The conversation had turned towards the literary potential of the Garden Route, but despite the Major’s staccato insistences that he had once skimmed a slim volume about a resourceful prostitute with a wooden leg living in Knysna, it was agreed that nothing readable had ever been set in the bosky territory that lay beyond the polo field.
Arabella Slenter-Flay clutched the linen of the tablecloth and tried to become invisible. Any second now they would smell her dirty secret, the stinking degenerate Dutch abomination that crouched, rolling its Rs and tugging at its khaki socks, in her brain.
It would be like Daddy in the mines, when the blackies would try to smuggle out diamonds up their bottoms and Daddy would say ”Where’dya think you’re off to, Othello?” and send Matron for the rubber gloves.
For the truth that never dare speak its name was that Arabella Slenter-Flay could speak Afrikaans. Worse than that, she could read it, and had done so, once. Something called Kringe in ‘n Bos, about elephants and coloureds. Her ears burned, and she was certain that soon a huge festering red ”A” would rise up on her forehead, her shame branded there for all to see.
She remembered last year’s regatta, when handsome young John Brewins was revealed as Jan Bruins, son of a dentist with a possible history of Judaism; the thunderous seconds in which it was unclear whether his fiancée, Daphne Organza-Garter, was going to use her brand new shotgun on him or herself. In the end she used it on his Landrover, but the legend of the Flying Dutchman, born as Jan fled into the Tsitsikama Forest, lingered on.
”Bugger me, not a book!” said the Major. ”A real gal. Just remembered. Plunged her for a fortnight in ’38. Damn spirited. Wooden leg gave me concussion. Let her wash my shirts. Sweet thing. Should have married her.”
Dear, sweet Major! The bookish talk passed, and she reflected on her close shave. She remembered Great-Great-Granddaddy’s similar escape at Isandlwana, when he had shown the famous Slenter initiative by strapping a Welshman to his front and a Scot to his back, and hiding under a heap of dead Irish.
It was quite beautiful, this country, when you thought about it.
It could obviously do with more water features, and President Umbeeky would have to address the plague of Port Jackson bush sooner or later, but when you looked at it in a certain way, it was almost as pretty as Virginia or Provence in early spring. The comforting whine of chainsaws came to them on the breeze from across the river, where another polo ground was being cut out of the blighted woods, and down in the estuary the little black shapes of bulldozers scooted this way and that like happy beavers, levelling a new golf estate. It was progress, and progress made her happy.
Progress also made her Uncle Lesley happy. Somewhere around that headland he too was transforming a muddy, stinky wetland into a pristine estate, where dozens of people could enjoy nature on beautiful green lawns, and come to know the majesty of Africa in conservatories full of stuffed leopards and buffalos.
Of course, progress didn’t come cheap, but Uncle Lesley had always known the right people, and what was an undeclared Mercedes or three next to the eternal rewards of nature?
The third chukka was just starting when Cousin Evelyn, who had set off southward in search of a golf course, returned. He was a sweet boy, despite an eternally over-wet bottom lip, and it seemed he was enjoying his South African sojourn, away from the pressures of looking out of the window of his father’s London bank. If only they could understand what he was saying.
”Gort teautly lorst,” he said, collapsing into a deck chair, and everyone nodded and smiled. ”Peskair wode-sains all in Afwicorns. Rate, wortivay missed?”
”Must be a bit thick to miss a golf-course in these parts,” said the Major. ”Neither fish nor fowl, eh?” He winked enormously. ”In-breeding. Horrible thing. Never crossed my mind. Had an absolute knockout of a sister once. Thighs like a gelding. Never touched her, though. Pity.”
A loerie skimmed out of the trees and made for the east paddock. This was the essence of sport, Arabella thought, to be outdoors under the sun, with good friends.
She got off both barrels at the bird, but missed.