Mayenga Farm (15 page)

"That's so," Adrian agreed. "His people exist and react like human beings. That's why I'm so happy to help him. For his second novel, which, presumably, he’ll write elsewhere, I’d suggest that he draw on his knowledge of present-day Egypt. After all, it's the story and characterization that sell a novel of his kind, and he can manage both without assistance. If he chooses a background with which he's familiar, the local color will come without forcing." "The next book will take him much longer than the first."

"Naturally, but that will hardly matter. Ambitions don’t materialize in five minutes, even for an enthusiast like Michael." He pushed back his hat and drew a handkerchief across his forehead. "The trouble with growing old, Rennie, is that ambitions bother one less and less. There was a time when I contemplated writing a book — not Michael’s sort, but one of those suede-jackets full of essays, that no one ever buys."

"I’d have bought a hundred!"

"I know you would." His expression was tender. "Well, my ambition wasn’t strong enough, and now it has passed away. Not altogether, though. Writing with Michael has made me realize that I shall never make a farmer. For your sake, my dear, I’m sorry."

She linked her arm in his. "I’ve known it all along, darling, and even more so since Michael came. It isn’t important, if you’re happy."

He turned his head to look full at her. "Your happiness means more to me than mine. I think about you often, Rennie, and blame myself for bringing you here, and letting you in for so much work and anxiety."

"Silly! I wouldn't have missed Mayenga for anything in the

world."

Which was true. Heat, fatigue, backache, heartache — Mayenga was worth it all. Back in England, Adrian had almost casually chosen South Africa as a country in which they could "strike roots." As fax as Rennie was concerned, that process had definitely taken place at Mayenga. She rarely thought about the vast continent surrounding the speck that was Gravenburg.

At last Adrian was coaxed to go into the house; Rennie inspected the loaded ox-wagon and pronounced it ready to travel. A sjambok cracked, the native driver rolled out a few syllables of thick Zulu, and the team began to jog down the track, led by a barefoot piccaninni, with the wagon lurching behind.

Rennie watched the departing soya crop with doubtful satisfaction. It looked a rich load, but reckoned by the acreage the returns had been disappointing, to say the least. However she juggled with figures in the ledger, it was impossible to disguise the fact that the soya beans had scarcely paid for themselves. The cowpeas had done better and the field of lucerne had recently been sold as it stood for a profit, but all were of small account, mere incidentals to the business of farming. It made her tremble a little to realize that their whole future at Mayenga depended on the maize, which was just about ready to be picked. The crop must yield a minimum of ten bags to the acre or they were sunk. Her father’s estimate that eight to the acre would see them through had been too optimistic. Intermittently, she was haunted by the spectre of lone-drawn-out debts. She could hardly wait to get started on Ming the new jute bags with maize.

As it happened, next day a change in the weather halted all work on the farm. After a hot still morning the sky brazed, and Rennie looked forward to a welcome storm. But mid-afternoon, eddies of dust rose and settled again; rose higher and sprayed into the face with force. Strangely, the sky had cleared, but as the squall got into its stride a few high, white clouds appeared, ominously stationary in the steel-blue heavens. There was no single sign of rain.

Paddy, the gelding, jerked and reared against the grit which entered his eyes and nostrils. The wind tore at Rennie's shirt and whipped her hair into strings. When she galloped into the yard, her father and Michael were there, slamming and barring the shed doors, shouting worried questions at each other and barking at the boys. They turned together and ran towards her.

"So here you are!" yelled Michael, above the noise. "Down you come, Rennie, and into shelter. This is awful."

He hauled her to the ground, pushed her into Adrian’s arms and grabbed Paddy’s reins.

Within five minutes all three were indoors, laughing breathlessly as they chased round, heaving in Michael's bed and locking the windows and doors.

At last Michael collapsed into an armchair.

"Gosh, just listen! How deep did you dig the foundations, Adrian?"

"I can’t remember," he replied absently. "But it sounds as if we shall soon know."

Anxiously, Rennie queried, "Will this beat down the maize?"

"If it does the cobs will still be there," Adrian answered. "Mealies are sturdy — not like oats and barley. A wind at this strength can’t last long."

Which, though common sense, had no basis in fact. Since dwelling at Mayenga they had experienced nothing like this, nor had they ever been warned that a south-easter at this season might reach hurricane force.

"It’s freakish," he added, his attention on the bending saplings in the garden and the gale-driven objects flying through the air. "Like March in England, only more so."

"A million times more so," said Rennie soberly.

"If it continues for only an hour there’ll be plenty of carpentry to do."

"We'll attack it together," Michael said comfortingly. "Is it too early for a spot of tea, Rennie?"

She was glad to have a task which drew her away from the dampening sight through the window. Tall delphiniums and cannas snapped flat to the ground, and smaller plants uprooted and swept away; the rockery disappearing beneath drifts of dust; her plants toppling like skittles from the stoep wall, and whole branches wrenched from the frenzied young trees in the side garden, and flung against the panes. There was no escaping the incessant thunder of wind around the house and the terrifying shudders of the corrugated iron roof, though performing the commonplace duty of pouring tea and offering cakes helped to mute them.

Michael, the twentieth chapter of his novel dangling over his knees, was unscrewing his pen as he gazed speculatively at the wall and nibbled a scone. He was one of those fortunate beings who can forget nuisances like storms, though a buzzing fly he found unendurable.

"My women tend to get out of hand," he growled. "Gelda, for instance — the self-sacrificing one. Give me your angle on something, Rennie?"

"What?" she asked guardedly.

"Well, you remember the hero has married the heroine and Gelda has got herself a husband who despises her. Now, I have the hero and Gelda alone. He’s seething with rage over a sharp exchange with his wife and he suddenly sees Gelda as the sweet, submissive type of woman whom he thinks he ought to have chosen. Experimentally, he kisses her." His tone was that of a mechanic dissatisfied with the way the wheels are running. "How should she respond?"

"She still loves him?"

"Yes, but wouldn’t love-making with another man be out of character?"

"What have you made her do?"

"Turn hard and remind him of the wife he adores, and her own husband."

"Psychologically feasible," said Adrian musingly, but the subject could not have interested him deeply, for he went out to find his pipe.

"It’s a ticklish situation. "What’s the woman’s viewpoint, Rennie?" urged Michael.

"Need they kiss?"

"The scene will lose pep if they don’t."

"Why should it? Can’t he find an aesthetic pleasure in being with Gelda?"

"This chap’s boiling from a row with his wife! He feels the need to subdue a woman — any woman."

"Oh!" startled. "Are men like that?"

Michael laughed self-consciously. "I don’t think they are — not the nicer ones. It’s funny, but you give me the answer every time, whether you mean to or not, I never thought of Gelda being strong, but she is. She’d see how things were and instinctively steer him clear of complications. I’m coming to like her. If I don’t watch out she’ll be stealing thunder."

"Not from Jackie," she stated, with a hint of mischief.

Michael was detaching the last half-dozen sheets of the chapter and tearing them across. When necessary he could be ruthlessly honest with himself.

"So you’ve noticed the similarity between Jackie and my main character?" he said casually. "You don’t blame me, do you ? I haven’t made her a goddess."

"She’s warm and human — a grand job," she told him sincerely. "Particularly as she grows older and responsibility develops her personality. So far, the novel is a tremendous compliment to Jackie. You ought to let her read it, Michael."

"Not I." He slipped the clip from between his teeth and secured the pages. "By the time the book is finished she should be out of my system."

"If you really believe that, you’ve never been in love with her."

His shoulders lifted, but before he could speak a new, reverberating din overhead brought them both to their feet, staring at each other with wide, alarmed eyes. A section of the roof must have been prised from its rivets, for it lifted and fell repeatedly, shivering the asbestos board ceiling and filling the small house with a frightful clangor.

The next two hours were an unvarnished nightmare. When at length the wind died to an apologetic whine, an eerie dusk was settling and night, when it came, was opaque and starless, much too dark to begin repairs. Adrian said that perhaps they should be grateful that the squall had caught up with them in daylight.

All night Rennie lay listening for rain which did not come. In the dawn they went out to view the devastation from various parts of the battered garden, A slice of corrugated iron hung rakishly over the stoep, leaving a great triangular gash in the roof. One of the sheds leaned forlornly westwards, its doors forced open, and Rennie’s modest pergola, intended eventually to be vine-entwined, had disappeared altogether. An oaken gate had been carried several feet to crash fatally on to a bed of pelargoniums and Watsonias. The whole place had a depressing air of disaster.

A fresh wind blew all day, hampering movements and slowing down the boys. The strange coolness seemed to impregnate their sun-loving bones, for, wherever they were set to a job they built a fire and took turns in crouching over it and brewing large quantities of sugar water. A few of them, deeming the white people mad and inconsiderate, simply threw blankets over their khaki clothes and went off to stew within the huts until the weather became normal. Useless to threaten them with loss of wages; to them their comfort was priceless.

Fleetingly, Rennie recalled her promise to send for Kent if trouble arose. He would have known how to keep the boys at work, and he would have lent riveting tools for mending the roof and a trained workman to use them; Kent seemed to possess everything. But he might be busy on repairs of his own and, in any case, if he couldn't guess their plight it might as well be obscured from him. Perhaps tomorrow she would scribble an airy note sketching for him a faint picture of the desolation from which they were emerging. It would help to have him ride over at the week-end.

To Michael's credit, he labored longer than anyone, and with appreciable success. It was pure bad luck that towards evening he should injure his wrist and put himself out of action for next day.

"My right wrist, too," he groaned. "No writing or typing for me for a while."

Rennie brought cold water and a quickly-contrived pad as a compress.

"Do this first, and later we'll massage it. A rest from writing won't harm you."

"I know, but I've gone unbearably impatient. What with the wind and the roof hanging off, I got no sleep last night. I spent the time thinking about all sorts of things."

"We all did."

"My thoughts were selfish, I'm afraid. The novel is seldom out of my mind," He winced as the sodden pad was pressed round his swollen wrist. "The twentieth chapter marks the halfway line

— a hundred thousand words. Most of it is typed ready for the publisher. I've a good mind to send it to a friend of mine in London — just for comments."

"Yes, why don't you?" Rennie re-dipped the pad and squeezed it, wishing she had some cubes of ice with which to cool the water. "If you're still out of action on Saturday maybe I can type the last few pages for you."

Michael looked at the tawny head bent over his hand.

"You're a stout little scout, Rennie. You never think of yourself first, yet you must be horribly weary."

She was. Fatigue seemed to have filtered into every sinew; her knees were wobbly with it, her eyes dark and heavy. In addition she was worrying about her father. Adrian was a man of average health, but he quickly showed signs of physical strain. With Michael incapacitated, tomorrow's burdens would be heavy. Ought she to go to Kent? Ought she?

Well, it was too late tonight, and the morning's sun would, as always, imbue the new day with new hope. Time enough to decide by Adrian’s appearance tomorrow lunchtime.

In the course of the following morning the major renovations were completed, and as it was delivery day for the butter, Rennie had little difficulty in persuading her father to take the car to town for the afternoon. Seeing that there was nothing Michael could do at Mayenga, he went along too, to buy a couple of books he needed. He agreed with Adrian and Mr. Morgan that a public library was a long overdue necessity in Gravenburg.

Rennie had already sent some boys to start maize-picking, and it was with a spurt of dread and excitement that she turned Paddy’s nose up-river, to take her first peek at the maize since the g
^ale
.

As she expected, it lay like a yellow matting over the land, most of it bent at soil level, but even from the saddle she could see the ripened cobs still sheathed and attached to the stems. The picking would be tedious, but, as the culmination of the season, it had its own peculiar thrill. At last the harvest.

She took the right-angle track between the fields. The breeze, still cool, fore wood-smoke along with it and, far away at the edge of the acreage where the boys were, a continuous grey plume swept out across the maize and disintegrated. Almost unnoticing, she was watching the smoke, the way it came up in a fast-moving, widening fan, shrouding the natives. Then it cleared, and her senses received a sickening jolt. For the boys were prancing madly and beating at the ground with sacks. The idiots had started their indispensable fire in the stubble with the wind behind it.