The Sound of Thunder (46 page)

“In his study, as usual. Oh, darling, you don’t know how I’ve missed you. Tell me you love me, Michael.

“I love You, ” he repeated automatically and the sensation of suffocating was on him again. “I must see Dad. It’s very urgent.

“You’ve just arrived. Let me fix something to eat-let me se to your poor face.

“I have to see Dad now. I’m sorry.” And he went past her towards the house.

Garry was sitting at his desk when Michael walked into the study.

Michael hated this room. He hated the high smoke-stained ceiling, the oppressive darkness of the panelled walls, the massive hunting trophies, he hated even the carpets and the smell of old paper and dust. From this room had issued the decrees and the pronouncements which had restricted and predetermined his life. This room was the symbol of everything from which he wished to escape. Now he glared around it defiantly, as though it were a living thing-Ive come back to extract from you what you owe me, he thought, you’ve had value from me, now pay me back!

“Michael!” Garrick’s boot scraped on the wooden floor as he stood to greet him, and Michael winced at the sound.

“Hello, Dad.”

“Your mother and I we have been so worried. Why didn’t you send word to us?” The hurt was there in Garrick’s voice Michael opened his mouth to apologize in mitomatic guilt, but the words came out differently from the way he had intended.

“I was busy. I didn’t have a chance.”

“Sit down, my boy.” Garrick gestured to one of the polished leather armchairs. He removed the metal-framed spectacles from his nose, but he did not look at Michael’s injured face again. He would not think about Sean and Michael.

“I’m glad you’ve come back. I was just working on the Opening chapters of my new book. It’s a history of our family from the time of your great-great-grandfather’s arrival at the Cape. I’d very much like your opinion. I’d value it immensely. The side red opinion of a graduate from the South African College. ” The trap was closing. It was so obvious that Michael squirmed.

He could almost feel the panelled walls moving in on him. He started to protest: “Dad, I have to speak to you.” But already Garrick was adjusting his spectacles and shuffling through the papers on his desk, talking quickly.

“I think you’ll like it. It should interest you. ” Garrick glanced up and smiled at Michael with the eagerness of a child that brings a gift. “Here we are. I’ll. start at the beginning. You must allow for it being the first rough draft. It’s not polished yet.

And he began to read. At the end of each paragraph he searched for Michael’s approval, smiling in anticipation of it. Until Michael could bear it no longer, until he shouted suddenly in the middle of a sentence.

“I want you to pay me out my share of Theuniskraal.

There was a momentary break in Garrick’s reading, just a flutter in his voice to acknowledge Michael’s request and then he went on steadily, but his voice had lost its timbre and was now a lifeless monotone, He finished the paragraph, laid the sheet aside, removed his spectacles and placed them in their case. The lid of the case snapped shut against the tension of its spring and Garry lifted his head slowly.

“Why?”

“I need the money.”

“What for?”

“I need it.”

Garry stood up and moved across to the window. He stood before it with his hand clasped behind him. The green lawns flowed down to the fence that bounded the gardens, and upon them the poinsettia bushes were vivid patches of scarlet. Beyond, the land lifted into the first long roll, golden grass and scattered forest with the cattle feeding beneath and the massive silver and blue clouds piled above.

“It will rain tonight,” Garrick murmured, but Michael did not answer. “We need it. Three weeks of dry, and the pasture is withering. ” Still no reply and Garry returned to his desk.

“I hear there was a fire on Lion Kop last night.

-“There was.

“They say that your uncle is finished. They say the fire finished him. ” “No!” Michael denied it quickly. “That’s not true.”

“Is that why you want the money, Michael?”

“Yes. “You want to give it to Sean?”

“I want to buy a share in Lion Kop Wattle. I don’t want to give anything-it will be a business offer.

“And what about Theuniskraal-it’s your home. You were born here.

“Please, Dad. I’ve made up my mind.”

“Did Sean suggest this?”

“He did not. He knows nothing about it.

“It’s your idea then. You thought it up all on your own. You’re going to sell out your own parents for him. My God, what sort of hold has he over you that you would do that for him? ” Flushing a dusty brick colour, Michael kicked back his chair and jumped to his feet.

“You make it sound like treachery.”

“That’s exactly what it is!” shouted Garrick. “It’s Judas’s work. Your mother and I-we raised you with everything. We scraped to send you to University, we built our whole lives around you. We worked for the day you would return here to Theuniskraal and …” He stopped, panting, and wiped from his chin the bubble of saliva that had burst through his lips.

“Instead you ran off to Join that … that swine. How do you think we liked that? Don’t you think it nearly broke our hearts?

Of all people you had to go to him! And now, now you want half of Theuniskraal to take him as a gift-to buy his … ” “Stop that! ” Michael warned him sharply. “And before you go on remember where I got my half of Theuniskraal. Remember who made the original gift. ” He picked up his hat and riding crop and strode towards the door.

“Michael. ” The terrible appeal in Garry’s voice checked him.

“What is it?”

“Your share, it isn’t very much. I hadn’t told you before, but there was a time-when you were very young. The rinderpest.

I had to-” He couldn’t go on.

“What are you trying to tell me?”

“Sit down, Michael. Sit down and I’ll show you.” Reluctantly, afraid of what he was about to hear, Michael returned and stood beside his chair.

Garry selected a key from the bunch on his watch-chain and opened the top drawer of his desk. He selected a rolled document, slipped it from its retaining ribbon and handed it without speaking to his son.

Michael spread it and read the words upon the cover.

“Deed of Mortgage.”

With a sliding sensation in his stomach, he turned the page.

He did not read it all. Words and groups of words stood out in bolder print, and they were sufficient: “The Ladyburg Trust & Banking Co.” . “A certain piece Of land in extent approx. 25,000 morgen situate in the district of Ladyburg, Magisterial Division of Pietermaritzburg, known as the farm Theuniskraal” “AB constructions, erections and improvement thereon” . “Plus interest at eight and one half per cent,“I see.” Michael handed the document back to his father and stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“Back to Lion Kop. ” “No!” Garry whispered. “No, Michael.

Please, my son.

No-O God-No!” Michael left the room and closed the door softly behind him.

When Anna came into the room Garry was sitting behind the desk, sitting quietly with his shoulders slumped forward.

“You let him go!” she hissed. Garry did not move, he did not seem to hear.

“He’s gone. Gone to your brother-and you let him.” Her voice was very low, but now it rose harshly and she shrieked at him. “You useless drunken animal. Sitting here playing with your little books.

You were not man enough to breed him-your brother had to do that for you! And you are not man enough to keep him-again your brother!

You let him go. You’ve taken my son from me. ” Garry sat unmoving.

He saw nothing. He heard nothing. In his head was a soft, misty grey ness and the mist blotted out all sight and sotirid. It was warm in the mist-warn and safe. No one could reach him here for it wrapped and protected him. He was safe.

“This is all you are good for.” Anna snatched a handful of the manuscript sheets from the desk in front of him. “Your little pieces of paper. Your dreams and stories of other men-real men.

She ripped the pages through and through again, then flung them at him. The pieces fluttered and swirled, then settled like dead leaves on his shoulders and in his hair. He did not move.

Panting in her grief and anger, she took up what remained of the manuscript and shredded that also, scattering the tiny white scraps about the room.

The two of them stood together on the station platform. They did not speak. Most of the previous day and night had been spent talking and now there was nothing more to say. They stood together in quiet companionship-and a stranger looking at them would have known immediately they were father and son.

Though Michael was not as tall, and he was lean beside Sean’s bulk-yet the tone of the skin and the colour of the hair were the same.

Both had the big Courtney nose and their mouths were wide and full-lipped.

“I’ll telegraph as soon as I hit gold.” Sean had explained to Michael in detail the financial structure of Lion Kop. He had told him how he intended to find the money which would keep it from collapsing.

“I’ll hold this end up. ” Michael was to begin cutting the wattle which had survived the fire. They had ridden the previous afternoon through the plantations and marked the blocks which were ripe for the axe. “Good luck, Uncle Sean.”

“Since we are working together now, Mike, I suggest YOU drop the

“Uncle.” It’s too clumsy for everyday use.”

Michael grinned. “Good luck, Sean.”

“Thanks, Mike.” They clasped hands, gripping hard, then Sean climbed up into the coach.

Jackson was friendly but firm and Nichols at the Standard Bank was very polite and full of sympathy. Sean caught the northbound train for Johannesburg to fire his last two bullets.

“Colonel Courtney. How good to see you.” The reception clerk at Candy’s Hotel came round from behind his desk to greet Sean. “We were only talking about you last week. Welcome back to Johannesburg.”

“Hello, Frank. Putting on a little weight there, aren’t you?”, Sean prodded his waistcoat and the man chuckled. “Tell me, Frank, is Candy … is Mrs. Rautenbach in?”

Ah! There’ve been some changes since you left, sir. ” The clerk grinned with just a trace of malice. “It’s not Mrs. Rautenbach any longer. No, sir. Mrs. Heyns-Mrs. Jock Heyns now!”

“Good God! She married Jock!

“That she did. Two weeks ago-biggest wedding in Jo’burg since the war. Two thousand guests.”

Where is she now?”

“On the water. Off to England and the Continent for six months” honeymoon.”

“I hope she’ll be happy,” Sean murmured softly, remembering the loneliness he had seen in her eyes when he left.

“With all Mr. Heyns’s money? How can she be otherwise?”

the clerk asked in genuine surprise.

“Will you be staying, Colonel?”

“If you have a room.”

“We always have a room for our friends. How long, sir?

“Two days, Frank.”

Tim Curtis was Chief Engineer on the City Deep. When Sean spoke to him about a loan he laughed.

“Christ! Sean, I only work there-I don’t own the bloody mine.”

Sean had dinner with him and his bride of two years” standing.

At their urging Sean examined their newborn infant and secretly decided that it looked like an unweaned bulldog.

Extending his stay in Johannesburg, Sean visited the banks.

He had dealt with most of them long ago, but the personnel had changed, so he was puzzled that the manager of each institution seemed to have heard of him.

“Colonel Courtney. Now would you be Colonel Sean Courtney of Lion Kop Wattle Estates down in Natal?” And when he nodded he saw the shutters come down in their eyes, like windows barred by a prudent householder against burglars.

On the eighth night he ordered liquor to be sent to his suite, two full bottles of brandy. He drank steadily and desperately.

The brandy would not quieten the violent struggles of his brain, but seemed to goad it, distorting his problems and deepening his melancholia.

He lay alone until the dawn paled out the yellow gaslight of the lamps. The brandy hummed giddily in his head and he longed for peace-the peace he had found only in the immense silence and space of the veld. Suddenly a picture fbrined in his mind of a lonely grave below a little hill. He heard the wind moan over it and saw the brown grass sway. That was peace.

“Saul,” he said, and the sadness was heavy on him for the pilgrimage he had promised himself and had not made.

“It is finished here. I’ll go now,” and he stood up. The giddiness caught him and he clutched at the head-rail of the bed to steady himself.

He recognized the kopJe from four miles off. Into his memory its shape was indelibly etched; the symmetrical slope of the sides cobbled with boulders that glinted dully in the sunshine like the scales of a reptile, the flattened summit ringed by a holder stratum of rock, the high altar on which the sacrifice to greed and Stupidity had been made.

Closer he could discern the aloe plants upon the slopes, fleshy leaves spiked like crowns and jewelled with scarlet blooms. On the plain below the kopje, in the short brown grass, stood a long line of white specks. Sean rode towards them and as he approached each speck evolved into a cairn of whitewashed stones and on each stood a metal cross.

Stiff from the long day in the saddle Sean dismounted slowly.

He hobbled the horses, dropped saddle and pack from their backs and turned them loose to feed. He stood alone and lit a cheroot, suddenly reluctant to approach the line of graves.

The silence of the empty land settled gently upon him, a silence not broken but somehow heightened by the sound of the wind across the plain. The harsh tearing as his mount cropped at the dry brown grass seemed sacrilegious in this place, but it roused Sean from his thoughts. He walked towards the double line of graves and stood before one of them. Stamped crudely into the metal of the cross the words “Here lies a brave burgher.

He moved along the line of crosses and on each he read those same words. On some of them the printing was irregular, on one the “r-in burgher had been replaced by a “g.” Sean stopped and glared at it, hating the man who in his haste and unconcern had made the epitaph an insult.