A Sparrow Falls

  There was nothing left of the huts of Mbejane’s kraal, except the outline of building stones, white circles in the grass. They had burned the huts, of course, as is the Zulu custom when a chief is dead.

  The wall of the cattle kraal was still intact, the stone carefully and lovingly selected, each piece fitted into the shoulder-high structure.

  Sean dismounted and tethered the stallion at the gateway. He saw that his hands were still shaking, as though in high fever, and he felt sick to the gut, the aftermath of that wild storm of emotion.

  He found his seat on the stone wall, the same flat rock that seemed moulded to his buttocks, and he lit a cheroot. The fragrant smoke calmed the flutter of his heart, and soothed the tremble in his hands.

  He looked down at the floor of the kraal. A Zulu chief is buried in the centre of his cattle kraal, sitting upright facing the rising sun, with his induna’s ring still on his head, wrapped in the wet skin of a freshly killed ox, the symbol of his wealth, and with his food pot and his beer pot and his snuff box, his shield and his spears at his side, in readiness for the journey.

  ‘Hello, old friend,’ said Sean softly. ‘We reared him, you and I. Yet he killed you. I do not know how, nor can I prove it, but I know he killed you – and now he’s vowed to kill me also.’ And his voice quivered.

  ‘Well,’ smiled Sean. ‘If you have to make an appointment to speak with me, it must be some business of dire consequence.’

  Through the merry twinkle of his eye, he was examining Mark with a shrewd assessing gaze. Storm had been right, of course. The lad had been gathering himself to make the break. To go off somewhere on his own, like a wounded animal perhaps, or a cub lion leaving the pride at full growth? Which was it, Sean wondered, and how great a wrench would the parting make on the youngster?

  ‘Yes, sir, you could say that,’ Mark agreed, but he could not meet Sean’s eyes for once. The usually bright and candid eyes slid past Sean’s and went to the books on the shelves, went on to the windows and the sweeping sunlit view across the tops of the plantations and the valley below. He examined it as though he had never seen it before.

  ‘Come on in then.’ Sean swivelled his chair away from the desk, and took the steel-rimmed spectacles off his nose and waved with them at the armchair below the window.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  While he crossed to the chair, Sean rose and went to the stinkwood cabinet.

  ‘If it’s something that important, we’d best take a dram to steel ourselves – like going over the top.’ He smiled again.

  ‘It’s not yet noon,’ Mark pointed out. ‘That’s a rule you taught me yourself.’

  ‘The man who makes the rules is allowed to change them,’ said Sean, pouring two huge measures of golden brown spirit, and spurting soda from the siphon. ‘That’s a rule I’ve just this moment made,’ and he laughed, a fat contented chuckle, before he went on, ‘Well, my boy, as it so happens, you have chosen a good day for it.’ He carried one glass to Mark, and returned to his desk. ‘I also have dire and important business to discuss.’

  He took a swallow from his glass, smacked his lips in evident relish, and then wiped his moustaches on the back of his hand.

  ‘As the elder, will it be in order if we discuss my business first?’

  ‘Of course, sir.’ Mark looked relieved and sipped cautiously at his glass, while Sean beamed at him with illconcealed self-satisfaction.

  Sean had conceived of a scheme so devious and tailored so fittingly to his need, that he was a little in awe of the divine inspiration which had fostered it. He did not want to lose this young man, and yet he knew that the surest way of doing so was trying to hold him too close.

  ‘While we were in Cape Town I had two long discussions with the Prime Minister,’ he began, ‘and since then we have exchanged lengthy correspondence. The upshot of all this is that General Smuts has formed a separate portfolio, and placed it under my ministry. It is simply the portfolio of National Parks. There is still legislation to see through Parliament, of course, we will need money and new powers - but I am going ahead right away with a survey and assessment of all proclaimed areas, and we will act on that to develop and protect—’ He went on talking for almost fifteen minutes, reading from the Prime Minister’s letters and memoranda explaining and expanding, going over the discussions, detailing the planning, while Mark sat forward in his chair, the glass at his side forgotten, listening with a rising sense of destiny at work, hardly daring to breathe as he drank in the great concept that was unfolded for him.

  Sean was excited by his own vision, and he sprang up from the desk and paced the yellow wood floor, gesturing, using hands and arms to drive home each point, then stopping suddenly in full flight and turning to stand over Mark.

  ‘General Smuts was impressed with you – that night at Booysens, and before that.’ He stopped again, and Mark was so engrossed that he did not see the cunning expression on Sean’s face. ‘I had no trouble persuading him that you were the man for the job.’

  ‘What job?’ Mark demanded eagerly.

  ‘The first area I am concentrating on is Chaka’s Gate and the Bubezi valley. Somebody has to go in there and do a survey, so that when we go to Parliament, we know what we are talking about. You know the area well—’

  The great silences and peace of the wilderness rushed back to Mark, and he felt himself craving them like a drunkard.

  ‘Of course, once the Bill is through Parliament, I will need a warden to implement the act.’

  Mark sank slowly back in his chair. Suddenly the search was over. Like a tall ship that has made its offing, he felt himself come about and settle on true course with the wind standing fair for a fine passage.

  ‘Now, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?’ Sean asked genially.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Mark softly. ‘Nothing at all.’ And his face was shining like that of a religious convert at the moment of revelation.

  Mark Anders had been a stranger to happiness, true happiness, since his childhood. He was like an innocent discovering strong liquor for the first time, and he was almost entirely unequipped to deal with it.

  It induced in him a state of euphoria, a giddy elation that transported him to levels of human experience whose existence he had not previously guessed at.

  Sean Courtney had engaged a new secretary to take over Mark’s duties from him. He was a prematurely bald, unsmiling little man, who affected a shiny black alpaca jacket, an old-fashioned celluloid butterfly collar, a green eye-shade and cuff-protectors. He was silent, intense and totally efficient, and nobody at Lion Kop dreamed of calling him anything but ‘Mr Smathers’.

  Mark was to stay on for a further month to instruct Mr Smathers in his new duties, and at the same time Mark was to set his own affairs in order and make the preparations for his move to Chaka’s Gate.

  Mr Smathers’ inhuman efficiency was such that within a week Mark found himself relieved almost completely of his previous duties, and with time to gloat over his new happiness.

  Only now that it had been given to him did he realize how those tall stone portals of Chaka’s Gate had thrown their shadows across his life, how they had become for him the central towers of his existence, and he longed to be there already, in the silence and the beauty and the peace, building something that would last for ever.

  He realized how the recent whirlpool of emotion and action had driven from his mind the duty he had set himself - to find the grave of old Grandfather Anders, and fathom the mystery of his death. It was all now before him, and his life had purpose and direction.

  But, this was only the foundation and base of his happiness, from which he could launch himself into the towering heady heights of his love.

  True enchantment had sprung from that incredible moment in the grassy saucer on the slopes of the Ladyburg escarpment.

  His love, which he had borne secretly, a burden cold and heavy as a stone, had in a single magical instant burst open, flowering like a seed into a g
rowth of such vigour and colour and beauty and excitement, that he could not yet grasp it all.

  He and Storm cherished it so dearly that no other must even guess at its existence. They made elaborate plans and pacts, weaved marvellously involved subterfuges about themselves to protect this wondrous treasure of theirs.

  They neither spoke to each other, nor even looked at the other in the presence of a third party and the restraint taxed each of them so that the moment they were alone together they fell ravenously each upon the other.

  When they were not alone together, they spent most of their time planning and scheming how to be so.

  They wrote each other flaming notes which were passed under the table in the presence of Sean and Ruth and should have seared the fingers that touched them. They developed codes and signs, they found secret places, and they took hideous chances. Danger spiced their already piquant banquet of love and delight, and they were both insatiable.

  At first, they rode to hidden places in the forest along separate and convoluted pathways and galloped the last mile, arriving breathless and laughing, embracing, still in the saddle while the horses stamped and snorted. The first time they were still locked together when they tumbled from the saddles to the forest bed of dead leaves and ferns, and they left their horses loose. It had been a long walk home, especially as they clung to each other like drunkards, laughing and giggling all the way. Luckily their horses had found a field of lucerne before they reached the homestead, and their riderless return had not alerted the grooms. Their secret remained intact, and after that they wasted a few seconds of their precious time together while Mark hobbled the horses.

  Soon it was not enough to have only a stolen hour in the day and they met in Storm’s studio. Mark climbed the banyan tree, crawling out along the branch, while Storm held the window open and squealed softly with horror when his foot slipped, or hissed a warning when a servant passed, then clapped her hands and flung her arms around his neck as he came in over the sill.

  The studio was fumished with a single wooden chair, the floor was bare and hard, and the danger of sudden intrusion too great for even them to ignore. However, they were undaunted and inventive, and they found almost immediately that Mark was strong enough and she was light enough and that all things are possible.

  Once Mark became unsteady at the scorching noonday of their loving and backed her into one of her own unfinished masterpieces. Afterwards, she knelt on the wooden chair holding her skirts to her waist and elevated her perfect little round stern while Mark removed the smudges of burnt umber and prussian blue with a rag moistened with turpentine. Storm was shaking so violently with suppressed laughter that Mark’s task was much complicated. She was also blushing so furiously that even her bottom glowed a divine ethereal pink, and for ever afterwards, the smell of turpentine acted on Mark as a powerful aphrodisiac.

  On another terrifying occasion, there was the heavy tramp, and the unmistakable limping drag in the passageway beyond the studio door, and they were frozen and ashen-faced, unable to breathe as they listened to its approach.

  The peremptory knock on the door almost panicked her and she stared into Mark’s face with huge terrified eyes. He took control instantly, realizing just how terrible was the danger. Sean Courtney, faced with the sight of somebody actually tupping his ewe lamb, was fully capable of destroying both them and himself.

  The knock came again, impatient, demanding, and Mark whispered quickly as they adjusted their clothing with frantic hands. She responded bravely, though her voice caught and quavered.

  ‘One moment, Daddy.’

  Mark seized her paint-stained smock and slipped it over her head, grabbed a brush from the pot and put it in her right hand, squeezed her shoulders to brace her, and then pushed her gently towards the door.

  There was just enough space between the wall and a canvas for him to crawl in and crouch, trying to still his breathing, while he listened to Storm shoot the door-bolt and greet her father.

  ‘Locking the door now, Missy?’ Sean growled at her, throwing a suspicious glance around the bare studio. ‘Intruding, am I?’

  ‘Never, Pater, not you!’

  And they were into the room, Storm following meekly, while Sean gave critical judgement of her work.

  ‘There isn’t a tree on Wagon Hill.’

  ‘I’m not taking photographs, Daddy. There should be a tree there. It balances the composition. Don’t you see?’ She had recovered like a champion and Mark loved her to the point of pain.

  Mark was emboldened enough to take a cautious glance around the edge of the canvas, and the first thing he saw was a five-guinea pair of cami-knickers in sheer oyster silk, the wide legs cuffed with ivory cambrai lace, lying crumpled and abandoned on the studio floor where Storm had dropped them earlier.

  He felt a cold sheen of sweat break out afresh across his brow; on the bare floor, the lovely silk was as conspicuous as a battle ensign. He tried to reach that blatantly sinful little pile, but it was beyond his finger-tips.

  Storm was hanging on to her father’s arm, probably because her legs were too weak to support her, and she saw what Mark’s desperate arm and groping hand protruding from behind the canvas was trying to reach. Her panic flooded back again at high spring tide.

  She gabbled meaningless replies to her father’s questions and tried to lead him towards the door, but it was like trying to divert a bull elephant from his set purpose. Inexorably Sean bore down upon the discarded knickers and the canvas where Mark cowered.

  At his next step, the silk wrapped itself around the toe of his boot. The material was so filmy and light that he did not notice it, and he limped on happily, one foot draped in an exotic piece of feminine underwear, while two young people watched in abject terror the knickers’ slow circuit of the room.

  At the door, Storm flung her arms around his neck and kissed him, managing to anchor the knickers with the toe of her shoe, and then propelling her father into the passage with indecent despatch and slamming the door behind him.

  Weak with terror and laughter, they clung together in the middle of the studio, and Mark was so chastened that, when he regained his voice, he told her sternly, ‘We are not going to take any more chances, do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, master,’ she agreed demurely, but with a wicked sparkle in her eye. Mark was awakened a few minutes after midnight with a wet pointed tongue probing deeply into his ear and he would have let out a great shout but a strong little hand was pressed firmly across his mouth.

  ‘Are you mad?’ he whispered, as he saw her bending over him in the moonlight from the open window, and realized that she had made the journey across the full length of the house, down cavernous passageways and creaking staircases, in pitch darkness and clad only in a gossamer pair of pyjamas.

  ‘Yes,’ she laughed at him. ‘I’m mad, completely wonderfully insane, a magnificent noble rage of the mind.’

  He was only half awake or he would not have asked the next question. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I have come to ravish you,’ she said, as she slipped into the bed beside him.

  ‘My feet are cold,’ she announced regally. ‘Warm them for me.’

  ‘For God’s sake, don’t make so much noise,’ he pleaded, which was a ridiculous request in the circumstances, for only minutes later they were both raising such a chorus of cries that should have woken the entire household.

  Long afterwards, she murmured in that special purry feline voice of hers that he had come to know so well.

  ‘You really are an amazingly talented man, Mr Anders. Where ever did you learn to be so utterly depraved?’ And then she chuckled sleepily, ‘If you tell me, I shall probably claw your eyes out of your head.’

  ‘You mustn’t come here again.’

  ‘Why not? It’s so much better in bed.’

  ‘What will your father do if he finds out?’

  ‘He’ll murder you,’ she said comfortably. ‘But what on earth has that got to do with
it?’

  One of the ancillary benefits which accrued to Storm from this relationship was that she had at last a fine male figure model for her work, something which she had always needed but had never found the courage even to ask her father to give her. She knew exactly what his reaction would be.

  Mark was not gushing with enthusiasm for the idea either, and it took all her wheedling and cooing to have him disrobe in cold blood. She had picked one of their secret places in the forest for her figure studio, and Mark perched self-consciously on a fallen log.

  ‘Relax,’ she pleaded. ‘Think beautiful thoughts.’

  ‘I feel such an ass,’ he protested, wearing only a pair of striped cotton underpants, at which he had drawn the line, despite her entreaties.

  ‘Anyway, there’s nothing under there you could paint on canvas,’ he pointed out.

  ‘But that’s not the point, you’re supposed to be an ancient Greek, and who ever saw an Olympic athlete—’

  ‘No,’ Mark cut her short. ‘They stay on. That’s final.’ She sighed at the intransigence of men, and applied herself to her paints and canvas. Slowly he did relax, and even began to enjoy the freedom and the feel of the sunlight and the air on his skin.

  He enjoyed watching her work also, the little frown of total concentration, the half-closed eyes, the porcelain white teeth nibbling thoughtfully at her lower lip, the almost dancing ritual of movement she performed around the canvas, and while he watches her he fantasized a future in which they walked hand in hand through the garden wilderness beyond Chaka’s Gate. A future bright with happiness, and radiant with shared labour and achievement, and he began to tell her about it, letting his thoughts find expression in words, that Storm did not hear. Her ears were closed, her whole existence transferred into eyes and hands, seeing only colour and form, sensitive only to mood.

  She saw the awkwardness and rigidity of his body flowing into a pose of natural grace such as she could never have composed; she saw the rapture dawning on his features, and she nodded and murmured agreement softly, not wanting to spoil it or break the mood; her fingers racing to capture the moment, all her mind and art concentrated on that single task; her own rapture rising to complement and buoy his even higher, seemingly bound close and fast by the silken traces of love and common purpose, but in reality as far from each other as earth is from moon.