The Fever Tree (20 page)

N
ew Rush.” The driver’s shout woke her, and she was back with the sway of the wagon and the shouts of the boy as he flicked the oxen with his
sjambok
. She had fallen asleep with her head cradled into Edwin’s shoulder, and she pulled herself upright. The canvas at the back of the wagon was unbuttoned. Edwin lifted it up, letting in a shaft of bright sunlight, and dropped off the back. After a few minutes, Frances joined him. They had been traveling since dawn, and her legs were cramped and swollen. It felt good to walk. The oxen were tossing their heads to keep off the flies, and Mangwa, who was tethered to the back of the wagon, had turned the color of rust in the cloud of dust thrown up by the wheels. She tapped the boy on the shoulder, and he pointed to a dirty smudge in the distance.

When one of the oxen stopped in its tracks, the wagon lurched and ground to a halt. The boy lashed at it with his
sjambok
, the tuft of antelope skin flickering through the air like a hornet.

“
Rooinek
,” he shouted, over and over, whipping its flanks in a frenzy. The ox began to move, and Edwin laughed.

“What?” Frances asked.

“
Rooinek
. It means ‘Englishman.’ He’s calling it lazy.”

They walked with scarves wrapped round their faces like a desert tribe, to keep off the dust and the sun. Carcasses of animals and old broken-up vehicles littered the sides of the road. It was hours before they saw anything of note, and even then it was only a tumbled heap of Boers, searching in the dust for diamonds. They were living out on the plain in the thatched mud huts built by natives. They didn’t look up when the wagon trundled past, even though it drove so close that the driver’s
sjambok
could have touched their backs. Frances trailed her foot through the soil like a plow. Strange to think that you only had to turn over a stone here, and you could make a fortune. They called the sand
diamondiferous
. Further on, they passed a mound of rubbish. Native children clambered through it, knee-deep, and came out clutching glass bottles and rolls of paper.

When evening came on, they climbed back into the wagon. Edwin held out his flask of water, and she took it gratefully. She had always thought that he enjoyed the isolation of the farm, but every few minutes he lifted the side of the canvas to see where they were, and she realized he was impatient to get there. It occurred to her that she wouldn’t have him to herself anymore, which was an odd thing to think, because she had never put much value on his company.

The boy ran down the wagon lighting the lanterns, and she could hear, far off, a clamoring, like the distant hum of a hornets’ nest. Edwin rolled up the canvas so they could look out. The noise grew louder by the second, then lights shone in front of them, and a few minutes later they were in the midst of a throng of men. The town had swallowed them. Diggers swarmed over the road, carrying picks and spades, and leading mules—more people than she had seen in the last six months put together. Naked black men and butch, muscled Europeans swung into view as they held up their lanterns to look in at them. They were moving against the tide. Diggers, finished with work for the day, were walking out of town to the huts and wide canvas tents which clustered the sides of the road. Men pressed against them on all sides, calling loudly to one another. The oxen, uneasy, bellowed and groaned, and the boy held their heads and led them on. Then the road widened, and they were in the midst of a carnival of light. Stores and canteens, lit up with paraffin lamps, plied a bustling trade. Wood fires blazed in furnaces outside, flickering their light over the crowd of customers who bellowed to one another across the street. The air was thick with the smell of smoke and roasting meat. The wagon turned and turned again, and they entered a clearing.

“Market Square,” Edwin said, jumping off the back of the wagon and lifting their luggage down onto the side of the street. He looked excited to be here, invigorated by all these people, but Frances felt a little overwhelmed. It had been months since she had set foot in a town. He handed her Mangwa’s lead rope and left her standing on the steps of a hotel, one of only two brick buildings in the square. “I’ll be out in a minute. Watch the luggage.”

The hotel was a surprise. It looked bright and friendly, and she could see between the curtains that the front room was well lit and glowing in a shabby, welcoming way. She stood next to a window which looked into the dining room. Two tables were laid, with clean white napkins and brass candlesticks. Edwin had no income now, and she had imagined a dingy, run-down establishment on the outskirts of town. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad after all.

She stroked Mangwa’s nose while she waited. The Reitzes had offered to try to sell him, but Edwin had suggested he come along. “We’ll get a better price for him in Kimberley,” he had said, and she had agreed, hoping that she might be able to change his mind.

There must have been over forty oxen in the square, with natives unloading huge bundles of goods, crates, and bales of straw from the backs of wagons. Surely it was only a matter of time before she saw William. It occurred to her that he might have stood where she was standing now. Perhaps he had passed through the square today, or was about to. He might have stayed in this hotel, in the very room that she would be sleeping in tonight. Two boys darted between the wagons, running swiftly from person to person, offering pieces of paper to anyone who would take one. She held out her hand, and a pink slip was pressed into it. The lamp outside the hotel cast enough light for her to read what it said: “The disease at Falstead’s Farm is not smallpox. It is a bulbous disease of the skin allied to pemphigus. Signed—.” The names of various doctors were signed underneath. She felt relief mixed with disappointment. This slip was official and signed by enough men to prove without doubt that it wasn’t smallpox after all. They would only be staying a few days. Which was good. The sooner they got away from Baier, the better. And yet, even though nothing could come of it, her heart was set on seeing William. A few days might not be enough time.

Two natives stood across the street, watching her. They approached when they saw her looking. One was dressed in an old woolen jumper, with bare legs and feet. He said something to her in Dutch. She shook her head to show she didn’t understand, and he put out a hand to touch Mangwa, curiously, letting it rest on his shoulder. His friend, a tall boy with just a knotted cloth passed between his legs and his buttocks bare, stared at her as if she were a specimen behind glass. She took a step backwards, but the naked boy reached forwards, put out his hand, and touched her hair, letting it bristle between his fingers. She jumped away from him and he laughed, a bellowing sound showing a mouth full of long, white teeth like the keys on a piano. The boy in the jumper said something to her again. It sounded like a question. She didn’t answer, and he squatted down beside their luggage and began hauling her trunk onto his shoulders. She told him to stop, but her voice was shrill. When she made a grab for the handle, he swung it effortlessly out of her way, then looked at her, grinning.

“Put it down!” she shouted, and they roared with laughter as if she were playing a part in a pantomime. She felt absurdly like she might cry.

Edwin reappeared. “You all right?” he asked, then spoke to one of the natives in Dutch.

“They’ll take our luggage,” he said to her, nodding to the boy carrying her trunk, and he handed the zebra to the other to lead.

“Doesn’t the hotel have a room?” she asked, disappointed, as they walked away from the square.

“The hotel? Probably, but we’re not staying there.”

“Why not?”

He gave her a wry look. “Do you really need to ask? Mrs. Edwinson, who runs it, has a side business letting out tents on the other side of town.”

They turned down a street off Market Square, walking past corrugated-iron buildings of every shape and size, painted white, green, red, and yellow. The tradesmen advertised their wares on large billboards which she could just make out by the light of Edwin’s lamp. They were mostly diamond merchants and one-room mining offices. Further on was a chemist, then an auction house and a pawnbroker. They passed a barber and a shop with a window crammed full of bottles of carbonated water. On their left was a row of brick buildings covered in scaffolding. Edwin said they were being built by the new bank.

They turned off the main street at the corner of an architect’s office and stepped into a maelstrom of canvas and makeshift iron houses. There was no clear road here, and everything looked as if it had been laid down haphazardly, with no attempt at order, like a pack of tumbling card houses. It was too crowded, and the tents were pitched right up against one another. Fires were dotted in between, and the lamps which burnt inside the tents threw grotesque shapes across the canvas walls, like a lantern show.

“Why aren’t there any houses?” Frances asked, half jogging to keep up.

“They’re building on the other side of town, but it’s expensive. Bricks are harder to come by in Kimberley than diamonds, and all the timber has to be imported.”

They walked past a large pavilion tent which had been turned into a boarding house. Next to it was a liquor bar with a sign outside:
THE DIGGER’S REST
. A handful of tables were scattered in the dust at the entrance, and inside a throng of men were playing cards and drinking. A tune was being hammered out on a piano. Pools of light spilled onto the road, and two men dressed in shirtsleeves and overalls with knives in their belts swigged from the same bottle. She could smell the sweet stink of stale alcohol.

A little further on, the crush of canvas thinned, and it was here the natives stopped. A tent stood in a small yard, bolstered up with thornbush. Her heart sank. It was a squalid, dirty-looking place. There was a line for washing strung across the middle from the stark branches of a dead tree to the top of the tent, and a few barrels for water. Their luggage was brought inside, the boys were paid, and more lamps were lit. There was a small, rickety fold-out table at the front of the tent with three chairs, and a curtain which ran across the middle separating off the bed. Boards had been put down on the floor, so at least they wouldn’t be living in the dust. She could stand, just about, if she was in the central seam of the tent, but not where the canvas began to slope towards the floor.

It was cold now, with winter coming on, and she pulled a shawl from her bag. She wished she had brought some woolen underclothes from London. Edwin was holding a match to a knot of kindling. She handed him the slip of pink paper. He looked at her curiously, then put it up to the light to read it. After a moment, he asked, “Where did you get this?”

“Boys were handing them out in the street. It’s good news, isn’t it? For the town? For us?”

Edwin shook his head stubbornly. “I can’t say. Not until I’ve had a look for myself.”

“Because of course only you would know?” she cried in exasperation.

She pushed through the curtain. The mattress was made of straw, and it had an old blanket laid on top which didn’t quite stretch to the edges. She found their sheets and made the bed.

Edwin toasted some mealies which Sarah had made, and they ate them with tinned sardines. It was so cold now that you could see your breath when you talked. Through the chill night air came the sounds of other people’s lives. The clatter of pots, voices raised in argument, and, further off, the tinkling of the piano at the Digger’s Rest.

They had finished eating when she noticed a man appear silently in their yard. He stood looking in at them, swaying slightly like a stick of bamboo in a gentle breeze. Edwin held up a hand in recognition. The man came closer, and Frances saw from his tall frame and disheveled, old school flannels that he was English. His jacket, all faded stripes and fraying buttons, hung awkwardly from his narrow shoulders. He had a long, tanned face with a grizzled beard, and his hair, grown over to cover a bald patch, had been blown off his forehead into wisps of white cotton.

The man looked round in a nervous, hesitating way, clutching his hat in one hand. Frances, concerned that gravity was going to get the better of him, motioned to the spare chair, and he buckled into it.

“Got a drink, Matthews?” he called to Edwin, who was already pouring out a glass.

“He can be a tight bastard,” he said to Frances heavily. Then, after a moment, he shouted to Edwin, “Is this your wife?” He turned to her, asking in a low voice of mock disbelief, “Did you marry him?”

Edwin handed him the glass, and the man took a long draft and seemed to revive. “I had lunch with Baier today.”

“And I thought you were just here for the scotch.”

“Yes, the scotch too,” the man said benignly.

“Did you see the men at Falstead’s Farm?” Edwin asked.

“So Baier was right. He’d heard you were coming to town. Said you’d got yourself in a twist about an outbreak of smallpox. I disagreed with him.” He took another long draft and waved his hand airily. “I assured him that a few months on the veldt would have sweated your youthful ambitions out of you.”

“I was told there were four Mozambicans, traveling down the east coast. Is that right? They were suspected of smallpox, were quarantined at Falstead’s Farm, and shortly after, died.”

“Not smallpox. Pemphigus.”

“Pemphigus? I’ve never even heard of it.”

“Well, I encourage you to look it up.”

He took another sip of whiskey and sucked his teeth. “You know, we doctors should stick together, Matthews. It doesn’t do to have stray sheep.”

“You’re a doctor?” Frances asked.

“Of sorts,” Edwin replied for him.

“I’d forgotten how you love to make yourself unpopular.” The man tilted his whiskey into the light. “He’s right, of course. I was banned from practicing in England. Still, it’s not so bad. Kimberley is less queasy when it comes to picking its professionals.”

“Did you examine the men?” Edwin asked. The man didn’t deny it. “And you’re sure it wasn’t smallpox?”