Does it Hurt to Die (27 page)

Feeling a little uneasy about the classified documents, he began to worry where Mike could be. He glanced down at his father’s bloodstain once more and wondered whether his mother’s words of advice may be coming true. When he left Adelaide, she had suggested he might discover things that he was better off not knowing and which she thought could make him far more unsettled. He could only hope that it also had the potential to complete the jigsaw puzzle that had been his father’s life.

‘Hey, sport,’ said Mike, startling him as he came through the back door towards him. ‘Did you find anything interesting?’

Christian glanced at Mike, reluctant to talk about what he had found until they had left forty-nine Coghill Street.

‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Are you OK?’

‘
Yes, I’m OK. It was just the experience of seeing my father’s bloodstain, but I really want to leave here now.’

Heading through the back door, Mike said
, ‘We can talk about that back home.’

Christian followed Mike down the long passageway, glancing briefly into the room which had been his so many years ago, and felt a little sad that such a wonderful house contained such sad memories. Mike held open the front door to reset the security alarm, and as he did so, Christian tripped on the top step. He stumbled and attempted to regain his footing, but as he did so, he felt the plastic folder slipping. He grasped the folder against his abdomen, but before he could fully return it, Mike had turned towards him.

‘So, you’ve found something interesting then, my friend? Need a hand with that?’ he added with a wry smile.

‘
No, I’m fine,’ Christian replied as he finished covering the container with his shirt, trying to appear less nonplussed than he was as a car drove past, the two occupants of which seemed vaguely familiar to him.

‘
Let’s get you home then.’

‘
I’m due to have lunch with Isabella at her favourite cafe.’

‘
And you’re wondering about whether to tell her about what you’ve found,’ interjected Mike.

Without looking at Mike, he replied
, ‘More correctly, not letting her suspect I’ve made an important discovery—we had an agreement that we’d share all important discoveries.’

‘
Well we don’t know what it is yet. It may just be a bunch of old papers,’ said Mike, attempting a smile. ‘Why don’t you just let me put it in the safe, and we can look at it when you get back from lunch.’

‘
She’s so intuitive, Mike, I’m sure she’ll still be able to see what you saw on my face, and I don’t want to ever lie to her.’

‘
Perhaps you could just tell her that you found the folder and that we’ve put it in my safe, since we haven’t determined how best to deal with it yet. You also probably need a few days to adjust to what you’ve just experienced at Coghill Street.’

‘
Thanks, Mike.’

Christian walked towards the front door when he heard Isabella’s car and arrived in time to see the white Toyota pull up at the front steps.

‘Since when do you drive a white Toyota?’ he asked, smiling at Isabella from the top step and anticipating her reply.

‘
I told you there were a great many in South Africa and that you were being paranoid. Now you’re going to think that it was my mother following us back from Stellenbosch.’

‘
So this is Nadine’s car that you’re driving?’

‘
Very good. I can see that you’re going to be a thinking doctor,’ she teased as she reached the top step. ‘So, ready to go and have a wonderful lunch and tell me all about what happened at Coghill Street?’

‘
Ready, and can’t wait,’ replied Christian, wondering whether her intuition had detected anything even at this point. He picked up his jumper from the coffee table and called back down the hallway to no one in particular that they were going. From somewhere down the passageway, ‘Have fun you two,’ drifted back. It was Sian’s voice.

As they drove, Christian kept stealing what he thought were surreptitious glances while also trying to watch the road ahead. The folder was preoccupying his mind, while the closeness of Isabella was threatening to overwhelm all the other senses. He forced himself to concentrate, particularly as he knew that she would notice if he was distracted. Moreover, in her inimitable way there would be questions just to check that her words had been heard. As they drove towards the city along De Waal Drive Isabella pointed out the old District Six where her mother had lived.

‘The white government in the late nineteen sixties relocated a whole coloured community of sixty thousand people to the Cape Flats. Then they flattened all the buildings with bulldozers. The so-called Group Areas Act justified their decision by pointing out that it was an area that coloured people couldn’t live, that it had been a slum and that only white people should live there.’

‘
So those new buildings are only for white people,’ Christian said.

‘
No. It’s now a mixed area because the new government is allowing some of the old coloured families to move back; but mostly they can’t afford to. My mother remembers that it was a really vibrant community. In the early eighteen sixties, the white settlers had imported Malaysian and Indian workers, and so District Six sprang up with all their customs and beliefs and religions.’

‘
So the white government just decided they wanted the land back and moved everyone out and bulldozed everything else flat.’

‘
That’s right. They said it had become a slum in which prostitution was rife, and therefore, with many white men from that era having sex with black women, it offended one of the cornerstones of apartheid ideology. So, being able to say that it was the wrong group area for non-white people to live was a convenient way of getting rid of that problem.’

‘
But I believe back then that many of the white farmers were having sex with their workers and even having children with them; so how does that work?’ said Christian remembering his conversation on the plane with Marais.

‘
Well it works, as long as you don’t focus too much on pointing out the exceptions to the rule, especially on those who were otherwise the pillars of their ideology.’

Christian looked across at Isabella as she finished explaining, realising that although she now had the right to vote and choose where to live, there was still a great deal of hurt from that era. He wondered what would be the appropriate thing to say when Isabella turned left off the main road and over a small wooden bridge, which led to the restaurant where they were going to have lunch. A security guard beckoned to a parking space that Isabella neatly manoeuvred into. As the car edged into the front restraint, she picked up his hand and lightly kissed it before smiling at him and pushing him towards his door.

Entering the restaurant, Christian allowed Isabella to walk in front of him. From behind, he noticed how her skirt was cut to give a glimpse of her beautiful legs that seemed to glide across the floor. The gliding motion took them to a corner table which gave the perfect view of Cape Town.

‘
So,’ he said, as he sat down opposite her, holding her eyes with his, ‘mind telling me why you kissed me?’

She paused for a few seconds before replying
, ‘Why? Didn’t you like it?’

Christian noticed the wry smile and the playful intent in her answer. He smiled back and felt even more intrigued. This promised to be more interesting and exciting by the minute.

‘Oh, no, I really enjoyed it, I just wondered why on my hand not my lips?’

Isabella threw her black curls back and laughed. She threw her napkin on the table, stood up next to him, bent over and kissed him again. This time Christian just received, and smiled as she sat down aware now that all around were watching them.

They both laughed. She turned to him, her eyes sparkling. ‘I could see you were nervous,’ she said. ‘You hardly said a word to me on the way, and so I thought kissing you might break the physical spell. Did it work?’

Christian looked at her, delighted that his nervousness had settled and the folder and its contents had receded in his mind, but mostly the different dimensions Isabella was presenting intrigued him.

‘I’m sorry, but to be honest, I don’t think it worked as it was intended.’

Isabella tried to detect whether he was serious or teasing her. She considered his rugged handsomeness, firm jaw and penetrating blue eyes that always seemed to sparkle, and his mop of blond hair.

‘What do you mean?’ she decided was the safest reply.

‘
Well, there’s still this barrier here,’ he said, indicating a wall with his hands in front of his chest. ‘I’ve struggled to overcome it since I was eleven. I think it’s a legacy from my father and everything that happened to him,’ he finished; looking away in the direction of Cape Town in what he hoped was a wistful mysterious manner. He could feel her studied gaze.

‘
That’s an emotional wall. You need to explore its foundations before it will allow you to pass,’ she said, noticing his now more apparently serious mood.

‘
You know, the only thing that I’ve found helped?’ said Christian, posing the statement as a question to Isabella.

‘
No, what’s that?’

Christian deliberately paused, trying to extend the moment by looking down at his napkin, but then as the smile started to spread across his face he looked up and caught her eye, and said
, ‘When you kissed me.’

Isabella saw that he was teasing her. She struggled to control her reaction. Part of her was fascinated by his deception and dry humour, and part by the fact that it confirmed she was right. His physical attractiveness was enhanced by his humour.

‘You’re teasing,’ she said sternly, before hitting his shoulder playfully with her open hand and laughing with him.

‘
Well, someone has to keep you on your toes,’ he replied, just as the crayfish arrived.

The crayfish was delicious, with a hollandaise sauce, but indulging in banter with Isabella was, he decided, threatening to usurp it. They finished the main course almost simultaneously, and while he wondered whether he should reach across to remove the small drop of hollandaise sauce from her cheek, she did so with her own napkin.

‘What?’ she said, clearly aware that there was something about her which fascinated him. ‘And you haven’t even told me about what happened in Wynberg today.’

‘
Christian laughed. You’re even more beautiful when you talk,’ he said.

With a slightly imperial can’t, she said
, ‘I want you to listen to what I’m saying.’

‘
I am. Try me.’

‘
Why did Mandela’s second wife, Winnie, not enjoy the same degree of public support as him?’

Christian smiled
. ‘Firstly, she was his first wife. Samora Machel, the widow of the Mozambiquean President, was his second wife. Secondly, it was thought she was unfaithful to him while he was on Robben Island.’ As he stopped talking, he looked right into her eyes, feeling that she was a little impressed.

‘
Not bad,’ she acknowledged, determined that he still concentrated more on what she was saying, but impressed that he could do both.

‘
Could we walk on the beach or would you like dessert?’

Christian spoke, before she could continue
. ‘We could stay and I could tell you about what happened today.’

Isabella looked at him and was astounded at how this person whom she had known for less than a week had invaded her heart. She loved the intensity of the feeling it created and was strangely at peace with it, not in the least bit frightened of where it may lead.

‘Let’s have coffee first. You may need caffeine to help you concentrate,’ Christian again teased.

‘
I’m taking you walking on the beach.’ She smiled. ‘I don’t think I’m ever going to need caffeine to concentrate with you.’

‘
I’ll take that as a compliment.’

‘
By the way, what kind of watch is that that you’re wearing? I don’t think I’ve seen one quite like that in South Africa.’

‘
It’s a GPS Explorer watch. My mother gave it to me before I left and said I was never to take it off while I was in South Africa.’

‘
Not even while sleeping?’

‘
I guess it’s to provide her with reassurance. It’s linked to a satellite tracking system, and so she feels that it makes me more secure, or her,’ said Christian, uncertain whether Isabella’s innuendo was deliberate.

‘
Sounds like a very concerned and loving mum.’

‘
Yes, she is, as I’m sure you’ll discover,’ he said as he led the way out on to the decking.

They left their shoes at the restaurant door and then walked down on
to the white sand. Christian took Isabella’s hand and walked on for ten metres enjoying her closeness and the view. Looking directly across the Bay, they could see Groote Schuur Hospital, the city of Cape Town and the docks. Beyond was Lion’s Head and Table Mountain, its majestic starkness and flat top in the background.

‘
Let’s walk along the waterline,’ he said.

‘
Thinking about your father?’

‘
Yes. Being able to see from here where my father worked at Groote Schuur, I was wondering whether he’d ever walked here. I came here to try to find out more about him. I wanted to know where he worked, whom he worked with and what he was really like. There’s this desire, like a spiritual urge, to fit the pieces together, almost so that in understanding him, knowing him, I can have peace with his memory. Today, seeing where he must have died and that bloodstain made me miss him incredibly and made me think of what an absolute waste his death was, despite some of the things he did.’

‘
Christian, those are all the things that you need to experience. You need to get to know him, his memory, and to feel the love he had for you, and then you need to be able to release that.’

Isabella watched as Christian stopped and looked at her. He took his hand out of hers, and then pushed her hair back on one side of her face before kissing her on the lips, gently like a butterfly, kissing all parts, unconcerned that she could taste the saltiness. Crying had never been an issue with him, but he was unsure whether Isabella would consider it a sign of weakness. He tightened his jaw to strengthen his resolve and started to pull back from her. Then she kissed him again, her mouth pushing on his, opening his lips wider, searching and approving. He encircled her with his arms and felt her squeeze him before pulling her down on
to the sand.

‘
Isabella,’ Christian said, propping himself up on one elbow, ‘I never want to do that again.’

She was wondering whether he was again teasing, still a little uncertain of his humour. When she looked at his eyes, though, they gave him away.

‘I never want to do that again with anyone else.’

‘
OK, now that we’ve dealt with the serious stuff, tell me about what happened at the Wynberg house.’

Christian explained how weird it had felt and the great sense of déjà vu. While describing his own room, part of his mind was wondering whether he should tell her about the folder. Then he remembered that it was Isabella who had identified the change in
The Wind in the Willows
poem that had led to the discovery. Without her he may not have found the folder, besides which, they had agreed to share everything.

Then, as if reading his mind, she said
, ‘Was that verse from
The Wind in the Willows
that your father quoted of any help?’

‘
Yes, it was. I’d spent some time next to the pool looking at my father’s bloodstain, with this feeling that there was still something to be found. I looked across and saw the big roots of the willow tree protruding up out of the ground and started digging there after I remembered what you had said.’