'That was part of your calculations?' Shasa asked, and when Sean shrugged, he added, 'You don't, understand the words honour or decency.' 'Words,' Sean replied. 'Just words. I prefer actions.' 'God, ! wish I could prove you wrong,' Shasa whispered. He was so furious now that he wanted the satisfaction of physical violence.
'I wish I could let you rot in some filthy cell.' His fists were clenched, and before he thought about it, he shifted into balance for the first blow, and instantly Sean was on guard, his hands stiffening into blades crossed before his chest and his eyes were fierce. Shasa had paid hundreds of pounds for his training by the finest instructors in Africa, and all of them had at last admitted that Sean was a natural fighter and that the pupil in each case outstripped the master.
Delighted that Sean had at last found something that could hold his interest, Shasa had, before Sean began his articles, sent him to Japan for three months to study under a master of the martial arts.
Now as he confronted his son, Shasa was suddenly aware of every one of his forty-one years, and that Sean was a man in full physical flower, a trained fighter and an athlete in perfect condition. He realized that Sean could toy with him and humiliate him, he could even read in Sean's expression that he was eager to do so. Shasa stepped back and unclenched his fists.
'Pack your bags,' he said quietly. 'You are leaving and you are not coming back.' They flew north in the Mosquito, landing only to refuel in .Johannesburg and then flying on to Messina on the border with Rhodesia. Shasa had a thirty percent shareholding in the copper mine at Messina, so when he radioed ahead there was a Ford pickup waiting for him at the airstrip.
Sean tossed his suitcase in the back of the truck and Shasa took the wheel. Shasa could have flown across the border to Salisbury or Lourenqo Marques, but he wanted the break to be clean and definite.
Sean crossing a border on foot would be symbolic and salutary. As he drove the last few miles through the dry hot bushveld to the bridge over the Limpopo river, Sean slumped down in the seat beside him, hands in his pockets and one foot up on the dashboard.
'I've been thinking,' he spoke in pleasant conversational tones.
'I've been thinking what I should do now, and I have decided to joi] one of the safari companies in Rhodesia or Kenya or Mozambique Then when I've finished my apprenticeship, I'll apply for a huntinl concession of my own. There is a fortune in it and it must be th, best life in the world. Imagine hunting every day!' Shasa had determined to remain withdrawn and stern, and uI until now he had succeeded in speaking barely a word since leavin Cape Town, but at last Sean's total lack of remorse and his cheerfull selfish view of the future forced Shasa to abandon his good intentions.
'From what I hear, you wouldn't last a week without a woman,' he snapped, and Sean smiled.
'Don't worry about me, Pater. There will be bags of jig-jig, that's part of the perks - the clients are old and rich and they bring their daughters or their new young wives with them--' 'My God, Sean, you are completely amoral.' 'May I take that as a compliment, sir?' 'Your plans to apply for your own hunting concession and to run your own safari company - what do you intend using in lieu of money?' Sean looked puzzled. 'You are one of the richest men in Africa.
Just think - free hunting whenever you wanted it, Pater. That would be part of our deal.' Despite himself, Shasa felt a prickle of temptation. In fact, he had already considered starting a safari operation and his estimates showed that Sean was correct. There was a fortune to be made in marketing the African wilderness and its unique wild life. The only thing that had prevented him doing it before was that he had never found a trustworthy man. who understood the special requirements of a safari company to run it for him.
'Damn it --' he broke off that line of thought, 'I've spawned a devil's pup. He could sell a secondhand car to the judge who was passing the death sentence on him.' He felt his anger softened by reluctant admiration, but he spoke grimly. 'You don't seem to understand, Sean. This is the end of the road for you and me.' As he said it they topped the rise. Ahead of them lay the Limpopo river, but despite Mister Rudyard Kipling, it was neither grey green nor greasy and there was not a single fever tree on either bank. This was the dry season and though the river was half a mile wide, the flow was reduced to a thin trickle down the centre of the bed. The long low concrete bridge stretched northwards crossing the orangecoloured sand and straggly clumps of reeds.
They drove over the bridge in silence and Shasa stopped the pickup at the barrier. The border post was a small square building with a corrugated-iron roof. Shasa kept the engine of the Ford running.
Sean climbed out and lifted his suitcase out of the back of the truck, then crossed in front of the bonnet and came to Shasa's open window.
'No, Dad.' He leaned into the window. 'You and I will never reach the end of the road. I am part of you, and I love you too deeply for that ever to happen. You are the only person or thing I have ever loved.' Shasa studied his face for any trace of insincerity, and when he found none, he reached up impulsively and embraced him. He had not meant this to happen, had been determined that it would not, but now he found himself reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket and bringing out the thick sheaf of banknotes and letters that he had carried with him, despite his best intentions to turn Sean loose without a penny.
'Here are a couple of pounds to tide you over,' he said, and his voice was gruff. 'And there are three letters of introduction to people in Salisbury who may be able to help you.' Carelessly Sean stuffed them into his pocket and picked up his suitcase.
'Thanks, Pater. I don't deserve it.' 'No,' Shasa agreed. 'You don't - but don't worry too much about it. There won't be any more. That's it, Sean, finished. The first and only insraiment of your inheritance.' As always Sean's smile was a little miracle. It made Shasa doubt, despite all the evidence, that his son was thoroughly bad.
TI1 write, Pater. You'll see, one day we'll laugh about this - when we are together again.' Lugging his suitcase Sean passed through the barrier, and after he disappeared into the customs hut, Shasa was left with an unbearable sense of futility. Was this how it ended after all the care and love over all the years?
Shasa was amused by the ease with which Isabella was able to overcome her lisp. Within two weeks of enrolling at Rustenberg Girls' Senior School, she was talking, and looking, like a little lady.
Apparently the teachers and her fellow pupils had not been impressed by babytalk.
It was only when she was trying to wheedle her father that she still employed the lisp and the pout. She sat on the arm of his chair now and stroked the silver wings of hair above Shasa's ears.
'I have the most beautiful daddy in the world,' she crooned, and indeed the flashes of silver contrasted with the dense darkness of the rest of his hair and the tanned almost unlined skin of his face to enhance Shasa's looks. 'I have the kindest and most loving daddy in the world.' 'And I have the most scheming little vixen in the world for a daughter,' he said, and she laughed with delight, a sound that made his heart contract, and her breath in his face smelled milky and sweet as a newborn kitten, but he shored up his crumbling defences.
