The Grass is Singing (18 page)

She retired to the house, to the chickens and that ceaseless struggle with her servants. Both of them knew they were facing a challenge. And she waited. For the first years she had been waiting and longing in the belief, except for short despairing intervals, that somehow things would change. Something miraculous would happen and they would win through. Then she had run away, unable to bear it, and, returning, had realized there would be no miraculous deliverance. Now, again, there was hope. But she would do nothing but wait until Dick had set things going. During those months she lived like a person with a certain period to endure in a country she disliked: not making definite plans, but taking it for granted that once transplanted to a new place, things would settle themselves. She still did not plan what would happen when Dick made this money, but she day-dreamed continually about herself working in an office, as the efficient and indispensable secretary, herself in the Club, the popular elder confidante, herself welcomed in a score of friendly houses, or `taken out' by men who treated her with the comradely affection that was so simple and free from danger.

Time passed quickly, rushing upwards, as it does in those periods when the various crises that develop and ripen in each life show like hills at the end of a journey, setting a boundary to an era. As there is no limit to the amount of sleep to which the human body can be made to accustom itself, she slept hours every day, so as to hasten time, so as to swallow great gulps of it, waking always with the satisfactory knowledge that she was another few hours nearer deliverance. Indeed, she was hardly awake at all, moving about what she did in a dream of hope, a hope that grew so strong as the weeks passed that she would wake in the morning with a sensation of release and excitement, as if something wonderful was going to happen that very day.

She watched the progress of the block of tobacco barns that were being built in the vlei below as she might have watched a ship constructed that would carry her from exile. Slowly they took shape; first an uneven outline of brick, like a ruin; then a divided rectangle, like hollow boxes pushed together; and then the roof went on, a new shiny tin that glinted in the sunlight and over which the heat waves swam and shimmered like glycerine.

Over the ridge, out of sight, near the empty potholes of the vlei, the seedbeds were being prepared for when the rains would come and transform the eroded valley-bottom into a running stream. The months went past, until October. And though this was the time of the year she dreaded, when the heat was like an enemy, she endured it quite easily, sustained by hope. She said to Dick that the heat Wasn't so bad this year, and he replied that it had never been worse, glancing at her as he spoke with concern, even distrust. He could never understand her fluctuating dependence on the weather, an emotional attitude towards it that was alien to him. Since he submitted himself to heat and cold and dryness, they were no problems to him. He was their creature, and did not fight against them as she did.

And this year she felt the growing tension in the smoke dimmed air with excitement, waiting for the rains to fall which would have the tobacco springing in the fields. She used to ask Dick with an apparent casualness that did not deceive him, about other farmers' crops, listening with bright-eyed anticipation to his laconic accounts of how this one had made ten thousand pounds in a good season, and that one cleared off all his debts. And when he pointed out, refusing to respect her pretence at disinterestedness, that he had only two barns built, instead of the fifteen or twenty of a big farmer, and that he could not expect to make thousands, even if the season were good, she brushed this warning aside. It was necessary for her to dream of immediate success.

The rains came – unusually enough – exactly as they should, and settled comfortably into a soaking December. The tobacco looked healthy and green and fraught – for Mary – with promise of future plenty. She used to walk round the fields with Dick just for the pleasure of looking at its sturdy abundance, and thinking of those fiat green leaves transformed into a cheque of several figures.

"And then the drought began. At first Dick did not worry: tobacco can stand periods of dryness once the plants have settled into the soil. But day after day the great clouds banked up, and day after day the ground grew hotter and hotter. It was past Christmas, then well into January. Dick became morose and irritable, with the strain, Mary curiously silent. Then, one afternoon, there was a slight shower that fell, perversely, on only one of the two pieces of land which held the tobacco. Again the drought began, and the weeks passed without a sign of rain. At last the clouds formed, piled up, dissolved. Mary and Dick stood on their verandah and saw the heavy veils pass along the hills. Thin curtains of rain advanced and retreated over the veid; but on their farm it did not fall, not for several days after other farmers had announced the partial salvation of their crops. One afternoon there was a warm drizzle, fat gleaming drops falling through sunlight where a brilliant rainbow arched. But it was not enough to damp the parched ground. The withered leaves of the tobacco hardly lifted. Then followed days of bright sun.

`Well,' said Dick, his face screwed up in chagrin, `it is too late in any case.' But he was hoping that the field which had caught the first shower, might survive. By the time the rain fell as it should, most of the tobacco was ruined: there would be a little. A few mealies had come through: this year they would not cover expenses. Dick explained all this to Mary quietly, with an expression of suffering. But at the same time she saw relief written in his face. It was be cause he had failed through no fault of his own. It was sheer bad luck that could have happened to anyone: she could not blame him for it.

They discussed the situation one evening. He said he had applied for a fresh loan to save them from bankruptcy, and that next year he would not rely on tobacco. He would prefer to plant none; he would put in a little if she insisted. If they had another failure like this year, it would mean bankruptcy for certain.

In a last attempt Mary pleaded for another year's trial; they could not have two bad seasons running. Even to him, 'Jonah' (she made herself use this name for him, with an effort at sympathetic laughter), it would be impossible to send two bad seasons, one after another. And why not, in any case, get into debt properly? Compared with some others, who owed thousands, they were not in debt at all. If they were going to fail, let them fail with a crash, in a real attempt to make good. Let them build another twelve barns, plant out all the lands they had with tobacco, risk everything on one last try. Why not? Why should he have a conscience when no one else did?

But she saw the expression on his face she had seen before, when she had pleaded they might go for a holiday to restore themselves to real health. It was a look of bleak fear that chilled her. 'I'm not getting a penny more into debt than I can help,' he said finally. 'Not for anyone.' And he was obdurate; she could not move him.

And next year, what then?

If it was a good year, he said, and all the crops did well, and there was no drop in pripes, and the tobacco was a success, they would recover what they had lost that year. Perhaps it would mean a bit more than that. Who knew? His luck might turn. But he was not going to risk everything on one crop again until he was out of debt. Why, he said, his face grey, if they went bankrupt the farm would be lost to them! She replied, though she knew it was what wounded him most, that- she would be glad if that did happen: then they would be forced to do something vigorous to support themselves; and that the real reason for his complacency was that he knew, always, that even if they did reach the verge of bankruptcy, they could live on what they grew and their own slaughtered cattle.

The crises of individuals, like the crises of nations, are not realized until they are over. When Mary heard that terrible `next year' of the struggling farmer, she felt sick; but it was not for some days that the buoyant hope she had been living on died, and she felt what was ahead. Time, through which she had been living half-consciously, her mind on the future, suddenly lengthened out in front of her. `Next year' might mean anything. It might mean another failure. It would certainly mean no more than a partial recovery. The miraculous reprieve was not going to be granted. Nothing would change: nothing ever did.

Dick was surprised she showed so few signs of disappointment. He had been bracing himself to face storms of rage and tears. With the habit of long years, he easily adapted himself to the thought of `next year', and began planning accordingly. Since there were no immediate indications of despair from Mary, he ceased looking for them: apparently the blow had not been as hard as he had thought it would be.

But the effects of mortal shocks only manifest themselves slowly. It was some time before she no longer felt strong waves of anticipation and hopefulness that seemed to rise from the depths of herself, out of a region of her mind that had not yet heard the news about the tobacco failure. It took a long time before her whole organism was adjusted to what she knew was the truth: that it would be years, if ever, before they got off the farm.

Then followed a time of dull misery: not the sharp bouts of unhappiness that were what had attacked her earlier. Now she felt as if she were going soft inside at the core, as if a soft rottenness was attacking her bones.

For even day-dreams need an element of hope to give satisfaction to the dreamer. She would stop herself in the middle of one of her habitual fantasies about the old days, which she projected into her future, saying dully to herself that there would be no future.

There was nothing. Nil. Emptiness.

Five years earlier she would have drugged herself by the reading of romantic novels. In towns women like her live vicariously in the lives of the film stars. Or they take up religion, preferably one of the more sensuous Eastern religions. Better educated, living in the town with access to books, she would have found Tagore perhaps, and gone into a sweet dream of words.

Instead, she thought vaguely that she must get herself something to do. Should she increase the number of her chickens? Should she take in sewing? But she felt numbed and tired, without interest. She thought that when the next cold season came, and stung her into life again, she would do something. She postponed it: the farm was having the same effect on her that it had had on Dick; she was thinking in terms of the next season.

Dick, working harder than even on the farm, realized at last that she was looking worn, with a curious puffy look about her eyes, and patches of red on her cheeks. She looked really very unhealthy. He asked her if she were feeling ill. She replied, as if only just becoming aware of it, that she was. She was suffering from bad headaches, a lassitude that might mean she was ill. She seemed to be pleased, he noted, to think that illness could be the cause.

He suggested, since he could not afford to send her for a holiday, that she might go into town and stay with some of her friends. She appeared horrified. The thought of meeting people, and most particularly those people who had known her when she was young and happy, made her feel as if she were raw all over, her nerves exposed on a shrinking surface.

Dick went back to work, shrugging his shoulders at her obstinacy, hoping that her illness would pass.

Mary was spending her days moving restlessly about the house, finding it difficult to sit still. She slept badly at nights. Food did not nauseate her, but it seemed too much trouble to eat. And all the time it was as if there were thick cotton wool in her head, and a soft dull pressure on it from outside. She did her work mechanically, attending to her chickens and the store, keeping things running out of habit. During this time she hardly ever indulged in her old fits of temper against her servant. It was as if, in the past, these sudden storms of rage had been an outlet for an unused force, and that, as the force died, they became unnecessary to her. But she still nagged: that had become a habit, and she could not speak to a native without irritation in her voice.

After a while, even her restlessness passed. She would sit for hours at a time on the shabby old sofa with the faded chintz curtains flapping above her head, as if she were in a stupor. It seemed that something had finally snapped inside of her, and she would gradually fade and sink into darkness.

But Dick thought she was better.

Until one day she came to him with a new look on her face, a desperate, driven look, that he had never seen before, and asked if they might have a child. He was glad: it was the greatest happiness he had ever known from her, because she asked it, of her own accord, turning to him – so he thought. He thought she was turning to him at last, and expressing it this way. He was so glad, filled with a sharp delight, that for a moment he nearly agreed. It was what he wanted most. He still dreamed that one day, `when things were better', they could have children. And then his face became dull and troubled, and he said, 'Mary, how can we have children?

'Other people have them, when they are poor.' `But, Mary, you don't know how poor we are.'

`Of course I know. But I can't go on like this. I must have something. I haven't anything to do.'

He saw she was desiring a child for her own sake, and that he still meant nothing to her, not in any real way. And he replied obdurately that she had only to look around her to see what happened to children brought up as theirs would be brought up.

'Where?’ she asked vaguely, actually looking around the room as if these unfortunate children were visible there, in their house.

He remembered how isolated she was, how she had never become part of the life of the district. But this irritated him again. It had been years before she stirred herself to find out about the farm; after all this time she still did not know how people lived all around them – she hardly knew the names of their neighbours. 'Have you never seen Charlie's Dutchman?'