The Complete Short Stories (4 page)

Daphne longed to be waiting
on Clara, to be accused by Aunt Sarah of stealing the coupons, to be washing up
the dishes and climbing over stiles with the cousins whom she had never seen.
Some of her relations were nicknamed after characters in
The Wind in the
Willows,
Rat, Mole, Toad, others named from as yet unaccountable sources —
her uncles Pooh-bah and The Doing, for instance. The du Toits could not quite
follow the drift of Daphne’s letters from England when she read them aloud,
herself carried away by the poetry of the thing. ‘Rat,’ she would explain, ‘is
Henry Middleton, Molly’s husband. He’s in the navy…’

‘Doesn’t he treat her
right, then?’

‘He adores her actually,’
said Daphne, using the infectious phraseology of the letters from England.

‘Why does she call him a
rat, then?’

Chakata was right,
thought Daphne, you simply can’t explain the English sense of humour.

She went to night-clubs
in Cape Town, keeping steadily in her thoughts the fact, of which she was
convinced, that these were but tawdry versions of the London variety.

The du Toits were
members of an Afrikaner élite. They tolerated but did not cultivate the
English. One of their cousins, an Oxford graduate now fighting in North Africa,
came home on leave and made a bid for Daphne. Just at that moment she became
attached to a naval officer who had arrived a fortnight ago in a corvette which
had been badly hit. Ronald was the most typical, Daphne thought, Englishman she
had ever met, and the most unaffected. The ship, he whispered confidentially,
for no one was supposed to know it, would be in port for six weeks. Meanwhile,
might they consider themselves engaged? Daphne said, oh really, all right. And
regardless of anything the du Toits might speculate, she spent a night with him
at a sea-front hotel. With the utmost indifference Ronald mentioned that,
before the war, he had captained the village cricket team — ‘The squire usually
does.’ Daphne saw, in a vision, numerous long white-flannelled legs, the
shadowy elms, pretty sisters in pastel dresses, the mothers in old-fashioned
florals and the fathers in boaters, all cool and mellow as the lemonade being
served, under the marquee by the lake, on trays borne by pale-faced,
black-frocked, white-filled maids. Daphne thought of the heat and glare of
Chakata’s farm, the smell of the natives, and immediately felt bloated and gross.

A few days later, while
she was dancing cheek-to-cheek with Ronald, at the tea-dance provided by the
hotel on the sea-front, to the strains of

The fundamental
things apply

As time goes by

— at the same moment young Jan du Toit was
informing the assembled family that Daphne’s fiancé was a married man.

Her Aunt Sonji spoke to
Daphne next morning.

Daphne said, ‘He’s the
captain of his local cricket team.’

‘He could still be a
married man,’ said Sonji.

By lunch-time the
information was confirmed, and by sundown the corvette had sailed.

Daphne felt irrationally
that it was just the sort of thing one would expect to happen while living with
the du Toits. She removed to Durban, treating the English ships with rather
more caution than hitherto. She eschewed altogether the American navy which had
begun to put in frequent appearances.

Among her colleagues at
the school where she taught in Durban was a middle-aged art master who had
emigrated from Bristol some years before the war. He saw England as the
Barbarian State which had condemned him to be an art master instead of an
artist. He spoke often to Daphne on these said lines, but she was not
listening. Or rather, what she was listening to were the accidentals of this
discourse. ‘Take a fashionable portrait painter,’ he would say. ‘He is prepared
to flatter his wealthy patrons — or more often patronesses. He’s willing to
turn ‘em out pretty on the canvas. He can then afford to take a Queen Anne
house in Kensington, Chelsea, or Hampstead, somewhere like that. He turns the
attic into a studio, a great window frontage. A man I know was at college with
me, he’s a fashionable portrait painter now, has a studio overlooking the
Regent’s Canal, gives parties, goes everywhere, Henley, Ascot, titled people,
dress designers, film people. That’s the sort of successful artist England
produces today.’

Daphne’s mind played
like the sun over the words ‘Queen Anne house’, ‘Kensington’, ‘Chelsea’, ‘Studio’,
‘Regent’s Canal’, ‘Henley’. She had ears for nothing else.

‘Now take another
fellow,’ continued the art master, ‘I knew at college. He hadn’t much talent,
rather ultra-modern, but he wanted to be an artist and he wouldn’t be anything
else. What has he got for it? The last time I saw him he hadn’t the price of a
tube of paint. He was sharing a Soho attic with another artist — who’s since
become famous as a theatrical designer incidentally — name G.T. Marvell. Heard
of him?’

‘No,’ Daphne said.

‘Well, he’s famous now.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘But the artist he was
living with in Soho never got anywhere. They used to partition the room with
blankets and clothes hung on a piece of rope. That’s the sort of thing you get
in Soho. The native in the bush is better off than the artist in England.’

Daphne took home all
such speeches of discouragement, and pondered them with delight: ‘Soho’, ‘poet’,
‘attic’, ‘artist’.

In 1946, at last, she got a place on a
boat. She went to say goodbye to Chakata. She sat with the ageing man on the
stoep.

‘Why did
you
never
go back to England for a visit?’ she said.

‘There has always been
too much to do on the farm,’ he said. ‘I could never leave it.’ But his head
inclined towards the room at the back of the stoep, where Mrs Chakata lay on
her bed, the whisky and the revolver by her side. Daphne understood how
Chakata, having made a mistake in marriage, could never have taken Mrs Chakata
home to the English Pattersons, nor could he ever have left her in the Colony,
even with friends, for he was a man of honour.

‘I suppose,’ said
Daphne, ‘the Pattersons will be thrilled to hear about our life out here.’

He looked worried. ‘Remember,’
he said, ‘that Auntie Chakata is an invalid. At home they don’t understand
tropical conditions, and —’

‘Oh, I shall explain
about Auntie Chakata,’ she said, meaning she would hush it up.

‘I know you will,’ he said
admiringly.

She walked over to
Makata’s kraal to say goodbye. There was a new Makata; the old chief was dead.
The new chief had been educated at the Mission, he wore navy blue shorts and a
white shirt. Whereas old Makata used to speak of his tribe as ‘the men’, this
one called them ‘my people’. She had used to squat with old Makata on the
ground outside his large rondavel. Now a grey army blanket was spread, on which
two kitchen chairs were placed for the chief and his visitor. Daphne sat on her
kitchen char and remembered how strongly old Makata used to smell; it was the
unwashed native smell. Young Makata smelt of carbolic soap. ‘My people will
pray for you,’ he said. He did not offer to send a man to escort her to the
farm, as old Makata had always done.

She knew Old Tuys had
followed her to the kraal, and she was aware that he was awaiting her return.
Her arms were swinging freely, but she had a small revolver in the pocket of
her shorts.

A mile from the farm Old
Tuys walked openly over the veldt towards her. He was carrying a gun. Daphne
doubled as casually as possible into the bush. It was sparse at this point, and
so she was easily visible. She picked her way through the low brushwood, moving
towards the farm. She heard Old Tuys crackling through the dry wood behind her.

‘Stop there,’ she heard
him say, ‘or I shoot.’

Her hand was on her
revolver, and it was her intention to wheel round and shoot before he could aim
his gun. But as she turned she heard a shot from behind him and saw him fall.
Daphne heard his assailant retreating in the bush behind him, and then on the
veldt track the fading sound of bicycle wheels.

Old Tuys was still
conscious. He had been hit in the base of the neck. Daphne looked down at him.

‘I’ll send them to fetch
you,’ she said.

The following week the
police made half-hearted raids on the native dwellings in the district. No
firearms were discovered. In any case, Daphne had called in at the police
station, and told her old friend, Johnnie Ferreira, that if any man black
or
white was brought to trial for shooting Old Tuys, she would give evidence
for the assailant.

‘Old Tuys was after you,
then?’

‘He was. I had a
revolver and I intended to use it. Only the other got him first.’

‘Quite
sure
you
didn’t see who shot him?’

‘No. Why?’

‘Because you say “black
or white”. We have been more or less assuming it was a native since we
understand the man had a bicycle.’

‘Black or white,’ said
Daphne, ‘it makes no difference. He was only doing his duty.’

‘Oh, I know,’ said
Johnnie, ‘but we like to know the facts. If we got the man, you see, there are
good grounds for having the charge against him dismissed, then we should bring
Old Tuys on a charge when he comes out of hospital. It’s about time Chakata was
rid of that slug.’

‘Well, you haven’t got
the man,’ said Daphne, ‘have you?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘But if
you have any ideas, come and let’s know. Think it over.

Daphne parked the car at
the foot of Donald Cloete’s kopje and climbed slowly, stopping frequently to
look at the wide land below, the little dorp, the winding main road, and
faintly, the farm roofs in the distance. She took in the details like a camera,
and as if for the first time, for soon she would be gone to England.

She sat on a stone. A
lizard slid swiftly between her feet and disappeared among the grasses.

‘Go’way. Go’way.’

The sound darted forth
and vanished. Two or three times she had seen the go-away bird. It was quite
colourless, insignificant. She rose and plodded on.

‘D or S, Donald?’

‘So-so. Come in.’

‘Johnnie Ferreira wants
to bring a charge against Old Tuys,’ she said, ‘for his attempt on me the other
day.’

‘I know,’ he said, ‘Johnnie’s
boys have been here.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I told them to try
elsewhere.’

There were few white men
in the Colony who rode bicycles, and only one in the district. Bicycles were
used mostly by natives and a few schoolboys. All the children were away at
school. Daphne’s unknown protector was therefore either a passing native or
Donald doing his rounds. Moreover, there was the question of the gun. Few
natives, if they owned firearms, would be likely to risk betraying this illicit
fact. And few natives, however gallant, would risk the penalty for shooting a
white man.

‘Why not let them put
Old Tuys on charge?’ said Daphne.

‘I don’t prevent them,’
he said. ‘They can go ahead.’

‘They need a witness,’
she said. ‘Otherwise it’s his word against mine. Old Tuys would probably be
acquitted on appeal.’

‘Nothing doing,’ he
said. ‘I don’t like the law-courts.’

‘Well, it
was
very
nice of you, Donald,’ she said. ‘I’m grateful.’

‘Then don’t talk to me
about law cases.’

‘All right, I won’t.’

‘You see,’ he said, ‘how
it is. Chakata wouldn’t like the scandal. All the past might come out. You
never know what might come out if they start questioning Old Tuys in the
courts. Old Chakata wouldn’t like it.’

‘I think he knows what
you did, Donald. He’s very grateful.’

‘He’d be more grateful
if Old Tuys had been killed.’

‘Did you catch Old Tuys
on purpose or did you just happen to be there when Old Tuys came after me?’ she
inquired.

‘Don’t know what you
mean. I was putting up the Foot and Mouth notices that day. I was busy. I’ve
got more to do than keep Old Tuys in sight.’

‘I’m going away next
week,’ she said, ‘for about two years.’

‘So I hear. You have no
conception of the greenness of the fields. It rains quite often … Go to see
the Tower … Don’t return.

2

Linda Patterson, aged twenty-eight, was
highly discontented. Daphne could not see why. She herself adored Uncle
Pooh-bah with his rheumatism and long woollen combies. Only his constant
threats to sell the damp old house and go to live in some hotel alarmed Daphne
at the same time as the idea gave hope to her cousin Linda. Linda’s husband had
been killed in a motor accident. She longed to be free to take a job in London.

‘How could you leave
that lovely climate and come to this dismal place?’ Linda would say.

‘But,’ Daphne said
happily, ‘this at least is England.’

Not long after she
arrived Aunt Sarah, who was eighty-two, said to Daphne, ‘My dear, it isn’t done.’

‘What isn’t done?’

Aunt Sarah sighed, ‘You
know very well what I mean. My nightdresses, dear, the rayon ones. There were
three in my drawer, a green, a peach, and a pink. I only discovered this
morning that they were gone. Now there is no one else in this house who could
have taken them but you. Clara is above reproach, and besides, she can’t climb
the stars, how could she? Linda has lots of nighties left over from her
trousseau, poor gel —’

‘What are you saying?’
said Daphne. ‘What are you saying?’

Aunt Sarah took a pin
out of her needle-box and pricked Daphne on the arm. ‘That’s for stealing my
nighties,’ she said.

‘She’ll have to go to a
home,’ said Linda. ‘We can’t keep a daily woman for more than a week because of
Aunt Sarah’s accusing them of stealing.’

Pooh-bah said, ‘D’you
know, apart from
that one thing
she’s quite normal, really. Wonderful
for her age. If we could only somehow get her to realize how utterly foolish
she is over
that one thing
—’