Читать книгу Seize the Reckless Wind - John Davis Gordon - Страница 9

The town of Kariba is built on the hot valley hilltops above the great dam wall, and the inland sea floods into these hills to make many-tentacled bays and creeks. Along this man-made coastline are hotels and beaches. The army barracks is on the hilltops overlooking the vast blue lake that stretches on and on, over the horizon, reaching into the faraway hills. Way out there was a safari lodge for tourists, which Mahoney partly owned. In those days of war, Kariba was an alive little town. At nights the hotel bars were full of soldiers happy to be back from the bush alive, and Rhodesian tourists who had almost nowhere else to go because of the war, so the air throbbed with dance and music, and talk and laughter. Mahoney was always happy when he came back to Kariba: it was an end to weeks of confrontation with death, and exhaustion, an end to running, and fear, and sweat, and thirst. But when he came out of the bush that last time, trundling down the hot hills of the escarpment back to his barracks, Joe Mahoney was not happy, because he loved somebody who did not love him.

‘But I do love you,’ he heard Shelagh say. ‘It’s that I can’t live with you anymore … I’ve got to be my own person. If I didn’t fight every inch of the way you’d just steamroller my needs underfoot. I’m an artist, which means delicacy, whereas you bulldoze your way through life, like you go into court and bully the witnesses and bully the other lawyers and come out dusting your hands – I’ve seen you in court.’

‘You can stop work altogether and paint all the time.’

‘But I don’t want to stop work, I’m me, I don’t want to be dependent on you! God, why must women be housewives and second-class citizens and even change their names – put “Mrs” in front, like we’re somebody’s sexual property? …’

But he ruthlessly pushed Shelagh out of his mind – he had had six weeks in the bush to get used to the idea. He showered and drank three bottles of beer while he wrote his report. Then he drove to the officers’ mess to buy a few more to take with him. It was a small mess and as he walked in the first person he saw was Jake Jefferson, the Deputy Director of Combined Operations; he turned away, but Jake looked up, straight into his eyes. ‘Hullo, Joe,’ he smiled.

Mahoney stopped. ‘Good afternoon, sir.’ He shook hands. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Jake’s the name, off duty. A few days’ fishing. With my son. What’ll you have?’

Mahoney felt his heart contract. He desperately wanted to see the lad – just to see him – but yet he didn’t think he could bear it. ‘Nothing, thanks, I’m only buying a few for the road. Barman,’ he called.

Jefferson looked at Mahoney while he made his purchase. ‘I hear you made quite a kill?’

‘Luck.’ Mahoney wondered how the man really felt about him. He then heard himself say, although it was the last subject he wanted to bring up: ‘And how is your son?’

‘Top of his class,’ Jefferson said, and Mahoney wondered for the thousandth time how the man could have no doubts. The barman mercifully came back with his change and he picked up the bottles.

‘Well, excuse me, Jake, good to see you.’

‘Look after yourself,’ Jefferson smiled.

Mahoney walked out, clutching his beers, into the harsh sunlight, trying to look as if nothing had happened. His old Landrover had ‘Zambesi Safaris’ painted on it. He got in, started the engine, and drove off hurriedly, in case the boy should arrive. He got out of sight of the mess, then slowed, letting himself feel the emotion, and the confusion. Then he took his foot off the accelerator entirely, his heart suddenly beating fast. His vehicle rolled to a stop.

Walking towards him was an eight-year-old boy, carrying a fishing rod. Mahoney stared at him, eating him up with his eyes: the blonde hair, just like his mother’s, the same eyes and mouth … The boy came level with the Landrover and Mahoney knew he should not do it, for his own sake, but he couldn’t resist it. ‘Hullo, Sean.’

The boy turned, surprised. ‘Hullo, sir,’ he said uncertainly.

Mahoney smiled at him. ‘Do you know who I am?’

The lad looked embarrassed. ‘I’m not sure, sir.’

‘I’m Joe Mahoney, a friend of your father.’ He wanted to say, And your mother. ‘I haven’t seen you for a couple of years, I should think.’

‘Oh,’ Sean said. ‘How do you do, sir?’

Mahoney felt shakey. ‘You’ve grown,’ he laughed.

‘Yes, sir,’ the boy smiled, and Mahoney wanted to cry out Don’t call me sir!

‘Your father tells me you’re top of your class?’

‘Yes, well, this year, sir.’

Mahoney felt his heart swell. ‘Keep that up. And how’s the rugby?’

‘Well, I’m in the Under Nines A team,’ the boy said, ‘but I’m better at cricket than rugger so far.’

Oh, he wanted to watch him play. ‘Your dad says you’re going fishing?’

‘Yes.’ The boy held up a can. ‘Been buying some worms. We’re after bream, though we won’t have much luck until later.’ He looked as if he wanted to get going.

Mahoney said: ‘Well, do you trawl for tiger fish while the sun’s high?’

‘Yes, sir, I’ve caught five tiger fish in my life.’

In your life … And oh, Mahoney longed to be with him, teach him all about life. How he wished he was taking him fishing this afternoon. Sean said earnestly, ‘I’d better go now, sir; my father’s expecting me.’

‘Well, have a good time, Sean.’ Mahoney reached out his hand. The boy hastily transferred the rod and with the feel of the small hand Mahoney thought his heart would crack. ‘Look after yourself, my boy.’

Sean pumped his hand energetically once. ‘Goodbye, sir.’

‘Goodbye,’ Mahoney said. And it really was goodbye.

The boy strode resolutely on down the road towards the officers’ mess. Mahoney sat, watching him in the rear-view mirror, and the tears were burning in his eyes. He whispered: ‘And keep coming top of the class!’

He drove slowly on, out of the barracks, shaken from seeing the boy; up the winding hills; to the little cemetery at the very top.

He got out of the Landrover. The sun was burning hot. The Zambesi hills stretched on and on below, into haziness. It was a year since he had been here. He stood, looking about for some wild flowers. He picked one. He walked numbly into the cemetery.

The headstone read: Suzanna de Villiers Jefferson.

Mahoney stood in front of it. And maybe it was because he was still tensed up from seeing the boy, and from the bush, but it was all unreal. He whispered: ‘Hullo, Suzie. I’ve come to say goodbye.’

But Suzie did not answer. Suzie only spoke to him when he was drunk nowadays. He did not often speak to her now either, even when he was drunk, because it was all a long time ago, and he loved somebody else now. He stood there, trying to reach her. He whispered: ‘I’m going to tell the people what I think, Suzie. The truth. And they’re not going to listen to me, so then I’m going to leave.’

Suzie did not answer.

Mahoney stood there, waiting. There was only silence. He knelt on one knee, laid the solitary flower on her grave. He closed his eyes and tried to say a small prayer for Suzie to the God he was not sure he believed in. He whispered: ‘Goodbye, Suzie, forever …’ And suddenly it was real, the word ‘forever’, and he felt the numb tension crack and the grief well up through it, the grief of this grave high up in these hot hills of Africa. The heartbreaking sadness that he would never come back, to these hills, to this valley, to that mighty river down there, to this Africa that was dying, dying, to this grave of that lovely girl who had died with it: suddenly it was all real and he felt the tears choke up and he dropped his head in his hands and he sobbed out loud, and he heard Suzie say: ‘Come on now, it’s not me you’re weeping for, or the boy, is it, darling? It’s for yourself; and for Shelagh.’

And he wanted to cry out loud, half in happiness that Suzie was there and half in protest that Shelagh was over, and Suzie smiled: ‘Well, you always wanted a soulmate. And you got one, in spades. But you’re still not happy. Will you ever be happy, darling?’

‘You made me happy, Suzie.’

She smiled, ‘Ah, yes – but I wasn’t clever enough for you, I couldn’t argue the problems of the world with you, and it’s not me you’re weeping for now.’

‘Oh God, forgive me, Suzie …’

She smiled, ‘Of course, darling. Didn’t I always forgive you everything? But what about our son?’

And Mahoney took a deep breath and squeezed his fingertips into his face in guilt and anger and confusion. He whispered fiercely: ‘He’s safe, Suzie, he’s safe and it would be wrong for me to interfere.’

Suzie did not answer; and suddenly she was gone. And Mahoney knew very well that she had never been there, that the conversation had not taken place, but in his heart he almost believed it. He knelt by her grave, trying fiercely to control his guilt and his grief. For a long minute more he knelt; then he squeezed his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘Goodbye, Suzie … ,’ he whispered. He got up, and walked quickly away from her grave.

He drove slowly down the hot, winding hills. He felt wrung out; and when he got to the lakeshore he just wanted to turn left and start driving up out of this valley on to the road to goddamn Salisbury, three hundred miles away, and start telling the people what they had to do to save the country, tell them and then get the hell out of it – wash his hands of goddamn Africa …

But he was going to Salisbury by air, and he had two hours to wait.

He did not want to hurt himself any further: but he had to say goodbye to the Noah’s Ark too. He drove slowly to the harbour.

There she lay on her mooring, long and white, her steel hull a little dented where drowning animals and treetops had hit her.

Mahoney sat, looking at her. The brave Noah’s Ark … He was leaving her too. He picked up a beer, got out of the Landrover and walked on to the jetty. There were a number of rowboats tied up. He rowed out to his Ark.

‘Hullo, old lady …’

He clambered aboard her. He stood on the gunnel, looking about. It was a long time since he had used her, because of the war. He stepped over to the wheel, held it a moment. Below, fore and aft, were the cabins and saloon, locked.

He sat down behind the wheel, with a sigh.

And oh, he did not want to sell her. He had bought her to keep forever. She was part of his Africa, a symbol of this great valley that had died, she had been here from the beginning – that was why he had bought her. For in those brave days of Partnership, when the waters began to rise behind that dam wall, the wild animals retreated into the hills, and slowly the hills became islands as the water rose about them, thousands of hilltop islands stretching on and on; and the animals stripped them of grass and bush and bark, as all the time the waters rose higher, and they crowded closer and closer together; and now they were starving; and eventually they had to swim. But they did not know which way to swim to get out of this terrible dying valley, so they swam to other hilltop islands they could see, and they were already stripped bare. The animals swam in all directions, hooves and paws weakly churning, great emaciated elephants ploughing like submarines with just their trunktips showing, starving buck with heads desperately stuck up, desperate monkeys and baboons and lions. Many, many drowned. The government sent in the Wildlife Department men, and volunteers like Joe Mahoney, to drive the animals off the islands with sticks and shouts and thunder-flashes, to make them swim for the faraway escarpments while they still had strength, heading them off from other islands, trying to drag the drowning aboard. The animals that would not take to the water they had to catch, in nets and ambushes and with rugby tackles, wild slashing buck and warthog and porcupine, and bind their feet and put them in the boats. For many, many months this operation went on as the waters of Partnership slowly rose and more hills became islands and slowly drowned: and the motherboat of the flotilla was this Noah’s Ark.

Now he sat behind her wheel on the great lake, eyes closed; and he could hear the thrashings and the cries and the cursing and the terror, the struggling and the dust and the blood, and the heartbreak of Africa dying. And he remembered the hope: that all this was going to be worth it, that out of this dying would come the new life that Great Britain promised. But it had not come. And now the valley was dead. There were now new cries and screams under the blazing sun, new blood and terror. Partnership was dead, and this grand old boat was all that was left of those brave days, and she also was going to be left behind.