-dy
ed bunny hugger. A conservationist who hated the very idea of hunting. ‘I do have some news for you. But first, tell me about your dog project. Where would you have taken it if your funding had continued?’
She sipped her wine and waited for Mary to clear away the entrée plates. ‘Well, there are some viable packs here in Hwange. My work, apart from monitoring them, has been studying their preferred prey. This gives us an idea of the sorts of environments where new populations could be established, or where viable existing packs could be relocated.’
‘Far away from my concession, I hope,’ he said seriously.
‘You’re being too old-fashioned. FTs will pay big money to track and photograph wild dogs on private land – it’s already happening in South Africa.’
He smiled at her use of the local vernacular for foreign tourists. The F had stood for something else when visitors to Zimbabwe were plentiful, but now no one in the country would bemoan the return of overseas guests and their cash.
She added, ‘I’d be happy to take people along for a joyride as well to help attract funding and raise awareness of the dogs’ situation. You might find that some of your rich killers like the idea of seeing the continent’s most endangered mammal up close.’
‘With those bloody things around I wouldn’t have any game left to hunt,’ he said.
She ignored the jibe. ‘If I were staying – and had the money – I’d also start vaccinating the dogs as I collared the adults. They roam so far that they need to be protected against rabies and distemper, in case they come into contact with infected domestic animals.’
The maid brought out the main course, a rare roast of kudu bathed in a red wine and berry sauce. Michelle thanked her and nodded her approval to Fletcher.
‘This is superb,’ she said as she took her first mouthful, and he was pleased that she was finally admitting it. ‘Just promise me when I’m gone, Fletcher, that you won’t regress to the old days and go shooting or poisoning my dogs if they stray onto your lands.’
He had told her previously that from the 1950s through to the 1970s farmers and safari operators had been paid a bounty to wipe out the painted dogs, which were then considered vermin by the government. How times had changed. ‘That would be breaking the law.’
It was her turn to smile now. ‘I don’t know anyone in Zimbabwe these days who hasn’t bent the rules to the point of snapping. God, I’m going to miss this fouled-up, broken-down, ramshackle country.’
‘What if I said you didn’t have to go?’
She put her knife and fork down and wiped her mouth. She was buying time, he thought, a million thoughts flooding her mind. ‘You’re not asking me to marry you, are you?’
They both laughed at her joke. Many a true word spoken in jest, Fletcher thought to himself. ‘I’m asking you to stay on and continue researching those bloody fleabags.’
‘I’d love to, believe me. The thought of returning to Canada leaves me cold, literally. I feel almost an honorary African now. But in case you weren’t listening to me earlier, there’s the little matter of something called cash.’
‘If you had your own source of funding, could you keep it going, without the involvement of those European greenies you’ve worked for up to now?’
‘Yes, I suppose so. As long as it were enough money.’
He unbuttoned the top pocket of his starched khaki and green safari shirt and pulled out a folded piece of white paper. He opened it and held it out across the table so she could see the magnetic ink characters, the printed name at the bottom, the numbers and zeros. She read the payee’s name.
‘The Isilwane Wildlife Conservation Foundation? Don’t tell me you’ve turned green, Fletcher, I’ll have a heart attack.’
He laughed. ‘You know I’m as passionate about saving the country’s wildlife as you are. We just go about in different ways.’
‘What’s this supposed to mean, Fletcher? What are you going to do with fifty thousand US dollars – spend it on ammo?’
‘Ha ha. I’m almost tempted to take it back now, woman.’
She grimaced. ‘Take it back? From whom?’
‘From you.’
She drained her wineglass. ‘You can’t be serious. You want to . . .’
‘Yes. I want you to use this money, to continue your research, under the auspices of the newly created Isilwane Wildlife Conservation Foundation.’
She was, literally, speechless. She took the cheque from him and read it again, still not fully comprehending his generosity, perhaps wondering what strings the money came with. After a few seconds she asked, ‘Who’s the drawer on this cheque, Doctor Charles Hamley the Third?’
‘The dentist.’
‘The one who shot the poacher?’
‘Correct, although it turned out he’s not your garden-variety tooth-puller.’ Fletcher explained that ‘Chuck’ was in fact the owner of twenty dental clinics across the United States and had a personal fortune, from the surgeries and other successful business ventures and investments, of several million dollars. ‘He’s nuts about hunting, and he’s certifiable about saving endangered animals.’
‘Probably helps him sleep at night, knowing he’s saving as many as he’s killing,’ she sniffed.
‘What’s that about the hand that feeds you? You’ve been hanging around canines too long, my girl.’
‘I don’t know what to say, Fletcher.’
‘Thank you might be a nice start.’ They both laughed. ‘Mary, fetch the champagne,’ he bellowed to the kitchen. ‘Is it enough?’
‘Oh, it’s enough all right, to keep me going, but I don’t know, Fletcher. It’s a wonderful gesture but, excuse me for saying so, it seems too good to be true, and I know business has been tough for you lately. Couldn’t you have used this money in your own operation?’
He raised his hands to stop her line of questioning. ‘I don’t want to sound boastful, Michelle, but that’s not all the money the good Doctor Hamley spread around after his last visit. He paid a handsome tip to me and my guides and camp boys, a contribution to the local school, and he’s promised funding for me to appoint a full-time anti-poaching coordinator.’
‘But why, Fletcher? All this must have cost him a fortune.’
‘He got to see first-hand how magnificent our wildlife here is, and also how much it’s at risk. He told me he donates a lot more money than this to community health clinics in the States each year, so you have to put it all in perspective. Also, I suppose it’s a tax write-off for him.’
She did not look completely convinced. ‘What will he want from me?’
Fletcher held up his champagne flute. ‘He’s left the administration of the conservation fund to me, though I told him about your excellent work and he seemed impressed. I also told him how photogenic you were, in case he wanted a PR spin-off for his investment!’
‘You’re joking, I hope.’
He saw the flash of anger. ‘About the PR stuff, yes,’ he said quickly. ‘Chuck said from the outset he wasn’t interested in media coverage of his charitable donations. He’s a true philanthropist – he gives money just for kicks. But I did let slip that you were a very attractive woman. Forgive me?’
She frowned and was silent for a moment. She raised her glass, and a smile came to her despite her best efforts. ‘You’re forgiven.’
‘Thank God you’re going to accept my tens of thousands of dollars,’ he beamed. They clinked glasses.
Afterwards they sat out on the veranda again, in heavy wooden armchairs placed in front of a fire in a circular brick pit, which had been started on cue by the night watchman. Fletcher had planned this evening in minute detail. He had arranged for their chairs to be set close together. They sipped Amarula cream liqueur poured over crushed ice, together with cups of freshly ground and brewed Kenyan coffee. He drew a cigar from his pocket. ‘Do you mind?’
‘It’s nice of you to ask. I’m a nonsmoker and I hate the habit, but I like the smell of cigar smoke. Funny, huh? Go right ahead.’
&n
bsp; He didn’t think it funny, he thought it summed up the pair of them – at least, he hoped it did. There was so much of his life in Africa that she objected to, and yet they had a great deal in common. Perhaps it was true, about opposites attracting.
The moon was high, casting its floodlight on a waterhole set in a vlei below the safari lodge. A herd of elephant ambled out of the tree line a few hundred metres distant, then started to run when they caught the scent of the fresh water. They could hear a low, rumbling noise from the elephants’ bellies as the animals urged each other on.
‘That’s how part of me feels now,’ she said. ‘Desperate to get to the waterhole and drink my fill of Africa, no matter what dangers might be lurking ahead.’
‘There are no risks, no catches, Michelle. You’ll be free to run your own programs and spend the money how you like. You’ve been doing this long enough for me to trust your judgement.’
He looked into her eyes and saw the conflicting emotions. He knew she saw accepting money from someone like him as a compromise, but at the same time she was just like him – leaving Africa would all but kill him. He wondered if there were anything more there, any other emotions. He suddenly felt dry-mouthed. Hell, he thought, this was worse than going into a thorn thicket after a wounded buffalo. He reached across from the arm of his chair and placed his hand on hers.
She hesitated a moment, smiled, then gently eased her hand out from under his. ‘Please, don’t think I’m not grateful, Fletcher, but . . .’
‘No, no, of course. Think nothing of it,’ he said quickly, to hide his embarrassment. ‘I didn’t mean to suggest . . .’
It was her turn to raise a hand to silence him now. Her smile came easier this time. ‘Fletcher, you have saved my African life and for that I will always be grateful.’
‘So, you’re going to accept my offer?’ He felt his pulse quicken as he waited on her answer, and prayed he hadn’t blown it completely with his clumsy, adolescent advance.
