Storms Over Africa (45 page)

‘Dad'll be fine,' she answered crossly. ‘He survived the war. Don't waste your time
worrying about him.' But she looked worried herself which worried Steve even more.

Philamon decided he had better set the traps in the game reserve. Samson, before leaving camp with Richard, had asked him to set them up and keep an eye on them. ‘The master has given me his old rifle,' he had said. ‘If someone is breaking our traps, shoot him. You will find the rifle in the shed where the skins used to be kept and you will find the bullets there also.' Samson remembered Richard's careless words, ‘Shoot the bastard'.

Philamon borrowed one of the farm vehicles and drove towards the game reserve. The traps, a collection of snap traps, wire nooses, bows and arrows, rolls of barbed wire and the means to dig and disguise pits, had been stashed in a small cave on Pentland Park. He collected them from the cave and set off for the reserve. He did not notice David following him in the farm Land Rover.

That night, Penny's mood swung wildly down. Steve had been congratulating herself on dealing successfully with the girl. She had been calm most of the day, friendly to David during dinner and had even referred several times to her relationship with Joseph Tshuma. Out of habit, Wellington put a bottle of wine on the table. David sipped one glass, Steve,
remembering her hangover of yesterday, had none and Penny drank the rest. They were totally unprepared for her sudden outburst at the table.

‘How can the two of you sit there and pretend nothing's happened between you?'

David looked over at her, startled. He was used to his sister's moodiness but even
he
had been lulled by her manner. ‘Now, sis . . .' he said, uneasily.

‘I think you're disgusting.'

‘I thought we'd got through this,' Steve said sharply, suddenly embarrassed.

Penny sneered at her, ‘You'd like that, wouldn't you? You sit there all angel-faced and act like the virgin queen.' She rose and went to the liquor cabinet.

‘Don't drink any more,' David begged, unwisely.

‘Who's going to stop me?' Penny challenged him.

She returned to the table with a full glass of whisky. ‘Jesus, Pen, you're not going to drink all that,' David burst out, eyeing the brimming glass of neat alcohol.

‘You just watch me, little brother.' She swigged a third of the whisky.

Steve looked at the girl's lovely face tortured by fear, the physical pain of withdrawal, doubt and self-hate and realised there was nothing she or David could do to stop her. In
fact, it would probably be better to let her drink herself into oblivion rather than try. Any attempt to prevent her drinking would result in Penny being resentful which, in turn, might make her drink more. She rose from the table and said, ‘On your own head be it,' and went to the kitchen to tell Wellington and Elizabeth to take the rest of the night off. If Penny was going to put on a show, there was no point inflicting it on the servants. When she returned to the dining room, Penny was back at the liquor cabinet.

David raised his hands despairingly and shook his head.

‘You go to bed,' Steve told him, ‘I'll stay with her.'

Penny walked unsteadily back to the table. ‘I don't need anyone to stay with me, I'm not a child.' She sat down heavily and gave a short laugh. ‘What's in my belly, that's a child. Oh boy, is that a child. A big black bastard child.' She pummelled her fist into her stomach. ‘Die, you little shit, die.'

David looked sick but he said quietly to Steve, ‘I'll stay too. She's my sister.'

Suddenly Penny was crying. ‘I don't want this baby, I don't want it. He said he'd marry me. I hate him and I hate his child. It's like an alien thing growing in me. It's obscene.' She slumped over the table, then raised her head and screamed, ‘Get it out of me, get it out, I
can't stand it!' before putting her head in her arms and sobbing brokenly.

Steve and David watched her in silence. Her sobbing quietened and they thought she had fallen asleep but, after several minutes she stirred and mumbled, ‘I'm going to be sick.'

They reached her together, helped her outside and held her while she retched so violently, and for such a long time, that Steve had to thump her back to help her breathe. Then, supporting her on either side, they took her upstairs and put her to bed. She gave no resistance, she was out on her feet.

David went to his own room. Steve returned downstairs intending to go to bed but, passing through the dining room, the sight of the uncleared table was too much so she cleared everything away and washed up before going to bed herself.

It seemed she had only been asleep a few minutes when David shook her awake. ‘Come quickly, there's something wrong with Penny.'

On the way upstairs she could hear the girl moaning. Entering the bedroom she could see from the light of the bedside lamp that Penny's face was a lather of sweat. David pulled down the sheet. ‘She's bleeding.'

The drugs, the whisky, the violent retching and her unstable mental condition were combining. Penny was miscarrying.

The volume of blood frightened Steve. She
had no experience in such things. There was a sound at the door and the comforting bulk of Elizabeth rushed into the room. She literally shoved Steve out of the way. ‘Boil some water,' she ordered. David hurried from the room, thankful for something to do.

Her eyes never leaving Penny's face, Elizabeth pulled up the girl's nightdress and began to massage her abdomen. ‘My poor baby, it's all right, nanny is with you.' Her hands rubbed firmly but tenderly. Penny screamed. ‘I know, darling, I know it hurts.'

Steve went to the other side of the bed. ‘Get a cloth and wipe her face.' Gone was the servant, Elizabeth was in charge. When Steve returned with the cloth, Elizabeth, without missing a beat with her hands, said, ‘Madam Penny has never been good with pain. Some people are good about pain, some are not good. My baby has never liked pain.'

Suddenly Steve understood she had been wrong to tell Elizabeth and Wellington to take the night off. They were more than servants. They were a part of this family and, by trying to cover up Penny's drunkenness, she had unwittingly excluded them from helping a girl they loved as much as they would love their own child. She wondered briefly what it must have been like for Penny to grow up having, effectively, two mothers.

‘There, it's coming.' Elizabeth kept rubbing.
Her face gleamed with sweat in the soft glow of the bedside lamp. ‘It will soon be finished,' she told Steve. ‘This baby has only just started to grow, it is not too very big.'

There was a final rush of blood, Penny groaned one last time, then her body relaxed, the furrows of pain on her brow went away, and she fell instantly into a deep sleep. David returned with a bowl of steaming water and Elizabeth, using the facecloth, cleaned Penny up. Then, with Steve helping, Elizabeth stripped the girl, put her into a clean nightgown, picked her up in her strong arms and carried her to her father's room and lay her gently in his bed.

‘I'll stay with her if you like,' Steve offered, worried the girl might haemorrhage.

‘There is no need,' Elizabeth said quietly. ‘I will be with her all night.'

Steve had some things she needed to say to Elizabeth. ‘Penny is like your daughter, isn't she?'

‘It is as if I carried her in my own womb.'

‘Then it was wrong of me to tell you and Wellington to leave for the night.'

Elizabeth smiled briefly. ‘You are not of our land. Our ways are strange to you.' She smiled again. ‘But we see you learn very fast. My husband and I are thinking you will be a very good madam for this house.'

At school, Steve had walked on air for days
when she had been accepted into the inner circle of the school's Fox Society, so named because the girls in the group were classified as the foxiest girls in Year 12. When she was twenty-two she believed all her dreams had come true when her first photographic assignment had won a minor prize in an exhibition for journalistic photography. But she had never been so touched, or so proud, as she was now. The simple dignity of Elizabeth, and the woman's approval of her, had more meaning than she had thought possible. But it had come too late.

The next morning Penny was wan but she appeared calm, as though she had slain a personal demon. She even grinningly told Steve, when Elizabeth was out of earshot, that her hangover hurt more than the miscarriage. ‘Are you relieved about the baby?' Steve asked.

‘Wouldn't you be?' Penny replied, but there was a fleeting dark shadow in her eyes. Penny was a woman and her body had been designed to carry children. As much as she had not wanted Joseph's child, Steve realised that she must now be questioning her ability to fulfil her body's function.

God, we're a complicated lot.

‘You'll still have to see the doctor. Especially now.'

‘I know.'

‘You'll still have to go to South Africa.'

‘Don't nag.'

‘You're very naggable.'

Penny looked ashamed. ‘I'm sorry, Steve, I must have been a bit of a trial last night.'

‘On the contrary. You were bloody horrible.'

‘I don't know what gets into me sometimes.'

‘I do. You're your father's daughter through and through.'

Penny grinned.

Steve raised her eyes.

Peace had been restored.

They all became increasingly anxious about Richard as the day wore on.

‘I thought he'd be home by now.' They were at the dinner table where the wine, at Steve's insistence, was conspicuously absent. David looked worried.

‘So did I,' Steve did not want to be there when he returned but she needed to know he was safe.

‘You don't know Dad like I do,' Penny told them both. ‘He'll track Joe . . . Joseph . . .' her eyes clouded briefly, then hate for him returned, ‘. . . until he finds him. Remember what Greg said? This is like it used to be during the war. Dad and Greg are working, not just chasing him for revenge.'

‘Are you okay about that, sis?' David asked tentatively.

‘I am now.'

Steve looked at her. She still had a long way to go but she was calmer, her eyes were more at peace and she had made no comment about the lack of wine.

Penny tried to convince Steve that Richard was in no trouble. David eventually agreed, saying, ‘If Dad were in trouble she'd know. They're very close.'

Penny cocked her head sideways and then suddenly sprang up. ‘We still are.' She was excited. ‘Here he comes.'

They heard the Land Rover outside and Winston's hysterical barking.

‘Dad!' David was relieved.

‘Excuse me.' Steve flung down her napkin and fled the table, making for the guest room. ‘
Don't be there when I get back
.' His words burned her. She sat on the bed, hands clenched. She could hear his deep voice in the dining room, hear Penny and David laughing with him. Then she heard his footsteps outside her door and she jumped up.

He knocked briefly and opened the door. She opened her mouth to apologise for being there. ‘Don't say anything.' He shut the door behind him and crossed to where she stood, putting his arms on her shoulders and pulling her into him. ‘Don't say anything.' He rocked her in his arms. ‘I love you so much, my darling Steve.'

She buried her face against his chest and sobbed with relief that he was all right.

‘I love you, I love you.' He said it over and over.

‘I love you,' she managed.

‘There's so much to say.' He rocked her. ‘There's so many things to say. Don't leave. Don't ever leave. We can work things out, darling.'

She raised her face to his and he kissed her lovingly.

Then, with his hands on either side of her head, and looking deeply into her eyes, ‘I have been a fool about so many things in my life. I'm not going to be a fool about this.'

He saw pain and worry leave her eyes. He saw her love for him. And he thought he had a second chance. With her. With life.

‘David,' she whispered.

He would not lie. ‘I don't know. There must be a way.'

Penny knocked on the door. ‘Daddy. Please come out. You too, Steve. Please. I have to talk to you.'

Steve looked up at him. ‘Give me a minute.' She was wiping the tears from her cheeks. ‘I'll be there in a minute.'

He kissed her forehead. ‘A minute. Then I'll come looking for you.'

She smiled a little, then turned away.

‘Steve?' He pulled her close again.

She shook her head. ‘I don't know, Richard. I don't see a way.'

His heart constricted. ‘We'll find one. We must.'

‘Daddy?'

‘Wait a bloody minute.'

‘Fine. Forget it. Just forget it.'

‘Christ! Keep your hair on, I'm coming.' He grinned at Steve ruefully.

‘She's been through a lot.' She felt he might at least show some understanding.

He went to the door. ‘Haven't we all.' He turned to open the door and missed the sudden look of anger on her face.

Penny stood outside the door, arms folded. ‘Can't you show some patience?' He was irritated with her interruption.

She looked past him to the closed door. ‘Steve.' She was on the thin edge of anger.

‘She'll be here in a moment.

David joined them. ‘Dad, I have to talk to you.'

‘So do I,' Penny grated.

David ignored her. ‘I want to talk to you and Steve.'

‘So do I.'

‘Well I do too.'

‘Stop squabbling like children,' Richard snapped. He felt wrung out and exhausted.

The guest room door opened. ‘Can we all sit down and talk like civilised people. I swear,
you Dunns are the last word in impatience. I'm getting heartily sick of it.'

They were all tired and strung out. It was a terrible time to talk.