Paradise Revisited (2 page)

***

Chapter 3 – Settling In

They forwent drinks on the verandah before dinner. Andy didn’t consider himself an alcoholic and did drink when the occasion demanded it, but somehow things weren’t settled enough to warrant a homecoming celebration. The dinner was every bit as sumptuous and delicious as dinners at Matambala always had been, though there was only Joshua to serve it. There were chambo fillets on buttered toast and roast pork with crackling, with a sherry trifle for afters.  When they adjourned to the verandah for coffee after dinner, they say for awhile in the dark in silence, relishing the smells and sounds of the African night. The nightjars were calling “Good Lord Deliver Us” to each other and a pair of Spotted Eagle owls were hooting their courting duet. A cool breeze was dissipating the heat of the day, bringing with it the heady scents of frangipani and jasmine. As the light faded the huge bats called “Flying Foxes” flew across the sky, and later the stars overhead were as brilliant as he remembered them – the African sky of Andy’s youth.

“This
time of day in this place hasn’t changed at all; it’s as enchanting as ever,” said Andy.

“Yes, I love
sitting out here after dinner. Sometimes I close my eyes and imagine that nothing has changed.”

“Do you feel like telling me what happened to Mike?”

“You have a right to know. Mike just kept getting worse: argumentative, abrasive, drunken and finally violent, and not only with me.  One night drinking in the bar at the Thyolo Club, he got into a fight with one of his old friends. David Henderson, whom you’ll remember. In the fracas, his friend threw him against the trophy cabinet. He crashed through the glass doors, cutting his scalp, and the falling shelves knocked him out. Dave was distraught and too drunk himself to do what was needed in the emergency, so by the time people came running Mike had lost a lot of blood – so much that his brain, deprived of the oxygen it needed,  was damaged beyond repair.  He’s conscious most of the time, but barely notices anything, and is unable to speak or take care of himself in anyway. Dave was distraught and has never really recovered. He avoids me like the plague. “

“Where’s Mike
?”

“At Newlands Home in a full care unit we supplied and support.”

“Can we go and see him?” 

“Oh yes,
if you want to, but I’d advise you not to. I stopped going when it became clear that he didn’t know me at all most of the time, or became angry if he did.  I decided it was better if I didn’t go. It was a tough time. I still loved him despite everything.  I remembered all too clearly the wonderful early days of our marriage when we were everything to each other. But seeing him in the home tore me apart and sometimes both of us. So I stopped.”

“I wish I’d stayed around to help,” said Andy.

“I wish you had too, but I understood. It would have been agonizing watching Matambala go to the dogs and not be able to do anything. 

“Yes, it would have, but still I wasn’
t here when you needed me.”

“
After Mike’s accident, I would have written abjectly and invited you back. But I had no way of reaching you.”

“I didn’t want to be reached. I didn’t want to be reminded of what I’d lost. I only thought better of that recently. I was very young. ”

But now you’re here – and no longer very young and once again very welcome indeed. How long are you staying?” 

“I hadn’t really thought about it.  As long as I’m welcome, I guess.”

“Then prepare to stay for life.”

“Well, I don’t know about that, but awhile, anyway
.”  But he asked himself what there was to prevent it, and couldn’t come up with a thing.

The conversation having reached a natural pause, they got up to go to bed.  “Let’s get started on tour early in the morning, say 6:00.”

“That sounds good,” replied Andy, and reaching for her with his whole arm, he drew her in for a goodnight hug in which Megan participated with warmth. He gave her a chaste brotherly kiss on her forehead and held on to her for an extra moment or two, enjoying the human contact that had been absent from his life for so long.  At the moment his feeling began to be less brotherly, he let go and turned away
.  That,
he thought
is definitely not appropriate.

It took both Andy and Megan some time to fall asleep, their heads filled with hopes and memories, ideas and questions.

Andy‘s head was filled with memories. Being in his own bed again brought things flooding back.  He remembered the pets he’d had so much fun with:  the python, the pair of chameleons he’d watched produce a cluster of tiny replicas, the collection of spiders that had worried his mother so, until she had ordered him to house them somewhere besides his bedroom. 

As if he could read Andy’s mind
, Buddy waddled in and scrambled up on the bed and burrowed under the covers just as if he’d done the same the night before.  He stretched himself out next to Andy, who put his arms around him as of old, and gave a deep sigh of satisfaction.  For him, the world was right again.

Andy was moved to tears.  He hadn’t experienced such unconditional love for a very long time.  Maybe things
would
come right for him on Matambala again. From that his thoughts strayed easily to Megan, and to their possible future together.  His feelings about her were more complicated than they had been.  There was still a thread of distrust. She had betrayed him once, would she do so again?  He didn’t think he could bear to commit himself again and be betrayed again.  There were still wounds that hadn’t completely healed. To feel them ripped open again would be agonizing. 

And then there was the whole man and woman together thing.  His incipient arousal when he hugged her made it clear that as far as he was concerned it could become a serious issue
.  Did he want that?  More important, did
she
want that. Were there men in her life now? Could she see him, as anything but the younger brother of her husband?”

Megan was asking herself much the same question.  She had not been unaffected when he had hugged her. It had been a long time since she’d been with a man. There hadn’t been time to think of anything but the estate, for one thing. For another, an illicit liaison with one of Mike’s Thyolo friends was unthinkable – disastrous in every way.  It couldn’t possibly be kept secret. Even the chickens would know
within a week. And she’d not been out of Thyolo for more than a day since Mike’s accident.

Would Andy ever think of her as anything but his brother’s wife?
  She remembered his adolescent adoration.
Would that translate into adult passion?
She was older, her body no longer as taut as it had been, and her worries had marked her face, as she was reminded every morning when she brushed her hair.  Was she too old to attract Andy?  She didn’t know, but she decided that she hoped that passion would be established. It would make things easier all round and be an additional factor binding him to Matambala. And, she added, it would satisfy something deep within – the longing for love of every sort that had been in short supply.

Neither
Andy nor Megan knew quite what was going to happen next, but they both knew that life would never be quite the same.  Megan slept the sleep of exhaustion, but Andy’s sleep was interrupted by dreams he considered, “definitely not appropriate.”

***

Chapter 4 – The Tour

The next morning they set off on a tour reminiscent of the one they had taken when Megan first arrived and Andy wanted to show her around.  Only this time, Megan did the driving and the showing around.  They stopped at the tea factory, which hadn’t changed a lot, though Megan said that the amount of tea being processed was lower. The rotating ovens to dry the tea, the conveyor belts to move the dried tea to the sorting racks, and the sorting racks themselves were the same as ever. “We have constant trouble with securing spare parts for the drying ovens and other machines.  They’re hard to find close by and it takes forever to get them if we order them from South Africa or overseas. “

They didn’t stay long, for even in the chill morning air, the heat in the factory was terrible, but on the way out, they stopped in the tasting rooms, where each batch of tea was carefully brewed, immense pains being taken to insure that the water at exactly 98 degrees hit all the leaves at once.

Then after an exact number of minutes, the tea was sampled and notes about its qualities taken down.
Then, as before, they drove through the staff housing area, which was also much the same, though Andy thought there were more piped water sources, some of them with solar heaters.  There was the same dirt and dust and nearly naked urchins everywhere, the same identical houses with a privy for every two. What was definitely different was that the women pounding their washing on concrete blocks or putting washed dishes on the racks to dry stopped when they saw Megan and waved. There was no doubt she was popular. One or two of the women stared at Andy in half recognition, but obviously decided he was a visitor.

But now the area of local houses was much bigger. Those outside the old housing boundaries were more varied – some with grass roofs, some with corrugated aluminum ones. 
Some were built with mud bricks, others with baked bricks.  Some were trim and well kept, others dilapidated.  And surrounding them were large areas of maize fields.

“About ten years ago, the local DC with a chip on his shoulder ordered us to make areas of the estate available for settlement. Mike was all for defying him, but was persuaded it wouldn’t
work and that things would be better for all the estates if he cooperated. Because we cooperated, the DC ‘graciously’ allowed us to choose the area, which made a huge difference. We chose to put all the locals living on the estate in one place – right in the middle, unfortunately, but on the least valuable land. All we sacrificed were some pasture and gum tree forest.  We provided piped water and privies for the immigrants and allowed small shops. All in all it hasn’t been too bad, though we had to reduce the dairy herd, and of course with more strangers about there’s been more petty thievery. But it’s also made hiring casual labor easier. And it’s far enough from the house to keep us from hearing the noise.”

“It’s like a great wound on the body of the estate.”

“Yes, but it could be a lot worse.”

“Yes, I see that
.”

Then they carried on up the hill until they came to the picnic place. The benches and tables were derelict, but the view was as magnificent as ever.  To the East there were the neighboring estates – a glowing patchwork of emerald green tea fields, grayish gum plantations, and lime green pastures,
nearly black pine plantations - all stitched together with rust red laterite roads and punctuated with estate buildings. To the north was Matambala, looking from this distance hardly different than it had been 20 years before. The tower of All Saints’ Anglican Church was prominent at the far end. To the south the world ended in a 6,000 ft drop to the Lower Shire Valley, the river barely visible as a thin silver thread in its middle. Below them, they saw a pair of Augur buzzards soaring, and on the valley floor you could make out the areas of sugar cane, and the forested areas of game park. It was a magnificent view and Andy thought his heart would break at sublimity of it.  This once had been his.

But when they turned toward the West, where the mountain forest had begun, his heart plummeted. For several hundred yards there was nothing but devastation. Magnificent forest giants hacked off at the base, their massive trunks
’ worth a fortune as planks, left lying for lack of transport, only the smaller bits suitable for firewood harvested. What had been full of birds, some endemic to the mountain, was now empty of indigenous wildlife and waste exotic plant invaders covered the ground in a thick carpet.

“There’s perhaps 50% of the original forest preserved. Thank God for that,” Megan said seeing Andy’s face. 

“But I can’t stand to look at what isn’t,” Andy said fiercely “It’s awful. It’s desecration. Let’s go.” And he almost ran to the Landrover, almost leaping inside and slamming the door.

When Megan got to the vehicle, she saw that he had been crying.  “I’m sorry!” he said wiping his eyes. What a silly wimp I am!  But all that beauty gone.  Everything destroyed by greed.  Somehow it seems symbolic of our lives.”

“Yes, that’s true,” said Megan. “Much has gone or been damaged, but there’s a lot left; life still goes on and we can either moan at the losses or enjoy what we have and work to make it better. “

Andy looked at her, and then at his stump. “Yes, I suppose so. I’ll recover in a bit,
but I’m never coming up here again.”

***

Chapter 5 – A Look Back

They got back to the house in time for a late lunch of cold meats and salads, after which Megan had to do some business in the little string of Indian shops on the highway they called “Tinky Town” and left Andy to explore the library and take a nap. The library was more museum than book storage facility, full of artifacts, pictures and documents relating to Matambala’s 150 year old history.    Andy devoured the albums dating from the years of his youth.  It had really been paradise then. They had lived and behaved like royalty, and they’d no sense that it was soon going to end, no conception of the embedded injustice that wasn’t sustainable.  They were surrounded by beauty; their every desire had been catered for.  If they wanted to ride, there were horses; if they wanted to play tennis, there was a tennis court; if they wanted to swim, they could choose between the swimming bath and the pool in the river where Megan had so nearly drowned.  Andy was moved to tears by his grandfather’s Order of the British Empire medal and the pictures of Megan and Mike’s wedding, which seemed to him in retrospect to have been the last page of the last chapter of the fantasy. It had all been serene, the calm before the storm. Nobody had heeded the storm clouds on the horizon.