Shooting Butterflies (24 page)

‘Same about you,' Bevin said. ‘Meet my friend Wayne.'

Jamison's grip was firm, but he didn't try to crush Wayne's hand.

‘So lovely that you could get time to visit with me today Jamison,' Rose said and he immediately gave all his attention to the old lady sitting behind him.

‘Madam,' he said, and he nodded his head in respect.

‘Have a seat, your tea is about to get cold,' Rose said.

‘Thank you,' Jamison replied, and Wayne noticed that Elise had quietly entered behind Jamison and had laid an old towel on the seat. Jamison looked to the seat, as though to ensure he didn't sit down without it.

‘Thank you, Elise,' he said as she swished out the room again.

‘Well now that you have all met, I guess it's time to talk about how we can fill a few days of your holiday time, and then you can help me decide what is staying and what is being packed up to take to South Africa with me,' Rose began, and the men all looked to her to hear what she'd decided. ‘Bevin, in your letters you asked if you could use my houseboat in Kariba, and you asked me along. As you can see,' she indicated to her body, and its frail state, and she shook her head. ‘I can no longer do that, although that is still one of my most favourite places to holiday, so I have asked Jamison to take you. He's a good driver. For the last few years he's been with me every chance we get to go fishing for vundu and tiger fish. He is also very good with the wild game. He always manages to show me something interesting happening on the bank.'

Wayne watched Jamison. He drank about half his tea, then he picked up his cake, and he ate it with the little fork that was sitting
on the side of his cake plate. As if he was so used to having high tea with the old lady, that her old-fashioned etiquette came naturally to him. Once his cake was done, he lifted the dainty teacup and sipped the rest of his tea.

Wayne picked up his tea and drank it too, and he used his little fork as Jamison had done. Bevin picked up his cake with his hand again. Wayne gave him a kick, and he quickly put it down, and lifted the fork.

Wayne noticed that Rose smiled, and he winked at her.

‘That sounds wonderful, Aunt Rose. Now Mum and Dad said that you are to bring as much of your things as you want, there is no need for you to throw anything away. They want you to be as comfortable as you are here, just with them where they can help you.'

‘That's sweet of them, but there is too much stuff that I will never use again, it belongs on a farm, not in a house in Sandton in the middle of Johannesburg.'

Bevin smiled.

Wayne kept quiet, and he noticed that Jamison did too.

‘Jamison can show you the safari camps we made too. He's still managing that part of the farm even with the sale to the new owners. They are coming up to live here next month, so then things might change. Jamison and I put a clause in the contract that they would leave the safari camp and operations as is for at least ten years, but their lawyers changed it to two. We both worry that those people are going to try and operate hunting concessions here one day as they seem short-sighted and money hungry. But for now, there are still clients in the camps who are happy to take only photographs, and there are still tobacco seeds to germinate. Although of course I don't do any of that anymore.'

Wayne frowned at the news, but quickly covered it by asking Aunt Rose, ‘Perhaps you would like to accompany us to the camps that you made? Bevin told me about them, and about how much you and Jamison have achieved there. We can go slowly, it's not like we're in a rush.'

She looked at him. ‘I can walk quite fast now compared to a few months ago.'

Wayne grinned.

Bevin laughed and said, ‘Not quite up to taking on a marathon just yet, Aunt Rose, but you're doing amazing.'

‘That's because those nurses Jamison insisted on hiring do torture to me twice a day. Poor Elise has to listen to them yabba-yabba when they are changing shifts everyday.'

‘Now, Mrs Crosby,' Jamison said, ‘you know that they have to pass on the information about how well you're doing, you can't blame them for having to communicate.'

‘Bah,' she said and screwed her face up. ‘They eat too much too, Jamison.'

Jamison grinned at her. ‘Them? No surely not. They eat like birds, trying to keep a new Zimbabwe figure, slim. Not like the traditional women with curves and good child-bearing hips.'

Aunt Rose laughed. ‘No, not like your Ebony. One day she'll have a child and put those hips to good use.'

Jamison smiled.

There was obvious affection between the old lady and her bossboy, yet they still seemed to try and adhere to many of the older colonial ways. Jamison still referred to her in a formal manner. The towel the maid had put on his chair. Small things that pointed to an invisible barrier still between the black and white people in the house.

Jamison stood up. ‘I need to get back to the camp to check how the afternoon game drive went. You are welcome to join me. I'll bring the
bakkie
to the front of the house, Madam Crosby.'

‘I think that today, I'll accompany you, Jamison, thank you. I would like to be there to show young Bevin and his friend about. Even if I don't own it anymore, I still love this farm.'

Jamison was faster than Bevin in helping Rose up when she went to stand. He already had her walking stick ready, obviously a move they performed often. Jamison passed her strong arm to Bevin and said, ‘I'll be right outside.'

He strode out the room towards the kitchen. ‘Elise …' they heard him call.

They walked slowly to the front door and by the time they were down the three front steps and on the pathway, Jamison had driven the
bakkie
to the end of the driveway, and parked behind their 4x4. His vehicle was fitted out for safari viewing, with seats in the back and a canopy to protect those inside a little from the harsh African sun and any unexpected showers. Wayne looked at the versatile Toyota. It had hidden safety roll bars, designed to look like canopy struts, in case the vehicle was turned over by elephant or something else.

Jamison waited near the
bakkie
for Bevin to bring Rose to the front. He had steps waiting for her and he'd put extra cushions on the passenger seat.,

‘You spoil me, Jamison,' Rose said.

‘You're worth spoiling, madam,' Jamison said as he quickly lifted her up, and placed her in the
bakkie.

Bevin frowned.

Wayne punched him in the arm. ‘Come on, let's get in the back.' He realised that Bevin was distracted by the fact that his aunt relied so heavily on Jamison, and obviously allowed him to do so much more than a farm boy had ever done in Bevin's eyes.

They drove through the gate and when Jamison stopped to close it behind them, Wayne hopped out and did the honours.

‘Thank you,' Jamison said as Wayne jumped back onto the
bakkie.

The drive across the tobacco fields to the safari gates was long, and the whole time Bevin and his aunt kept up a steady dialogue about how the tobacco plants were doing that year, and how the tobacco drying sheds would soon be in full use. The heavy smell of drying leaves clung to the breeze.

‘We still grow Virginia tobacco and flume cure it, but now we rotate the fields with wheat and maize too. The irrigation system is used all the time, but we were in the process of swapping from overhead to drip irrigation. Perhaps Jamison will see the end of that, but I won't. I still find the tick-tick sound of the overhead systems
soothing, but you hear nothing with the drip system.' She paused as if remembering another time. ‘The new nursery plots where the young tobacco seeds are planted are off to the right there, behind that tobacco barn,' she said as they stopped at the gate.

A huge white sign was attached to the gate.

A ranger sat on the ground outside the gates as if waiting for Jamison to return. He quickly jumped up and opened the first gate. They drove through, and he closed the gate and then opened the second one.

‘We brought in more big cats, so the double fence with the bonnox mesh is to keep them in or they could go and eat all the goats in the TTL,' Aunt Rose said.

The gate closed, the ranger ran to the front of the vehicle and climbed into the seat on the bonnet. He tapped the bonnet lightly to indicate he was ready, and Jamison drove on. Slowly they made their way into the thicker bush.

‘This part is still rejuvenating, it was tobacco until two years ago, now it's planted as a Mopani forest. The grasses have grown fast, and we have been fortunate with them,' Rose said.

‘It's amazing what you have done since I was last here,' Bevin commented. He leant forward and laid his hand on her shoulder, and she put her gnarled old one on top of his.

‘If you want to be idle, live in a city. If you want to work, live on a farm,' she said.

Wayne laughed. ‘How true.'

‘Look at me, prattling on about everything that we have done, where are my manners. Wayne, Bevin told me that you recently inherited your family farm. So sorry to hear about your loss.'

‘Thank you, I miss my father. I inherited his sugarcane farm in Hluhluwe. I employed a manager to keep it ticking over for the last
six months, but now that I'm out of the SADF, I'll be taking on the challenge of farming full time.'

The ranger on the front tapped the bonnet.

Jamison stopped.

Wayne had been focused on the conversation. When he looked up he held his breath. Having been a Recce in South West Africa and Angola, he'd seen lots of game, and yet nothing prepared him for seeing an elephant on its hind legs, balanced precariously while it reached further up to pull on the branches of the marula tree in front of him.

The massive beast had the tusks of an older adult, and yet the agility he portrayed defied the forces of nature.

‘Raviro is such a show off,' Rose said, and he heard low laughter from Jamison.

The elephant completed shaking the branch with its trunk. Happy that no more fruit was about to fall, he let the tree branch go. It snapped back upwards. He balanced on his haunches for a little while longer, then slowly lowered his front legs, so that first one front foot, then the other touched the earth.

Leisurely he began to eat the fruit that he had shaken loose. A baboon close by rushed in and stole a few of the ripe but not rotten fruits that had just fallen, then ran in the opposite direction when the elephant trumpeted at it.

‘And he's still not learnt to share,' commented Rose. ‘We brought in just five elephant. The rest, like Raviro over there, just arrived. Hence his name, it means “Gift from God” in Shona.'

The ranger on the front tapped the bonnet again and pointed to the right. Walking out towards the elephant as if he wasn't many times their size was a lioness and her two juvenile cubs. The one at the back of the line, playing attack the sibling in front, bowled the other one over, and there was a rough and tumble fight between the cubs. The tawny yellow of their coats flashed as they pounced on each other, until the mother turned around, and chastised them. Then they quickly lined up again and continued to walk with heads held as high as if they had been good all along.

The elephant ignored them as they passed him by.

‘That is Xolile. We bought her in South Africa. She was already pregnant.'

‘Who did she Make Happy?' Wayne asked.

‘You speak Ndebele?' Jamison asked.

‘Zulu, but the similarities are enough to get by. Most farm kids in South Africa will speak at least one native language,' Wayne admitted.

Jamison laughed. ‘I think she made the farmer who was breeding them happy. She cost Mrs Crosby a small fortune.'

‘But just look at her, already she's had two beautiful babies. And she's so pretty. Such a beautiful cat,' Rose said.

Wayne looked. He could see why the lioness was a much loved addition. She'd have been a perfect match to Terry, with her lighter golden colour, her head held like a regal queen, her huge paws purposely treading on the African dirt that she ruled.

This was her bush.

This was her domain.

This was her territory.

‘The new owners said that they didn't want anything to change until they moved here permenantly, after their first visit to the safari camp, but I'm not sure that they truly understand that things in the bush change all the time. The fruit from the trees ripens and falls. The lion hunts the impala and then there is one less impala inside the gates. Life continues, even when the older ones go,' she sniffed. ‘I'm going to miss this place when I move.'

Bevin put his hand on her shoulder again, and Jamison slowly eased the
bakkie
to move down the dirt strip road.

They were almost in the camp by the time Wayne realised it was there. Apart from one huge building with a steep thatched roof and what was obviously the kitchen and stores area built of bricks to the left, he had to look carefully for the sleeping quarters for the guests.

They were tree houses. Eight in total. They were built into the large forest that had never been cleared for tobacco, one of the few areas that had been left wild on the farm. The tree houses blended
into their environment totally. They were elevated, built of wood, and instead of windows, there were clear all-weather blinds to pull down should it rain, that would also allow fresh air to circulate through the house, keeping it cooler. Nothing marred the view in front of each tree house towards the waterhole.

Each roof had a different animal motif cut into the thatch grass on its roof. Giraffe, buffalo, lion, rhino, zebra, kudu, monkey and warthog. Wayne looked over and saw that the main eating area had a large elephant on its roof.

Wayne smiled as Jamison stopped and everyone climbed out the
bakkie.