The man watched him dress, disappointed perhaps, but ready for further confrontation. When he swung his pack up on to his shoulder, Mark asked, ‘What’s your name?’
The man answered him lightly, still keyed up for violence. ‘My friends call me Hobday,’ he said.
‘Hobday who?’
‘Just Hobday.’
‘I won’t forget it,’ said Mark. ‘You’ve been a real brick, Hobday.’ He went down the steps into the yard, and fifteen minutes later when Mark looked back from the ridge where the Ladyburg road crossed on its way northwards, Hobday was still standing in the kitchen yard of Andersland, watching him intently.
Fred Black watched Mark come up the hill. He leaned against the rail of the dipping tank and chewed steadily on his quid of tobacco, stringy and sun-blackened and dry as a stick of chewing tobacco himself.
Although he was one of John Anders’ cronies, and had known Mark since he was a crawler, it was clear he did not recognize him now. Mark stopped fifteen paces off and lifted his hat.
‘Hello, Uncle Fred,’ Mark greeted him, and still it was a moment before the older man let out a whoop and leapt to embrace Mark. ‘God, boy, they told me you’d got yourself killed in France.’
They sat together on the rail of the cattle pen, while the Zulu herd boys drove the cattle below them through the narrow race, until they reached the ledge from which they made the wild scrambling leap into the deep stinking chemical bath, to come up again, snorting fearfully, and swin, nose up, for the slope ramp beyond.
‘He’s been dead almost a year — no, longer, over a year now – lad, I’m sorry. I never thought to let you know. Like I said, we thought you were dead in France.’
‘That’s all right, Uncle Fred.’ Mark was surprised that he felt no shock. He had known it, accepted it already, but there was still the grief that lay heavy on his soul. They were both silent for a longer time, the old man beside him respecting his grief.
‘How did he—’ Mark hesitated over the word, ‘how did he go?’
‘Well, now.’ Fred Black lifted his hat and rubbed the bald pink pate lovingly. ‘It was all a bit sudden like. He went off to poach a little biltong with Piet Greyling and his son up at Chaka’s Gate.’ Vivid memories crowded back for Mark. Chaka’s Gate was the vast wilderness area to the north where the old man had taught him the craft of the hunter. Years before, back in 1869, it had been declared a hunting reserve but no warden had been appointed, and the men of northern Natal and Zululand looked upon it as their private hunting reserve.
‘On the fifth day, the old man did not come back into camp. They searched for him another four days before they found him.’ He paused again and glanced at Mark. ‘You feeling all right, boy?’
‘Yes, I’m all right.’ Mark wondered how many men he had seen die, how many he had killed himself – and yet the death of one more old man could move him so. ‘Go on, please, Uncle Fred.’
‘Piet said it looked like he had slipped while he was climbing a steep place, and he had fallen on his rifle and it had gone off. It hit him in the stomach.’ They watched the last ox plunge into the dip, and Fred Black climbed stiffly down from the pole fence. He held the small of his back for a moment. ‘Getting old,’ he grunted, and Mark fell in beside him as they started up towards the house.
‘Piet and his boy buried him there. He wasn’t fit to bring back, he’d been in the sun four days. They marked the place and made a sworn statement to the magistrate when they got back to Ladyburg.’
Fred Black was interrupted by a cry and the sight of a female figure racing down the avenue of blue gum trees towards them – slim and young, with honey brown hair in a thick braid bouncing on her back, long brown legs and grubby bare feet beneath the skirts of the faded cheap cotton skirt.
‘Mark!’ she cried again. ‘Oh Mark!’ But she was close before he recognized her. She had changed in four years.
‘Mary.’ The sadness was still on Mark, but he could not talk further now. There would be time later. Even in the sadness, he could not miss the fact that Mary Black was a big girl now, no longer the mischievous imp who once had been below his lordly notice when he had been a senior at Ladyburg High School.
She still had the freckled laughing face and the prominent, slightly crooked front teeth, but she had grown into a big, wide-hipped, earthy farm girl, with a resounding jolly laugh. She was as tall as Mark’s shoulder and her shape under the thin, threadbare cotton was rounded and full; she had hips and buttocks that swung as she walked beside him, a waist like the flared neck of a vase and fat heavy breasts that bounced loosely at each stride. As they walked, she asked questions, endless questions in a demanding manner, and she kept touching Mark, her hand on his elbow, then grabbing his hand to shake out the answers to her questions, looking up at him with mischievous eyes, laughing her big ringing laugh. Mark felt strangely restless.
Fred Black’s wife recognized him from across the yard and let out a sound like a milch cow too long deprived of her calf. She had nine daughters, and she had always pined for a son.
‘Hello, Aunt Hilda,’ Mark began, and then was folded into her vast pneumatic embrace.
‘You’re starved,’ she cried, ‘and those clothes, they stink. You stink too, Marky – your hair, you’ll be sitting on it next.’
The four unmarried girls, supervised by Mary, set the galvanized bath in the centre of the kitchen floor and filled it with buckets of steaming water from the stove. Mark sat on a stool on the back veranda with a sheet around his shoulders, while Aunt Hilda sheared him of his long curling locks with a huge pair of blunt scissors.
Then she drove her daughters protesting from the kitchen. Mark fought desperately for his modesty, but she brushed his defence aside.
‘An old woman like me, you haven’t got anything I haven’t seen bigger and better.’ She stripped him determinedly, hurling the soiled and rumpled clothing through the open doorway to where Mary hovered expectantly.
‘Wash them, child – and you get yourself away from that door.’
Mark blushed furiously and dropped quickly into the water.
In the dusk, Fred Black and Mark sat together on the coping of the well in the yard, with a bottle of brandy between them. The liquor was the fierce ‘Cape Smoke’ with a bite like a zebra stallion, and after the first sip Mark did not touch his glass again.
‘Yes, I’ve thought about that often,’ Fred agreed, already slightly owl-eyed with the brandy. ‘Old Johnny loved that land of his.’
‘Did he ever speak of selling it to you?’
‘No, never did. I always thought he’d be there for ever. Often talked of being buried next to Alice. He wanted that.’
‘When did you last see Grandpapa, Uncle Fred?’
‘Well, now,’ he rubbed his bald head thoughtfully, ‘it would be about two weeks before he left for Chaka’s Gate with the Greylings. Yes, that’s right. He’d been into Ladyburg to buy cartridges and provisions. Pitched up here one night in the old scotch-cart, and we had a good old chat.’
‘He didn’t say anything then – about selling?’
‘No, not a word.’
The kitchen door flew open, spilling yellow lantern light into the yard, and Aunt Hilda bellowed at them.
‘Food’s up. Come along now, Fred, don’t you keep that boy out there, teaching him your evil ways—and don’t you bring that bottle into this house. You hear me!’
Fred grimaced, poured the last three inches of dark empty bottle.
‘Farewell, old friend.’ He sent it sailing over the hedge, and drained the tumbler like medicine.
Mark was crowded into the bench against the kitchen wall with Mary on one side of him and another of the big buxom daughters on the other. Aunt Hilda sat directly opposite him, shovelling food on to his plate, and loudly berating him if his rate of ingestion faltered.
‘Fred needs somebody here to help him now. He’s getting old, though the old fool doesn’t know it.’
Mark nodded, his mouth so
full he was unable to reply, and Mary reached across him for another hunk of homebaked bread that was still warm from the oven. Her big loose breast pressed against Mark and he almost choked.
‘The girls don’t get much chance to meet nice boys – stuck out here on the farm.’
Mary shifted in her seat, and her upper thigh came firmly against Mark’s.
‘Leave the lad alone, Hilda, you scheming old woman,’ Fred slurred amiably from the head of the table.
‘Mary, give Mark some more gravy on those potatoes.’ The girl poured the gravy, steadying herself as she leaned over towards Mark by placing her free hand on Mark’s leg above the knee.
‘Eat up! Mary’s done you a special milk tart for afters.’
Mary’s hand still rested on his leg, and now it moved slowly but purposefully upwards. Instantly Mark’s entire attention focused on the hand and the food turned to hot ashes in his mouth.
‘Some more pumpkin, Marky?’ Aunt Hilda asked with concern, and Mark shook his head weakly. He could not believe what was happening below the level of the table and directly in front of Mary’s mother.
He felt a rising sense of panic.
As casually as he could in the circumstances, he dropped one hand into his lap, and without looking at the girl, gripped her wrist firmly.
‘Have you had enough, Mark?’
‘Yes, oh yes, indeed,’ Mark agreed fervently, and tried to drag Mary’s hand away, but she was a big powerful lass and not easily distracted.
‘Clear Mark’s plate, Mary love, and give him some of your lovely tart.’
Mary seemed not to hear. Her head was bowed demurely over her plate, her cheeks were flushed bright glowing pink, and her lips trembled slightly. Beside her, Mark writhed and squirmed in his seat.
‘Mary, what’s wrong with you, girl?’ Her mother frowned with irritation. ‘Do you hear me, child?’
‘Yes, Mother, I hear you.’ At last she sighed and roused herself. She stood up slowly and reached for Mark’s plate with both hands, while he sagged slightly on the bench, weak with relief.
Mark was exhausted from the long day’s march and the subsequent excitement, but though he fell asleep almost instantly, it was a sleep troubled by dreams.
Through a ghostly, brooding landscape of swirling mist and weird unnatural light, he pursued a dark wraith—but his legs were slowed, as though he moved through a bath of treacle, and each pace was an enormous effort.
He knew the wraith that flitted through the mist ahead of him was the old man, and he tried to cry out, but though he strained with open mouth no sound came. Suddenly a small red hole appeared in the wraith’s dark back and from turned to face him.
For a moment he looked into the old man’s face, the intelligent yellow eyes smiled at him over the huge spiked moustache, and then the face melted like hot wax and the pale features of a beautiful marble statue came up like a face through water. The face of the young German—at last Mark cried out and fell to cover his face. In the darkness he sobbed softly, until another sensation came through to his tortured imagination.
He felt a slow cunning caress. The sobbing shrivelled in his throat, and gradually he abandoned himself to the wicked delight of his senses. He knew what was coming, it had happened so often in the lonely nights and he welcomed it now, drifting up slowly out of the depths of sleep.
At the edge of his awareness there was a voice now, whispering, crooning gently.
‘There now, don’t fuss, there now — it’s all right now, it’s going to be all right. Don’t make that terrible noise.’
He came awake gradually, for long moments not realizing that the warm firm flesh was reality. Above him were heavy white breasts, hanging big and heavy to sweep across his chest, white bare skin shining in the moonlight that spilled through the window above his narrow steel bed.
‘Mary will make it better,’ the voice whispered with husky intensity.
‘Mary?’ he choked out the name, and tried to sit up, but she pushed him back gently with her full weight on his chest. ‘You’re mad.’
He began to struggle, but her mouth came down over his, wet and warm and all engulfing, and his struggles abated at the shock of this new sensation. He felt his sense whirl giddily.
Against the rising turmoil within him, was balanced the terrible things that he knew about women. Those strange and awful things that the regimental chaplain had explained to him, the knowledge that had sustained him against all the blandishments of the bold little poules of France and the ladies who had beckoned to him from the dark doorways of London’s back streets.
The chaplain had told them how two equally evil terrible consequences came from unlawful union with a woman. Either there was a disease that was without cure, which ate away the flesh, left a rotting hole in a man’s groin and finally drove him insane, or there was a child without a father – a bastard to darken a man’s honour.
The threat was too much, and Mark tore his mouth free from the girl’s sucking hungry lips and the thrusting, driving tongue.
‘Oh God!’ he whispered. ‘You’ll have a baby.’
‘That’s all right, silly,’ she whispered in a cheerful husky voice. ‘We can get married.’
She shifted suddenly as he lay stunned by this intelligence, and she swung one knee over his supine body, pinning him under the heavy soft cushion of her flesh, smothering him with the fall of bright clinging hair.
‘No.’ He tried to wriggle out from under her. ‘No, this is mad. I don’t want to marry—’
‘Yes, there – oh yes.’
For another instant he was paralysed by the feeling of it, and then with a violent wrench he toppled her over. She fell sideways, her hands clutching wildly at his shoulders for an instant before she went over the side of the bed.
The washstand crashed over, and the thud of the girl’s big body upon the floorboards echoed through the silent sleeping house.
For a moment afterwards the echoes died, the silence returned and then was split by a chorus of screams from the bedroom of the younger girls across the passage.
‘What is it?’ bellowed Fred Black, from the big bedroom.
‘There’s somebody in the house.’
‘Get him, Fred, don’t just lie there.’
‘Where’s my shotgun?’
‘Help, papa! Help!’
With a single bound, Mary leapt up from the bedroom floor, snatched her nightgown off the chair and swept it over her head.
‘Mary!’ Mark sat up, he wanted to explain, to try and tell her about the chaplain. He leaned towards her and even in the faint moonlight he could see the fury that contorted her features.
‘Mary—’ He did not have time to avoid the blow, it came full-armed and flat-handed, smashing into the side of his head with a force that rattled his teeth and starred his vision. She was a big strong girl. When his head cleared, she was gone, but his ear still sang with the sound of a thousand wild bees.
A dusty Daimler lorry pulled up beside Mark as he trudged along the side of the deeply rutted road with thick grass growing along the central hump.
There was a middle-aged man and his wife in the front seat, and he called to Mark.
‘Where are you going, son?’
‘Ladyburg, sir.’
‘Jump in the back, then.’
Mark rode the last twenty miles sitting high on bagged maize, with a coop of cackling hens beside him and the wind ruffling his stiff newly cropped hair.
They rattled over the bridge across the Baboon Stroom, and Mark marvelled at how it had all changed. Ladyburg was no longer a village, but a town. It had spread out as far as the stream itself, and there was a huge new goods yard below the escarpment in which half a dozen locomotives busily shunted trucks heavily laden with freshly sawn timber from the mills, or with bagged sugar from the new factory.
The factory itself was a monument to the town’s progress, a towering structure of steel girders and huge boilers. Smoke and steam boiled from half a dozen sta
cks to form a grey mist that smeared away on the gentle breeze.
Mark wrinkled his nose at the faint stink of it on the wind, and then looked with awe down Main Street. There were at least a dozen new buildings, their ornate façades decorated with scrolls of ironwork, and beautifully intricate gables, stained glass in the main doors and the owner’s name and date of construction in raised plaster lettering across the front; but these were all overshadowed by a giant structure four stories tall, crusted with ornamentation like a wedding cake of a wealthy bride. Proudly it bore the legend ‘Ladyburg Farmers Bank’. The driver of the truck dropped Mark on the sidewalk in front of it, and left him with a cheery wave.
There were at least a dozen motor vehicles parked among the scotch-carts and horse-drawn carriages, and the people on the streets were well dressed and cheerful-looking, the citizens of a prosperous and thriving community.
Mark knew one or two of them from the old days, and as he trudged down Main Street with his pack slung over one shoulder, he paused to greet them. There was always a momentary confusion until they recognized him, and then, ‘But, Marky, we heard – we thought you’d been killed in France. It was in the Gazette.’
The Land Deeds Registrar’s Office was in the sprawled labyrinth of Government offices behind the Magistrate’s Court and Police Station. There had been plenty of time to think on the long journey up from Andersland, and Mark knew exactly what he was going to do, and in what order.
There was a cramped space in the front of the office with an uninviting wooden bench, and a plain deal counter. There was an elderly clerk with nearsighted eyes behind steel-rimmed spectacles, and a peaked green eyeshade on his forehead. He looked like an ancient crow in his black alpaca jacket with paper guards over his cuffs, and a bony beak of a nose, as he crouched over his desk making a Herculean task of stamping a pile of documents.