of his truck, and three hours later they had Debra in a private ward of
the Nelspruit hospital. Two days later she became conscious once more,
but her face was grotesquely swollen and purple with bruises.
Near the crest of the kopje that stood above the homestead of Jabulani
there was a natural terrace, a platform which overlooked the whole
estate. It was a remote and peaceful place and they buried the child
there. Out of the rock of the kopje David built a tomb for her with his
own hands.
It was best that Debra had never felt the child in her arms, or at her
breast. That she had never heard her cry or smelled the puppy smell of
her.
Her mourning was therefore not crippling and corrosive, and she and
David visited the grave regularly. One Sunday morning as they sat upon
the stone bench beside it, Debra talked for the first time about another
baby.
You took so long with the first one, Morgan, she complained. I hope
you've mastered the technique. They walked down the hill again, put the
rods and a picnic basket into the Land-Rover and drove down to the
pools.
The Mozambique bream came on the bite for an hour just before noon and
they fought over the fat yellow wood grubs that David was baiting. Debra
hung five, all around three pounds in weight, and David had a dozen of
the big blue fish before it went quiet and they propped the rods and
opened the cold box.
They lay together on the rug beneath the outspread branches of the fever
trees, and drank white wine cold from the icebox.
The African spring was giving way to full summer, filling the bush with
bustle and secret activity. The weaver birds were busy upon their
basket nests, tying them to the bending tips of the reeds, fluttering
brilliant yellow wings as they worked with black heads bobbing.
On the far bank of the pool a tiny bejewelled kingfisher sat his perch
on a dead branch above the still water, plunging suddenly, a speck of
flashing blue to shatter the surface and emerge with a silver sliver
wriggling in his outsize beak. Hosts of yellow and bronze and white
butterflies lined the water's edge below where they lay, and the bees
flew like golden motes of light to their hive in the cliff, high above
the quiet pools.
The water drew all life to it, and a little after noonday David touched
Debra's arm.
The nyala are here - he whispered.
They came through the grove on the far side of the pool. Timid and
easily spooked, they approached a few cautious steps at a time before
pausing to stare about them with huge dark eyes, questing muzzles and
widespread ears; striped and dainty and beautiful they blended with the
shadows of the grove.
The does are all belly now, David told her. They'll be dropping their
lambs within the next few weeks.
Everything is fruitful. He half-turned towards her and she sensed it
and moved to meet him. When the nyala had drank and gone, and a
white-headed fish eagle circled high above them on dark chestnut wings,
