'If you ever return to this country again, I will see you hanged.
That is my solemn promise. I will be divorcing you for desertion as soon as possible. There will be no question of alimony or maintenance or child custody. You will have no rights nor privileges of any kind. As far as we are concerned, it will be as though you have never existed. I expect you will be able to claim political asylum somewhere, even if it is in Mother Russia.' Again he was silent, gathering himself, regaining full control.
You will not even be at your father's funeral, but every minute of every day his memory will stalk you. That is the only punishment I am able to inflict upon you - God grant it is enough. If He is just, your guilt will slowly drive you mad. I pray for that.' She did not reply, but turned her face away. Later, when they were on approach to Johannesburg, descending through ten thousand feet, with the skyscrapers and the white mine dumps glowing in the late sunlight ahead of them, Shasa asked: You were sleeping with him, weren't you?' Instinctively, she knew it was the last chance she would ever have to inflict pain upon him, and she turned in the seat to watch his face as she replied.
'Yes, I love him - and we are lovers.' She saw him wince, but she wanted to hurt him more and she went on. 'Apart from my father's death, there is nothing I regret. Nothing I have done of which I am ashamed. On the contrary, I am proud to have known and loved a man like Moses Gama - proud of what I have done for him and for my country.' 'Think of him kicking and choking on the rope, and be proud of that also, Shasa said quietly, and landed. He taxied the Mosquito to the terminal buildings and they climbed down on to the tarmac and faced each other. There was a bruise on her face where he had struck her, and the icy highveld wind pulled at their clothing and ruffled their hair. He handed her the little bundle of bank notes and her passport.
'Your seat on the London flight is reserved. There is enough here to pay for it and to take you where you want to go.' His voice broke as his rage and his sorrow took control of him again. 'To hell or the gallows, if my wish for you comes true. I hope never to see or hear of you again.' He turned away from her, but she called after him.
'We were always enemies, Shasa Courtney, even in the best times.
And we will be enemies to the very end. Despite your wish, you will hear of me again. I promise you that much.' He climbed into the Mosquito and it was minutes before he had himself sufficiently in hand to start the engines. When he looked out through the windshield again, she was gone.
Centaine would not let them bury Blaine. She could not bear the thought of him lying in the earth, swelling and putrefying.
Mathilda Janine, Blaine's younger daughter, came down from Johannesburg with David Abrahams, her husband, in the company Dove, and they sat with the family in the front row of the memorial chapel at the crematorium. Over a thousand mourners attended the service and both Dr Verwoerd and Sir De Villiers Graaff, the leader of the opposition, were amongst them.
Centaine kept the little urn of Blaine's ashes on the table beside her bed for almost a month, before she could get up her courage.
Then she summoned Shasa, and the two of them climbed the hill to her favourite rock.
'Blaine and I used to come here so often,' she whispered. 'This will be the place where I shall come when I need to know that he is still close to me.' She was nearly sixty years old, and when Shasa studied her with compassion, he saw that for the first time she truly looked that old.
She was letting the grey grow out in the thick bush of her hair and he saw that soon there would be more of it than the black. Grief had dulled her gaze and weighed down the corners of her mouth, and that clear youthful skin which she so carefully cherished, seemed overnight to have seamed and puckered.
'Do it for me, please Shasa,' she said, and handed him the urn.
Shasa opened it and stepped out of the lee of the rock, into the full force of the south-easter. The wind fluttered his shirt like a trapped bird, and he turned to look back at her.
Centaine nodded encouragement, and he held the urn high and upended it. The ashes streamed away like dust in the wind, and when the urn was empty, Shasa turned to her once more.
'Break it!' she commanded, and he hurled the vessel against the rock face. It shattered, and she gasped and swayed on her feet.
Shasa ran to her and held her in his arms.
'Death is the only adversary I know I shall never overcome.
Perhaps that is why I hate it so,' she whispered.
He led her to her seat on the rock and they were silent for a long while, staring out over the wind-speckled Atlantic and then Centaine said, 'I know you have been protecting me. Now tell me about Tara.
What was her part in this?' So he told her, and when he finished Centaine said, 'You have made yourself an accessory to murder. Was it worth it?' 'Yes. I think so,' he answered without hesitation. 'Could any of us have survived her trial if I had allowed her to be arrested and charged?' 'Will there be consequences?' Shasa shook his head. 'Maned - he will protect us again. Just as he did with Sean.' Shasa saw her pain at the mention of Sean's name. Like him she had never recovered from it, but now she said quietly, 'Sean was one thing, but this is murder and treason and attempting to assassinate a head of state. It is fostering bloody revolution and attempting by force to overthrow a government. Can Manfred protect us from that?
And if he can, why should he?' I don't know the answers to that, Mater.' Shasa looked at her searchingly. 'I thought that perhaps you did.' 'What do you mean?' she asked, and he thought that he might have taken her unawares, for there was fear and confusion in her eyes for an instant. Blaine's death had slowed her and weakened her.
Before that, she would never have betrayed herself so readily.
'In protecting us, me in particular, Manfred is protecting himself and his political ambitions,' Shasa reasoned it out carefully. 'For if I am destroyed, then - I am his protbgd - his own career would be blighted. But there is more than that. More than I can fathom.' Centaine did not reply, but she turned her head away and looked out to sea.
'It's as though Manfred De La Rey feels some strange loyalty to us, or a debt that he must repay - or even a' sense of deep guilt towards our fmily. Is that possible, Mater? Is there something that I do not know of that would put him under an obligation to us?
Have you withheld something from me all these years?' He watched her struggle with herself, and at one
