Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms (8 page)

“Well, Will? What do you think?” said the captain. He smiled nervously.

Will had opened her mouth for a bellow, for a furious, gaping
but
—but nothing came out.

“You're not making a joke, Captain Browne?”

“No, Will.” And then, after a pause in which Will stood,
pulling viciously at her long eyelashes, he added, “Nothing else to say, chooky?”

“Ja.”
Will unstuck her lips. “I hope you'll be always happy, sir,” she said.

Without thinking, only to have something to do with her hands, she pulled up a flame lily by the roots and held it out to him. He thought she looked pitifully young, standing there, dripping earth from her flower.

Awkwardly, achingly, Will tried to smile. “Always happy, Captain Browne, 'kay?”

•  •  •

Exactly a week later, Cynthia Vincy became Cynthia Browne. Her first act, before she had changed out of the smart white satin suit, was to inform the staff that the farm was to be sold. The newlyweds were moving to the efficiency of Harare, the capital city, to the streetlights and air-conditioning and asphalt roads of the town. Everyone had expected it.

Everyone, that is, except Captain Browne. Ashen-faced, he tried to explain to his smiling wife that it would be double murder—death to the land, which needed him and his fifty years of knowledge, and death to him.

Cynthia only purred with laughter, indulgent and caressing. She'd engineered her moment with precision. Instead
of the usual beer, she'd mixed the captain a gin and tonic—a rare treat for him—and, that done, she perched on the arm of his chair, one hand on his thigh.

“And then the little girl, Charles . . .” She did not use her own name for Will, “that uncontrollable brat.”

The captain's old face smoothed itself, and he glowed a little, as if from an inner heat. “My Will?
Ach
, she's a good girl, Cynthia. I knew the day I met you,
ja
, that you would love her like a mother. What about my Will?”

“
Well,
Charlie. Since you ask . . .” Cynthia gave a good impression of a woman cajoled out of her opinion. It was all in the eyebrows. “There are some things that women know about, and I feel that your little Will—much as I would love to keep her here—can't be happy with us. Not now her father has”—she laid a hand on her breast—“passed away. Just too many sad memories, don't you think?”

Captain Browne frowned. “Oh no, my dear.”

“No?”

“No, pet.” Captain Browne was making the mistake of thousands of men before him: he was failing to recognize the skill of his opponent. He tried to brush her off, heartily, like a caricature of himself. “Oh no, my dear. Will isn't going anywhere! No, no. No! Out of the question. The girl's got nobody else.”

Cynthia squeezed his thigh. “Charlie, my love. I had no idea you felt this way.”

“Well, I do, Cynthia. And you must trust that I know best,
ja
.”

Cynthia winced. Only common people said “
ja
.” “No, Charles. It's not that simple. Because I
had
hoped”—she pouted a little—“that what I've arranged would please you. . . . I wanted us to enjoy our love, alone. . . .”

The captain looked at the blandly innocent face. A fear flickered on in his heart. “What have you done,” he said, and added, through a sticky voice box, “my dearest?”

“There's a school, Charles,” said Cynthia. Her voice sank to a coo. “A boarding school. In England. A school that's agreed to take your sweet Will at short notice.
Very
short notice. She's English by birth; she's nearing the difficult age; she'll be so much happier there. And of course you won't object, Charles, will you, not now I've settled it all?”

Browne was growing red with the weight of his unspoken protestations.

“Cynthia.”
He could barely speak. “Cynthia, that child . . . How could you have . . .” He looked ashen and old. “If you knew . . . knew what she is to me . . .”

Cynthia's eyes were growing chilly. She was sick of  Will, sick of the subject. Children were exhausting and tedious. “There's
nothing so hugely special about the child, Charles. School will be good for her. I've been watching her, and you should know, my
dear
, she's no genius. She's never been to a proper school, never learned anything—nothing that takes practice. She's lazy.”

“Untamed.” And Captain Browne added to himself,
Oh, God. I hope it will be well
.

“She has no knowledge of culture, of art, of music—”

“She sings, Cynthia. I've heard her. Sings like a bloomin' violin.”

“She can barely count; she knows nothing about geography, history—”

“
Ja
. But she's read every book in my study.”

“Exactly!” Seamlessly, Cynthia changed tack. “So she'll need new books, won't she, Charles? And she can't use money, or hold a knife and fork properly, or”—she was running out of ammunition—“arrange flowers—”

“Arrange flowers!” The captain was suddenly austere, booming and muscular, back in his regiment, “For God's sake, woman! Why on earth,
Cynthia
, would she want to arrange flowers? No. Will is coming with us wherever we go. You'll have to unbook the flights.”

“Charles!”

“Cynthia. I will not allow this to happen. Do you understand?”

Cynthia shook back her hair. “Charles. Please don't talk to me like a child. I didn't want to tell you at the time; I didn't want to sound petty. Men are notoriously unjust about these things, my dear. But that plate Will broke—it was extremely valuable.”

“It was a
plate
.” The captain tried to look unconcerned.

“No, my dear.” Cynthia put on a patient face. “It was an heirloom. It was
symbolic
.”

“You're asking me to banish the child for breaking a plate?”

“No, Charles; it's what the plate
stands
for. If you'd seen the way she threw it at me; it was the act of a savage. She's becoming vindictive, my darling. Her father's death has warped her; she's barely human—she's running wild—and wild animals turn vicious. It has to be her or me, Charles.”

“Cynthia. Please don't threaten me. You are my wife, are you not?” The captain blinked his old eyes, bewildered.

“I am, Charles. And I need you to treat me as a wife should be treated.”

“Cynthia! Will is the dearest thing in my life”—he saw Cynthia open her mouth—“after you. But she is also a child, which you are not. She needs our protection.”

“
No
, Charles. She needs a new start.”

“Cynthia! This is ridiculous! I will not have it. I will
unbook the tickets myself. We will not discuss it any further, please.”

“Very well.” Cynthia strode to the door and slammed it shut behind her. A painting fell off the wall. In the fields, a dog started howling. Captain Browne was just getting to his feet to follow her when she slammed in again, carrying a leather suitcase. She dropped it on his lap.

“Charles. I'm serious about this.”

“What is this, Cynthia?”

“Go on. Take a look,
darling
.”

The captain opened the case with quivering fingers. Inside was a pile of neatly folded silk shirts, a mound of lace underwear, and three smart cotton dresses. Under the dresses were two pairs of shoes: one red crocodile skin and one black with silver stiletto heels.

“Cynthia . . . what is this? I don't understand.”

“This is my going-away bag, Charles. I do not make idle threats. It's your choice. I will leave this farm tonight if you continue to be so ridiculously sentimental about that child.”

“Cynthia! Please. Please don't do this to me.”

“So you agree with me? About Will?”

The captain said nothing.

“Just nod, Charles. Just nod, and I'll put away the bag forever.”

Very slowly—at the pace of ancient turtles and sunsets—Captain Browne nodded.

“Oh,
Charlie
!” Cynthia bared her teeth in a smile. She had to fight to hide her triumph. “Oh, don't look so glum, my darling man! It needn't be forever. A year or two in civilized company, and she'll be a whole new little girl. The little Will you used to know. I've received the prospectus from the school. It's actually rather famous, amongst the right sort of person—very safe, very pretty. They had an opening for just one more pupil; little Will's an extremely lucky girl. I've already replied.” The soft silkiness of female threat came into her voice. “I knew you would approve in the end, Charles. You do approve, don't you?”

Captain Browne set his mouth in a line.

“Oh, Charlie. You do still love me, don't you?”

Captain Browne nodded. He tried to smile. His breathing was very slow. His Will! His promise! But. His wife. His Will had attacked his wife. Life was too difficult. He stared out the window, but his beloved trees were just a smear of green. He was getting old, and his eyes were blurred with the first tears since boyhood.

T
HE NEXT DAY THE RAINS
began. At breakfast the air was a solid sheet of water; by the afternoon the fields were calf-deep in mud. Cynthia would not risk her shoes in the downpour, and instead sent out Lazarus to summon Will. She was to go, he reported,
at once,
to the withdrawing room.

“The
what
?” Will dropped down from her tree, shaking the water out of her eyes. “We don't have a withdrawing room.”

“She means your rumpus room, Wheel.” And Lazarus flicked his fingers by his head to indicate madness. “That woman's bad all through. You be careful, hey?”

But Will wasn't any good at being careful, they both
knew that. She was good at other things—running, and singing—and she had a sick, aching feeling that those things would not help her now.

•  •  •

“At last, Wilhelmina!” Mrs. Browne was waiting in the doorway, and she handed an envelope to Will, averting her eyes as though, Will thought, Will were something particularly nasty she would rather not look at.

“This came last week. You might as well see it now. It's from Leewood School.” Will's stare widened until her face seemed all eyes. “It's a school. In England. The captain has decided to send you there as soon as possible.”

Will took it. She didn't want to speak to Mrs. Browne, couldn't bear to show how much she cared, and she could feel that the hot storm of resentment in her chest was dangerously close to flashing out through her mouth, but she had to ask—

“Why wasn't I given it before?”

“What?”

“You said it came last week. You— Shouldn't I have had it then?”

Mrs. Browne sighed as if Will were being deliberately stupid.

“No, you shouldn't, Will.”

“Why not?” Will's stomach felt somewhere near her ankles. She would
not
cry.

“You forfeited the right to be treated as an adult, my dear, when you started throwing plates across the room. We knew you'd only stamp and scream when we told you. So we waited until it was all arranged.”

We?
Will's head rang with the word. It meant that Captain Browne had joined in the plan to snatch Will's heart out of her chest and hurl it halfway across the world. And Cynthia Browne was not capable of understanding a creature like Will. Will had never, and would never, “stamp and scream.” In anger she became rigid, and hushed, and lethal.

Through her daze of misery, Will got the envelope open. The letter was short and formal. It stated that Wilhelmina Elizabeth Silver, ward of Charles Browne, of Two Tree Hill Farm, had been granted a place at Leewood School, a select independent boarding school for girls. As the term had already commenced, she would be expected at the nearest possible date. Enclosed with the letter was a prospectus. It was signed
Angela Blake, Headmistress
.

Will looked at Mrs. Browne, at the letter, at Mrs. Browne. It was a long look: in it was everything that Will's life had been, and everything that it might have been, and everything that it would now have to be. It was a full, swollen
look, a look that comprised barefoot races through torrential rain, and lemon curd eaten straight from the jar, and now airplanes and the coldness of English air. Cynthia Browne was unable, for some days, to sponge that look from her memory. It stuck to the walls of her head.

•  •  •

Will would not take the stiff, shiny prospectus into her tree house. She and Simon sat a few feet away from it, sheltered a little from the rain by a msasa tree, and pored over the paper together.

They stared at it for a long time. It was Simon who broke the silence. He swore, softly, and when Will did not reply, he said, “
Sha
, Will.”