Madam, dear sweet madam, I am a man of impeccably high reputation. If I were apprehended in the act of IDB
Tive, she repeated.
Two, he croaked, and Centaine reached for the stone.
Three, he said hurriedly, and Centaine held back.
Tour, she said firmly.
Three and a half dear madam, my very last and most earnest offer. Three'and a half thousand pounds. Done, she said.
Where is the money? I do not keep such vast sums of lucre on my person, good madam. I will return tomorrow at the same time, with the diamond. Have the money ready.
I don't understand, Garry Courtney wrung his hands miserably. Surely all of us could accompany you No, Papa. It is something I have to do alone. One of us, then, Anna or myself? I just can't let you go off again. Anna must stay and look after Shasa.'I will come with you, then. You need a man-'No, Papa. I beg your indulgence and understanding. I have to do this alone. Entirely on my own.
Centaine, you know how much I have come to love you. Surely I have some rights, the right to know where it is you are going, what you intend doing? Iam desolated, for much as I love you in return, I cannot tell you. To do so would destroy the whole point of my going. Think of it as a pilgrimage which I am obliged to make. That is all I can tell you Garry rose from his desk, crossed to the tall library windows and stood looking out into the sunlight with his hands clasped behind his back.
How long will you be gone? am not sure, she told him quietly. I do not know how long it will take, some months at least, perhaps much longer, and he lowered his head and sighed.
When he returned to the desk he was sad but resigned. What can I do to help? he asked. Nothing, Papa, except look after Shasa while I am gone and forgive me for not being able to confide in you fully. money? ou know I have money, my inheritance.'Letters of introduction? You will at least let me do that for you? They will be invaluable, thank you With Anna it was not so easy. She suspected part of what Centaine planned and she d stubborn.
was angry an I cannot let you go. You will bring disaster on yourself and on all of us. Enough of this madness. Get rid of it the way I have arranged, it will be swift and final. No, Anna, I cannot murder my own baby, you can't make me do that-I forbid you to leave. No. Centaine went to her and kissed her. You know you can't do that either. just hold me a while, and look after Shasa once I am gone.'At least tell Anna where you are goingNo more questions, dearest Anna. just promise me that you will not try to follow me, and that you will prevent Papa Garry from doing so, for you know what he will find if he does. Oh, you wicked stubborn girl! Anna seized her in a bear- hug. If you don't come back, you will break old Anna's heart.'Don't even talk like that, you silly old worrian.
The smell of the desert was like the smell of flint struck off steel, a burnt dry odour that Centaine could detect underlying the harsher odour of coal smoke from the locomotive. The bogey clattered to the rhythm of the cross-ties and the carriage kept the beat, lurching and swaying in time.
Centaine sat in the corner of the small coups compartment upon the green leather seat and stared through the window. A flat yellow plain stretched to the long far horizon, while the sky above it was traced the faint promise of blue mountains. There were clusters of springbok grazing on the plain, and when the steam whistle of the locomotive shrilled abruptly, they dissolved into pale cinnamon-coloured smoke and blew away towards the horizon. The animals closest to her carriage pranced high in the air, and painfully Centaine remembered little O'wa miming that arched-back and head-down stotting gait.
Then the pain. passed and only the joy of his memory remained to her, and she smiled as she stared out into the desert.
The great spaces, seared by the sun, seemed to draw out her soul, like iron to the magnet, and slowly she became aware of a sense of building anticipation, that peculiar excitement that a traveller feels on the last homeward mile of along journey.
When later the evening shadows turned the plains soft mauve, they gave definition to the land so that the undurations and low hillocks emerged from the glare of the midday and the glassy curtains of heat mirage, and she looked upon this austere and majestic landscape and felt a deep sense of joy.
At sunset she put a coat around her shoulders and went out on to the open balcony at the rear of the coach. In turning dusty reds and orange the sun went under, and the stars pricked out through the purple night. She looked up and there were two particular stars, Michael's star and hers with only the ghostly Magellanic clouds shining between them.
I haven't looked up at the sky, not since I left this wild land, she thought, and suddenly the green fields of her native France and the lush rolling hills of Zululand were only an effete and insipid memory. This is where I belong - the desert is my home now.
Garry Courtney's lawyer met her at the Windhoek railway station. She had telegraphed him before the train left from Cape Town. His name was Abraham Abrahams, and he was a dapper little man with large pricked-up ears and sharp alert eyes, very much like one of the tiny battered desert foxes. He waved away the letter of introduction from Garry that Centaine offered him.
My dear Mrs Courtney, everybody in the territory knows who you are. The story of your incredible adventure has captured all our imaginations. I can truthfully say that you are a living legend, and that I am honoured to be in a position to render you assistance. He drove her to the Kaiserhof Hotel and after he had made sure she was settled and well cared for, he left her for a few hours to bath and rest.
The coal dust gets into everything, even the pores of the skin, he sympathized.
Whet- he returned and they were seated in the lounge with a tray of tea between them, he asked, Now, Mrs Courtney, what can I do for you? I have a list, a long list. She handed it to him. And as you see, the first thing I want you to do is to find a man for me. That won't be too difficult. He studied the list. The man is well known, almost as well known as you are.
The road was rough, the surface freshly blasted rock, sharp as knife-blades. Long ranks of black labourers, stripped to the waist and glistening with sweat, were pounding the rock with sledgehammers, breaking up the lumps and levelling the roadway. They stood aside, resting on their hammers, as Centaine drove up the pass in Abraham Abrahams dusty Ford, bumping slowly over the jagged stone, a nd when she shouted a question, they grinned and pointed on upwards.
