Tim clambered down the rocky outcrop and reached his bakkie as his cell phone began ringing. He snatched it off the seat without even looking at the caller ID. “Sinclair,” he answered tersely, aware of his heavy breathing.
“Tim?”
He exhaled slowly, steadying his racing pulse. “Edna! I’m glad I didn’t miss your call. I’ve just been looking for signs of Klipspringer. Nothing there though.” He spoke quickly, providing unnecessary information to fill the void. Edna was either crying or very angry. He couldn’t yet tell which.
“Still answering the call of the wild, Tim.” The flat statement was delivered in a tremulous voice. She had obviously been crying and was angry: he was in trouble.
Tim looked up at the canopy of trees casting dappled shade on the hot bonnet of his bakkie. He leaned back against the warm metal and answered as levelly as he could. “I invited you to come with me Edna. You knew I would be away for a while.”
Silence.
“Edna?” He could hear her weeping quietly. Her stifled sobs washed into his ear.
“It’s been three weeks, Tim.” Edna took in a deep breath and exhaled loudly. “That is a long time. I can’t help wondering if you may have found someone else, that –”
“Don’t be daft!” Tim shook his head at the scudding clouds above. “I’m coming home Edna.”
“You may be too late.” Again, he could hear the shuddering hiccups following a bout of crying.
“What do you mean?” His voice hardened. “Don’t play silly games with me, Edna.”
“My Dad has booked me a ticket to London. He says I need to make a new life for myself instead of waiting for your beck and call.”
Tim kicked a stone. Her father had never approved of him going away to conduct research in the field, even though he was earning a solid reputation for the quality of the papers he presented at conferences. “When are you supposed to be leaving?”
“On the 13th. I’m driving to Cape Town on Thursday to spend a couple of days with Lynette.”
Tim sighed and wiped away the trickle of sweat running down his cheek. “I love you, Edna – always have.”
“I know.” Silence. “Oh, Tim. I don’t know what to do. You know how determined my father can be. I just wish my mother was still alive.”
“I need to see you, Edna. Perhaps Lynette can talk some sense into you. Don’t leave without me!”
As she outlined her travel plans, Edna’s voice grew lighter.
Tim drove past wide expanses of open grassland, low hills taking on a blue hue in the distance, and counted each windmill he passed along the way. The end of an era, he told himself. So many of them were no longer in working order: such a sad testimony to the positive legacy of the power of wind that had brought water to homesteads and livestock all over the country for decades.
He overnighted in a small self-catering cottage and cooked a steak over an open fire, then downed a beer. It didn’t matter that the shower was cold – it was his own fault that he had forgotten to switch the geyser on.
Edna waved goodbye to her friends, Leon and Petra. Her grip tightened on the steering wheel: she shouldn’t have had that glass of wine with lunch. Leon had assured her it wouldn’t matter: it wouldn’t make a difference to her driving. Perhaps not, but her mind was in a whirl and it worried her that Petra had been so scathing about the way Tim left her for a couple of weeks at a time.
“I would never turn down a free ticket to London! Your Dad is right, you know. What’s the point of loving someone who spends so much time away.”
Tim had assured her his absences would only continue until the end of the year. Leon and Petra had enjoyed the tales of his adventures, so why the change of attitude? Was Petra jealous of the free ticket to London? Soon after she had pulled out of their driveway and nosed her car in the direction of Cape Town, Edna recalled the week she had spent with Tim in the Tsitsikamma Coastal National Park. Then, she had spent the mornings writing up her Master’s thesis while he searched the forests for fungi. They would walk to the Storms River Mouth every afternoon, cross the suspension bridge and spend time sitting on the rocky beach, watching the waves while chatting about the progress made during the day.
She had teased him about his daily outfit of faded jeans and the dark green anorak he wore in the forest. He always carried a day pack containing notebooks and his camera as well as a bottle of water and a few snacks. They would call in at the camp shop to buy food for their supper on their way home. Occasionally, they had booked a table at the restaurant …
Tim sipped his fruit juice and tried Edna’s number again. Nothing. She must have switched off her phone, he mused as he poured over the road map spread out on his lap.
“Where are you?” He asked bluntly when she finally answered against the background of people chatting nearby.
“Tim!” She sounded surprised. “I’ve just been buying some cheeses for Lynette at the Ossewa Kaasmakerij. You know how she loves different cheeses.” She paused for a moment then the other voices receded. “Where are you?”
“I’m coming to find you.” Tim was catching up to her. Looking at his map, he reckoned they must be about an hour away from each other. He had had no time to appreciate the beauty of the landscape he had been passing through. “Edna,” there was a strong tone of urgency in his voice. “Don’t go straight to Lynette. Stop along the road and I will find you!”
“I must, Tim. She’s going to keep my car.”
“Edna, listen to me. Find a safe place to stop at the side of the road. I’ll be with you in about an hour.” Tim switched his phone to flight mode – nothing was to distract him. He kept his vehicle at the speed limit, hardly noticing the build-up of traffic; only that the double lanes gave him the room he needed to forge ahead.
Bronwyn Hugo rubbed her eyes and gripped the steering wheel tighter. Even with the air conditioner blowing into the car at full blast, she felt uncomfortably hot – and worried. She turned to her teenage son in the passenger seat. “How far does Google maps say we’ve got to go before we turn off to the farm?”
“Twenty-seven kilometres.” He sounded sullen. They both were: her husband’s maiden great-aunt, Simone, had announced out of the blue that she planned to visit her South African family during the Canadian winter. “Do we have to have her for three weeks, Mom?”
“Yes, we do, darling. Uncle David and Aunt Rowena have hosted her for a month already. We’re lucky that her Canadian friends want her to join them in the Kruger Park, or we’d have had her for longer. Let that cheer you up!”
Bronwyn blinked away the still unshed tears. This visit meant that their own holiday plans had been put on hold. What was she to do with an eighty-year-old woman that neither she nor Robert had ever met? She was almost grateful that the flow of traffic had slowed behind three large delivery trucks crawling up the hill. Any delay … her attention was caught by two vehicles parked at the side of the road near a flyover. A white bakkie and a small blue car. Both had their doors open and their hazard lights were flashing. She glimpsed a young couple entwined in an embrace as she passed.
“What’s the matter, Mom?”
Bronwyn laughed as tears finally ran down her cheeks. “Oh Damien, there are happy people in the world after all. Did you see that couple at the side of the road?”
“They were kissing! It’s disgusting to do that where everyone can see them. Sixteen kilometres to go.”
“There’s a story in that.” Bronwyn smiled to herself, feeling the tension in her neck easing. She would love to know what had brought them there.
Something Over Tea 