Shooting Butterflies (21 page)

The following year he'd tried again.

And the next.

He'd spent almost every R&R he got walking the streets of Durban, trying to track her down. Always starting in the Point Road area where he knew her gran had once lived. He never used the time to relax at all.

He'd put adverts in the papers and in magazines. Even in the
Farmers' Weekly.
Asking anyone who knew any news of her to please contact him via his own post office box in Hluhluwe as he didn't trust his mother not to destroy mail sent to Kujana.

‘Good morning, Wayne,' Isabeth said as she walked in.

He looked up at his mother. Her dark hair perfectly in place, her make-up already painted on her white face. Her clothes pressed and neat. For a forty-eight-year-old woman, she looked much younger, but he was only sorry that underneath the pretty façade lay a heart of stone. He'd learnt that lessons years ago.

First with Tara, then with boarding school.

He remembered the scene at that very table where his father had tried to defend him, and she'd laid down her law. He'd gone to boarding school just like she wanted. She had manipulated him into being sent away to school, away from Hluhluwe, and away from Tara. He hated her for that. Hated that she had forced Tara to abort their child. But mostly he hated her for not supporting him, for not believing that his love for Tara, no matter that they were so young, was real. And the hate of a teenage boy had burnt into the contempt of the man he now was, and coming home for his father's funeral was as a duty to his father, not as support for his manuipulative mother. He no longer had to put up with her self-centred nature. Their lives had parted ways when she had forced Tara from him.

Ironically, it was the boarding school she insisted on sending him to that had freed him up the most from his own guilt over being forced to abandon Tara and the loss of their baby. His time away at boarding school had also cemented his bubbling anger and resentment with his mother.

It had taught him to focus on what was important and ignore what was incidental. In his life, she'd given birth to him, and that was all.

‘Morning, Isabeth,' he said, and continued his breakfast, a polite coolness between them.

‘Samuel will bring the car around at ten o'clock for us to travel to your father's funeral.'

‘Sure,' he said. There was no need for Samuel to have to play chauffeur, he could attend the funeral as the driver from the farm, instead of working that day. She knew that Wayne was perfectly capable of driving them to the funeral. Hell, he could drive more than just a car. With his training, he could fly her there in a plane too if he wanted to, about the only thing he couldn't drive was a nuclear submarine. Yet, he was past the point of rising to his mother's bait. Gone were his days of being manipulated by her. He knew she liked to fight, that was her thing, and he no longer indulged her.

‘Wayne, this is nonsense!' Isabeth said. ‘You can still call me Mum, you know.'

‘I could,' he said, ‘but I choose not too. You lost the privilege of being called Mum a few years back. You might be the woman who birthed me, but it was Dad who was the parent. It was Dad who constantly supported me, guided me in the direction that was good for me, not good for you. Now that Dad has gone, I see no point in keeping up the pretence. You can't hurt him anymore with your threats of divorce and of leaving him alone, like you did any time things didn't go your way. You manipulated him every opportunity you had, threatened him into doing what you wanted whenever he defied you. Just like you did to me and Tara. But you will no longer dictate what happens in my life. Those days are long gone, Isabeth. You are not part of my life. I will not be coming home to run Kujana as you instructed in your letter to the army either, but will be remaining in the Recces.'

‘You're just like him!' she said.

‘Good. Because as a person my father was kind, compassionate and a decent human being. I'm not saying he was perfect.
He indulged you constantly. That was his biggest character flaw, because mostly he tried to be the best man he could.'

‘Oh that he did, he was always the better man. The better person. Everyone had to see him as that. Even when he was young, before we were even dating. He was the perfect gentleman! Now he's done the gentlemanly thing and gone and died on me. Leaving me alone. I'm not even fifty yet. And he left me.'

‘Oh for God's sake, he can't help having a heart attack, Isabeth. It's not like he chose that!' Wayne pushed his plate away and rose from the table. ‘I'll get ready. See you at the car at ten.'

The lawyer's office was starkly decorated. Wayne tugged at the collar on his shirt and tie. Damn, he didn't miss these when he was in the bush. His camo was so much more comfortable.

The receptionist answered her phone. Then she stood up and crossed over to Wayne and his mother. ‘Mr Bezuidenhout will see you now.' She led them through to a boardroom.

Mr Bezuidenhout opened the large glass door from the inside. ‘Come on in,' he said as he shook first Isabeth's hand, then Wayne's. ‘Please have a seat.' He motioned to the chairs around a large oval table, and held out a chair for Isabeth. ‘Maree, hold my calls.'

The receptionist nodded, closed the door and walked back to her desk. Wayne watched her go. He recognised her as one of the girls who used to be friends with Dela at school. He wondered if afterwards he could ask her for a drink and see if she knew anything about Tara's whereabouts. After all, Hluhluwe was such a small place, it was uncharacteristic that no one knew anything about where the Wright family had gone.

Mr Bezuidenhout sat in the chair opposite Wayne and Isabeth. ‘Thank you for coming. And again, I'm so sorry for your loss.'

Wayne nodded. Isabeth sniffed into a tissue.

Mr Bezuidenhout continued. ‘This is a formality. I have to say that I'm conducting this meeting at the wish of the late Johnny Bird Botha. Johnny asked that you both be present at the reading of his will.'

Isabeth shifted in her chair. ‘Ben, I'm not so sure why we're having such a formal meeting. Johnny and I came in here often enough to sort out everything for the farm with you.'

‘Death is never easy, Isabeth, and so often estates are left in a state of unorganised chaos. But not with Johnny. You have been spared that.' He opened the file in front of him. ‘Johnny was my friend as well as client. It's still hard to believe he is dead.'

Isabeth crossed her arms and sat back in her chair. Wayne stared at Ben Bezuidenhout, wondering what was so important that they had needed to come into town to do the reading, and why Ben hadn't just come to the house, and visit like he always did.

‘Johnny was meticulous with keeping his will up to date.' He looked at Isabeth. ‘I have often updated both your wills on separate occasions. So this was his last will and testament.' He handed both Wayne and Isabeth a copy.

Wayne began to read it, the legal jargon flowery at the beginning. Then he got to the part where it said that there was to be a lump sum payment to Isabeth, so she could buy a house in the city, and which would keep her for her years, until either she passed or she spent it all. She wasn't entitled to more. Wayne inherited Kujana, the farm, along with a substantial working capital. Although John wrote that he assumed that at the time of writing, he knew Wayne wasn't interested in continuing being a sugarcane farmer, and there was an instruction that the farm should be sold if Wayne chose, with all the proceeds go to Wayne.

The third legacy was a lump-sum payment, held in trust, with a monthly annuity to continue being paid to his grandchild, Josha Wright.

Wayne sat numbly.

He had a son.

He had a son, and his name was Josha.

‘Continued? Continued? Johnny paid that bitch and never told me!' Isabeth was shouting. ‘How much money has already gone to that little bastard? Has she been blackmailing my Johnny all this time? Ben, how could you let this happen?'

‘No, Isabeth,' Ben said. ‘Johnny was clear on this when we set the trust up almost six years ago. Tara Wright was supported while she finished school, and expenses were paid to cover her costs in having to relocate to have the baby. The baby was to be kept in the fashion that he would have been if he were within the Botha household.'

Wayne turned to his mother. The look on her face was one of total contempt, and hatred.

He couldn't breathe. He wanted to smash something.

‘Another lie, Isabeth. You told me that Tara had aborted our baby. You told me Tara had it killed!'

She darted a look at Ben and she put her hand on her throat. ‘Wayne, perhaps this isn't the place and time—'

‘It's the perfect place. In front of our lawyer. Our
family
lawyer.' Wayne flexed his fist. Anger like he'd only experienced once in his life bubbled to the surface. ‘Did you know that Tara had kept our child?'

‘That little bitch disappeared before I got to take care of that business. So the child was as good as dead anyway,' she said.

‘You kept this from me …' Wayne said quietly, and Ben stood up, as if realising how short the fuse was that Wayne kept tightly under control.

‘No,' his mother said. ‘I didn't know about this.' She burst into tears and slammed her hands on the table. ‘He paid her off, he went behind my back after all and paid her off. And you helped,' she rounded on Ben, poking him in the chest. ‘That's why she could disappear. I had the appointment made, I was going to drive her to the doctor in Johannesburg myself to ensure she had the abortion and she couldn't ruin Wayne's life.'

Ben pushed her hand away slowly. ‘Please sit down, Isabeth,' he said in a calm voice.

Isabeth collapsed into the chair.

Wayne asked Ben. ‘Where is she? Where is my son?'

‘I don't know. My company pays the money into an account every month. We haven't had direct contact with her since 1984 when the
initial paperwork was organised with our sister firm in Durban.' Ben shuffled his papers. ‘Wayne, there is this envelope for you too. From your father. He kept it updated after he found out about his angina.'

Ben handed him an A3 envelope.

Wayne opened it and pulled out the contents. A handwritten letter on thick paper, and a second envelope that had instruction on it.
Do not bend.
He read the letter.

Wayne opened the next envelope and looked at the pictures. The first was of Tara and Josha right after his birth. She was sitting in a wheelchair, in a pink hospital gown, her hair tied back, and he could see how she'd been sweating. In her arms she held a baby wrapped in blue, and she looked down at it with a love that radiated from the picture.