Set in Port Alfred, Eastern Cape, South Africa in a recent
decade, this robust work flexes history, racial divides, landscapes and
cultures, delving into the politics and religion of a numinous heartland.
Elements include home-schooling, plain living, materialism, the Christian
faith, sexuality and adventure.
First Chapter of a new novel
(The High Dunes) by Garth King.
Chapter 1
Tall and strong, the young woman stared into the dappled
shade of the coastal bush. The pupils of her large hazel eyes dilated beneath
thick dark eyelashes and pronounced,
naturally and sharply dilineated black eyebrows.
The spread splash of dark freckles on her nose creased as a
little trickle of beading sweat tickled her face. Slowly, silent as a cat, she
began to move forwards towards a clearing nearby, where a flock of giuinea
fowls were peacefully foraging.
The soft cotton of her long, dark blue dress, pulled in at
the waist by an ornate stout, wide brown leather belt, gently waved in breeze
as she stood with legs well apart and drew an arrow in a fluid backward reach
to the leather pouch and placed it in the yellowwood bow. Aiming for the fat
torso of a big male in the flock, she drew the arrow back and focused intently
on the target. She regulated her breathing and then held utterly still, somehow
imagining herself as the bright steel tip.
The polished mahogany shaft flashed in the sunlight as it
pierced the bird with a soft, liquid crunch. The rest of the flock raucously
flapped and careered off into the bush, shrieking out their wild metallic cries
as Eve exhaled and approached her prize, a nice fat fowl, she noted. She found
the arrow in a nearby mound of sand, wiped the viscera off the shaft and tip on
some nearby leaves, rubbed it vigorously in some soft dry sand before polishing
it again with a soft leather cloth and
placed it back into the pouch.
Gently she picked up the dead bird, with its bizarre and
comical little blue head, and said “I'm sorry fellow creature. It's either you
or the torture of some poor little anaemic medicated battery bird wrapped in
petrol-plastic for the masses at the Grab and Go.” She then held the carcass
and lovingly kissed the little blue head and looked up at the blue sky: “Thanks
Father for this free bird which you have given me. I will use it well.”
She then took hold of the still-warm bird and began to pluck
its feathers. She knew that the feathers came out much more easily when the
body was still warm. It was a time-consuming process and she worked away for an
hour in the sunshine and soon a pile of guinea-fowl feathers grew, revealing
the pink-grey hide. When she had finished, Eve chose the biggest and best of
the feathers – her father like to use them sometimes when he added some natural
panache to the men's leather hats, or even incorporating feathers into exotic
leather belts he made on occasion.
Eve then picked up her leather satchel lying nearby and
placed the stripped bird in it, placed the burden on her shoulders next to the
arrow pouch and placed the bow across her chest, before striding off back home.
As she walked along the quiet flat topped hill on the
outskirts of the town of Port Alfred in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, Eve
gazed at the blue Indian Ocean below, its azure surface dotted with thousands
upon thousands of white water crests as the south-easterly wind began to pick
up in the early afternoon.
She was glad no one was about. The sight of her with her
outrageous hunting outfit often resulted in unwelcome attention: boisterous
comments, questions about what she was “up to” and teasing from men, especially
young men, which annoyed her intensely. Some of them knew of her and mocked
her, saying loudly to each other: “There goes the home school freak” or “here
comes the weird hippie chick”. There were times when she felt tempted to load
up an arrow and let fly in response.
Soon, she saw the old stone cottage set in a large and wild
unkempt garden where she lived with her father Don Hammer. Attached to the
cottage was an old converted barn which was Don's carpentry and leather work
studio, where she spent most of his time. As she entered the front gate she
heard the sound of his manual sawing – Don prided himself in using only old
hand-held tools and had spent decades collecting and restoring antique drills,
saws, chisels, bench planes, spokeshaves, ratchet braces, files and rasps and
the like.
Eve put her hands together, cupping her hands, pursing her
lips and blowing into the cup between her two thumbs, a signature dove call
greeting she used only for her dad. Don lifted his head, smiling broadly, his
long curly red hair and long beard crowned with slivers of white-gold oak wood
shavings.
Eve walked through the open green door. “Hello daddy,” she
said, as she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him on the lips. Then she
stood back and laughed at him. “You look like some sort of crazed archangel
with a strange orange helmet,” she giggled, brushing the shavings off his head.
Don's bright blue eyes shone even brighter as he looked at his eighteen year
daughter, his only child.
“Have you got our dinner?” he asked, guessing from her smile
that indeed she had. Eve took off her baggage and opened up the satchel to
reveal the fat bird. Don whistled. “A beauty,” he said. “I can't wait. We've
been piscatarians for two weeks and I'm in the mood for a good tough fowl.
How're you going to cook it Eve? I suggest a slow bake – the bird looks quite
old.”
“I thought I'd fire up the Aga and cook it in the cast iron
pot with some sheep lard and onions and potatoes. I'd better start preparing
the carcass if we're going to have it for supper. How's the big oak table
coming along?” “Ach slowly. Slow work, slow food, slow life, that's how I like
it, Eve,” he said, laughing gently. “You know. Those rich folk need it for their
holiday home at the marina. The concrete monstrosity that they'll visit very
third year or so in between their visits to Disneyland and Mauritius. I told
them it'll take me months to finish – and they still write to me every other
week to try and hurry me along. Sometimes I wish we didn't have a postal
address.”
Eve chortled. “That's my daddy! Slow food coming up, Sir!”
she saluted, military style, put up her bow and arrows on a hook near the door
and made her way to the kitchen where she found a sharp knife. Shen then put on
a large striped blue worker's apron to protect her dress and made her way with
the carcass to the butcher's block at the end of the garden, underneath a vast
coral tree.
Eve put the bird on the block and slipped the knife under
the skin at the bottom of the neck and cut up to the head, severing and
removing the neckbone. She then inserted the index finger of her right hand
into the cavity, moving it around inside and severing all the innards. She cut
between the vent and the tail, being careful not to sever the rectum and cut
right around the vent and separated it from the body, carefully drawing out the
vent, with attached guts, out of the tail end. The gizzard, lungs and heart
followed the guts and she expertly removed the crop from the neck end of the
bird. She then cut off the black-grey claws
When the butchery was complete she carefully set the offal
and other edible parts she didn't want to eat aside, fetching a large bucket,
filling it with water from the rainwater tank and proceeded to wash the carcass
inside and out thoroughly, then washing and rinsing the left-overs too. The crop and its contents and the intestines
she buried quite deep under their lemon tree.
Taking the cleaned meat to the kitchen she placed some
eucalypt firewood into the Aga stove burner, stoking the embers vigorously
until it flared up nicely, enveloping the cool late summer air in the kitchen
with a pleasant, wood-smoky warmth. She found the flat bottomed iron pot and
went looking for the block of sheep fat in the thick-walled cold store pantry
just outside the kitchen door, which
even in summer remained evenly cool. She took about a cup of sheep fat there
and placed it in the pot, which she put on top of the stove to melt.
When the lard was sizzling she placed the guinea-fowl into
the pot to brown with seven washed potatoes and after a while she flipped them
over, browning them on the other side before putting the lid on and placing it
in the oven, checking to see that the oven wasn't too hot. The bird needed a
nice slow bake. She put the left-over bits on a metal try in the oven too,
cooking them for the neighbour's every-hungry little dog, who came to visit now
and then. Eve then went outside and checked the position of the sun. It was
mid-afternoon, she noted. Supper should be ready before nightfall. I've got
time for a hair wash and bath she thought, remembering that she hadn't washed
her hair for at least a week. Her hands were still sticky from the guinea-fowl
flesh and viscera, she needed a good scrub.
On the Aga stove, as always, a large pot of rainwater was
already hot, not too hot, and she dragged out the old tin bath from its place
in the in the corner of the unsually large pantry and placed it close to the
stove. She then decanted the hot water from the pot, into the tub, using an
ancient enamalled metal pitcher.
Eve, knowing for certain that her father would only emerge
from his workshop when she called him to supper, slowly removed her blue frock,
which she noted was soiled with little smears of the fowl's blood.
She closed the door of the kitchen to shut out the cool late
afternoon air and began to unravel the thick, long fuzzy cord of her single
black plait before placing her white undergarments on the floor, neatly
slipping her light brown body into the steaming liquid. Dunking her head into
the water she closed her eyes as the delicious warmth enclosed her and lifted
her heart with pleasure.
Listening to the softly bubbling pot in the stove, the
occasional crackle of the fire, she felt a sense of deep and natural
satisfaction. Such was the intensity of it that little tears plopped
unexpectedly out of her closed eyes.
After a while she felt on the floor for the glass shampoo
bottle and began to wash her hair, the long muscles of her back and arms
rippling. She rinsed her hair repeatedly and then began some hard loofah and
soap scrubbing of her skin before fetching some clean water from the pot on the
stove, and rinsing herself thoroughly, standing up in all her powerful beauty.
Stepping out the tub she dried her skin with a rough, large
white towel, put on her jeans, white t-shirt and a checked cotton shirt and sat
on the padded bench next to the stove,
drying her hair, standing and whipping her long hair backwards and forwards as
droplets sprayed and hissed on the stove. Shen then placed a dry towel on her
shoulders and brushed her wild damp locks into submission, finally splaying out
the magnificent curly mane on her shoulders, cuddling up so close to the stove
that the drying hair sent little puffs of steam into the kitchen, the fragrant
smell of the raw soap and rosemary-infused shampoo mingling with the delicious
aroma of cooking sheep fat, potatoes and the wild, aromatic fragrance of
coastal bush-fed guinea-fowl.
Once her hair was almost dry she decanted the soapy water in
the tub into a bucket and lugged the water to the thirsty lemon tree, deposting
it there until the tub was empty and stored it back in its place, stowing her
dirthy clothes in the wash basket and tidying up the kitchen in readiness for
the supper.
With that she laid a deep red thick cotton cloth on the
poplar wood table in the kitchen and set out the cutlery and crockery and a
wine glass for her father. Eve opened the oven door and with oven gloves she
pulled out the iron pot and placed it on the stove top, removing the lid and
inspecting the fowl and potatoes. She found a long fork and pierced the bird
and watched the bubbling out of clear liquid from the little holes made by the
fork. Done. She then spooned up the sheep fat and basted the bird and the
potatoes thoroughly, moving the pot to the hottest part of the stove where it
would receive a final half-hour crisping and turning.
When the meal was ready, Eve made her way to her dad's
workshop. “Supper's ready poppa. Let's hope the old bird's not too tough.” Don
smiled at his daughter and made his way to the rainwater tank tap outside,
where he washed his hands with some soap and dried them on his old jeans before
making his way to the kitchen. Eve had already placed the fowl on a platter
with the potatoes and Don began carving. The carving knife went through the
flesh easily and he dished for both of them. “Hungry as usual?” asked Don. “Yes
daddy,” said Eve, sensing the rise of water in her mouth.
Don poured himself a cheap white wine from a large glass jug
and took a swig. “Brilliant. A royal feast – hunted, butchered and cooked by
the most beautiful, most brilliant young woman ever known to man.” Eve laughed
as they consumed with relish one of the best wild fowls they had ever tasted,
its succulent and surprisingly tender flesh infused with the tang of the
coastal vegetation and the wild scraps of veld seeds, insects, berries and
grass, complemented magnificently by the crispy mutton-fat potatoes.
“Sorry,” said Eve in between mouthfuls. “No salad tonight.”
“No worries,” said Don. “You know I'm a meat and potatoes man.” Mostly they sat
together in silence, munching together companionably, Don taking second
helpings and a few more glasses of wine.
When they had finished Don reached for his pipe and dug out
some tobacco from a soft leather pouch, lighting up with a match and spewing
out great billows of stinking rum and maple smoke. Eve loved the smell. It was
part of her evenings with her dad. They both sank back into their high-backed
leather and raw wool cushioned chairs. Don looked at his daughter earnestly.
“Your mother called me today when you were out. She wants to see you again.
She's coming around tomorrow. This time she is even more determined to get you
to go to university next year. Basically she's insisting on it.”
Eve sighed deeply and looked troubled and irritated. Her
father and mother had somehow separated when she was a baby and the ongoing
battles between her parents were a source of
vexation. “She didn't seem to want me around when I was little. Why does
she want to claim me now?”
Don replied: “Ach my girl be loving and polite when she
comes. I'll try and behave, even if severely provoked by the mad materialist,”
he said with a sad smile. “Tell her what's on your mind and listen carefully to
what she says. Don't be in a hurry to reject any suggestions she makes about
your future. It may not be a bad idea to study at a big university in a big city for a while. It'll at least
give you some perspective on your life here.”
“But dad, what would I want to study? You've taught me to
read, to write, to do arithmetic. You've read all sorts of great books to me
since little. You still do. You've taught me how to work with leather and wood,
you've taught me how to hunt and cook and paddle on the ocean and do all sorts
of things for myself. What do I need to study for?” “Ach my child. What I
haven't given you much of is society, other people. Friends. We've been living
in Port Alfred for 15 years, since you were three and we spend most of our time
together. Home education has been great but as you know I worry about your
social skills – they're much like mine, dormant and somewhat disinterested.
After you, my friends are pieces of wood and leather objects.”
Don went silent for a while and then said: “What I haven't
shown you is God. What God is, I don't know properly. Frankly I don't even know
if I'm an agnostic or someone who simply adores nature. I don't understand much
about Him. I feel His presence when I work with wood. I know it sounds strange,
but I sometimes imagine I can smell him in the wood, especially when I'm
planing olive and cypress. I sense His presence when we're on the ocean
together, feeling those big swells lift us and propel us. I feel Him somehow,
but I don't know Him. How can nature exist without a guiding, originating force
behind it? I don't know Him, except obliquely in relation to nature.
“Anyhow, your mother's coming tomorrow for lunch and she
said not to worry – she'll bring some food. How long has it been since you saw
Lindiwe? Five years? I can't remember?”
“I was about 13, Dad. I remember thinking that she was this strange black
African lady, all expensive petrol perfumes and hair fixers and lotions and
long painted false nails. Her face was a mask of pencilled eyebrows, make-up
... and her clothes! She looked like one of those gangsta rap women I saw on TV
once, all popping out boobs and a great big heaving and swaying rump. I almost
expected her to start some pelvic thrusting.” Don laughed heartily. “I see I've
been successful in implanting my prejudices. My girl ... do your best to be
respectful and kind tomorrow. For once she seems to be reaching out to you
after all these years of living the affirmative action high life circus in our
so-called new democracy. I think she is beginning to get some perspective now
that she's in her 40s. Maybe she's all partied-out. Lost her mojo or whatever
it is, or was, propelling her.”
“Tell me again dad, about when you met her and what happened
after that, please,” said Eve. Don sighed. Ever since she was a little girl,
she asked her father this question regularly and she never tired of hearing the
stories. Don was almost always reluctant to tell his version of events, because
it meant admitting some hard truths to himself as well, and it meant gliding
over some pernicious periods of his life, over some wild behaviour patterns in
his youth which he did not want to share in fine detail. Simply because he
wanteds to protect her. He didn't want to tempt her into similar behaviour
cycles. But as Eve got older, he every so often included more descriptions of
events, as her age and senstivities allowed.
This time, he thought, he'd better give her some fuller
recollections. She's eighteen now – a young adult – in reality an
“eight-year-old adult”. (Someone once told him that adulthood starts at 10 – ie
an 11-year-old is a one-year-old adult, a notion which stuck to him ever since)
And the historic occasion of her mother's visit tomorrow seemed to perfectly
coincide with some new revelations.
Don pondered the
rustic kitchen – the heart of their little home – at the Aga stove, the three
candles on the olive wood candelabra flickering, the thick and bare whitewashed
walls, the simple poplar plank table and sturdy oregon pine chairs, the painted
green stable door standing open, letting in puffs of cool salty air, the bamboo
ceiling with its poplar beams, the polished yellowood floorboards, he felt the
waves of heat emanating from the stove, he smiled at the little jug of heavy
jasmine blooms collected by Eve the day before to decorate the table, he heard
the cracking of the corrugated iron roof as it contracted in the cool night, he
listened to the the faint, distant roar of the big surf and plunged right into
his former life determined to speak the truth plain and simple -- without too
much unwise detail.
Eve watched her dad as he put a few more little bluegum logs
in the oven's fire and slowly reached for his favourite corn cob pipe. His blue
eyes, red-bearded face and curly flaming mane disappeared into a great cloud of
tobacco smoke and then reappeared as he leaned forward to take another swig of
white wine.
She settled down to hear those familiar details, looking
forward, as always, to new details and some answers to her questions. “Put some
cofffee on the boil, please Eve,” he said. As Eve decanted water and ground
coffee beans in the old-fasioned steel percolator, Don began:
“Your mother was just a little older than you in the 1980s
when I first saw her in Grahamstown, where I was, as you know, working as an
apprentice carpenter. Being a surfer too I had a few Rhodes University buddies
who were also into surfing and so it was I would occasionally go to some
student parties. At some of them I went to there were many politicised students
and quite a few really radical and at times really unpleasant black students,
some of whom seemed to take delight in arrogantly abusing their white peers by
stealing from them, insulting them, manipulating their white guilt, drinking
their wine and beer excessively. Some of the more berserk black guys made a
point of drunkenly and crudely trying to seduce the white girls and when
rebuffed would start accusing them of being racists. One Zulu guy even told me:
'It's my culture to force girls to have sex.'
“Drunkeness and drug-taking in the context of national
upheaval and political debate is and was a spectacularly bad idea. Generally
speaking this new mixing of cultures was quite toxic. In retrospect, though, I
feel today that the conflict was between socio-economic classes, mixed in with
cultural distortions and launguage misunderstandings, rather than simple racial
conflict. Young folk from improverished rural and township backgrounds, whose
English was poor, and whose schooling was minimal, were hard to understand and
deal with. And they were so damn angry and nervous, had little self-knowledge
and who were dealing with inferiority complexes which morphed into a bizarre
protective arrogance – and this goes on today. White students, especially
politicised ones, were eager to embrace, but didn't have the intellectual
capacity, emotional balance or sure foundation
to do so coherently.”
“Ja dad,” said Eve good naturedly, “I've heard you
pontificate about these things before. Get to the nitty-gritty of the story of
mom and you.”
“Black women in that context were another enigma altogether.
It was one thing for macho black guys to try their luck with white ladies,
somehow it was another planet when white guys started paying romantic attention
to black women. And by 'black women' I mean 'African women', in the context of
Grahamstown it was mostly Xhosa women. Coloured woman and Indian women were
quite another story then – and now, mostly. For some reason white guys were
really reluctant to engage on that level – partially because this somehow
enraged some of the black guys, who used to say things like 'leave our women
alone, whitey'.
“At any rate I used to watch this fascinating circus on the
sidelines, not really wanting to engage, but I enjoyed watching this angst and
bizarre behaviour, adopting a sort of cool surfer dude dislocation from the
madness, which was I suppose an aloof naivete of sorts. The rude arrogance of
people is sometimes quite comical and I sometimes had a good laugh to myself.
“Anyhow, I went to this party and it was the first time I
saw your mom. She was pretty. So pretty. Lovely shiny brown skin like creamy
coffee-coloured satin. A nice tidy feminine and natural Afro hairstyle, unusual
even then. Her full lips were a slash of bright red and she had long red nails.
Jet black eyes which one couldn't penetrate. She had this full-blooded African
female body, large breasts and big hips with those lovely 'saddle bags'. I
remember she was wearing an African traditional embroidered skirt and a t-shirt
which said 'No education without liberation', which I thought rich, considering
she was at university.
“For some reason which I can never remember we started
talking. Maybe it was something silly like 'where's the toilet?'.” Lindiwe
didn't seem connected to anybody at the party and I followed her around like a
puppy, eventually dancing with her to songs like Bob Marley's monotonous and so
drastically overplayed 'Stand up get up, stand up for your rights'. I didn't
care about the music, I just wanted to dance with her.
“I asked for her name. She said 'Lindiwe Matakani' in this
rich, mellow voice. 'Hello,' I said. 'I'm Don Sheard. Not a student.
Colonialist-imperialist and settler. I'm being taught to cut wood to make
little tables and chairs by an old white man with arthritis' or something along
those lines. She seemed to find that amusing, which impressed me. To be frank,
Eve, in the course of that evening I boozily persuaded myself that Lindiwe was
the hottest thing that ever pranced about on two legs and I made very effort I
could to engage her physically. I was a stupid and naïve boy with no sexual
experience to speak of and now this exotic chocolate delight was in front of me
and seemed to want to be in my company, despite my bright orange head, scraggly
red Bob Dylan beard and my humble status.
“In the course of the evening of that student digs house
party we hardly talked, the music was so loud that we ended up sceaming into
each other's ears questions like 'How old are you?' and 'Where do you come
from?' and 'What are you studying?'. Half the time I couldn't understand what
she was saying and I would just throw my head back and smile or laugh inanely,
as if she had made some kind of a joke. I found out that she was studying
journalism and she affirmed it was the duty of the new South Africa to make her
the editor of a national newspaper before she was 25 years old, so typical of
the crushing sense of entitlement which still bedevils our society today.”
“Dad!” said Eve. “Back to the story. No preachy interludes!”
Eve stood up and poured the coffee, adding cream and two spoons of brown sugar
in the white mug, just like her dad loved it. Don sipped the coffee and lit up
another bowlful of tobacco. “I tell you these things not because I'm proud of
them, but because this is your history too, in all its gory. I don't want to
give you the idea that I necessarily revel in what I and your mother did. I
most certainly do not want you to emulate this kind of behaviour. I don't want
you to repeat my mistakes. I tell you these things also as warning about how
actions have infinite and very difficult and painful consequences.”
“Yes dad,” Eve said wearily. “You know I know that. Of
course I know. Do you think I'm crazy? You've educated me so differently. It
makes me glad that you feel you can share these things with me. Please pater,
continue,” said Eve.
“Anyhow, the night wore on and Lindiwe and I both had
generous quantities of beer to drink – some rich dude had provided many crates
and the students were giving it a good tonk . We went outside and soon we were
kissing each other on a huge hard wood garden bench in the moonlight, the party
far away. It didn't stop there. It didn't stop. In the garden that night Eve,
you were conceived. Perversely, as happens so often in these matters, there was
regret and painful sober reality to deal with in the morning. I was unable to
develop the relationship in any way, and Lindiwe made great efforts to avoid me
from then on. When I saw her I didn't know what to say to her. I had no
words. There was an almost total
dislocation. I also think that Lindiwe was ashamed of her 'junior whitey
carpenter affair' and was simply determined to get on with her career, without
annoying hindrances.”
Eve was then amazed to see tears in her father's eyes. “Dad!
What's wrong?” “Ach my child. I'm sad for your sake – how you've been deprived
of a mother. I also remember now, after
all these long years, some of the tenderness of that night and its wild and
exotic charms. Young and foolish people giving way to a wrecking passion. Be
warned dear Eve.”
“Ja dad. Don't worry you old thing! I'm not going that
route. I've seen what happens!” said Eve.
“Of course you know some of the rest of the story – how your
mother was pregnant, much to her earth-shattering surprise. To cut a long and
bitter story short, she was whisked away to some hideaway by a wealthy benefactor -- and she had our
little Eve in some little hospital in the north. After brief, painful and
awkward deliberation between your mother and I it was decided, to avoid
'disgrace' in her family, that I should take up the responsibility of you. She
signed papers giving me full custodial and gaurdian rights. She even let me
choose your name.
“To this day, I am surprised as to how she managed to keep
the pregnancy a secret from her family –
if they had found out I'm sure they
would've looked me up and dealt with me somehow, insisting that I pay lobola
(bride price). Perhaps this wasn't an option which would have worked anyway,
because this whitey didn't have two rands to rub together most of the time –
and their daughter was destined for greatness and wealth in the new apartheid
regime, the Noo South Africa. You and I were kinda in the way of all that. The
oldest university-educated daughter of an aristocratic Xhosa clan chief wasn't
supposed to hunker down with some poor artisan.”
Don stopped talking and took a final swig of his coffee. He
fell silent, thinking of the years of Eve's childhood and the intermittent,
painful and brief contacts Lindiwe had made with them as her fast-tracked
career had sped ever onwards, stepping on the heads of white males,
jet-propelled by “gender equity”, “black economic empowerment”, African
National Congress cadre deployment, “affirmative action”, mixed in with jobs
for pals in the inner circle. Lindiwe was now the press spokesman for a
national government department In
addition to earning a massive salary, she was invited by two large
multinational companies, hunting aggressively for influence and cache within
the ruling ANC oligarchy, to serve on
their boards. She had travelled the world routinely on state and company
junkets, had palatial homes in Cape Town and
Johannesburg, and was awash in shares and big bank accounts. Don knew,
because she had shared this information with him triumphantly over the years.
But it was a triumphalism that seemed to be expressed in undertones of
increasing bleakness.
Don did not envy
hert. Lindiwe, for all her riches and glory, was still childless – and now she
wanted her daughter back. A daughter she barely knew. A wild and idiosyncratic
home-educated daughter who was as unlike her as it was possible to be.
Over the years, as the biological clock ticked away
relentlessly, procreation and connection with offspring was routinely
sacrificed on the altar of worldly success. Lindiwe's child-bearing
opportunities were over, all the members of her immediate family were dead,
most of her friends were glitzy celebs, hard-wired to materalism, the
'goddess-within' and opulent lifestyles.
The long loops of time have a way of focusing the mind on
eternity.
Eve sat back in her chair, looking at the stars through the
open door. She had heard some of what her dad had said before – except for the
conception detail, the party and some elements of the secretive birth. Her
history stirred within her and she suddenly and unexpectedly felt her eyes fill
with tears. Don noted this and walked up to his daughter, embracing her gently.
“Your mom needs you, I suspect, perhaps more than you need her, now. Give her a
chance to relate to you. Look for an opprtunity to show her some love. But
don't let her bully or manipulate you. Whatever you decide to do after her
visit tomorrow, do it with your whole heart and remember – I'm here at home.
Your home. You will always be welcome here. Your dad will be here, waiting,
with his arms open wide, whatever happens between you and your mother.”
