Claire's Prayer (17 page)

“Anyway,” she continued, “I want you to be a bridesmaid, so the wedding has to be before you go back to Ireland!” Watching Claire’s tanned cheeks flush with happy surprise, she rattled on. “Seth has agreed to let us build our own house on the other side of the kopje, you know – so we’ll not have to leave the ranch. I’m just so glad Tony wants to stay. Until it’s finished, we’ll live in the main house together. Speaking of which…” Naomi leaned in conspiratorially. “… I went into town this morning and got the pill.” Laughing as she watched Claire blush a rosy pink, Naomi chided her. “Come on, Claire – the wedding is so soon! I’ve got to be careful, now!”

Claire’s mind was whirring. She’d always viewed her virginity as a precious gift that she would give to her husband on their wedding night, and wondered instinctively why Naomi and Tony couldn’t just wait a little longer – but she didn’t share her thoughts. She knew a lot of good people who didn’t think quite as she did… and Naomi and Tony were certainly in love.

Pouring two more cups of tea while she gathered her thoughts, she answered honestly. “This is so exciting, Naomi – and… well, thanks so much! I’ve never been a bridesmaid before and… and I can’t think of anyone I’d be happier to see get everything she wants.” The girls locked eyes. Then, laughing at their sentimentality and breaking the tension, Claire asked, “Is the wedding going to be here at the ranch?”

Nodding and grinning cheekily, Naomi answered, “Seth nearly had a hernia about us wanting it so soon, but – after he calmed down! – I told him we want things pretty simple. We decided we want a garden ceremony, and luckily the lodges will be empty so the few guests who travel far can sleep over. I know exactly what I want… it’s like I’ve subconsciously been planning it for years! I’ve already spoken to a designer in town, and she can make my dress – and the bridesmaids’ dresses, too, in really good time… so, now to pick out the invitations!”

The rest of the afternoon passed quickly, Claire glad of the distraction – and hostile to the tiny voice in the back of her mind that wondered what it might be like if she and Seth were in love, instead. It was a voice of delusion, Claire told herself. Naomi shared her plans for their house, which were characteristically quirky and stylish. Watching her talk, Claire felt honestly happy for her: her future, at least, was secure.

As the stars started to appear in the twilit sky, the two girls walked, still chattering, to the main house for supper. To Claire’s surprise and, she supposed, relief, Seth was absent from the head of the table. Unable to bring herself to ask where he was, Claire was relieved when Tony soon informed them that he’d gone to visit Simon. Naomi, unsurprised, explained that her brother’d probably gone to discuss the culling of elephants in the National Park with local ranchers: not a happy task, but sporadically a necessary one. As Claire’s brain turned over during the meal, her gladness to find Seth gone morphed slowly into anxious irritation. Rather than Simon’s capable, practical friendship with Seth, she remembered his daughter. Visions of Naomi’s birthday braai flashed through her mind: Carol clinging to Seth, Carol flinging passionate words at him, Carol’s eyes flashing jealously at Claire… Unwelcomely, her stomach tied itself in knots, and she only picked at the succulent pork loin on her plate.

Tony’s voice broke through her sullen reverie. “Claire, Seth left the video of Operation Noah out for you, he said.”

Naomi looked up enthusiastically. “We can watch it after dinner! Would you like to?”

Claire nodded, glad of another hour or so during which she would have to think of something other than Seth. “Naomi told me a bit about the building of Kariba dam – I’d love to watch it! If you two have no other plans, of course?”

Eyebrows raised in mock innocence, Naomi assured her that they were planning on having a relaxing evening, and the three of them took their coffee into the lounge. Tony loaded the VHS with a whirr and, for the next hour, Claire was transfixed as she watched how Rupert Fothergill and his rangers rescued stranded animals. The rising waters had isolated many of the animals in the area on small islands, unable to find enough food for long, or to escape. Some 5,000 animals were rescued and taken to safety, she learned: the team worked tirelessly, sailing the rising waters and capturing the trapped animals. What Naomi hadn’t mentioned was that the Kariba project had also displaced some 50,000 – fifty
thousand
, Claire processed – Gwenbe Tonga tribesmen, who were left homeless. In addition, over a hundred people had died during the dam’s four-year construction, in part due to unprecedented floods that damaged and amost destroyed the half-built wall. The local Nyangas warned that Nyami-Nyami, the river god, had been displeased with the project and caused the floods. Looking at the completed, 21-metre thick concrete arch that towered 130 metres above the narrow gorge through which the mighty Zambezi river once thundered, Claire could see its imposition as well as its benefits: the deaths as well as the life it had facilitated. Yes, Kariba was now a bountiful source of hydroelectric energy – but at what cost? The loss of life, the dispossession… Was it worth it? Claire could feel the pain of the Nyangas’s belief, that their homeland and its gods resented the interference. What was raw, and natural, was never placidly restrained.

Claire was quiet as the video ended, but quickly remembered where she was when she looked up to see her hosts’ faces turned towards her. “Tony, Naomi,” she said, “that was fascinating – the rescue: what a wonderful thing for those men to do! What’s Kariba like now? Do many tourists go there?”

Tony assured her with easy confidence that Kariba was indeed a very popular tourist destination.

“The town over there’s geared pretty perfectly for tourists,” Naomi told her, “and on the lake itself there are house-boat trips, fishing and – of course – viewings of the wildlife! Maybe we really should take you over – it’s pretty far, but if you’re definitely keen…?”

Claire asserted her enthusiasm in no uncertain terms, not knowing that their trip would be prevented. Irrepressibly, Claire yawned. Refusing more coffee, offered in response, she bade the couple goodnight and walked back to the lodge alone.

Now free from distractions on the floodlit pathway, her mind betrayed her. It seemed less affected by the images of destruction and heroism she’d watched than with what it had created itself: it flickered across images of Seth… Seth and Carol… Claire stopped, raising her head to the heavens, as her eyes filled with tears. Again, alomost hopelessly, she implored God to help her. She’d been right: she couldn’t cope here much longer. For the first time, she wished that she hadn’t come to Zimbabwe. Seth and this untamed country had worked some sort of magic over her. She felt like a leaf on the wind, tossed and thrown about, no longer certain of anything. Wiping her wet cheeks with clenched fists, Claire angrily walked on. After Naomi’s wedding she would go home, she told herself, back to Ireland.
Why should I feel like this anyway?
she demanded.
What right do I have to feel jealous of Seth, or to envy Carol?
Seth did not belong to her, she knew, and just short weeks ago she had not even known he existed. Besides which, she reminded herself wretchedly, she wanted nothing at all to do with him since he’d revealed his true intentions.
Carol’s welcome to him
, she told herself, unconvincingly.

Maybe, Claire thought, her vulnerability was due to the emotional state she was in already when arriving in Zimbabwe. Her parents gone, maybe she just needed someone – anyone – to fill the emptiness in her heart. Even as the thought passed through her mind, though, Claire knew it wasn’t true. Even now she had to acknowledge that Seth Henderson was not just anyone. He was one of a kind, for better or for worse… and she just
hated
the thought of him being with Carol tonight.
Would he kiss her? Hold her? Make love to her?
Unable to handle her thoughts, Claire slammed the lodge door closed. Determindly humming a tune, she had a hot shower and then forced herself to concentrate on the book Naomi had lent her. She’d just exhaust herself past the point of contemplation, she decided – and, before long, was indebted to her vivid imagination for becoming totally involved in the plot.

The light burned until the early hours of the morning. Claire read until she could not keep her eyes open any longer, and the words blurred. Finally, exhausted, she slept… but her efforts had had no effect. As difficult as it had been to block Seth out of her conscious mind, it was absolutely impossible to get him out of her subconscious. He walked through her dreams, tempting and tormenting her; showing her the way home and then deserting her in the wilderness.

The seven-thirty knock on her door forced Claire to leave the bed. With no appetite, she made herself eat a slice of toast. With a twinge of guilt, Claire fed the rest of the meal that Joseph had left her to the insatiable monkeys. They were slowly getting braver, darting forward and approaching her open window, almost to touching distance, to grab at tasty morsels of bacon. Penetrating her gloom, unrestrained laughter bubbled from her as she watched a cheeky male dart forward and grab a piece of egg yolk, stuffing it into his mouth even as he fled. The monkey suddenly stopped, spat out the egg and stared at it in disgust before scurrying off again. The expression on the monkey’s face was absolutely comical. Still laughing, Claire threw her last scrap of toast into the huddle and turned away from the window. Dressing comfortably in tracksuit bottoms and a loose, wide-necked Victoria Falls t-shirt, Claire concentrated on Shoko. She spent time sketching her backgrounds, giving the impenetrable trees shadows like faces and branches like reaching arms, emphasizing the scary darkness of the bush veldt.

Sighing and stretching out her shoulders, Claire stopped to make a pot of tea at ten o’clock, and reviewed what she’d created. This book would be good, she knew with confident certainty. There was something about the story that was really gripping her, and her involvement was evident on paper.

Joseph brought lunch to the lodge at about twelve thirty. He’d been thinking about Claire during the morning, and about what seemed to him to be her self-imposed exile – but, he reminded himself, there was no point getting himself involved in the problems of visitors. He’d decided long ago he preferred to keep himself to himself. But, still, there did seem something different about this one… Pushing aside most of his concern, Joseph limited himself to asking her, “You all right on your own here, Miss Claire?”

Assuring him that she was getting lots of work done, Claire realised she wasn’t just offering platitudes: her work had genuinely made her feel better. As Joseph closed the door behind him, she remembered her earlier lack of appetite and tentatively tasted the food on her plate. She realized she was starving. Finding that Joseph had prepared thin strips of liver devilled with onions, tomatoes and mushrooms in a thick sauce, she ravenously ate it all.

Afterwards, feeling solidly contented and too full to sit down and work again, she closed the lodge door behind her and walked along the pathway from the lodge, away from the main house and further out into the bush. Breathing deeply of the fresh air, she appreciated how much she loved walking through this landscape. Nothing could beat the quietness, the uniqueness, of the Zimbabwean veldt. Claire had been walking for half an hour when a car horn intruded into her thoughts. As though it had signalled her time up, she turned decisively and walked back to the lodge, to plunge further into her work.

The insistent hooting from behind his Jeep had caused Seth to come back to the present with a jolt. He been so absorbed in recalling the previous evening that he’d been oblivious to the herd of impala that was crossing the road ahead. Braking sharply, pulling over and waving his thanks for the alert to the driver behind him, Seth angrily pushed Carol and her taunts from his mind.

He had just left her and Simon. The ranchers’ meeting during the afternoon had gone well: his concerned neighbours had met with the Park officials to discuss how they could assist the Wildlife Department with the cull. Seth felt a dull sickness as he thought of all the huge, gentle elephants that had to be killed – humanely killed, but killed nonetheless. He hated the idea of taking any life, but this was a very necessary evil. The meeting had not been the problem. Seth’s hands clenched on the steering wheel as he remembered the scene he’d had with Carol later on that night. She’d seemed to think that they could just pick up where they’d left off, as though the row at the braai had never happened. He’d been amenable at first, too… only when it came right down to it, he’d found he just didn’t want her any more.

He’d sat up until late with Simon, tasting some whiskies he’d had imported and discussing the coming season. Seth enjoyed Simon’s company, and knew that his friend hadn’t stopped feeling lonely since his wife had passed away – if anything, it seemed he felt it more when Carol was at home. Carol had glued herself to Seth’s side throughout and, despite having little to offer to the conversation, would not budge. Hot colour flushed up from Seth’s neck, flooding to shade his whole face as he remembered what had happened after they’d gone to bed.

Coming out of his room’s adjoining shower with a towel wrapped around his waist, he had immediately seen Carol draped over his bed in a slinky nightdress that left nothing at all to his imagination. She was, he’d had to acknowledge, a lovely woman, her figure full and alluring. Leaving the bed as Seth had entered the room, she’d come to him. The dimmed lights bathed her statuesque figure in a golden glow as she raised her eager, seeking mouth to his and then sank back onto the bed. The frustrations Claire had imposed on Seth should have sparked hunger in him for release but, even while looking at Carol, it had died.

Running his hand over his flushed face and opening the Jeep window, he remembered closing his eyes and trying to imagine that Carol was Claire. But as soon as Carol had spoken she’d dragged him out of his dream state: it was not Claire in front of him; it was Carol – and he did not want her: not now, not ever.