She stood up. ‘I will be waiting outside.’
As she closed the door Françoise put her arms around me and squeezed for a moment. Then she too left.
I sat down next to my beautiful boy, lifted his rugged spade-shaped head onto my knee and he looked up, licking my hand as he always did. Even in his dotage he was still a superb creature.
He and I sat for about ten minutes, just us together. I told him how much I loved him, how much I had learned from his courage and loyalty and that the life in him was eternal. He knew exactly what was happening, we were too close for him not to, and I braced myself and called out to Leotti.
She came in. The syringe was ready and she administered that loneliest of all injections as I held him.
I was inconsolable.
chapter thirty-eight
About a month later I woke at 6 a.m. with something shaking my shoulder. It was Françoise.
‘So,’ she said in that delightful way the French have of being as direct as an arrow, ‘exactly when are we are going to get married … mon chérie?’
I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. This was serious talk at this time of the morning and I had to engage my brain quickly.
‘Married? We are married. We’re married under common law. In fact we’ve been married longer and happier than most people I know. Almost two decades – a lifetime,’ I added with a yawning grin to rob any unintended offence.
‘Well, I don’t understand this common-law business you always talk about. You just say that to do me out of a real wedding,’ she replied, throwing a cushion at me with a laugh that didn’t fully disguise her intent.
‘I know. That’s because you turned me down.’
‘Turned you down? When, exactly?’
‘So you don’t remember? That shows just how important it was to you.’
She looked baffled. I moved in for the kill.
‘It was years ago when I first asked you to marry me. You didn’t even reply.’
‘Rubbish! I must have been asleep and you’ve made up all this incredible nonsense.’
Despite the easy banter we both knew that the eternalbattle of the sexes was in full cry and I was thankful when the two-way radio blared at that moment, giving me a pretext to rush off into the reserve. We’d been together for eighteen years and all of a sudden the marriage ‘thing’ was rearing its head. It wasn’t that we weren’t happy. Françoise was absolutely fantastic, and we had been crazily in love since the moment we met, but my theory in life is that if things ain’t broke, why fix them?
I kissed her as I left. She responded cheerfully … and I breathed a sigh of relief. Once again, all was quiet on the Western front.
A month later I had to go to England and while away my mother called, asking when I would be returning as she wanted me to meet some government officials that would be visiting Zululand. I gave her the date and she phoned back to say the meeting was confirmed. I let Françoise know and a few days later caught the flight home.
I arrived on a Saturday morning and after greeting the herd, who came as always to meet me at the fence, walked up to the house.
Françoise went off to prepare the lodge for the VIPs and I dressed in my best khakis … well, OK the ones with the least holes in them, a little disgruntled that I had to put on a smiling face for some officials barely hours after returning from an exhausting trip.
I walked to the front entrance of lodge, battered bush cap in hand, and peeked inside. It was packed to the rafters. There was a wedding going on. This was nothing unusual as we often do functions for overseas couples wanting a romantic Zulu wedding in the bush. I turned and walked out, bumping into my mum. I kissed her hello.
‘Where are your VIPs? We can’t meet them here. There’s a wedding going on.’
She nodded, with a strange smile on her face. Something was up.
‘Hang on … who is getting married? Anyone we know?’
‘You are.’
There must be some innate male defence mechanism that kicks in at moments like this. I heard the two words she said, but neither registered.
‘OK, well let’s take the government people to the conference centre, out of the way of all this stuff.’
She shook her head, still with that strange smile. There were no government officials. My mum linked her arm through mine and we walked into the thatched lounge. Everyone stood and started clapping.
I had plenty of time to register what was happening because it unfolded before me as abstractly as an elephant charge, taking place in surreal slow motion despite its thundering reality. This was an ambush, a joint operation planned by both Françoise’s family and my own. I recognized her best friend from Paris sitting with the Anthonys in pride of place. They must have been in on this for some time; you don’t fly out from Europe just like that.
My staff were also dressed in their Sunday best standing in rows facing the minister at the podium, smiling and clapping. They too had been co-conspirators. The only person surprised was me – although stunned would be a more apt description.
Now my mother is the dearest person in the world to me. If it was anyone else I would have at least put up an argument. But she had me firmly by the arm, only surrendering her grip when I was at the podium and shaking hands with the minister.
There I stood, smiling and nodding at guests, feeling like an absolute idiot, knowing that they knew I had been utterly outmanoeuvred. I looked down at my shoes which gleamed back at me. Even they had been shined in a way
