The Art of Unpacking Your Life (26 page)

‘Rhino only have three toes in their track – toes one and five are missing.'

No one reacted. Sara was conscious they were a tough audience today.

Gus ploughed on. ‘They are plantigrades – that is, they put pressure on the whole foot rather than walking on their toes.'

The silence inescapably returned.

Sara tried to rescue Gus. ‘How can Ben tell the difference between white and black rhino tracks?'

‘Well, Sara, the front of a white rhino track is a pronounced W shape.' Without any warning, Gus took her left hand off the bar and flattened up her palm upwards and with his left index finger draw the shape across her palm.

She had to concentrate on not withdrawing her hand. Men didn't touch her, unless with serious intent. Then she was in control. If she wasn't interested, they would soon know it. She had slapped more than her fair share of drunk barristers in the last ten years. Sometimes she wanted sex but never at home, and she never stayed the night. It was too complicated, too personal. Sara obviously knew why she behaved this way. It was a hangover from her childhood, but one that she accepted. She enjoyed her own company; her life was full and exciting. There was no room for anything more.

‘The black rhino's toes are smaller and more widely spaced, producing a gentle curve at the front like this.' There was something subtly presumptuous about Gus that was difficult for her to locate. ‘And they hardly have any indentation at the back, eh.'

Instead of letting go of her hand, he took it and placed it gently back on the bar.

Sara blushed. Irrationally, she thought of their conversation about Joanne Sutton the day before. She suddenly wished she had confided in him.

Ben was staring at an unremarkable bush. He turned to a patch of bare fiery sand. He picked up some mud, crumbling some of it, before bringing the rest up to his nose.

Gus jumped down to join him. ‘You see this bush.' He held a bare spiky branch. ‘It is a different colour from the other side. The rhino has brushed it very recently. And this is fresh dung.' He kicked the pile that Ben had assiduously held to his nose. ‘Look there is a lot of moisture in the dung and it's shining. It's a sign that the animal is very close.'

Ben walked round the other side and wandered back with his eye on the thick bush behind it. He spoke in rapid Afrikaans.

‘Okay, Ben,' Gus responded. ‘Ben says a mother and her baby and, possibly a male, were here early this morning. He is going to explore on foot. He's pretty sure that they are in this block. If you are happy with that, let's wait here and have some coffee, eh?'

Matt and Katherine stood close together holding hands, which didn't allow for a third, Alan and Lizzie chatted protectively to Connie, while Dan valiantly talked to
Julian. Sara took her coffee away from everyone else so as to not upset the tenuous balance of the group. Gus wandered up to her.

‘Don't talk to me, Gus, I'm under strict instructions not to upset you. Though I'm perfectly sure that you can look after yourself, despite being a young nipper.'

‘Nipper? What's that?'

‘Up north, we say nipper, meaning young boy.' She raised her eyebrows playfully. ‘But it can mean a dog.'

He shook his head.

‘How old are you anyway?'

He eyed her suspiciously. ‘Thirty-four, Sara. I'm not going to ask you how old you are, because it's totally irrelevant to me.'

She blushed. She deserved that.

‘Sorry, I can't help it.' She paused. ‘Joking is a bit of an addiction, I'm afraid.'

Gus kept his eyes on her in the way that he did, before murmuring, ‘Guaranteed to keep everyone at arm's length, eh?'

She struggled to think of what to say next.

‘Sara listen. This isn't the right moment, but since we are on our own.' He looked concerned, reached for her hand and pulled her close to him. ‘It's not great news.'

She had been about to shake him off, but instead she went limp. Her first thought was her mother. Had there been a phone call while she was out glamping? ‘What's wrong? Tell me. I can take it.' Could she?

‘Julian asked me to give you this note. He said it was urgent.'

She relaxed. ‘He wants to intervene with Connie. He's such a bastard.'

‘I don't think it's about Connie, Sara, eh. It's about your case.'

Sara unfolded the piece of paper and read it. ‘Alistair Bent,' she murmured.

She looked up at Gus. He waited.

‘He is a well-known legal journalist in London on
The Times
. And he is running an exclusive with the husband tomorrow. It's being pitched as a breaking story.'

‘What could he say that would change things?'

She didn't answer. What would Nigel say to Alistair when he had been acquitted? Why would he implicate her? Madly, Sara imagined that Joanne Sutton had stage-managed the whole scenario. To destroy Sara and her record of achievement. She was getting paranoid on top of everything else.

She didn't notice Gus was holding her hands, squeezing them tightly. She could feel the warmth and pressure, but didn't consider where it was coming from. She anticipated the possible repercussions. Those jealous of her success would seek to bring her down. She shook her hands free and pressed her fingers into her forehead. She needed to share what had happened with someone.

‘You can trust me, Sara.'

‘I made a big mistake. I was cornered.' Her desperation burst from her. ‘I've always done everything by the book, followed Best Practice always, always, always. I've worked so hard you can't imagine.' She was pleading for his understanding. ‘All my life, ever since I was at school.'

She expected Gus to be embarrassed by her lack of control. Instead he hugged her. A strong, silent hug, unfussy somehow. She rested her head on his shoulder. With her head touching the brush of his cotton, she started to tell him what happened.

‘Joanne Sutton called me. Literally hysterical. It was urgent that she saw me alone, she insisted. It's against the unwritten rules. I was stepping over a line, but I wanted to get her off the phone. I hate people getting emotional.'

Sara sighed out her regret. She could have rectified the situation, even at that point, but she didn't. As if he sensed it, he stroked her hair. It made it easier.

‘You met with her?'

Back to the garden.

‘She explained that her husband had done it. He had confessed to her. It was a mistake. He was giving Jade sleeping pills as they often did before they went out to the pub opposite their house. Only this time she didn't wake up.' Sara looked up defensively. ‘The first thing I asked her was why didn't she tell me this straight away.'

Gus nodded reassuringly.

‘She insisted that she didn't want to lose him as well. He was all she had. I asked her why she was telling me and she said…' Sara grimaced at Gus. ‘She said she needed to tell someone. “Tell a friend or the Samaritans,” I shouted. Can you believe that? She tells her fucking barrister?'

Gus nodded.

‘Of all the people in the world, she chose me.' Sara shook her head. ‘Hardly sympathetic. Her defence lawyer to boot. But there was more.'

‘Tell me, Sara,' Gus gently prompted.

‘She said that she thought I was the one person who would understand.'

‘Why did she think that?'

‘My dad disappeared when I was six. Jade's age.'

Gus was silent. She read his concern but he didn't expose it.

‘He walked out one morning and never came back. Somehow Joanne Sutton discovered that. I don't know how she did. I never talk to anyone about it.' In Sara's experience, confessions held huge risks. She tried for levity in an attempt to build up her armour. ‘Hardly your idyllic family set up.'

He said nothing.

‘Are you shocked?'

‘I'm shocked that a man could leave his wife and child. Not that it happened to you.'

‘Why? Do I wear my heart on my sleeve?' she quipped.

‘It's more like a film over your eyes.'

‘Here's the bit that will make your morality pale. It would have been okay, if she had been prepared to sign a statement to that effect. She insisted she couldn't.'

‘And you didn't walk away.' He was stroking her neck.

‘I could have represented her, but I had to inform her solicitor of her change of evidence.'

He was silent.

‘And I couldn't call her to give evidence.' Sara said. What she should have done. ‘It would mean misleading the court.'

She looked up and saw his intelligence.

‘What did you do?' He said it quietly. He couldn't possibly approve – she had let a man off the manslaughter of a defenceless child.

‘Firstly, she had no idea where the body was. Secondly, she didn't see him do it.' Of course her self-defence was feeble. ‘I persuaded her it was a mere supposition. Not based on facts or evidence. I wrote her script.'

‘Otherwise, you would have been fighting against Nigel Sutton and his lawyer?'

‘Exactly,' she seized on his words. ‘To avoid what we call a “cut-throat defence”. When nobody wins. And it's all about winning. It has to be. Do you see that?'

He was silent. She bowed her head and stepped away from him. Of course he was appalled. An eager ranger full of integrity, hope and a future with some untainted babe.

She realised she was rubbing her hands like Lady Macbeth.

‘Sara. You're going to be okay,' Gus gently separated her fingers. ‘You'll do the right thing, eh? You know that. Or you wouldn't be so tortured.'

He walked away from her. For the first time in such a long time, Sara was lonely.

They were baking hot and dishevelled. Even Katherine. Tracking the black rhino was one of the week's highlights. Katherine had been keen to see ‘rhino in their natural environment', as the brochure boasted, but as far as Matt was concerned the moment had passed. They were all low and distracted. Connie was a ghostly presence. Julian was immune to the tension he had created. Sara had had some sort of intimate moment with Gus – God knows what was going on there.

Matt had a slicing headache, a vicious reminder of the big downside to nights out with Luke, a surprisingly heavy drinker, considering his slight frame and evangelical exercise regime. It left Matt feeling maudlin, low all over again about Isobel. His baby girl.

Early that morning, while Matt nursed his hangover, Katherine had said out loud what he already knew. She wasn't prepared to try for another child. Her relationship with Dawn was too complex, too personal, she said. It brought up many issues for her. She couldn't do it again. He nodded bleakly. Deep down, he knew that they couldn't go through this again. It was clear they couldn't cope with surrogacy; it wasn't worth damaging their precious relationship.

But even so, losing Isobel, and the decision that he and Katherine had made, hadn't stopped the aching feeling he had for a child. He wanted to get back into bed, nurse his head and hurt in the latest twist in his fight for a family.

Instead, soaked with sweat, he was trudging through these itchy grasses in this unbearable heat trying to track an animal that, right now, he couldn't give a damn about. Matt had bricks in his boots. His tongue was furry. His safari hat dug into his forehead, making his head pound. He would have taken a short cut back to the vehicle, but they weren't allowed to separate. They were in single file. Gus was first then Julian, Sara, Dan and Lizzie and Alan. Katherine wanted to be at the front, but Matt couldn't keep up. Connie was at the back.

Gus gestured with his arm for them to stop. Obediently, they did. Here they were made docile and unquestioning, ultimately putting their lives in a young ranger's hands. Hysteria welled up inside him. He couldn't contain it. It came out in a snort that released the snot that had blocked his nose since dawn. Katherine immediately produced a tissue and passed it to him. Matt looked at her gratefully.

‘Matt, are you all right?' she sounded concerned.

He laughed. It came out as another snort.

Sara barked, ‘Shut up, Matt.'

Gus listened intently to his radio. He relayed that Ben had found a lone female nursing a one and a half year old calf in fairly dense bush about thirty metres ahead. ‘There is no wind, eh? Softly, quietly. Try not to disturb anything.'

Adrenalin passed like a current along the group's line. Matt stepped slightly to the side to see if he could spot the female. She was unnervingly invisible, which gave his empty stomach a jolt. He could see more dense bush, more tall grasses. Where was she? It was hard to believe that such an aggressive animal was calmly chilling out here.

They stepped gingerly forward, lifting each foot with exaggerated control, up and down. He could hear the grasses crush and crunch under their boots. They sounded too loud to him. He started to worry about the noise they were making.

Gus's left index finger jabbed at the grasses ahead, slightly to the right of them. The two horns of the mother pointed out of the grasses about twenty metres away, exquisitely camouflaged. The sight of them made his heart race. It was thrilling. Christ, how could he have doubted it? Let a hangover ruin this moment, one of those ‘life moments'. She was lying down. The curve of her grey beige back was visible, though not her calf.

Gus moved back down the line and spoke. ‘She is nursing her calf. It is rare to witness this.'

Sara looked as scared as he felt, which was gratifying. Underneath their manoeuvred careers and controlling personalities these fierce women were ultimately little girls. What would Annabel do if she was here? Run. For once, he thought about his ex-wife with satisfaction.

He stared at the black rhino. They were small and compact, the bland colour of an anaemic elephant. It was unnerving being on foot, sharing the same patch of sand as them.