Zambezi Seduction (5 page)

But his mind was made up and he stubbornly refused to budge.

“You’re as free as you ever were . . . Besides,” he added with a grin and a wink, “I got a better exchange rate than you.”

Kerry found it impossible to bring Chad’s mind back to her grievance. What a stubborn, generous man, she thought.

They left town, heading north on the road signposted Hwange and Victoria Falls.

They passed several
Matabele villages, round huts with thatched roofs, the ground between the huts smooth mud. The villagers smiled and seemed remarkably clean, considering the conditions under which they lived. Twice they were held up at police roadblocks. The officers were well-mannered; they asked to see Chad’s licence and made a perfunctory search of the car’s boot.

Mile after mile, tree after tree.
It was the hottest day so far.

The look of the country changed. Baobabs were back. An impala buck with fine horns led three does through the trees. Kerry felt a new excitement. At last they were nearing the game country.

On a hilltop outside Hwange town they stopped for a beer and lunch at the aptly named Baobab Hotel. Then there was time for some shopping before they entered the reserve. As luck would have it they got the last loaf of bread. There was no fresh milk, but Kerry refused to allow herself to become flustered; they could get by on long-life.

***

Inside the national park Chad headed straight for camp and soon found their lodge. On her bedroom wall Kerry spied the two biggest spiders she had ever seen. She turned on her heels but hesitated, remembering Chad’s cruel taunt: “. . . if you’re going to become hysterical over everything that moves.” Well, he could think what he liked, but the spiders had to go.

She found him outside where the attendant was helping him unload the bags and cases from the car.

“Chad, I can cope in most situations,” she said, determined to keep tight control of her emotions. “My one phobia is spiders. There are two heavyweights on my bedroom wall. Will you please get rid of them and check over the rest of the lodge?”

The South African gave her a slow penetrating look. She thought, here it comes, some wisecrack about the weakness or silly aversions of women.
Instead, to her surprise, he nodded and handed her the binoculars.

“Walk to that ridge.” He pointed. “Enjoy the view.
” He glanced at the lodge. “I did warn you: no Five Star hotels this trip.”

“Don’t take it personally,” she said. “I’m happy to be here. It’s just that . . . I can’t sleep if there are beasties or crawlers in my room. I don’t like unwelcome guests.” As soon as she said it Kerry could have bitten off her tongue.

Chad Lindsay threw back his head and laughed.

“Yes, you made that perfectly clear.” There was merriment in his eyes. He turned quickly to the African and said something in Zulu and the two men headed for the lodge.

Lizards scuttled from her path causing dead leaves to crackle. She kept a wary eye for snakes. The tree-lined ridge was fifty yards from their lodge and she made for the tree offering most shade.

It was a long time before Kerry raised the binoculars to her eyes, a long time spent gazing out on a view she would remember
for the rest of her life.

Perhaps two hundred feet below the ridge, the plain began. First it was dotted with low scrub through which ran a dirt road that she guessed they would take at dawn tomorrow. The scrub thinned and ended at a wide band of lion-coloured grassland. The dry bed of a stream wound across the grassland, an occasional tree standing on its low banks. The impression was of heat, dust and drought. Beyond the grassland the trees thickened into Mopani forest. The virgin forest stretched as far as the eye could see across the baking wilderness to the blue horizon.

Moving shadows on the plain caught her eye and she raised the binoculars. The shadows were zebra, a small herd of about thirty animals. Impala and warthog were down there too. The Zeiss 10x50s picked out three giraffes in the trees, so well camouflaged only a sudden movement had betrayed their presence.

Kerry realized that she was experiencing a golden moment in her life. She felt her eyes become moist. To look from this hill down over the grassy plain with its herds of animals roaming free fulfilled a dream, a need that had been with her almost as long as she could remember. If they saw nothing else in their time remaining, the trip for her would have been worthwhile for this glimpse of Eden alone.

Her debt to Chad Lindsay was growing. It now encompassed more than money.

***

With the darkness came hyenas to scavenge about camp. They drove Kerry to laughter with their crazy whoops and cackles. She thought the ugly predators loathsome – although their presence, with the other night sounds, contributed to her state of happy awareness as she worked in the small kitchen preparing the evening meal.

This was no place to practise one’s culinary skills. Gourmet cuisine was out. There was a basic stove fed by bottled gas, a few pots and plates and a drawer full of cutlery – and not much else. Kerry prepared rice to go with a beef stew from tins. A few sprigs of wilted parsley from the town’s supermarket added colour. She need not have worried. Together they made short work of the stew, their appetites sharpened by anticipation of what tomorrow might bring and the cool, tangy Castle lagers they’d enjoyed before dinner.

Kerry was surprised when Chad insisted on helping with the washing up. Then she remembered he was used to looking after himself. Within the small room’s narrow confines some physical contact was inevitable. Neither shrank from the bumps and arm touching – evidence that their relationship had progressed from its stuttering beginning. It seemed to Kerry that they were like a pair of animals in the wild strengthening their bond.

Outside, the hyena sounds intensified – weird, demented and more than a little scary. Triggered by the cooking aromas around camp, Kerry guessed. To her it was a new and exciting and wonderful experience, a world without television, radio or newspapers – yet without even a hint of boredom.

“This is heavenly,” she said. They sat in the small lounge not saying much, content to listen to the sounds of the African night. “I’m learning to use my ears, blunted by a lifetime’s exposure to urban living.”

Chad had been sipping Scotch. Now he put his glass aside, his face reflecting his thoughtful mood.

“If I were offered time anywhere in the world,” he said. “I’d still choose to come here to the African bush. Its anti-stress qualities are immeasurable.”

“So it’s not just the animals, it’s the atmosphere – the peace and isolation from the madness of modern living?”

“It’s everything you see, feel and hear. For me the big thing is observing animals in the wild where they behave naturally. People think there’s nothing more we can learn, but they’re wrong. I accept that nobody’s going to discover the unicorn in some hidden valley. But we’re learning all the time, particularly in the field of animal communications. For example, we now know that elephants can communicate over distances of several miles using low frequency sounds inaudible to the human ear. And we know that certain monkeys have three distinct alarm calls: one warns of leopard, one python, one eagle. There are a lot more discoveries to be made out there.”

“It’s like we’re time travellers who’ve slipped back hundreds of years,” Kerry said, wide-eyed with the novelty of it all. “We can talk without the distraction of television – while outside wild and dangerous
animals prowl.”

“Interesting point, feeling a link with the past,” Chad said. “The first
Trekboers
heading into the interior from the Cape would have experienced the same sights and sounds we did today. Most African tribespeople pray to their ancestors, seeking guidance. Maybe we just hit on why. As you say, out here in the wilds you feel a closeness with the past.”

He got up and refilled his glass from the bottle of
Dewer’s, adding a splash of bottled water.

“Talking of Boers,” Kerry said. “Did Anna
Grobler mention she’s invited us to her farm for a barbecue?”

“Of course, she’ll want to hear every detail of the trip.”
Chad grinned. “Hey! You’re the first Pom I’ve heard pronounce the Afrikaans G correctly.”

Kerry was sure it was the first compliment he had paid her.

“Comes of having Celtic blood. My mother was Irish. She and dad met in Galway when he came to fish Lough Corrib – it’s a huge lake famed for its big trout. The number of islands is supposed to match the days in a year – 365.  When I was little she was always going on about the lough. She made sure I pronounced the word right. The throaty ending is like your G.”

Praying mantises and moths danced against the window glass. The pulse of insect noise throbbed non-stop in the darkness. Hyenas kept up their eerie chorus. Kerry was tired after the long drive in the heat from Bulawayo; but in spite of the early start planned for the morning, she didn’t want the day to end just yet.

The jealousy was back. She felt ashamed, hating herself – yet her mind would not rest until she knew the truth. She tried to keep her tone of voice casual.

“Anna told me to ask how the two of you met.
Something about bumping into one another?”

The South African laughed and got to his feet, refilling his glass once more. He looked at Kerry questioningly. She shook her head. The last thing she needed at their dawn departure
was a sore head. Chad settled back into his chair, an amused light in his eyes.

“We met head-on.
A narrow road in the
platteland
, a notorious bend. I was in the Fiat, she in her bloody big Merc. Fortunately there was little damage. We had a shouting match, a right mix of English and Afrikaans. She seemed vaguely familiar. Turned out she’d been runner-up in the Miss South Africa Contest. Had her picture on TV and in all the papers.”

“So you kept in touch after the accident?” Kerry inquired.

“She telephoned – we had naturally exchanged names and numbers. I had my first major showing in Johannesburg and it was my turn to be in the newspapers. She came along and we became friends.”

“She’s a stunner – so how come it’s me, not her, sitting here?”

Chad’s eyes held Kerry in a stare so direct it seemed to pin her to her chair. She could feel colour come to her face and wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

“I have a bachelor’s reluctance to discuss matters concerning my private life,” he told her bluntly.

“Am I being awfully nosey?”

“No – in your position, I’d be the same.
” He paused. “Anna is a beautiful woman. At times, in certain light, she almost takes my breath away. I’ve often wondered how it’d be if we were together . . . permanently. But it won’t happen.”

“Why not?”

Chad drank from his whisky glass and for a long moment considered her through narrowed eyes.

“I expect she’s a virgin and will remain so until her marriage. That is how well brought up Afrikaner girls are. Her future is clear. She will marry one of her own. They will have three sons: one will take over the farm, one will be a sporting hero – a rugby Springbok – one will
rise to a high rank in the Armed Forces. That’s how it is with the Afrikaner elite.”

His explanation had satisfied Kerry’s curiosity. The whisky had loosened his tongue. He had become garrulous and showed no signs of flagging.

“Her people would never countenance her going on a trip like this, even if Anna wanted it, which she doesn’t. She’s spoiled rotten, you see. At home they have two kitchen maids, a house maid plus a couple of gardeners. Anna hates roughing it – and I doubt if she can boil an egg. To marry such a person means you are also marrying a servant, for the two are inseparable.”

Okay, Kerry thought. That was Anna sorted. It still left one other name. When she had burst in on them
after finding the snake in her room she had overheard Anna asking Chad if he had seen Erica that morning.

Was Erica his current squeeze? Was she the reason he had failed to show at the airport? Had they been locked in a final intimate embrace before the three-week separation? Kerry could hardly demand more answers now. It would keep for another time.

“So marriage to Anna is out,” she said with a chuckle. “Will you stay in the new South Africa?”

“Africa is in my blood,” he said simply. “For my work and peace of mind, I need the sun, far horizons,
voices calling out in Zulu or Xhosa.”

“I wish I felt that way about my country, but I don’t,” Kerry said. “Many young people in Britain today feel disillusioned. Their lives seem unfulfilled; they wish they were somewhere else.”

“They’re not shackled to it. It’s a big world out there – you’ve seen a lot of it. Contentment comes from realizing ambition. Anything is possible.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“That’s key,” he stressed. “Keep it simple. Find something you enjoy doing and do it to the best of your ability.”

They
fell silent but maintained eye contact. Their bumping and touching in the kitchen had started something. During their talk Kerry had sensed they were skirting the subject like a couple of wary boxers at the start of a fight.