The Complete Short Stories, Page 3

  ‘I think so. Anyway, there are millions in Hertfordshire.’

  She engaged herself to marry a flight-lieutenant instructor. He was killed the following week in a flying accident. He had said, describing his home near Henley, ‘Ghastly place really. The river simply walks over the garden. Father’s been doubled with rheumatism, but won’t move.’ These words had somehow enchanted her. ‘The river simply walks over the garden,’ and she knew that the river was the Thames and that the garden was full of English bushes and all the year round was green. At his funeral she felt that the garden had gone under the sea. His family lived not far away from the English Pattersons. ‘No,’ he had said, ‘I don’t think we know them.’ It seemed incredible that he did not know his neighbours of only fifteen miles distant. ‘No,’ wrote the English Pattersons, ‘we don’t know the people. Are they Londoners come down since the war? There are a lot of Londoners…’

  In the Christmas holidays after her twenty-first birthday she said to Chakata, ‘I’m giving a term’s notice. I’m going to Cape Town.’

  ‘Have you had more trouble with Tuys?’ he said.

  ‘No. It’s just that I want a change. I should like to see the sea.’

  ‘Because, if you have had trouble with Tuys, I shall speak to him.’

  ‘Are you at all thinking of getting rid of Old Tuys?’ said Daphne.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  He tried to persuade her to go to Durban instead of Cape Town. ‘Durban is more English.’ He did not like the idea of her staying with her father’s people, the du Toits, in Cape Town.

  Cape Town made her hanker all the more for England. There was just enough of the European touch — old sedate Dutch houses, cottage gardens, green meadows, a symphony orchestra, a modern art gallery —to whet her appetite for the real thing. The fact that the servants were paler than those of the Colony, and more European in feature, suggested to her a proximity to England where servants were white. ‘We have no one left,’ wrote the English Pattersons, ‘but Clara, and half the time we have to wait on her. She has lost her memory and she keeps thinking you are your mother. She thinks Toad is Uncle Pooh-bah. Aunt Sarah is a trial. She thinks we pinch her sweet coupons.

  Daphne longed to be waiting on Clara, to be accused by Aunt Sarah of stealing the coupons, to be washing up the dishes and climbing over stiles with the cousins whom she had never seen. Some of her relations were nicknamed after characters in The Wind in the Willows, Rat, Mole, Toad, others named from as yet unaccountable sources — her uncles Pooh-bah and The Doing, for instance. The du Toits could not quite follow the drift of Daphne’s letters from England when she read them aloud, herself carried away by the poetry of the thing. ‘Rat,’ she would explain, ‘is Henry Middleton, Molly’s husband. He’s in the navy…’

  ‘Doesn’t he treat her right, then?’

  ‘He adores her actually,’ said Daphne, using the infectious phraseology of the letters from England.

  ‘Why does she call him a rat, then?’

  Chakata was right, thought Daphne, you simply can’t explain the English sense of humour.

  She went to night-clubs in Cape Town, keeping steadily in her thoughts the fact, of which she was convinced, that these were but tawdry versions of the London variety.

  The du Toits were members of an Afrikaner élite. They tolerated but did not cultivate the English. One of their cousins, an Oxford graduate now fighting in North Africa, came home on leave and made a bid for Daphne. Just at that moment she became attached to a naval officer who had arrived a fortnight ago in a corvette which had been badly hit. Ronald was the most typical, Daphne thought, Englishman she had ever met, and the most unaffected. The ship, he whispered confidentially, for no one was supposed to know it, would be in port for six weeks. Meanwhile, might they consider themselves engaged? Daphne said, oh really, all right. And regardless of anything the du Toits might speculate, she spent a night with him at a sea-front hotel. With the utmost indifference Ronald mentioned that, before the war, he had captained the village cricket team — ‘The squire usually does.’ Daphne saw, in a vision, numerous long white-flannelled legs, the shadowy elms, pretty sisters in pastel dresses, the mothers in old-fashioned florals and the fathers in boaters, all cool and mellow as the lemonade being served, under the marquee by the lake, on trays borne by pale-faced, black-frocked, white-filled maids. Daphne thought of the heat and glare of Chakata’s farm, the smell of the natives, and immediately felt bloated and gross.

  A few days later, while she was dancing cheek-to-cheek with Ronald, at the tea-dance provided by the hotel on the sea-front, to the strains of

  The fundamental things apply

  As time goes by

  — at the same moment young Jan du Toit was informing the assembled family that Daphne’s fiancé was a married man.

  Her Aunt Sonji spoke to Daphne next morning.

  Daphne said, ‘He’s the captain of his local cricket team.’

  ‘He could still be a married man,’ said Sonji.

  By lunch-time the information was confirmed, and by sundown the corvette had sailed.

  Daphne felt irrationally that it was just the sort of thing one would expect to happen while living with the du Toits. She removed to Durban, treating the English ships with rather more caution than hitherto. She eschewed altogether the American navy which had begun to put in frequent appearances.

  Among her colleagues at the school where she taught in Durban was a middle-aged art master who had emigrated from Bristol some years before the war. He saw England as the Barbarian State which had condemned him to be an art master instead of an artist. He spoke often to Daphne on these said lines, but she was not listening. Or rather, what she was listening to were the accidentals of this discourse. ‘Take a fashionable portrait painter,’ he would say. ‘He is prepared to flatter his wealthy patrons — or more often patronesses. He’s willing to turn ‘em out pretty on the canvas. He can then afford to take a Queen Anne house in Kensington, Chelsea, or Hampstead, somewhere like that. He turns the attic into a studio, a great window frontage. A man I know was at college with me, he’s a fashionable portrait painter now, has a studio overlooking the Regent’s Canal, gives parties, goes everywhere, Henley, Ascot, titled people, dress designers, film people. That’s the sort of successful artist England produces today.’

  Daphne’s mind played like the sun over the words ‘Queen Anne house’, ‘Kensington’, ‘Chelsea’, ‘Studio’, ‘Regent’s Canal’, ‘Henley’. She had ears for nothing else.

  ‘Now take another fellow,’ continued the art master, ‘I knew at college. He hadn’t much talent, rather ultra-modern, but he wanted to be an artist and he wouldn’t be anything else. What has he got for it? The last time I saw him he hadn’t the price of a tube of paint. He was sharing a Soho attic with another artist — who’s since become famous as a theatrical designer incidentally — name G.T. Marvell. Heard of him?’

  ‘No,’ Daphne said.

  ‘Well, he’s famous now.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘But the artist he was living with in Soho never got anywhere. They used to partition the room with blankets and clothes hung on a piece of rope. That’s the sort of thing you get in Soho. The native in the bush is better off than the artist in England.’

  Daphne took home all such speeches of discouragement, and pondered them with delight: ‘Soho’, ‘poet’, ‘attic’, ‘artist’.

  In 1946, at last, she got a place on a boat. She went to say goodbye to Chakata. She sat with the ageing man on the stoep.

  ‘Why did you never go back to England for a visit?’ she said.

  ‘There has always been too much to do on the farm,’ he said. ‘I could never leave it.’ But his head inclined towards the room at the back of the stoep, where Mrs Chakata lay on her bed, the whisky and the revolver by her side. Daphne understood how Chakata, having made a mistake in marriage, could never have taken Mrs Chakata home to the English Pattersons, nor could he ever have left her in t
he Colony, even with friends, for he was a man of honour.

  ‘I suppose,’ said Daphne, ‘the Pattersons will be thrilled to hear about our life out here.’

  He looked worried. ‘Remember,’ he said, ‘that Auntie Chakata is an invalid. At home they don’t understand tropical conditions, and —’

  ‘Oh, I shall explain about Auntie Chakata,’ she said, meaning she would hush it up.

  ‘I know you will,’ he said admiringly.

  She walked over to Makata’s kraal to say goodbye. There was a new Makata; the old chief was dead. The new chief had been educated at the Mission, he wore navy blue shorts and a white shirt. Whereas old Makata used to speak of his tribe as ‘the men’, this one called them ‘my people’. She had used to squat with old Makata on the ground outside his large rondavel. Now a grey army blanket was spread, on which two kitchen chairs were placed for the chief and his visitor. Daphne sat on her kitchen char and remembered how strongly old Makata used to smell; it was the unwashed native smell. Young Makata smelt of carbolic soap. ‘My people will pray for you,’ he said. He did not offer to send a man to escort her to the farm, as old Makata had always done.

  She knew Old Tuys had followed her to the kraal, and she was aware that he was awaiting her return. Her arms were swinging freely, but she had a small revolver in the pocket of her shorts.

  A mile from the farm Old Tuys walked openly over the veldt towards her. He was carrying a gun. Daphne doubled as casually as possible into the bush. It was sparse at this point, and so she was easily visible. She picked her way through the low brushwood, moving towards the farm. She heard Old Tuys crackling through the dry wood behind her.

  ‘Stop there,’ she heard him say, ‘or I shoot.’

  Her hand was on her revolver, and it was her intention to wheel round and shoot before he could aim his gun. But as she turned she heard a shot from behind him and saw him fall. Daphne heard his assailant retreating in the bush behind him, and then on the veldt track the fading sound of bicycle wheels.

  Old Tuys was still conscious. He had been hit in the base of the neck. Daphne looked down at him.

  ‘I’ll send them to fetch you,’ she said.

  The following week the police made half-hearted raids on the native dwellings in the district. No firearms were discovered. In any case, Daphne had called in at the police station, and told her old friend, Johnnie Ferreira, that if any man black or white was brought to trial for shooting Old Tuys, she would give evidence for the assailant.

  ‘Old Tuys was after you, then?’

  ‘He was. I had a revolver and I intended to use it. Only the other got him first.’

  ‘Quite sure you didn’t see who shot him?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Because you say “black or white”. We have been more or less assuming it was a native since we understand the man had a bicycle.’

  ‘Black or white,’ said Daphne, ‘it makes no difference. He was only doing his duty.’

  ‘Oh, I know,’ said Johnnie, ‘but we like to know the facts. If we got the man, you see, there are good grounds for having the charge against him dismissed, then we should bring Old Tuys on a charge when he comes out of hospital. It’s about time Chakata was rid of that slug.’

  ‘Well, you haven’t got the man,’ said Daphne, ‘have you?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘But if you have any ideas, come and let’s know. Think it over.

  Daphne parked the car at the foot of Donald Cloete’s kopje and climbed slowly, stopping frequently to look at the wide land below, the little dorp, the winding main road, and faintly, the farm roofs in the distance. She took in the details like a camera, and as if for the first time, for soon she would be gone to England.

  She sat on a stone. A lizard slid swiftly between her feet and disappeared among the grasses.

  ‘Go’way. Go’way.’

  The sound darted forth and vanished. Two or three times she had seen the go-away bird. It was quite colourless, insignificant. She rose and plodded on.

  ‘D or S, Donald?’

  ‘So-so. Come in.’

  ‘Johnnie Ferreira wants to bring a charge against Old Tuys,’ she said, ‘for his attempt on me the other day.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, ‘Johnnie’s boys have been here.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I told them to try elsewhere.’

  There were few white men in the Colony who rode bicycles, and only one in the district. Bicycles were used mostly by natives and a few schoolboys. All the children were away at school. Daphne’s unknown protector was therefore either a passing native or Donald doing his rounds. Moreover, there was the question of the gun. Few natives, if they owned firearms, would be likely to risk betraying this illicit fact. And few natives, however gallant, would risk the penalty for shooting a white man.

  ‘Why not let them put Old Tuys on charge?’ said Daphne.

  ‘I don’t prevent them,’ he said. ‘They can go ahead.’

  ‘They need a witness,’ she said. ‘Otherwise it’s his word against mine. Old Tuys would probably be acquitted on appeal.’

  ‘Nothing doing,’ he said. ‘I don’t like the law-courts.’

  ‘Well, it was very nice of you, Donald,’ she said. ‘I’m grateful.’

  ‘Then don’t talk to me about law cases.’

  ‘All right, I won’t.’

  ‘You see,’ he said, ‘how it is. Chakata wouldn’t like the scandal. All the past might come out. You never know what might come out if they start questioning Old Tuys in the courts. Old Chakata wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘I think he knows what you did, Donald. He’s very grateful.’

  ‘He’d be more grateful if Old Tuys had been killed.’

  ‘Did you catch Old Tuys on purpose or did you just happen to be there when Old Tuys came after me?’ she inquired.

  ‘Don’t know what you mean. I was putting up the Foot and Mouth notices that day. I was busy. I’ve got more to do than keep Old Tuys in sight.’

  ‘I’m going away next week,’ she said, ‘for about two years.’

  ‘So I hear. You have no conception of the greenness of the fields. It rains quite often … Go to see the Tower … Don’t return.

  2

  Linda Patterson, aged twenty-eight, was highly discontented. Daphne could not see why. She herself adored Uncle Pooh-bah with his rheumatism and long woollen combies. Only his constant threats to sell the damp old house and go to live in some hotel alarmed Daphne at the same time as the idea gave hope to her cousin Linda. Linda’s husband had been killed in a motor accident. She longed to be free to take a job in London.

  ‘How could you leave that lovely climate and come to this dismal place?’ Linda would say.

  ‘But,’ Daphne said happily, ‘this at least is England.’

  Not long after she arrived Aunt Sarah, who was eighty-two, said to Daphne, ‘My dear, it isn’t done.’

  ‘What isn’t done?’

  Aunt Sarah sighed, ‘You know very well what I mean. My nightdresses, dear, the rayon ones. There were three in my drawer, a green, a peach, and a pink. I only discovered this morning that they were gone. Now there is no one else in this house who could have taken them but you. Clara is above reproach, and besides, she can’t climb the stars, how could she? Linda has lots of nighties left over from her trousseau, poor gel —’

  ‘What are you saying?’ said Daphne. ‘What are you saying?’

  Aunt Sarah took a pin out of her needle-box and pricked Daphne on the arm. ‘That’s for stealing my nighties,’ she said.

  ‘She’ll have to go to a home,’ said Linda. ‘We can’t keep a daily woman for more than a week because of Aunt Sarah’s accusing them of stealing.’

  Pooh-bah said, ‘D’you know, apart from that one thing she’s quite normal, really. Wonderful for her age. If we could only somehow get her to realize how utterly foolish she is over that one thing —’

  ‘She’ll have to go to a home.’

  Pooh-bah
went out to look at the barometer and did not return.

  ‘I don’t mind, really,’ said Daphne.

  ‘Look at the work she causes,’ said Linda. ‘Look at the trouble!’

  Next day, when Daphne was scrubbing the kitchen floor Aunt Sarah came and stood in a puddle before her. ‘My Friar’s Balsam,’ she said. ‘I left a full bottle in the bathroom, and it’s gone.

  ‘I know,’ said Daphne, scrubbing away, ‘I took it in a weak moment, but now I’ve put it back.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Aunt Sarah, trotting off and dragging the puddle with her. ‘But don’t do it again. Pilfering was always a great weakness in your mother, I recall.’

  The winter temperature lasted well into April. Linda and Daphne had to sit by a one-bar electric fire in the library if they wanted to smoke; Pooh-bah’s asthma was affected by cigarette smoke.

  Linda was conducting a weekend liaison with a barrister in London, and with Daphne in the house she found it easier to disappear for longer weekends, and then, sometimes, a week. ‘Daphne,’ she would say on the phone, ‘you don’t mind holding the fort, honestly? This is so important to me.

  Daphne went for walks with Uncle Pooh-bah. She had to take short steps, for he was slow. They walked on the well-lad paths to the river which Daphne always referred to as ‘the Thames’, which indeed, of course, it was.

  ‘We went as far as the Thames,’ Daphne would tell Linda on their return. They ventured no further than the local lock, a walk bordered with green meadows and wonderful sheep.

  Relations of some friends in the Colony invited her to London. She accepted, then told Linda when she would be away.

  ‘But,’ said Linda, ‘I shall be in London next week. It’s important, you know. Someone’s got to look after Pooh-bah and Aunt Sarah.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Daphne.

  Linda cheered up. ‘Perhaps you could go the week after?’

  ‘No, next week,’ said Daphne patiently, ‘that’s when I’m going.’

  ‘Someone’s got to look after Pooh-bah and Aunt Sarah.’

  ‘Oh, I see.