The Elephant's Tale, Page 2
Lauren St. John
No, it was after all of that. After she’d come rushing around the side of the house to find a crowd gathered on the front lawn. There’d been horrified gasps as people who thought she’d perished in the flames turned to see her running toward the smoldering wreckage, screaming for her parents. One of the neighbors, Mr. Morrison, had managed to catch her, and his wife had held her while she struggled and sobbed.
Martine could still remember when it hit her that her mum and dad, with whom she’d shared a laughter-filled birthday dinner of chocolate and almond pancakes just a few hours earlier, were gone forever.
That’s the moment when her life had officially ended. That’s when everything she’d ever loved was lost.
Now it was happening again.
The bulldozers were at Sawubona by nine a.m. the next morning. They came up the road like a line of yellow caterpillars, ready to chomp everything in their path. They parked right outside the animal sanctuary and their clunking, roaring engines terrified the sick and orphaned creatures a thousand times more than Reuben James’s car had done.
Gwyn Thomas went out to stop them with an expression so ferocious that Martine was amazed their operators didn’t turn tail and flee. She stood in front of the first bulldozer with her hands on her hips, like a protestor facing down an army tank.
“And what exactly do you think you’re doing, coming onto my property and frightening already traumatized animals?” she demanded.
The lead operator clambered off his machine, smirking. “Just following orders, ma’am.”
“You’ll be following orders right into jail if you don’t leave immediately. If you’re not off my land in three minutes, I’m calling the police.”
“Go right ahead.” The man took a piece of paper from his pocket and unrolled it. “This is a court order giving us permission to start work on this site. We understand that you won’t be vacating the reserve for another two weeks, but in the meantime we need to start laying the groundwork for the safari park.”
“I don’t care whether you’re laying the groundwork for Windsor Castle,” Gwyn Thomas ranted. “You’re not moving one grain of sand—” She stopped. “I’m sorry. I think I misheard you. You’re doing what?”
The man handed her the document. Gwyn Thomas put on her glasses. Martine, watching from a safe distance, saw her shoulders stiffen.
Her grandmother’s voice became dangerously quiet. “The White Giraffe Safari Park? That’s what you’re intending to build here?”
The man’s grin began to fade. “I guess so. That’s what it says.”
“Well,” said Gwyn Thomas, “let me save you a great deal of trouble. There will be no White Giraffe Safari Park here. There will be no Pink Elephant, Black Rhino, or any other themed safari park you care to mention. Over my dead body will Mr. James inherit Sawubona.”
“Now hold on a minute,” objected the bulldozer operator. “There’s no need for that kind of talk. I’m only doing my job.”
Gwyn Thomas handed him his document with exaggerated politeness. “Of course you are. How unreasonable of me. You’re only following orders. In that case you won’t mind if my game warden follows orders to leave this gate open so that the lions can take their morning stroll around your bulldozers while I drive into Storm Crossing to see my lawyer? Hopefully they’ve already eaten their breakfast. They do love a bit of fresh meat in the morning . . .”
But Martine was no longer listening. The sick, sad feeling that had enveloped her ever since she’d learned of Sawubona’s fate had been replaced by one of pure rage. The showpiece of Mr. James’s grand plan to turn the game reserve into a glorified zoo was to be Jemmy. Not only was her soul mate to be taken from her, he was going to become the star of the Reuben James Show.
Trailing after Gwyn Thomas as she stalked back to the house, Martine silently echoed her grandmother’s words: “Over my dead body, Mr. James.”
4
Three hours later, Gwyn Thomas was back from Storm Crossing with good news and bad news.
“Tell us the nice news first,” said Martine as she and Ben followed her grandmother into the study. She gestured to her friend to take the spare chair while she perched on top of a filing cabinet.
Gwyn Thomas held up a legal letter. “For what it’s worth, that would be this—an injunction to prevent Mr. James and his crew of heavies from laying a single brick until the day we officially leave Sawubona: Christmas Eve. The bad news is that we can’t stop them from coming to the game reserve as often as they want to in the meantime. They’re entitled to bring along as many architects, designers, and wildlife experts as they feel necessary in order to plan for their takeover of the reserve.”
“That’s outrageous,” said Martine, who didn’t tend to use such dramatic words, but felt it was called for now. “We can’t possibly have that hateful man planning his stupid zoo and bringing people to poke and prod our animals while we’re still living here. If he lays a finger on Jemmy, I might be tempted to do something violent. At the very least I’ll have to deflate his tires.”
“Martine!” Gwyn Thomas was horrified. “I will not have you talking like a young thug; I don’t care how upset you are. I know you’re devastated at the prospect of losing Jemmy, but really that’s no excuse.”
She stood up and walked over to the window. “How do you think I feel? Sawubona has been my home for more than half my life, and it was your mum’s home before it was yours. It was your grandfather’s dream before I met him and then it became our shared vision. And now I have to face the fact that the man I loved may have deceived me by signing away that dream to Mr. James.”
She turned around. “But, you know, I’m not willing to believe that. Your grandfather wasn’t perfect, but he was an honorable man. If he did sign away Sawubona, he’d have done it with the best of intentions—perhaps to protect me from knowing how bad our financial situation was. Either that, or he was tricked into changing his will.
“Unfortunately, none of that matters now. However noble his intentions, his actions are probably going to cost me my home and my life. And that hurts. It really hurts. Barring a miracle, Martine, in two weeks’ time you and I and the cats are going to have to pack up everything we own and move into a rented apartment.”
Martine tried to picture her grandmother, who loved nature more than life itself, in a poky city flat far from the wilderness of Sawubona. She was upset with herself for being so selfish. Devastated at the thought of losing her home and almost everything she loved twice in one year, she’d forgotten that it must be a thousand times harder for her grandmother.
“We can’t just give up,” she said. “There must be something we can do. Surely a judge would understand that a lot of the animals in the game reserve are like Jemmy. They’re orphans or they’ve had a really horrible life and they need us to protect and love them.”
Her grandmother grimaced. “Unfortunately, when it comes to property, judges tend to see things in black and white. I had hoped that the signature on the will produced by Mr. James would turn out to be a forgery, but my lawyer called in a handwriting expert and he assured us it’s genuine.”
Tendai knocked at the door. Gwyn Thomas ushered the game warden in with a sad smile before continuing: “No, I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do.”
Martine looked at Ben. He was wearing the expression he always got when the two of them were in a crisis. She could see him trying to figure out a solution.
He said, “What if there was another will—one written more recently than the one held by Mr. James—leaving Sawubona to you? Wouldn’t that change everything?”
Gwyn Thomas nodded. “It would. But if there was a more recent will, Henry would have told me about it or I would have found it when I was going through his papers after . . . after he passed away.”
There was an awkward silence. Nobody wanted to point out the obvious, that if Henry hadn’t told her about the will held by Mr. James, he might not have told her about other things.
Ma
rtine thought about the grandfather she’d never know. He’d been killed trying to save the white giraffe’s mother and father from poachers, leaving her grandmother heartbroken and without her companion of f orty-two years. She said again, “We can’t just give up. We have to fight.”
“I agree,” said her grandmother. “But I’m at a loss to think exactly how we fight.”
“Would you like me to break the news about Sawubona to the game reserve staff?” offered the game warden.
“Thank you, Tendai. I couldn’t face it myself, but it would be most helpful if you would.”
“In the weeks before Mr. Thomas . . . passed away, did he do or say anything unusual?” asked Ben. “Did he ever seem worried or agitated?”
“Quite the reverse,” Gwyn Thomas told him. “He was happier than I’d ever seen him. He was very excited about the future of the game reserve and had all sorts of projects on the go. Weeks before he died, he even made a sudden trip to England for a meeting.”
She brought her hand down hard on the desk. “That’s it, isn’t it? Something happened on that trip. I know he was planning to see your mum and dad, Martine, but I wish I could remember what business he had there.”
“When exactly did he go?” asked Martine. “Maybe you could check the date on the will produced by Mr. James and see if the two things coincided.”
“I know it was during our winter,” said her grandmother, “but I’d have to look in his old passport to see the exact date. I think I still have it.”
She opened the bottom drawer on the right side of her desk and went through a folder. The passport was not where she’d thought it would be, so she closed the drawer again. Only it wouldn’t shut properly. She wrestled with it in annoyance before wrenching it open again and feeling down the back. “Something’s stuck.”
She lifted out a heap of crumpled and torn bits of paper and a stiff blue envelope, a little mangled around the edges. On the front, in bold blue ink, was the word “Gwyn.”
Martine was on the verge of asking if she’d like to read it in private when her grandmother seized the letter opener. She read the enclosed note and passed it to each of them in turn.
My darling,
I hope there is never any need for you to use this key. If you do it will mean I got too close to the truth. You always thought me so brave. I don’t feel that way today. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.
All my love always,
Henry
For several long minutes nobody said anything. Nobody knew what to say. It was as if Henry Thomas had spoken from the grave. At last Martine plucked up the courage to ask: “What is the key for?”
Her grandmother removed it from the envelope and examined the business card tied to it with a piece of string. “It would appear that it’s for a safety-deposit box in a bank vault in England.”
She slumped in her chair. “Oh, what can it all mean? What is it that I have to forgive?”
“Maybe you’re right,” Ben suggested. “Maybe something did happen on Mr. Thomas’s trip to England.”
“Perhaps. But his secret, if he had one, has gone with him to the grave.”
“Not necessarily,” put in Martine. “If you went to England, the answer might be in the safety-deposit box. You could do some investigating and find out what my grandfather was doing there and who he was meeting with.”
Her grandmother was aghast. “I can’t travel halfway across the world and leave you alone in the house, especially when Sawubona is crawling with strangers. And I’m certainly not leaving Tendai alone to face the music on the reserve. Who knows what nefarious plans Mr. James has up his sleeve.”
“Martine won’t be alone,” Ben told her. “I’ll be here to protect her.”
In spite of her distress, Gwyn Thomas managed a smile. “And who’s going to protect you, Ben Khumalo?”
“Why don’t we call Grace and ask her if she’ll come and stay for a week or two,” suggested Martine. “Then Ben and I won’t be alone and Tendai will have some grown-up support. One look from Grace and Reuben James will probably run for his life.”
“Grace is away in Kwazulu-Natal visiting relatives,” her grandmother reminded her.
“Yes, but she is back in a couple of days,” Tendai pointed out. “I can have Tobias, our new guard, watch the house at night until then.”
“I can’t believe we’re even considering this,” said Gwyn Thomas. “What if it’s a wild-goose chase? What if I fly thousands of miles and spend a small fortune—at a time when we can least afford it—only to discover there’s nothing to discover? That the note was just something Henry wrote when he was feeling guilty about borrowing money from Mr. James.”
“Then at least you’ll know,” Martine told her. “You’ll know that there was nothing to find and you’ll know that you did everything possible to save Sawubona.”
But even as she spoke, a feeling of doom crept into her bones, joining the anger and dread already lurking there. “Maybe it’s not such a great idea,” she backtracked. “It is too far way and we’ll miss you.”
“No, I think you were right the first time, Martine,” Gwyn Thomas said. “I should travel to England, otherwise I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering if it would have made a difference if I’d only gone. I should go if it means saving Sawubona.”
5
The morning after Gwyn Thomas had flown away, Sampson, an elderly game guard who patrolled the reserve on foot, radioed at six a.m. to say that he had found a buffalo needing urgent treatment for a suspected viral disease. Without that, it would die.
Martine heard the crackling of Tendai’s responses and went down to the kitchen to find out what was going on. Ben had already showered and was sitting at the table drinking coffee and eating anchovy toast. In contrast to Martine, who was not a morning person and was bleary-eyed and in her pajamas, her hair sticking up on end, he looked cool, alert, and ready to face anything the day could throw at him.
“There’s a sick buffalo near the northern boundary,” he told Martine. “Will you come with us? We could do with your help.”
Adrenaline began to course through Martine’s veins. Nothing woke her up faster than an animal needing help. She took a few swallows of Ben’s coffee and stole his last bit of toast, ignoring his protests. “Give me a minute,” she said. She raced upstairs for her survival kit, which she never went anywhere without, threw on a pair of jeans and a blue sweatshirt, and sped outside.
As it turned out, her haste was unnecessary. Tendai and Ben were not hanging around waiting for her, they were peering under the hood of the jeep and arguing about spark plugs and fuel injectors.
“This old lady had been running since I came to work for your grandfather twenty years ago and has been patched up many times, but in between she has always been so reliable,” Tendai told her. “She was working well last night. I can’t think why she is refusing to cooperate this morning.”
They were testing the battery when Reuben James came roaring into the yard in an open-topped Land Rover so new it sparkled.
“Perfect timing,” muttered Ben.
Reuben James stepped down from his vehicle. He was crisply dressed in a white shirt and tailored khaki trousers, his bald head shining. He looked every inch the successful safari park owner. “Trouble in paradise?” he asked, strolling over to them.
He offered a hand to Tendai. “I’m Reuben James. And you must be Sawubona’s famous game warden? I heard about you during my business dealings with Henry Thomas a few years ago, but I think you were away on a course at the time. You were a tracker then, if I’m not mistaken.”
Without waiting for a reply, he turned very deliberately and smiled down at Martine. “We meet again.”
Martine wished she had a rotten egg at hand with which to wipe the grin from his arrogant, self-satisfied face. “Unfortunately,” she said.
Reuben James laughed. “Unfortunately? Come now, Martine, I’m sure we’re going to be the best of friends.”
“A sick buffalo?” James waved an arm in the direction of his gold Land Rover. “Please,” he said. “Take my vehicle.”
They all stared at him in astonishment. Martine wondered what the catch was.
“Uh, thank you for your kind offer, Mr. James,” Tendai managed, “but there is no need for that. I have friends I can telephone in an emergency.”
But Reuben James wouldn’t hear of it. “I insist. It would be my pleasure. My driver will be happy to escort you. Lurk, take these good people into the game reserve to find this ill creature and spend as much time there as they need. I have some paperwork to attend to that will keep me busy until you return.”
He nodded toward the jeep. “In the meantime, with your permission, I’ll have one of my mechanics take a look at your engine.”
Before they could raise a single objection, he had ushered them into the new-leather-smelling interior of the Land Rover, personally shutting the doors behind each of them as if he, and not the man sitting at the wheel, were the chauffeur.
As they rolled out of the yard, Martine, who was in the backseat with Ben, risked a glance behind them. Reuben James was standing in the driveway waving, just like Gwyn Thomas usually did.
It’s as if he’s already won, fumed Martine. It’s as if he’s already moved into our home. It’s as if, two days after dropping this bombshell on us, he’s already Sawubona’s owner.
Then a little voice added: And Jemmy’s.
