cheek. What a nice girl, he thinks, hugging her; what a nice welcome at the end of a long trip!
The house, which is large, dark, and, even at midday, chilly, dates from the time of large families, of guests by the wagonful. Six years ago Lucy moved in as a member of a commune, a tribe of young people who peddled leather goods and sunbaked pottery in Grahamstown and, in between stands of mealies, grew dagga. When the commune broke up, the rump moving on to New Bethesda, Lucy stayed behind on the smallholding with her friend Helen. She had fallen in love with the place, she said; she wanted to farm it properly. He helped her buy it. Now here she is, flowered dress, bare feet and all, in a house full of the smell of baking, no longer a child playing at farming but a solid countrywoman, a boervrou. ‘I'm going to put you in Helen's room,' she says. 'It gets the morning sun. You have no idea how cold the mornings have been this winter.'
`How is Helen?' he asks. Helen is a large, sad-looking woman with a deep voice and a bad skin, older than Lucy. He has never been able to understand what Lucy sees in her; privately he wishes Lucy would find, or be found by, someone better.
`Helen has been back in Johannesburg since April. I've been alone, aside from the help.'
`You didn't tell me that. Aren't you nervous by yourself?'
Lucy shrugs. 'There are the dogs. Dogs still mean something. The more dogs, the more deterrence. Anyhow, if there were to be a break-in, I don't see that two people would be better than one.'
`That's very philosophical.'
`Yes. When all else fails, philosophize.'
`But you have a weapon.'
‘I have a rifle. I'll show you. I bought it from a neighbour. I haven't ever used it, but I have it.'
`Good. An armed philosopher. I approve.'
Dogs and a gun; bread in the oven and a crop in the earth.
Curious that he and her mother, cityfolk, intellectuals, should have produced this throwback, this sturdy young settler. But perhaps it was not they who produced her: perhaps history had the larger share. She offers him tea. He is hungry: he wolfs down two blocklike slices of bread with prickly-pear jam, also home-made. He is aware of her eyes on him as he eats. He must be careful: nothing so distasteful to a child as the workings of a parent's body.
Her own fingernails are none too clean. Country dirt: honourable, he supposes. He unpacks his suitcase in Helen's room. The drawers are empty; in the huge old wardrobe there is only a blue overall hanging. If Helen is away, it is not just for a while.
Lucy takes him on a tour of the premises. She reminds him about not wasting water, about not contaminating the septic tank. He knows the lesson but listens dutifully. Then she shows him over the boarding kennels. On his last visit there had been only one pen. Now there are five, solidly built, with concrete bases, galvanized poles and struts, and heavy-gauge mesh, shaded by young bluegum trees. The dogs are excited to see her: Dobermanns, German Shepherds, ridgebacks, bull terriers, Rottweilers.
'Watchdogs, all of them,' she says. 'Working dogs, on short contracts: two weeks, one week, sometimes just a weekend. The pets tend to come in during the summer holidays.'
‘And cats? Don't you take cats?'
`Don't laugh. I'm thinking of branching into cats. I'm just not set up for them yet.'
`Do you still have your stall at the market?'
`Yes, on Saturday mornings. I'll take you along.'
This is how she makes a living: from the kennels, and from selling flowers and garden produce. Nothing could be more simple.
'Don't the dogs get bored?' He points to one, a tan-coloured bulldog bitch with a cage to herself who, head on paws, watches them morosely, not even bothering to get up.
'Katy? She's abandoned. The owners have done a bunk. Account unpaid for months. I don't know what I'm going to do about her. Try to find her a home, I suppose. She's sulking, but otherwise she's all right. She gets taken out every day for exercise. By me or by Petrus. It's part of the package.'
Petrus?'
'You will meet him. Petrus is my new assistant. In fact, since March, co-proprietor. Quite a fellow.'
He strolls with her past the mud-walled dam, where a family of ducks coasts serenely, past the beehives, and through the garden: flowerbeds and winter vegetables - cauliflowers, potatoes, beetroot, chard, onions. They visit the pump and storage dam on the edge of the property. Rains for the past two years have been good, the water table has risen.
She talks easily about these matters. A frontier farmer of the new breed. In the old days, cattle and maize. Today, dogs and daffodils. The more things change the more they remain the same. History repeating itself, though in a more modest vein. Perhaps history has learned a lesson. They walk back along an irrigation furrow. Lucy's bare toes grip the red earth, leaving clear prints. A solid woman, embedded in her new life. Good! If this is to be what he leaves behind - this daughter, this woman - then he does not have to be ashamed.
'There's no need to entertain me,' he says, back in the house. 'I've brought my books. I just need a table and chair.'
'Are you working on something in particular?' she asks carefully. His work is not a subject they often talk about.
'I have plans. Something on the last years of Byron. Not a book, or not the kind of book I have written in the past. Something for the stage, rather. Words and music. Characters talking and singing.'
'I didn't know you still had ambitions in that direction.'
'I thought I would indulge myself. But there is more to it than that. One wants to leave something behind. Or at least a man wants to leave something behind. It's easier for a woman.'
