Vengeance, page 5
‘I had a wagon,’ Andrew allowed. ‘But we were carrying bricks for the church and the perch-bolt snapped. The axle gave out, and the wheels buckled. We were lucky the driver suffered no more than a broken arm.’
‘I said you should not overload the wagon,’ Elspeth said.
‘Can it be mended?’ Ralph ignored Elspeth’s remark.
‘It was beyond repair. We broke it apart, and used its timbers for the church.’
‘It must be frightening, to be so far from the frontier with no way of getting back,’ Ann sympathised.
Elspeth rolled her eyes. ‘We suffer what we must in the Lord’s service.’
‘In a year or two, the Society will send another wagon,’ Andrew said. ‘Until then, we are well supplied.’
‘A year or two!’ Ralph cried. ‘How can you live with such uncertainty?’
Down by the hearth, Ann saw Harry staring mournfully into the fire. The boy knew Ralph’s moods, and he knew he was the cause of his frustration.
‘If Harry can face down a charging rhinoceros,’ Ann said quickly, ‘then I daresay that we can rest here for a few months.’
Harry’s face brightened, but Ann saw that Andrew kept his eyes on Ralph. He was not fooled.
Clara insisted on giving up her bed to Harry, so he could sleep more comfortably. Elspeth frowned but she could hardly countermand such Christian charity. Ralph and Ann, meanwhile, were shown to a small mud-walled rondavel on the edge of the compound.
‘I am sorry that we do not have anything more comfortable,’ Andrew said.
‘We lived like this for four years,’ Ann assured him. ‘It will be just like home.’
Ralph watched as Andrew looked between them. In the story that Ann had told at supper, she had spoken of how she met Ralph, but there had been nothing about marriage.
Perhaps Andrew believed that God loved sinners, and that His representatives should take the same view? Perhaps he was steeling himself to ask the question that Ralph knew Elspeth would want answered? In the end, he simply wished them good night and stepped back out into the darkness.
When Andrew had gone, Ann and Ralph lay in the half-light in their borrowed nightclothes. The Ryders had no spare mattresses, so they had been given woven mats to sleep on. Out of habit, they had opted for the left and right sides of the hut, as the Zulus did, but after a moment Ralph crossed to Ann’s side and lay down behind her, cupping her to him.
‘It is a miracle we found this place,’ Ann murmured.
‘But what now? It will take months for Harry’s leg to heal.’
‘There is no hurry.’
‘Mrs Ryder may disagree with that. I think she does not approve of us.’ Ralph pushed his pelvis against Ann’s behind. ‘I think she is quite scandalised.’
Ann giggled. ‘We will be a fine test of her Christian charity, then.’ She rolled over, so that they were face to face. ‘But there is nobody waiting for us, my love. We can afford to be patient.’
Ralph grimaced. He knew Ann was right, but the vision of their new life was like a mirage in the desert. If he didn’t keep moving towards it, he was afraid it would disappear.
‘I want us to be together.’
Ann cupped his face in her hand. ‘We are together.’
‘In our own home. With our own life.’
‘Perhaps this is our life. Here and now.’
Ralph shook his head, wishing he could make Ann understand. ‘Do you remember the day you found me?’
Ann stroked his cheek. ‘What you did is in the past. I thought you had made your peace with it.’
Ralph remembered the way he had felt in the church – the smell of the smoke, the blind eyes of the wooden Jesus staring down, the burning cross on the hill outside. ‘Perhaps there are some things a man can never make peace with.’
‘We can wait until Harry’s leg is healed,’ Ann said again. ‘Putting an ocean between you and your past will not make it disappear.’
Frustration welled inside Ralph, but he fought it back. He wanted her to understand, not to argue. ‘The sooner we are in England, the better.’
He moved to kiss her. Ann did not pull away, but her body was stiff and unresponsive.
She was silent for a while. ‘We are too tired now,’ she said finally, turning away from him. ‘Maybe in the morning we will see things more clearly.’
Ann fell asleep quickly, but Ralph stayed awake for some time. Through the open doorway he could see the night sky bright with stars, and the pinpoints of Venus and Jupiter, like two unblinking eyes.
Ann was gone when Ralph woke. He had not heard her leave: with a full belly, and a mat to rest his bones on, he had slept longer than he had in weeks.
Ralph dressed slowly, struggling with the buttons on the waistcoat. It was as if his fingers had forgotten the small movements needed to get the knotted cord through the eyelets. Eventually, he set the waistcoat aside and shrugged the tailcoat on directly over the loose cotton of the shirt. It would have to do.
When Ralph finally emerged from the rondavel, the mission yard was already filled with activity. From the size of the village, he guessed there must be about seventy or eighty people living in the community outside the gates. More than half of them seemed to be at work on the mission. Men were stripping down branches with hand axes to create wattles for an extension to the Ryders’ house. In the far corner of the yard, more men were butchering a cow, while the women cleaned the offal. Elspeth sat on the porch of the church in front of a circle of girls, teaching them to sew.
Ann was with her, wearing the blue dress that she had been given the day before. Ralph still felt the distance that had come between them in the night, and instead of approaching her, he turned towards where Andrew stood sweating in a straw hat, supervising the building work.
‘Good morning,’ Ralph said as he approached. ‘I see that you keep your disciples busy.’
Andrew glanced across to the church porch, where Elspeth was holding up her sampler and explaining something loudly.
‘It is important they learn industrious habits, and practical trades.’
‘I imagine they were happy enough without either.’ Ralph knew he was being ungracious, after everything Andrew had done for him and his family, but he still felt unsettled by the events of the previous day.
‘It is for their own good.’
‘I wonder if they see it that way?’
A flash of irritation crossed Andrew’s face. ‘What do you see?’ he said, sweeping his hand across the vast landscape in front of them.
‘Land that belongs to Africans.’
‘Well said. But most white men will not see it that way. They will see land that could be theirs. They will convince themselves that it should be theirs. First, they will ask, then they will demand – and then they will fight to take it.’
‘You said that we are two hundred miles from the frontier.’ But even as he said it, Ralph knew that it meant nothing. From a tiny toehold on the very tip of Africa, white men had spread hundreds of miles northwards already, taking hold like a cancer. A river and a line on a government map would not hold them back for long.
‘If the Africans dress like civilised men and women, and have skills and occupations, then the settlers may deal with them more even-handedly.’
‘Giving them guns and teaching them how to shoot might offer a better outcome.’
The missionary smiled. ‘You are a practical man, I see.’
Ralph shrugged. ‘It has served me well enough. Ann, Harry and I are still alive.’
Andrew studied Ralph with his birdlike eyes. ‘A practical man is always welcome.’ He gestured to the building works. ‘As you see, we have many needs.’
‘You saved our lives. I am in your debt, and I will help where I can. But . . .’ Ralph had not meant to bring this up so soon, but he had lain awake for hours thinking on it. ‘I had an idea.’
Andrew looked over to the corner of the yard, where four large wheels had been propped against the fence. The rims had rusted, the hubs had been bleached white by the sun and weeds grew through the shattered spokes. ‘I told you,’ he said, a note of warning in his voice, ‘I have no wagon.’
‘But your horse is sound.’ Ralph pointed to the animal in its paddock. ‘I could ride him down to the frontier, hire my own wagon and ox-team, and return here.’
‘How would you hire your own wagon?’
‘I will find a way.’ Ralph had been trading since he was fourteen years old. Often it had been his life at stake.
Andrew peered at Ralph keenly. ‘Any other man stumbling out of the wilderness, after the ordeal you have endured, would think it a blessing to stay in a friendly home, eat well and restore his strength. But you have not been here a day and already you cannot wait to be gone.’
‘I have waited four years to return to my homeland. I cannot stand any more delay.’
‘There is a hot ember in your soul,’ Andrew said, looking at Ralph as if he could see that which Ralph himself only dimly perceived. ‘You think if you keep moving you will outrun it, but you are carrying it inside you.’
Ralph shook his head. ‘You know nothing about what is inside me.’ The missionary had spoken gently, but his words had angered Ralph. How dare you presume to know what I feel? ‘And as for running . . . It seems I am going nowhere.’
On the far side of the yard, Clara sat with Harry under a mimosa tree. Harry was lying on a blanket, with a pillow under his head and another under his injured leg. He was supposed to be resting, but he could hardly keep still: he twitched as if he had fallen asleep on an anthill. His leg was hot, swollen and painful. The bandages made his skin itch, and he could not get underneath them to scratch. But even worse was the enforced idleness. He had never had to sit still for so long in his life.
Clara sat cross-legged beside him, holding a book. The cat was curled next to her, licking obsessively at its injured leg as if to rebuke Harry.
‘Shouldn’t you be over there?’ Harry asked, pointing to the circle of girls on the church porch. He enjoyed Clara’s company, but having grown up amongst the Zulus, where boys and girls were strictly separated from an early age, he was not quite sure of the rightness of spending time with her.
‘Sewing’s boring.’ Clara stuck out her tongue. ‘I told Elspeth that I would read to you from the Bible.’
‘Why do you call your mother by her name?’
‘She’s not my mother.’ She saw Harry’s confusion. ‘Not my real mother. She died.’
Clara did not seem to expect sympathy, so Harry said nothing.
‘But that’s my real papa.’ Clara pointed to Andrew on the far side of the yard. ‘He was a sea captain, before he started working for Jesus.’
‘My father was a Zulu chief,’ Harry said proudly, gesturing to Ralph.
‘Is that why you were dressed the way you were when I found you?’
Harry frowned. ‘I was dressed normally.’ He tugged disconsolately at the breeches that had somehow been forced on over his cast. They felt even more constricting than the bandages beneath, but his mother had insisted.
‘Elspeth says that you’re a savage.’
‘And she’s a witch,’ Harry said hotly. ‘She didn’t ought to have hit you in church yesterday, just because you disagreed with her.’
‘Don’t your parents hit you?’
‘No.’
Clara thought for a moment about what Harry had said. ‘Elspeth doesn’t hit Louis. And she gives him more meat, too,’ she said. ‘But he is hers. She had him before she married my father.’
There was a pause.
‘Is that the Bible?’ Harry asked, pointing to Clara’s book.
‘That’s just what I told Elspeth.’ She gave a wicked grin. ‘It’s really Robinson Crusoe.’
Harry’s eyes lit up. ‘I’ve read that.’
Clara eyed him sceptically. ‘Yourself?’
‘My mama read it to me.’
‘I can read it myself.’
‘I can read some of it. My mama’s teaching me.’ It was true that Ann had spent hours trying to get Harry to read, drawing letters in the dirt and getting him to sound them out. She was a patient teacher, but her pupil got distracted by the least thing, and was constantly slipping off the moment she looked away.
‘I got shipwrecked, just like Robinson Crusoe,’ Harry said.
Clara’s eyes opened wide with jealousy. ‘You didn’t.’
‘I nearly drowned. My papa had to rescue me before the ship broke up. And I’m going to walk all the way across Africa, like Captain Singleton,’ he added.
‘You can’t even walk to the house with your leg like that,’ Clara said, mocking his ambition.
‘I’ll jump like a springbok when I get better. You can come with me, if you like. Then Elspeth will never hit you again.’
Clara glanced over at her stepmother on the church porch. One of the girls from the village was standing beside her, looking miserable as Elspeth picked apart her needlework.
‘I’d like that.’
The cat stirred. It stretched out its paws, arched its back and limped a few paces away as Louis came across the yard. According to Clara, he was two years older than Harry. He had a freckled face with eyes that always seemed to be squinting. Harry hadn’t seen Louis without a wrinkled forehead and scrunched-up nose since the first time he had set eyes on him.
Louis stuck his hands in his pockets and looked down on them. ‘What are you doing?’
There was an insolent edge to his voice, Harry thought, as though he had caught them doing something they should not.
‘Go away,’ Clara said.
Louis pointed to the sewing circle. ‘Shouldn’t you be over there?’
‘Elspeth said that I could read to Harry.’
‘Can’t he read himself?’
‘Of course I can,’ Harry said.
‘What is it?’
Clara tried to hide the book, but Louis snatched it out of her hands. ‘Does Mama know?’
‘Give it back!’ Clara lunged for the book, but Louis held it high up, out of her reach, smirking with triumph.
From the church porch, Elspeth’s sharp eyes noticed the commotion. ‘What is going on?’ she called.
‘Go away!’ Clara hissed. ‘Leave us alone.’
‘You had best come over here with the girls, Clara,’ Elspeth said.
Clara’s face was crimson with indignation. She glanced between Louis, Harry and her stepmother.
‘You should go,’ Harry said.
‘Otherwise you’ll get in trouble,’ Louis added.
‘Clara!’ Elspeth’s voice had risen an octave, to a new tone of impatience. ‘Now, if you please.’
With a final glare at Louis, Clara stalked across the yard, leaving Harry and the cat behind.
‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ Harry said, looking up at Louis angrily.
Louis was still holding the book. He tossed it away, into the dust. ‘She’s my sister.’
‘Not really. She said that Elspeth’s not her mother.’
Louis flushed. ‘Mama doesn’t like it when she says that.’
‘And Andrew’s not your father.’
‘No.’ Louis picked up a stone and began turning it over in his hand. ‘My father was a rich man. He owned ships, and factories. When he was alive, we didn’t live like this.’
Harry had no notion what a factory was, but he certainly wasn’t going to ask Louis.
‘So, what happened?’
‘My father died. Mama married again. We came here.’
‘Why here?’ Harry asked.
Louis didn’t answer. Instead, as if on impulse, he shied the stone in his hand at the cat. Tickle yowled and darted away as fast as he could on his injured leg.
‘What did you do that for?’ Harry demanded.
‘It’s only a dumb animal.’
‘He belongs to Clara.’
‘You should keep away from her.’ Louis picked up another stone, tossing it up and catching it. ‘You’re a bad influence. I heard Mama say so last night.’
‘At least I still have my own father. And my mother, too,’ Harry said with pride.
Louis froze. His arm tensed. Harry could see in his eyes he wanted to throw the stone at him, just like he had at the cat. Lying on his back, his leg rigid, he was helpless. Harry braced himself, covering his face with his arms.
‘Coward,’ Louis sneered.
‘Louis!’ Elspeth’s voice rang across the yard. ‘You have not done your Latin yet this morning.’
‘I’m coming.’ Louis stared down at Harry. He turned to go, but then, as if a thought had just struck him, he turned back and aimed a kick at Harry’s bandaged leg, sending a spike of searing pain up through Harry’s hip.
‘I’ll see you later,’ he said, and walked nonchalantly away.
Over on the porch, Harry could see Clara staring at him, trying to see what had happened. His eyes watered, but he did not cry out.
Wait until I am out of this cast, he thought furiously. Then I’ll show you what kind of savage I am.
That night, Ralph argued with Ann again, the same back-and-forth as the night before, but this time Ann’s words were sharper.
‘Why should we leave before Harry is healed?’
‘What if his leg festers before we can find a doctor?’
‘Why can you not just accept our good fortune at having found this place? We are safe.’
‘We are never safe.’
In the end Ralph could not bear to stay in the little hut with her. He went outside, pacing the perimeter of the compound in the light of the stars that flooded the sky from one horizon to the other. Out on the veld, a lion roared.
The curve of an iron rim gleamed in the starlight where the broken wagon wheels leaned against the fence. Ralph ran his hand over one of them, feeling the layer of dust that had accumulated on the metal.
We broke it apart, and used its timbers to build the church.
The memory of Andrew’s words stirred a thought. Ralph knew it was ridiculous, but suddenly he was seized with the desire to see for himself. He crossed the yard to the church, but then hesitated on the threshold, as if some invisible barrier kept him out.
