The Complete Short Stories (7 page)

Hugh was collecting
drinks at the bar. The novelist saw him, and they spoke together for a while.
Presently Hugh brought him to be introduced. The novelist sat next to Daphne. ‘You
remind me of someone I used to know from Africa,’ he said.

‘I come from Africa,’ said
Daphne.

Hugh asked him, ‘Often
come here?’

‘No, it was just, you
know, I was passing….’

One of the girls
chuckled, a deep masculine sound. ‘A whim,’ she said. When he had gone Hugh
said, ‘He’s rather sweet, isn’t he, considering how famous …’

‘Did you hear him,’ said
an oldish man, ‘when he said, “Speaking as an artist   Rather funny, that, I
thought.’

‘Well, he
is
an
artist in the sense,’ said Hugh, ‘that—’ But his words were obliterated by the
others’ derision.

A few days later Hugh said
to Daphne, ‘I’ve heard from Ralph Mercer.’

‘Who?’

‘That novelist we met in
the pub. He writes to know if I’ll give him your address.’

‘Why’s that, do you
think?’

‘He likes you, I
suppose.’

‘Is he married?’

‘No. He lives with his
mother. Actually I’ve sent him your address. Do you mind?’

‘Yes, I do. I’m not a
name and address to be passed round. I’m afraid I don’t wish to see you again.’

‘You know,’ said Hugh, ‘I’m
glad it never came to an affair between us. You see, Daphne, I’m not entirely a
woman’s man.’

‘I don’t know what to
say,’ she said.

‘I hope you will like
Ralph Mercer. He’s very well-off. Very interesting, too.’

‘I shall refuse to see
him,’ said Daphne.

Her association with Ralph Mercer lasted
two years. Her infatuation was as gluttonous as her status as his mistress was
high among the few writers and numerous film people who kept him company. She
had a grey-carpeted flat in Hampstead, with the best and latest Swedish furniture.
Ralph’s male friends wooed her, telephoned all day, came with flowers and
theatre tickets.

For the first three
months Ralph was with her constantly. She told him of her childhood, of
Chakata, the farm, the dorp, Donald Cloete, the affair of Old Tuys. He demanded
more and more. ‘I need to know your entire background, every detail. Love is an
expedition of discovery into unexplored territory.’ To Daphne this approach had
such force of originality that it sharpened her memory. She remembered
incidents which had been latent for fifteen years or more. She sensed the sort
of thing that delighted him; the feud, for instance, between Old Tuys and
Chakata; revenge and honour. One day after receiving a letter from Chakata she
was able to tell him the last sentence of Donald Cloete’s story: he had died of
drink. She offered him this humble contribution with pride, for it showed that
she, too, though no novelist, possessed a sense of character and destiny. ‘Always,’
she said, ‘I would ask him was he drunk or sober, and he always told the truth.’
Later in the day, when the thought of Donald’s death came suddenly to her mind,
she cried for a space.

News came that Mrs
Chakata had followed Donald to the grave, and for the same cause. Daphne lad
this information on the altar. The novelist was less impressed than on the
former occasion. ‘Old Tuys has been done out of his revenge,’ Daphne added for
good measure, although she was aware that Old Tuys had been silly and senile
since his stroke. One of her friends in the Colony had written to say that Mrs
Chakata had long since ceased to have the pistol by her side: ‘Old Tuys takes
no notice of her. He’s forgotten what it was all about.’

‘Death has cheated Old
Tuys,’ said Daphne.

‘Very melodramatic,’ he
commented.

Ralph began to disappear
for days and weeks without warning. In a panic, Daphne would telephone to his
mother. ‘I don’t know where he is,’ Mrs Mercer would say. ‘Really, dear, he’s
like that. It’s very trying.’

Much later, his mother
was to tell Daphne, ‘I love my son, but quite honestly I don’t
like
him.’
Mrs Mercer was an intensely religious woman. Ralph loved his mother but did not
like her. He was frequently seized by nervy compulsions and superstitions.

‘I must,’ said Ralph, ‘write.
I need solitude to write. That is why I go away.

‘Oh, I see,’ said
Daphne.

‘If you say that again I’ll
hit you.’ And though she did not repeat the words, he did, just then, hit her.

Afterwards she said, ‘If
only you would say goodbye before you leave I wouldn’t mind so much. It’s the
suddenness that upsets me.

‘All right then. I’m
going away tonight.’

‘Where are you going?
Where?’

‘Why,’ he said, ‘don’t
you go back to Africa?’

‘I don’t want to.’ Her
obsession with Ralph had made Africa seem a remote completed thing.

His next book was more
successful than any he had written. The film was in preparation. He told Daphne
he adored her really, and he quite saw that he led her a hell of a life. That
was what it meant to be tied up with an artist, he was afraid.

‘It’s worth it,’ Daphne said,
‘and I think I can help you in some ways.

He thought so too just
at that moment, for it occurred to him that his latest book was all of it
written during his association with Daphne. ‘I think we should get married,’ he
said.

Next day he left the
fiat and went abroad. Now, after two years her passion for him was not
diminished, neither were her misery and dread.

Three weeks later he
wrote from his mother’s address to suggest that she moved out of the flat. He
would make a settlement.

She telephoned to his
mother’s house. ‘He won’t speak to you,’ his mother said. ‘I’m ashamed of him,
to tell the truth.’

Daphne took a taxi to
the house.

‘He’s upstairs writing,’
his mother said. ‘He’s going away somewhere else tomorrow. I hope he stays
away, to tell the truth.’

‘I must see him,’ said
Daphne.

His mother said, ‘He
makes me literally ill. I’m too old for this sort of thing, my dear. God bless
you.

She went and called
upstairs, ‘Ralph, come down a moment, please. She waited till she heard his
footsteps on the stars, then she disappeared quickly.

‘Go away,’ said Ralph to
Daphne. ‘Go away and leave me in peace.

3

Daphne arrived in the Colony during the
rainy season. The rains made Chakata’s rheumatism bad. He talked a lot about
his rheumatism, would question her about England without listening to her
replies.

‘The West End is badly
bombed,’ she said.

‘It gets me in the groin
when I turn in bed,’ he answered. Various neighbours looked in to see Daphne.
The young had married, and some who called were new to her.

‘There’s a chap out from
England farming over at the south, says he knows you, said Chakata. ‘Name Cash,
I think.’

‘Casse,’ said Daphne, ‘Michael
Casse. Is that the name?’

‘This stuff the doctor
gives me’s no good. In fact it makes me worse. Another tobacco manager was
living in the house Old Tuys had occupied. Old Tuys was at the farmhouse with
Chakata. He sat in his corner of the stoep, talking nonsense to himself, or
ambled about the farm. Chakata was annoyed when Old Tuys walked about, for he himself
could barely hobble. ‘A pathetic case,’ he would say as Old Tuys strolled by, ‘he’s
got his limbs, but he hasn’t got his faculties. I at least have my faculties.’
He preferred to see Old Tuys in his chair on the stoep. Then Chakata would say,
‘You know, after all these years, I have a soft spot for Old Tuys.

Old Tuys ate noisily.
Chakata did not seem to mind. It struck Daphne that she was useless to Chakata
now that she was no longer a goad for Old Tuys. She decided to stay at the farm
no longer than a month. She would get a job in the Capital.

The third day after her
arrival there was a break in the rains. She wandered round the sunny farm all
morning, and after lunch set off northward for Makata’s kraal. The new tobacco
manager agreed very happily to come with his car and fetch her later on.

She had become unused to
trekking any distance. Her energy ebbed after the first mile. A cloud of
locusts caught her attention and automatically she stopped to watch anxiously
whether the swarm would settle on Chakata’s mealies or miss them. It passed
over. She sat to rest on a stone, disturbing a baby lizard. ‘Go’way. Go’way,’
she heard.

Daphne called aloud, ‘God
help me. Life is unbearable.’

A house-boy came running to Chakata who was
round by the tobacco shed resting on two sticks.

‘Baas Tuys is gone to
shoot buck. The piccanin say he take a gun to shoot buck.’

‘Who? What?’

‘Baas Tuys with gun.’

‘Where? Which way?’

‘Is gone by north. The
piccanin have seen him. Was after lunch piccanin say, he talk that he go to
shoot buck.’

A few more natives had
gathered round.

‘Run, quick, all of you.
Get that gun off Old Tuys. Fetch him back.’

They looked at him
hesitantly. It was not every day that a native was instructed to wrest a gun
from the hands of a white man.

‘Go, you fools. Run.’

They returned slowly and
fearfully half an hour later. Chakata had hobbled to the end of the paddock to
meet them.

‘Where’s Tuys? Did you
get him?’

They did not answer at
first. Then one of them pointed to the path through the maize where Old Tuys
was staggering home, exhausted, dragging something behind him.

‘Go and pick her up,’
ordered Chakata.

‘I got me a buck,’ said
Old Tuys, looking with pride at the company. ‘Man, there’s life in the old dog
yet. I got us a buck.’

He looked closely at
Chakata. He could not understand why Chakata was not impressed.

‘We have buck for
dinner, man Chakata,’ he said.

Burials follow quickly
after death in the Colony, for the temperature does not allow of delay. The
inquest was held and Daphne was buried next day. Michael Casse came over for
the funeral to the cemetery outside the dorp.

‘I knew her quite well,
you know. She stayed with my mother,’ he said to Chakata. ‘My mother gave her a
bird, or something like that.’ He giggled. Chakata looked at him curiously and
saw that the man was not smiling.

Chakata was being helped
into the car. ‘I must see a specialist,’ he said.

Ralph Mercer was moved when he heard the
news. It was like the confirmation of something one knew already. Daphne had
begun to live when he had first met her, and when she had gone she had been in
a sense dead. He tried to explain this to his mother.

‘Like flowers, you know,
in the garden. One can’t say they really
exist
unless one’s looking at
them. Or take —’

‘Flowers, garden … You
are talking of a human soul.’

It was a year later that Ralph felt a
crisis in his work. His books were selling, but on the other hand they were not
taken seriously enough by serious people. All his novels had ended happily. He
decided to write a tragedy.

He ranged his experience
for a tragedy. He thought of, and rejected as too banal, the domestic ruptures
of his friends past and present. He rejected the story of his mother, widowed
young, disappointed in her son, but still pushing on: that was too personal. He
thought of Daphne. That might lead to something both exotic and tragic. He
recalled her stories of Old Tuys and Chakata, the theme of the lifelong feud.
He took a ticket on a plane to the Colony in order to obtain background
material at first hand.

Almost immediately he
arrived in the Colony he found himself beset by admirers. He had never before
been so celebrated and popular in his person. He was invited to Government
House. Dinners were given in his honour, and people drove in through swollen
rivers from outlying districts to attend them. He had to pick and choose
amongst the invitations he received. Everyone with a white skin had heard of,
if they had not read, Ralph Mercer. Moreover, seated among this company on wide
verandas after dinner he could look round without catching the cool eye of some
critic, some frightful man whom the public hardly ever heard of, but who, at
home, was always present at parties of this sort, and who put Ralph out. He
began to think he had vastly underrated the intelligence of his public.

‘I have been thinking of
changing my style. I’ve been thinking of writing a tragedy.’

‘Good Lord,’ said the
retired brigadier whom he had addressed, ‘you don’t want to do that.’

Everyone said the same.

Another thing everyone
said was, ‘Why don’t you settle here?’ or ‘Why don’t you take a place and live
here for part of the year? It’s the only way to avoid the heavy taxes.

At the Club he had met
Michael Casse who had come up to the Capital to see the Land Bank about a loan.

‘My wife adores your
books,’ said Michael. He giggled. Ralph wondered for a moment if Michael was a
critic.

‘We have a mutual
friend,’ said Michael, ‘or rather
had.
Daphne du Toit. I went to her
funeral.’ He giggled.

‘The reason I’ve come
out here is to see her grave,’ said Ralph defensively. ‘And to talk to her
uncle.’

‘Got a car?’ said
Michael. ‘If not I’ll drive you down. I live near them.’ Ralph realized that
Michael’s giggle was a nervous tic.

‘I might settle in the
Colony — seven months in the year, you know,’ he confided.

‘There’s a nice place
near us,’ said Michael. ‘It’s coming up for sale soon.

Ralph had been two
months in the Colony, had toured the country, had been shown all the
interesting spots, and met the enjoyable people, when at last he accepted
Michael’s invitation to stay at his farm.

‘Are you writing
anything at the moment?’ said Michael’s wife.

‘No, but I’m collecting
material.’