‘What is it with you and Africa?’ she asked as they walked together along a corridor.
‘You might be from New Zealand but that doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re smart. You know very well I’m going to South Africa to push the sale of some jet training aircraft to their defence force.’
‘No, that’s not what I mean. A couple of the journos have asked me from time to time why you spend your holidays there as well as jumping on any junket heading for the dark continent. The people that make those planes don’t need you to help peddle their wares.’
‘It was forthrightness I wanted when I hired you, Helen, not impertinence.’
She let the jibe wash over her. Their feisty banter was no greater than usual. ‘I’ve got one who wants to do a profile piece on you — the real Robert Greeves and all that crap. He’s particularly interested in your apparent love affair with Africa — how it started.’
‘Not interested,’ he said, opening a leather-bound folder and checking his next appointments as they continued to walk. ‘Give him the usual line from my bio that I first went to Zambia as a young geologist and developed a great affinity for Africa, its people and its amazing wildlife — you know the drill.’
‘It’s a shame, though. A nice warm and fuzzy profile with you establishing some strong green credentials could help you in the future.’
‘I’m quite happy as Minister for Defence Procurement, thank you, Helen. In case you didn’t catch all of my reply to that question, there is a war on, you know. It’s my duty to concentrate on this portfolio. Where are you lunching?’
‘Sorry, I’m meeting a contact.’
‘Always working, eh, Helen? It’s not good for you.’
Helen MacDonald left the Houses of Parliament via St Stephen’s gate, grateful as ever for a breath of fresh air and a cigarette. As she smoked she weaved to avoid a throng of Spanish tourists armed with digital cameras.
It was grey — as it was most days in London. It was all very well for Robert to tell her all work and no play made Helen a dull girl. He’d be swanning off to Africa soon enough. He was taking Bernard, his defence industries policy advisor, with him. It was obvious there would be no photo opportunities on this trip. A break from Robert would be good for her, in any case, and she might use it to sound out her old contacts in newspapers about a return to journalism.
Unlike many of her former colleagues she didn’t see taking a job as a press secretary as selling out. True, the money was better than she’d earned as a reporter, but that wasn’t her main motivation for crossing over. She’d always been interested in politics and politicians — what made them tick — and if she returned to newspapers she’d be a better journalist for her time in Westminster. She knew all the tricks of political spin-doctoring now — she’d put them into practice at some time or another. No flak would pull the wool over her eyes ever again.
Arriving from New Zealand as a twenty-five-year-old reporter she had been surprised at first at the minute scrutiny in the UK press of politicians’ private lives, particularly in the tabloids. In her country, and in Australia where she had worked for a year on an extended holiday, rumours abounded about the sexual proclivities of members of parliament, and about affairs within the corridors of power, but these rarely made it into the public domain. If they did, the story usually involved a political leader rather than a mere minister or member of paliament, and it was generally revealed by a fellow parliamentarian as part of a wider smear campaign. In England, however, it seemed that who a politician slept with — and how he or she did it — was equally important as their policies or views on world affairs.
She had also wondered why such a high proportion of senior politicians seemed to be committing adultery. That was, at least, until she fell for Robert Greeves. He was a handsome man undoubtedly, and witty and smart and driven, and still idealistic after all this time in politics. But more than that, he was a powerful man. On his word men and women went to war, alliances with other nations were forged and broken, multibillion-pound contracts signed, the fate of a nation decided. And his grey eyes were gorgeous.
‘Stop it,’ she said out loud, flicking her cigarette butt onto the pavement in front of her and grinding it out without breaking step.
Helen had accompanied him on a trip, not to Africa, but to Germany, for a conference of NATO defence ministers. She had felt her feelings for him grow over the three months leading up to the meeting. She had felt infatuation, followed by denial as she told herself it was morally wrong to be attracted to a married man. There were no signs that he was unhappy at home. Still, despite her attempts to subdue her feelings, she wanted him.
A suited businessman walking towards her smiled and tried to make eye contact. Damn him, she said to herself. Not the suit, whom she ignored, but her boss. At thirty-seven she could still turn heads — and get the eye from strangers on the street. She worked out six days a week, and watched what she ate — not easy in the confines of parliament where booze and food and lack of opportunity for exercise were daily threats to one’s shape. Narrow waist, good legs, pretty face, pert bum.
In Berlin Robert had called Helen to his hotel suite late in the evening. It was eleven o’ clock, after the official dinner, and he wanted help reworking his speech. She had been seated with a group of journalists at a back table and, thinking her work was done for the day, had demolished the better part of two bottles of wine by herself.
When she knocked and he opened the door he was in his black dinner suit trousers and white shirt, the sleeves rolled up and top two buttons undone. She caught a glimpse of a thicket of grey chest hair and wanted to put her hand inside to stroke it. ‘Thanks awfully, Helen. I’m sorry to call you up so late, but I want to get this right. I’ve got a bottle on the go if you’d like a glass.’ He had nodded to the white wine in a dewy silver ice bucket. His bed looked enormous.
They had sat side by side on the sofa and gone through the speech. At the end he had been particularly effusive in his thanks for her help. They verbally sparred so often that words of praise had seemed out of place. She knew that he appreciated her work and her counsel, and that had always been enough for her.
‘I really mean it, Helen. Sometimes I don’t know how I’d get on without you,’ he’d said.
She’d looked deep into his steel grey eyes. What was going on? Could it be that he felt the same way about her as she did about him? Before she knew what she was doing she had laid her hand on his thigh. ‘My pleasure,’ she’d said, in a voice lower than usual, as if the words were being spoken by another — someone out of her body. Later she would blame it all on the wine. She had leaned closer to him, eyes half closed, waiting for him to make the next move. For the kiss which would surely come.
He had recoiled, like she was a bloody snake or something. He’d been polite about it, with his smooth words, but she had clearly misread all the signals. Perhaps, she wondered for the thousandth time as she approached St Stephen’s pub, opposite the Palace of Westminster, he really had been tempted and had simply had a last-minute attack of guilt. Perhaps, of course, she was a complete fool ever to have thought he would cheat on his wife.
‘Helen, I meant what I said,’ he had explained as he stood and moved away from the sofa, ‘but I love my wife and children. It wouldn’t be right for anything to happen between us — in this way.’
Damn him, she thought as she felt the pub’s warm fug engulf her and saw the reporter sitting in the corner, waving to her. The only thing wrong with her bloody boss was that he was too good for politics.
5
Tom found the idea of driving in an African game reserve and passing families in cars towing caravans quite odd. It didn’t gel with what he’d seen in wildlife documentaries on satellite television. Sannie turned off the tar road — which in itself had been another surprise — onto a dirt track.
The African bush was a mix of drab grey-green stunted trees interspersed with bright new shoots of grass. The seasons were on the turn, and the sky was clouding again. It was hot — like being in the Far East, almost. The foliage was thicker than he had expected, and so far he hadn’t seen a single grassy savannah. As well as not meeting his preconceptions, South Africa was throwing plenty of challenges at him from a protection officer’s point of view. If the bush was this thick around the lodge it would be easy for someone with the right skills to get in close. It was the same as telling people back in England to keep their trees and hedges trimmed in their yards, so as not to provide too much cover for burglars. The difference here, of course, was that the villains would have to get past two-hundred-kilogram cats out patrolling the garden.
After leaving the police post at Skukuza they had crossed on low-level bridges the Sabie and Sand rivers.
