and if he took a second longer something inside her would burst and she knew she would die.
Oh please, Blaine, quickly come to me. Then at last he was naked as she was and as he came over her she seized his shoulder with one hand and fell backwards, pulling him with her, spreading her knees and lifting them high, with the other hand groping for him, finding him and guiding him.
Oh Blaine, you're so, oh yes, like that, I can't, I want to scream. Scream! He encouraged her as he plunged and rocked and thrust above her. There is no one to hear you. Scream for both of us! And she opened her mouth wide and gave vent to all her loneliness and wanting and incredulous joy in a rising crescendo that he joined at the end, roaring wildly with her in the most complete and devastating moment of her existence.
Afterwards she wept silently against his bare chest and he was puzzled and compassionate and concerned.
I was too rough, forgive me! I did not mean to hurt you. She shook her head and gulped back her tears. No, you never hurt me, it was the most beautiful Then why do you cry? Because everything that is good seems so fleeting, the more wonderful it is, the sooner it is past, while the wretched vile times seem to last for ever. Don't think like that, my little one. I don't know how I will go on living without you. It was hell before, but this will only make it a thousand times worse. I don't know where I will find the strength to walk away from you, he whispered in agreement. It will be the hardest thing I ever have to do in my life. How much longer do we have? Another day, then we will be at Rundu. When I was a little girl my father gave me a brooch of amber with an insect embedded in it. I wish we could preserve this moment like that, capture it eternally in the precious amber of our love. Their parting was a gradual process, not a merciful guillotine stroke, but over the following days a slow intrusion of events and people that prised them apart so that they must suffer the smallest tear, each new wrench, in all its detailed agony.
From the morning they reached the border post at Rundu and went ashore to meet the police sergeant who was in command, they seemed constantly to be with strangers, always on their guard so that every glance that passed between them, every word or stolen caress, made them more dreadfully aware of impending separation. Only when the dusty police truck carried them down the last hills into Windhoek was the torturous process completed.
The world awaited them: Isabella, lovely and tragic in her wheelchair, and her daughters bubbling with laughter, mischievous and enchanting as elves, competing for Blaine's embraces; the superintendent of police and the territorial secretary and droves of petty officials and reporters and photographers; TWentyman-jones and Abe Abrahams, Sir Garry and Lady Courtney, who had hurried up from their estate at Lady-burg the moment they heard of the robbery, and piles of messages of concern and congratulation, telegrams from the prime minister and from the Ou Baas, General Smuts, and from a hundred friends and business associates.
Yet Centaine felt detached from the hubbub. She watched it all through a screen of gossamer which muted sound and shape and gave it a dreamlike quality as though half of her was far away, drifting upon a beautiful green river, making love in the warm soft night while the mosquitoes whined outside the protective net, walking hand in hand with the man she loved, a tall strong gentle man with soft green eyes, the hands of a pianist and lovely sticky-out ears.
From her railway coach she telephoned Shasa and tried to sound enthusiastic about the fact that he was now the captain of his cricket eleven and about his mathematics marks which had at last taken an upward turn.
I don't know when I will be back at Weltevreden, cheri.
I have so many things to see to. We never recovered the diamonds, I'm afraid. There will have to be talks with the bank and I'll have to make new arrangements. No, of course not, silly boy! Of course we aren't poor, not yet, but a million pounds is a lot of money to lose, and then there will be the trial. Yes, he is an awful man, Shasa, but I don't know if they will hang him. Good Lord, no! They won't let us watch- TWice that first day of their separation she telephoned the residency in the forlorn hope that Blaine would answer, but it was a woman, either a secretary or Isabella, and each time she hung up without speaking.
They met again at the administrator's office the next day.
Blaine had called a press conference and there was a crowd of journalists and photographers packed into the ante-chamber.
Once again Isabella was there in her wheelchair, with Blaine attentive and dutiful and unbearably handsome behind her.
it took all Centaine's acting ability to shake hands in a friendly fashion, and then to joke lightly with the members of the press, even posing with Blaine for the photographs, and at no time to allow herself to moon at him. But afterwards as she drove herself back to the offices of the Courtney Mining and Finance Company, she had to pull off into a side road and sit quietly for a while to compose herself. There had been no opportunity for a single private exchange with Blaine.
Abe was waiting for her the moment she walked in through the front doors and he followed her up the stairs and into her office. 'Centaine, you are late. They have been waiting in the boardroom for almost an hour. I can't say with any great display of patience either. Let them wait! she told him with bravado she did not feel. 'They had better get accustomed to it., The bank was her single largest creditor.
The loss of the stones has frightened ten different shades of yellow out of them, Centaine. The bank directors had been demanding this meeting since the minute they heard she had arrived back in town.
Where is Dr Twenty-man-jones? He is in there with them, pouring oil on the troubled waters. Abe laid a thick folder in front of her. 'Here are the schedules of the interest repayments. She glanced at them. She already knew them by heart. She could recite dates and amounts and rates. She had already prepared her strategy in detail but it was all dreamy and unreal, like a children's game.
Anything new that I should know about before we go into the lions den? she asked.
A long cable from Lloyds of London. They have repudiated the claim. No armed escort. Centaine nodded. We expected that. Will we take them to court? What do you advise? I am taking silk's opinion on that, but my own feeling is that it will be a waste of time and money. Anything else? De Beers, he said. A message from Sir Ernest Oppenheimer himself. Sniffing around already, is he? She sighed, trying to make herself care, but she thought of Blaine instead.
She saw him bending over the wheelchair. She pushed the image from her mind and concentrated on what Abe was telling her.
Sir Ernest is coming up from Kimberley. He will be arriving in Windhoek on Thursday. By some lucky chance, she smiled cynically.
He requests a meeting at your earliest convenience. He has a nose like a hyena and the eyesight of a vulture,
