glanced at the bookshelves beside his desk upon which were displayed his collection of family journals.
They stretched back over a hundred years, from the arrival of his grandfather, Zouga Ballantyne, in Africa in 1860 up to the death of Jonathan's father, Sir Ralph Ballantyne, in 1929, but the sequence was broken by a few missing years, three volumes which had come down on Craig's side of the family, through old Harry Mellow, who had been Sir Ralph's partner and dearest friend.
For some perverse reason that Craig could not even understand himself, he had up until now resisted all the old man's blandishments and attempts to get his hands on them. It was probably because they were the one small lever he had on Jonathan that he had held out since they had come into his possession on his twenty-first birthday, the only item of any value in the inheritance from his long-dead father.
'Yes, those,' Craig nodded. 'I thought I might let you have them.' 'You must be hard pressed.' The old man tried not to let his glee shine through.
'Even more than usual,' Craig admitted. 'You waste,-' 'Okay, Bawu.
We've been down that road before,' Craig stopped him hurriedly. 'Do you want them?' 'How much? 'Jonathan demanded suspiciously. 'Last time you offered me a thousand each.' 'I must have been soft.' 'Since then there has been a hundred per cent inflation-2 Jonathan loved to haggle.
It enhanced his image of himself as hard and ruthless. Craig reckoned he was worth ten million. He owned King's Lynn and four other ranches.
He owned the Harkness Mine which after eighty years in production was still producing 50,000 ounces of gold a year, and he had assets outside this beleaguered country, prudently stashed away over the years in Johannesburg, London and New York. Ten million was probably conservative, Craig realized, and set himself to bargain as hard as the old man.
At last they reached a figure with Jonathan grumbling, 'They're worth half of that.' 'There are two other conditions, Bawu. 'And immediately Jonathan was suspicious again.
'Number one, you leave them to me in your will, the whole set, Zouga Ballantyne's and Sir Ralph's journals, all of them.' 'Roland and Douglas-' 'They are going to get King's Lynn and the Harkness and all the rest that's what you told me.' 'Damn right,' he growled. 'They won't blow it all out the window like you would.' 'They can have it,' Craig grinned easily. 'They are Ballantynes as you say, but I want the journals.' 'What is your second condition? 'Jonathan demanded. 'I want access to them now.' 'What do you mean?' 'I want to be able to read and study any of them whenever I want to.' 'What the hell, Craig, you have never given a damn about them before. I doubt you have even read the three you own.' 'I've glanced through them,' Craig admitted 'shamefacedly.
'And now?' 'I was up at Kharni Mission this morning, in the old cemetery. There is a grave there, Victoria Mellow.' Jonathan nodded.
'Aunty Vicky, Harry's wife, go on.' 'I had this strange feeling as I was standing there. Almost as though she was calling to me.' Craig plucked at the thick forelock over his eyes and could not look at his grandfather. 'And suddenly I wanted to find out more about her, and the others.' They were both silent for a while, and then Jonathan nodded.
'All right, my boy, I accept your conditions. Both sets will be yours one day, and until then you can read them whenever you wish to.'
Jonathan had seldom been so pleased with a bargain. He had completed his sets after thirty years, and if the boy was serious about reading them, he had found a good home for them. The Lord knew, neither Douglas nor Roland was interested, and in the meantime perhaps the journals might draw Craig back to King's Lynn more often. He wrote out the cheque and signed it with a flourish, while Craig went out to the Land-Rover and dug the three leather- bound manuscripts from the bottom of his kit bag
'I suppose you will spend it all on that boat,' Jonathan accused as he came in from the veranda.
'Some of it,' Craig admitted. He placed the books in front of the old man.
'You are a dreamer.' Jonathan slid the cheque across the desk.
'Sometimes I prefer dreams to reality.' Craig scrutinized the figures briefly, then buttoned the pink cheque into his top pocket.
'That's your trouble,' said Jonathan.
'Bawu, if you start lecturing me, I'm going to head straight back to town.' Jonathan held up both hands in capitulation. 'All right,' he chuckled. 'Your old room is the way you left it, if you want to use it.' 'I have an appointment with the police recruiting officer on Monday, but I'll stay the weekend, if that's okay?' 'I'll ring Trevor this evening and fix the interview.' Trevor Pennington was the assistant commissioner of police. Jonathan believed in starting at the top.
'I wish you wouldn't, jon jon 'Don't be daft, 'Jonathan snapped.
'You must LeaRN to use every advantage, my boy, that's the way life works.' Jonathan- picked up the first of the three volumes of manuscript and gloatingly stroked it with his gnarled brown fingers.
'Now, you can leave me alone for a while, 'he ordered, as he unfolded his wire-framed reading-glasses and perched them on his nose.
'They are playing tennis across at Queen's Lynn, I will see you back here for sun downers Craig glanced back from the doorway, but Jonathan Ballantyne was hunched over the book, transported by the entries in yellow faded ink back to his childhood.
AltHough it shared a common seven-mile boundary with King's Lynn, Queen's Lynn was a separate ranch. Jonathan Ballantyne had added it to his holdings during the great depression of the 1930s, paying five cents on the dollar of its real worth. Now it formed the eastern spread of the Rholands Ranching Company.
It was the home of Jonathan's only surviving son, Douglas Ballantyne, and his wife Valerie. Douglas was the managing director of both Rholands and the Harkness Mine. He was also Minister of Agriculture in Ian Smith's UDI government, and with any luck he might be away on mysterious government or company business.
Douglas Ballantyne had once given Craig his honest appraisal. 'At heart you are a bloody hippie, Craig, you should get your hair cut and start bracing up, you can't go on dawdling through life and expecting Bawu and the rest of the family to carry you for ever.' Craig pulled a sour face at the memory as he drove down past the stockyards of Queen's Lynn, and smelled the ammonia cal tang of cow-dung.
The huge Afrikander beasts were a uniform deep chocolate red, the bulls hump-backed and with swinging dewlaps that almost brushed the earth. This breed had made Rhodesian beef almost as renowned as the marbled beef of Kobe. As Minister of Agriculture it was Douglas Ballantyne's. duty to see that, despite sanctions, the world was not deprived of this delicacy. The route that it took to the tables of the great restaurants of the world was via Johannesburg and Cape Town, where it perforce changed its name, but the connoisseurs recognized it and asked for it by its noyn de guerre, their taste-buds probably piqued by the knowledge that they were eating forbidden fruits.
Rhodesian tobacco and nickel and copper and gold all went out the same way, while petrol and diesel oil made the return trip. The popular bumper sticker said simply, 'Thank you, South Africa.' Beyond the stock-pens and veterinary block, once again protected by the diamond mesh and barbed-wire security fence, lay the green lawns and banks of flowering shrubs and the blazing Pride of India trees of the gardens of Queen's Lynn. The windows had been covered with grenade screens and the servants would drop steel bullet-proof shutters into their slots before sunset, but here the de fences had not been built with the same gusto as Bawu had shown at King's Lynn. They fitted unobtrusively into the gracious surroundings.
The lovely old house was very much as Craig remembered it from before the war, rosy red brick and wide cool verandas. The jacaranda trees that lined the long curved driveway were in full flower, like a mist bank of pale ethereal blue, and there were at least two dozen cars parked beneath them, Mercedes and jaguars, Cadillacs and BMWs, their paintwork hazed with the red dust of Matabeleland. Craig concealed his venerable Land- Rover behind the tumble of red and purple bougainvillaea creeper, so as not to lower the tone of a Queen's Lynn Saturday. From habit he slung an FN rifle over his shoulder and wandered around the side of the house. from ahead there came the sound of children's voices, gay as songbirds, and the genial scolding of their black nannies, punctuated by the sharp 'Pock! Pock!' of a long rally from the tennis courts.
Craig paused at the head of the terraced lawns. Children spilled and tumbled and chased each other in circles like puppies over the green grass. Nearer the yellow clay courts, their parents sprawled on spread rugs or sat at the shaded white tea-tables, under the brightly coloured umbrellas. They were bronzed young men and women in tennis whites, sipping tea or drinking beer from tall frosted glasses, calling ribald comment and advice to the players upon the courts. The only incongruous note was the row of machine pistols and automatic rifles beside the silver tea set and cream scones.
Someone recognized Craig and shouted, 'Hi Craig, long time no see,' and others waved, but there was just that faint edge of condescension in their manner reserved for the poor relative. These were the families with great estates, a closed club of the wealthy in which, for all their geniality, Craig would never have full membership.
Valerie Ballantyne came to meet him, slim-hipped and girlishly graceful in her short white tennis skirt. 'Craig,
