Golden Fox

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘The world is changing, Prime Minister.’ Centaine seized the moment. ‘One day, there may even be a place in your cabinet for a woman, don’t you think?’

  Vorster smiled and switched easily from English into Afrikaans.

  ‘Even Dr Courtney agrees that day is still far ahead. However, I do concede that such a pretty face would do much to lighten the deliberations of us ugly old men.’

  The change of language was, of course, a test. Nobody in South Africa with political aspirations could survive without fluency in Afrikaans, the language of the politically dominant group.

  Isabella switched as easily as he had done. Her vocabulary was wide, her grammar perfect and her accent rang sweetly, even in the ear of a born Afrikaner.

  Vorster smiled again, this time with pleasure, and continued the conversation for a few minutes more before glancing pointedly at his wristwatch and speaking to Centaine.

  ‘I must go now. I have another function to attend.’ He turned back to Isabella. ‘Totsiens, Dr Courtney, until we meet again. I will be watching your progress with interest.’

  Centaine and Shasa walked with him from the marquee to where his official car and driver waited on the edge of the polo-ground.

  ‘Totsiens, Centaine.’ Vorster shook her hand. ‘I congratulate you on the rearing of your granddaughter. I recognize many traits which she can only have inherited from you.’

  When Centaine returned to the marquee, she looked around quickly. Isabella was already the centre of a circle of eager males.

  ‘She has them panting like puppy dogs.’ Centaine suppressed a smile and caught her granddaughter’s eye. Isabella left her admirers and came to her immediately, and Centaine took her arm in a comfortable proprietorial gesture.

  ‘Well done, missy. You behaved like a veteran. Uncle John likes you. I rather think that we are on our way.’

  That evening, only the family sat down to dinner at the long table in Weltevreden’s main dining-room. However, Centaine had ordered the antique Limoges dinner service and the best silver. The table was resplendent in candlelight and a massed display of yellow roses.

  As was usual on these family evenings, the women wore long dresses and the men were in black tie.

  Only Sean was missing.

  Sean had been invited – or, rather, Centaine had summoned him – but he was hunting with one of his most valuable clients on the Rhodesian concession and had sent his humble apologies. Centaine had accepted them reluctantly. She had wanted them all to celebrate her triumph with Dandy Lass, but she conceded that business came first.

  The German industrialist that Sean was guiding paid for sixty-three days of hunting each year at five hundred dollars a day. Of course, his vast business commitments in Germany would not allow him to spend that much time in the hunting-veld. He was lucky if he could fit in two weeks in any one year. However, he paid for the additional days to secure the right to hunt three elephant instead of one. Sean had to be on call for him, even though he usually gave only a few days’ notice of his intended arrival.

  Centaine missed her eldest grandson. Sean was the handsomest and wildest of the three of them, but his presence was always stimulating. He seemed to charge the very air around him with the static electricity of danger and excitement. It had cost her and the family tens of thousands of dollars to bail him out of the various scrapes that his tempestuous nature led him into. Although she always expressed her outrage at these expenditures in the severest terms, secretly she did not grudge them. Her only fear was that one day Sean would go too far and get himself into real trouble from which even Centaine would be unable to extricate him. She dismissed that thought.

  Tonight was not the night for morbid fancies.

  The tall silver trophy glittered in the centre of the long table. It stood on a pyramid of yellow roses. It was strange what satisfaction that bauble gave her. It had cost her countless hours of hard work in the field, but the winning had made it all worthwhile. It had always been like that for her. The burning need to excel was in her blood. She had passed on that divine contagion to those she loved.

  At the far end of the table Shasa tapped the crystal glass in front of him with a silver spoon and in the ensuing silence rose to his feet. He was tall and elegant in his impeccable dinner jacket and black tie. He began one of those speeches for which he was renowned – easy and flowing, the wit and sentiment so cleverly timed and blended that he could at one moment raise a storm of laughter and at the next moisten every eye with a skilfully turned phrase.

  Although he heaped her with praise and turned the attention of every person in the room full upon her, Centaine found her own mind wandering to her other grandchildren. They were all hanging on their father’s lips, so engrossed by his words that they were unaware of Centaine’s appraisal.

  Garry sat at her right hand as befitted his importance in the family hierarchy. From the runt of the litter, myopic, weedy and asthmatic, he had transformed himself with little or no help from her or any of them into this bull of power and confidence. Now he was the helmsman of the family fortune, chairman of Courtney Enterprises. His bulk threatening the fragile legs of the genuine Chippendale chair, his thumbs were hooked into the pockets of his discreetly brocaded waistcoat. His dress shirt was a snowy expanse over the great chest, and the starched wing collar too tight for a neck swollen not with fat but with muscle and sinew. His dense black hair stood up in a cockscomb at the crown, and his thick horn-rimmed spectacles glittered in the candlelight. His laughter rocked the room; full and unrestrained, it greeted each of Shasa’s sallies and it was so infectious that it transformed even his father’s mildest remarks into wild hilarity.

  Centaine switched her gaze to Garry’s wife. Holly sat beside Shasa at the far end of the table. She was almost ten years Garry’s senior. Centaine had opposed the union with all her power and cunning. Of course, she had not succeeded in preventing the marriage. She admitted to herself now that it had been a serious error of judgement to attempt to do so. She would now have had more control and influence over Holly had she not made the attempt. Instead she had raised barricades of mistrust in Holly’s mind that she might never be able to pull down.

  She had been wrong about Holly. She had proved the perfect wife for Garry. Holly had recognized those qualities in him that none of them, not even Centaine, had fully perceived. She had brought them to full flower and carefully nurtured his self-confidence. In large measure she was responsible for Garry’s success. She had given him strength and unflagging support. She had given him love and happiness, and she had given him three sons and a daughter. Centaine smiled as she thought of those little scamps asleep in the nursery wing upstairs, and then sighed and frowned. The reserve that Holly still felt towards her was a barrier between her and her great-grandchildren. Garry and Holly lived in Johannesburg, the nation’s financial centre, a thousand miles from Weltevreden.

  The head office of Courtney Enterprises was in Johannesburg, as was the Stock Exchange. Garry was one of the main players; he had to be at the centre of the arena. Thus there was every reason for him and Holly to have left Weltevreden, but Centaine felt that Holly was keeping the children from her. Although it was only a three-hour flight in the company jet which Garry loved to pilot himself, yet these days Centaine very seldom saw them at Weltevreden. She wanted desperately to have the children close to her to guide and influence them, to protect and train them as she had their father, but Holly was the key. She would have to redouble her efforts to win her round. Now she deliberately caught her eye down the length of the long table, and smiled at her with all the warmth and affection she could convey. Holly smiled back, blonde and serene, her beauty given an extraordinary dimension by those particoloured eyes, one blue, the other a startling violet.

  ‘I’ll make you like and trust me yet,’ Centaine promised silently. ‘You’ll not be able to hold out for ever, not against me. I’ll have those children. This family is mine, those children are mine. You’ll not keep them from
me much longer.’

  Shasa had said something about her that she had missed in her preoccupation. Now every head at the table was turned towards Centaine, and they were all applauding with enthusiasm. She smiled and nodded her acknowledgement of whatever compliment Shasa had paid her, and as the applause faded Shasa continued.

  ‘You may have thought to yourselves as you watched her handling Dandy Lass today that it was a remarkable accomplishment. For any other woman, it might have been so, but here we have the lady who faced down a man-eating lion with me as an infant strapped upon her back . . .’ Shasa was reciting once again all the old stories about her that were the weft and the warp of the family legend. In itself this recitation at every important occasion had become tradition and, though they had all heard them a hundred times, their enjoyment was as fresh as ever.

  Only one person at the table looked faintly embarrassed by the extravagance of Shasa’s eulogy.

  Centaine felt a chill little breeze of annoyance ruffle the silken surface of her self-satisfaction. Of all her grandchildren the one for whom she felt the least warmth and concern was Michael. He sat near the centre of the long table at the lowliest position, not simply because he was the youngest of her grandsons. Michael did not fit into Centaine’s scheme of things. There were secret depths and hidden places in his nature that she had not yet fathomed, and which therefore annoyed her.

  She had never been able to wean Michael away from his natural mother. Even the thought of Tara Courtney sent a scalding acidic rush of hatred through Centaine’s bowels. Tara had outraged every principle and concept of decency and morality that Centaine held sacrosanct. She was a Marxist and a miscegenist, a traitor and a patricide. A portion of Centaine’s feelings towards Tara were passed on to this one of her sons.

  The force of her gaze must have been fierce enough for Michael to sense it. He glanced up at her suddenly and paled under Centaine’s dark eyes, then looked away again hurriedly, almost guiltily.

  At Shasa’s insistence, and over her objections, the family had acquired a controlling interest in the media company which counted amongst its assets the Golden City Mail newspaper. Shasa’s motive had been to secure a place for Michael at the top of his chosen profession. His idea had been to build up the Mail as a powerful and conservative voice of reason, and for Michael, once he had earned his spurs, to take over as publisher and editor. That day had not yet dawned, and Michael was still only a deputy editor. If it had been left to Shasa, he would have pushed Michael earlier. However, both Garry and Centaine had kept his paternal indulgence in check. The two of them had reasoned that Michael was not yet ready for the job. His financial and administrative instincts were underdeveloped and his political judgement was naïve, perhaps irreparably flawed. It was Michael’s influence on editorial policy that continually nudged the Mail off the centre of the road, slanting it dangerously to the left, so that the newspaper had become distrusted not only by Government but also by the establishment of finance and mining and industry, those who paid for advertising space.

  On three previous occasions the Mail had been banned by government decree, each time at a financial cost that infuriated Garry and with a loss of prestige and influence that made Centaine uneasy.

  He’s not a true Courtney, Centaine thought, as she studied Michael’s pretty features. Even Bella has more steel in one of her little fingers than he has in his entire body. Michael is a waverer and a bleeder. His concern is for strangers and for the losers, not for the family. For Centaine that was the most heinous form of treachery. He doesn’t take after any of us; he takes after his mother. And that was her most damning judgement. He has even tried to corrupt Bella. Centaine knew about the presence of her two grandchildren at the anti-apartheid rally in Trafalgar Square. They had been photographed by South African intelligence from the windows of South Africa House, and Centaine had received a warning call from one of her important contacts in the Government.

  Fortunately, Centaine had been able to smooth things over. Bella had done some undercover work for South African intelligence during her passionate love-affair with Lothar De La Rey. Lothar had been a colonel in the police at the time, and he was now a Member of Parliament and a deputy minister in the Ministry of Law and Order.

  Centaine had called upon Lothar personally. She had enormous influence over him; there were secrets that involved Lothar’s father and other mysteries which Lothar could only guess at. In addition Lothar had been Bella’s lover and, Centaine suspected, was still more than a little in love with her.

  ‘I will include a full explanation of her presence at the rally in Isabella’s file,’ Lothar assured her. ‘We know that she is a patriot, she has worked for us before, but I can’t promise anything for Michael, Tantie.’ Lothar used the respectful term of address which meant more than simply ‘Aunt’. ‘Michael has too many black marks on his file already, I’m afraid.’

  Yes, thought Centaine grimly, Michael has accumulated black marks like a dog picks up fleas, and some of them hop off on to all of us.

  At that moment Shasa finished his speech and all of them turned towards Centaine’s end of the table expectantly. As a speaker she was every bit as good as her son, but there was often a little more of a sting in her words, and a little more directness in her views. They waited with anticipation for the customary fireworks as she began her reply, but tonight they were disappointed.

  Centaine seemed in an unusually mild and benevolent mood. Rather than censure, she had praise and appreciation for all of them. Garry’s financial results, Isabella’s academic achievements, Holly’s architectural plans for the new Courtney luxury hotel on the Zululand coast and her forthcoming birthday.

  ‘So sorry you won’t be able to stay over with us for the big day, Holly darling.’

  Even Michael came in for praise, albeit much fainter praise, with the publication of his most recent book. ‘One doesn’t have to agree with your conclusions or with the solutions which you suggest, Mickey dear, to appreciate just how much thought and hard work went into the writing of it.’

  When she asked them to rise and drink a toast to ‘our family and every single person in it’ they responded with gusto. Then Shasa came to the head of the table to take her arm and lead her through into the blue drawing room where coffee and liqueurs and cigars were waiting. Centaine would never accede to the barbarous custom of leaving the men alone with their cigars after dinner. If there was anything worth talking about, then she wanted to be part of those discussions.

  Quickly Michael crossed to Isabella as she rose from her seat at the table and took her arm.

  ‘I’ve missed you, Bella. Why didn’t you answer my letters? There is so much I want to know. Ramón and Nicky—’ He saw her expression change, and his alarm was quick.

  ‘Is something wrong, Bella?’

  ‘Not now, Mickey,’ she warned him quickly. This was the first time they had spoken in almost six months, since Nicky had gone. She had not telephoned him or answered his letters. Moreover, she had avoided being alone with him ever since he had arrived at Weltevreden that morning.

  ‘There is something wrong,’ Michael insisted.

  ‘Smile!’ she ordered him, smiling herself. ‘Don’t make a fuss. I’ll come to your room later. No questions now.’ She squeezed his arm, and laughed gaily as they all trooped through to the blue drawing room and clustered round attentively while Centaine settled herself in her customary place on the long sofa facing the roaring log fire in the Adam fireplace.

  ‘Let me have my girls with me tonight,’ she decided, and picked out Holly. ‘Come and sit this side, my dear.’ She patted the sofa beside her. ‘Bella, you on this side of me, please.’

  Centaine seldom did anything without good reason, and as soon as the servants had given them coffee and Shasa had poured Cognac for the men she played her high card.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for a chance to do this, Holly,’ she said in a voice that commanded all their attention. ‘And I suppose your birthd
ay is the best excuse I’ll ever have. You are my eldest granddaughter, so I’m going to establish a little family tradition tonight.’

  Centaine reached up behind her own neck and unclasped the necklace she wore and held it in her hands, a glittering treasure, over a thousand carats of perfect yellow diamonds. Each stone had personally been selected by Centaine Courtney from the production of her fabulous H’ani mine in the far north. It had taken ten years for her to accumulate them, and Garrards of London had designed and manufactured the setting in pure platinum.

  ‘Something so lovely should only be worn by a beautiful woman,’ Centaine whispered regretfully, and the tears that sparkled in her dark eyes were genuine. ‘Alas, I no longer fulfil that requirement, so it is time for me to pass them on to somebody who does.’

  She turned to Holly. ‘Wear these with joy,’ she said and hung them at her throat.

  Holly sat as though stunned, and everybody in the room was silent with awe. They all knew what that necklace meant to Centaine; they knew that she placed a far higher value on it than the mere two million sterling which the Lloyd’s assessors had recently decided was its intrinsic worth.

  Holly lifted her right hand and stroked the bright stars at her throat with a look of total disbelief on her delicate features, then she choked and sobbed and turned to Centaine and embraced her. The two women clung together for a moment before Holly could find her voice. It was muffled and small, but all of them heard it clearly.

  ‘Thank you, Nana.’ Only close members of the family called Centaine that, and Holly had never done so before.

  Centaine held her tightly, closing her eyes and pressing her face against Holly’s golden head so that none of them would see the little smile of triumph on her lips and the satisfied gleam through the tears in her eyes.