The Blue Mountains of Kabuta (4 page)

‘I had just left school,' Ursula admitted as they went out to the car, a path across the dark grass shown by the lights of Alex's car.

‘The dogs . . .' Jon said worriedly.

Alex laughed. ‘They know. You just have to say
Stay
and they'll wait for your return.'

‘I'm just not used to this way of living . . .' Jon began.

Alex was holding open the front door of the car for her mother, so Jon got in the back.

‘You'll get used to it, little Jon,' he said as he slid in behind the steering wheel. The sky was fast darkening, but the car's headlights blazed a bright trail ahead as he drove slowly. ‘Sorry about the bumps, but nearly all our roads are just earth tracks.'

Jon
sat in the back quietly, listening to the two in front as they talked. Suddenly she felt nervous, wondering what sort of people they were going to meet. Would her mother find anyone who shared interests in common, who, as Uncle Ned used to say: ‘talked the same language'? Would her mother find it possible to make friends here? Or would she go on being unhappy?

Jon dreaded the thought of being torn in two by her different loyalties—her love for her mother as against her strong feeling that she must carry out Uncle Ned's wishes and live on and love his farm. Jon could only hope that such an occasion might never arise or she be asked to make a decision between the two.

The car slowed down outside two big gates. Jon could see a high wire fence.

‘Does . . . does our land come up this far?' she asked.

‘Yes. Your land runs alongside mine,' Alex said as a tall African came to open the gates and lift his hand in greeting.

‘Why the high fence?' Jon asked as they drove through and she saw the African closing the gates behind them.

‘Because I haven't got a
farm
. It's a wild life sanctuary. I doubt if you'll see much tonight, but I have several giraffes, ostriches, impalas and a lot of wild birds.'

Jon leaned forward eagerly. ‘What fun!

‘It's also hard work,' he said dryly. He drove
up
a steep climbing track and Jon saw that while her farm was in the valley, Alex's was on the side of the mountain that was behind her farm and on which none of the windows looked, suggesting that the builder of the farmhouse had preferred the distant mountains to the overpowering closeness of the one behind him.

‘I thought you farmed. You said Uncle Ned . . .' Jon began.

‘Yes,' Alex laughed ‘I loathed pineapples, and judging from the way they behaved, I reckon they loathed me. I was not a success like your uncle. In the end, I gave up. I still grow some things, of course.'

‘Such as?'

‘Well, a little citrus, cotton, tomatoes, beans, potatoes, but most of my land is used for wild animals that are being slowly eliminated from our world.'

‘But that can't pay!'

‘Really, Jon!' her mother put in. ‘It's no business of yours.'

But Alex laughed. ‘Naturally she's interested now she's a Farmer. Frankly, my place doesn't pay yet, but I have other means of support. However, one day it will when I open it to visitors. We get a lot of tourists up here. Ah . . .' His voice changed because of what was before them.

Jon caught her breath with delight as she watched the little deer-like impala, caught in
the
bright glare of the headlights as they leapt high—some, in confusion, bumping in mid-air, caught in the light at one moment, vanishing into the dark night the next, they were like tiny ballet dancers.

‘They must be rather a hazard when driving,' her mother said.

‘They would be out on the main roads, but I tell my friends that they must drive slowly here. Well, Jon, what did you think of them?'

‘Absolutely lovely!' Jon's voice had a dreamlike quality. ‘Incredibly beautiful. I've never ever seen anything like it.'

The track ahead curved and suddenly the headlights shone on the house. Surprisingly, to Jon, it was a modern house, built L-shaped with a long verandah . . no, Jon corrected herself, stoep, of course. It had huge picture windows with curtains drawn but light glowing through them.

As the car stopped, Jon noticed there were two other cars already there.

‘Then we're not the first?' she asked, unaware of the dismay in her voice.

‘Madeleine always comes early to get everything organized. Or,' Alex's voice was amused, ‘she likes to think she gets them under control. I have a very good houseboy, Jeremiah, who doesn't need help. He's been with me for ten years.'

Alex opened the car door and helped Ursula out while Jon was scrambling
ungracefully
from the back seat. There were large lamps on the front of the house, throwing light over the paved courtyard.

As they went up the few steps to the stoep, the door opened.

‘There you are at last, Alex! I wondered . . .' an impatient feminine voice began, and then Jon saw her. It could only be Madeleine, she thought—and thought rightly.

Madeleine was tall with the sort of figure every woman wants. Slim, she looked perfect in a long white silk frock, with matching white sandals. Her blonde hair was twisted up into a high elegant style, and she wore green emerald ear-rings. Her blue eyes were wide with amazement as she stared at Alex's companions.

‘Who on . . .' she began, but Alex gave her no time to finish the sentence.

‘Ursula, I want you to meet Madeleine Cox. Her parents have the farm on the other side of me. Madeleine, this is Mrs Hampton and her daughter, Jon.'

‘Daughter? But we thought . . .' The beautiful girl stared at Jon, her eyes assessing her, Jon felt.

Alex laughed. ‘I know. Everyone thought that, but it seems that she's called Jon after her grandfather. Who has come?'

‘The Joneses. Come in.' Madeleine seemed to remember her manners and turned to Ursula.

‘We'd
like to,' Alex said dryly, ‘if you'd move out of our way.'

For a moment, Madeleine looked startled, then annoyed, and then she laughed. ‘I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was blocking the way.'

The house was even more beautiful inside than out, Jon thought, as Alex led the way. The lounge went the length of the house, the long part, and was furnished with perfect taste and comfort. Somehow, though, it didn't look like a man's house, she thought, then realized that his parents had lived here before him and that the silk curtains of that lovely peach colour were more likely to be his parents' choice than his. The deep comfortable armchairs, the family portraits on the walls, the huge lamp shades and the different yet related colours made the room very beautiful.

The Joneses were a middle-aged couple, he as fat as his wife was thin. They welcomed the newcomers and soon Ursula was sitting on the couch with them, answering questions, her face bright, her eyes shining.

Gradually more and more visitors arrived until there were twelve. Jon, never one with a good memory, found it difficult to fit the name with the face, but she vaguely knew there was a Larry, a Ray, a Nina, an Annabelle, a Peter. One couple was young and obviously very much in love, another couple were in Ursula's age group and talked mostly to her. The most maddening part for Jon was that everyone
expressed
surprise and amusement because she was a girl and not the boy they expected, and she found herself growing more and more irritable and wishing that she had been called Jo-Anne.

Dinner was served in a round room with a round table. The satinwood furniture gleamed and was matched by the beautiful silver and glass. The curtains were a deep rose pink that matched the rugs on the polished floor.

Prawn cocktails were followed by a wine-rich consommé followed by tender tasty venison and then by fruit salad. Jeremiah, a tall African in spotlessly white shorts and jacket, served them perfectly, helped by Natalie, the African girl in a black dress with white pleated apron and a tiny white cap perched on top of her black curls. Jon and Ursula sat on either side of Alex and he turned to Jon, as if able to sense the question in her mind.

‘My mother was old-fashioned and she loved to cling to the days gone by, so she insisted on Natalie's predecessors wearing this uniform. Actually Natalie deems it an honour to wear it, for she sees it as a status symbol and that it makes her far more superior than the other servants. They're like children,' Alex said with a tenderness that surprised Jon. ‘I'm lucky to have them both.'

It was a pleasant evening with Alex being the perfect host, yet Jon felt out of it.
Everyone
talked to her, but somehow she wanted to be left alone. There was so much to think about, so many problems to solve. At least her mother was happy, Jon thought, listening to her gay laughter.

Madeleine acted the part of the hostess, though Alex seemed to ignore her. Not that she ever let him, for she was constantly asking him for a cigarette and when he held out his lighter, her hand would steady his and she would look up at him with a special sort of smile.

Later, she came to sit by Jon.

‘Quite happy?' she asked, her voice husky. ‘I imagine we're all rather oldies in your eyes, because you are very young.'

Jon bit back the angry words. ‘I'm twenty-three.'

‘Really?' Madeleine's voice gave the impression that she didn't believe Jon for one moment. ‘I'm twenty-seven and Alex is thirty-five,' she went on with a little laugh. ‘Just a nice difference.'

‘You're engaged?' Jon asked.

Madeleine laughed again. ‘Not officially, but we have an understanding. Alex works so hard and has so much planned ahead that I don't know when we can fit in a wedding. What are you going to do? Sell the farm, of course.'

Jon stiffened. ‘Why
of course
?'

‘Alex is sure you will. After all, what do you
know
about farming? Besides, this is no life for a girl like you. You couldn't live alone.'

‘My mother is living with me.'

‘For how long?' Madeleine looked at Jon with contempt in her eyes. Both girls looked across the room to where Ursula stood, talking to the young couple now, laughing, looking lovely. ‘Just how old is your mother?' Madeleine asked, a strange note in her voice.

‘Forty-one. She was eighteen when I was born.'

‘She looks even younger,' Madeleine said thoughtfully, and then turned to Jon. ‘She'll marry again, that's for sure, then you couldn't live here alone.'

The patronage in Madeleine's voice riled Jon so much that she felt she must hit back.

‘Maybe I shan't be alone,' she said with a smile. ‘Maybe I'll be married, too.'

CHAPTER TWO

Much later that night, Jon lay awake, trying in vain to fall asleep. It was partly due to the tiredness that had swept through her that evening and partly, she felt, because of the emotion roused in her as they talked so nicely of Uncle Ned, so affectionately, so full of praise, and then she had happened to glance at her mother and had seen the bitterness on her
face,
still there after nine long years. Jon could see that her mother longed to interrupt the conversation, to say that Uncle Ned was a bad man because he had not only let down his family but was the
indirect
cause of her husband's death. But would she have called it
indirect
? Jon had wanted to cry, then. If only her mother, she had thought, could overcome this senseless hatred of Uncle Ned?

However, the evening had not been altogether sad, she comforted herself, for her mother had really enjoyed herself and they had come back to their new strange home, with Jon's mother full of excitement because Alex was taking them to the club next day and they would meet even more people.

Jon had been puzzled. ‘I thought you hated watching cricket?' she had said, remembering the arguments at home about watching it on TV.

‘This is cricket with a difference,' her mother told her. ‘They also play bowls and tennis and there's a swimming pool, so you don't have to
watch
cricket all the time. Alex will propose us as members and . . .'

‘I don't think I want to join . . .' Jon had begun, but the dismay on her mother's face had made her hastily add, ‘but of course I will. One must be friendly in this sort of place.'

It was dark in the bedroom as she lay there, trying to sleep. Every now and then there was a strange creak as if someone was tiptoeing
along.
The blackness of the night seemed to be suffocating her, moving in.

Of course, she told herself, it was stupid childish imagination. Simply because she was used to the reflection of the street lamps through their windows in their Bexhill flat it made this intense darkness seem much worse, seem almost threatening.

There was no moon and although the stars twinkled in the purple black sky, there was no light at all. Just this heavy blackness.

She could hear Rex's breathing. He was sleeping on the mat by her bed. It comforted her, for she was not completely alone. Sandy, the boxer, was sleeping under the bed of Jon's mother, but the spaniel slept alone in the kitchen.

‘Jock is grieving for Uncle Ned,' Alex had explained that evening. ‘He'll never be quite the same, because he's no longer young and it's hard for an old dog to accept a new master. But don't let it worry you. He'll be all right if you let him jog along and one day he'll accept you—that is, if you're here long enough!'

Now, remembering this, Jon sat up and pummelled her pillows angrily. Why did everyone take it for granted she would sell the farm?

Madeleine had given her no peace. ‘A rooinek like you can't handle the staff,' she had said.

‘And what is a rooinek?' Jon had asked.

‘A
pommie . . . an Englishman. It means red neck because you all burn in the sun.'

A man sitting near them had laughed. ‘Look who's talking! You were a rooinek once, Madeleine.'