COVID-19 was introduced with capital letters and changed the lives of people all over the world. Over a year later, the name of this dreaded pandemic had sunk into lowercase, Covid-19, and even later was lazily referred to merely as Covid – as clear an indication as any that it had outstayed its welcome. The initial Level 5 lockdown not only brought with it a strict curfew, but meant one could only leave the confines of one’s home for medical purposes and to purchase food – even exercise beyond those perimeters was strictly forbidden. Ollie bridled under these restrictive conditions – he had a farm to run for goodness sake!
Fiona had become used to the restlessness of her usually active husband and did her best to either ignore it or to keep out of his way. This was especially difficult to do on this particular day when Ollie thundered about the house more than usual. He bumped into the dining room chairs as he prowled around the house and roared into his cell phone. For days Fiona had brought him copious mugs of coffee and had carefully chosen when to ask him to fix the puncture in the left front tyre of her car or to inform him that the outside drain had blocked.
It wasn’t easy to get plumbers then: a blocked kitchen drain was hardly deemed an emergency under the Lockdown Level 5 regulations. Why, one couldn’t even purchase a kettle or a pair of shoelaces at the time! Still, Fiona thought it was worth contacting Frans Coetzee. He had been their plumber for at least ten years and had even come out to the farm when needed. Ollie refused to get outside help for anything. “What if we get COVID-19” he had boomed at her. He applied the same reasoning to getting someone to fix their gate motor – something that Ollie had tried to fix himself and had at last thrown his hands up in despair. “We’ll just have to use a chain and a lock,” he had concluded miserably. He was a man who did not expect to be beaten by any kind of machinery, electric or otherwise.
Ollie was a farmer stuck at home in town when he yearned to spend whole days, and even weeks on the farm in the neighbouring magisterial district. No-one had expected this COVID-19 to last; the two boreholes feeding the farmhouse tanks were running dry; the drought was already biting hard; and so when Fiona found she was able to undertake some editing and typing jobs it had made sense to move into their home in town ‘for the duration’. As each State of Disaster was extended to the next one,however, Ollie nearly burst with frustration.
There had been no decent rain for five years. Mud dried into curled chunks around the edges of the layer of water left in the farm dam. Dust blew across the veld, sometimes turning the lowering sunlight at the end of the day into shades of brown, gold, orange, pink, purple and yellow. Such beauty to offset such a natural disaster!
“What do you mean you can’t pump?” Fiona could tell from his tone that Ollie was reaching bursting point. She slipped into the kitchen to whip up batter for a batch of flapjacks. Ollie liked to eat them hot with blobs of melting butter and drizzled with thick golden syrup.
“So there’s still water in that reservoir?” His voice was tight as he paced their stone-paved veranda, oblivious to the rustling of the dead ivy leaves hanging down from the roof. Fiona switched on the kettle and reached into the cupboard below it for the golden syrup. Just in time, she thought happily, because a two and a half hour session of load shedding was about to begin. Yes, on top of the drought and the pandemic Eskom still saw fit to subject South Africans to hours sans electricity. The less said about that the better, she thought as she filled the teapot.
She spread the cloth over the metal garden table at the shadiest end of the veranda. Next, she carried the wooden tea tray outside before bringing out the flapjacks and the bottle of golden syrup. It was an ordinary day in extra-ordinary times.
“What! For how long has this been happening? No man, why haven’t you told me before? Now I’ve really had enough!”
Ollie strode across the garden and sat down heavily on the metal garden chair. He immediately helped himself to flapjacks and squeezed the bottle of golden syrup in his large hand. “This country’s going to pot!”
Fiona poured the tea and carefully spread two flapjacks for herself. Experience had taught her that the pause might help him to calm down a little. “And water is wet,” she smiled at him as she sat down at last. “What’s new?”
“Five years of drought; COVID-19; the pumps don’t run during load-shedding; there’s just about no grazing left; and now the kudu are eating the lucerne we planted!” Fiona could hear the semi-colons between each item he recited regularly – only the last one was new.
“You fenced –“
“Kudu jump over ordinary farm fences the way you used to clear the hurdles at school!”
Fiona laughed out loud. She and Ollie had known each other forever. The last of the flapjacks disappeared into his mouth and she was pleased to see a glimmer of the old teasing in his brilliantly blue eyes. She had always stood by him: love wasn’t measured by convenience. She picked up the tray to take indoors.
Just then a dark cloud seemed to cross his handsome face. “I’m going to shoot the lot of them!”
She put down the tray and breathed in deeply, battling to keep her voice even. “Ollie, you can’t. Our fathers and their fathers before them have always followed the rule of killing only to eat.” Tears pricked at the back of her eyes at the sight of the determined scowl on his face.
“I’ll phone Sergeant Immelman.” Ollie disappeared indoors with a heavy tread. Little did Fiona know that three days later, more than the dreaded COVID-19 would turn their lives upside-down.
“We’ll overnight at the farm and I’ll get those kudu after dusk.” Ollie was resolute.
Fiona packed food into boxes and collected the charger for her laptop. She conceded that it would be good for both of them to leave the confines of their home in town. Their permit for travelling between magisterial districts was safely tucked into the cubbyhole of the truck along with spare face masks and small bottles of hand sanitizer. She still worried about the fate of the kudu though.
“I told you Charles is happy to share one with us. Erich and Norman will each take one. I’ll need you to drive.”
Reluctantly Fiona parked the truck on a slight rise overlooking the irrigated lucern lands situated not far from the district road that skirted their farm boundary. Two farm trucks thundered past while she waited in the driver’s seat. The clouds of dust they churned up rose lazily above the trees and spread out across the land stretching away from her. Silence. As the last rays of the sun faded, three dark shapes appeared in the middle of the field of lucerne. Neither Ollie nor Fiona had seen them arrive.
“See if you can roll the truck closer. Whatever you do, don’t start the engine or switch on the lights.”
Fiona knew the road like the back of her hand. She kept her eyes on the three kudu bulls. “Kill only to eat,” she whispered.
Ollie placed his work-roughened hand on the steering wheel. “I’ll walk from here.”
She strained to make him out in the gathering gloom. One of the kudu bulls looked up and remained on the alert while the other two continued feeding. Fiona’s pulses were racing. Her body was braced for the sound of the first shot – Ollie had no silencer. The kudu resumed eating. Ollie had been swallowed by the encroaching darkness. Fiona’s mouth was dry. There was no thrill in this hunt which Ollie deemed to be in the defence of the lucerne – the current life-saver for his cattle.
The dense quiet of the country night was shattered by the sound of the shot. Tears welled in Fiona’s eyes. Ollie would have got it. He is an excellent shot, she reminded herself. The heavy silence returned. Fiona strained her ears but could only hear the sound of some crickets that had started up nearby.
Half an hour passed before another shot rang out. Fiona squeezed her eyes shut. Let this be the last one, she thought, hoping the other kudu would have had the sense to get far away. Her pulses began to race. Where was Ollie?
A roar of vehicles made her look behind her, their bright headlights slicing through the darkness and casting a glow on the dust billowing up from their tyres. One screeched to a halt next to her, the other parked across the rear of her truck, hemming her in.
“Open the door! Put your hands in the air!” The disembodied voice sounded angry.
Fiona fumbled with the door lock and had just released it when the door was wrenched open by an unseen hand.
“Out! Get out! Put your hands in the air!” The bright torch shining in her face blinded her.
“It’s the getaway girl,” the voice behind the bright torch called to his equally invisible companion. Four other powerful torches were bobbing across the veld towards the lucerne field.
“Those kudu are on my land you oafs!” Ollie was being frogmarched towards the truck. Presumably someone had taken his rifle. Fiona’s arms and legs were shaking uncontrollably. She really wanted to cry, but wouldn’t give these thugs the satisfaction.
“Red-handed!” The two men on either side of Ollie sounded gleeful.
Fiona found her voice at last. “My arms are getting tired. What’s going on? Who said you could come here?” Don’t cry, she told herself sternly.
“Police Stocktheft Unit, ma’am. You can put your arms down.”
“You live here?” The fourth man spoke to Ollie in the dark.
“It’s my farm,” he responded angrily.
“Level 5 restrictions sir. This is neither a medical centre nor a supermarket.” The smirk in the disembodied voice was clear.
“Of course I can be here. I told you, it’s my farm!”
“Neighbours reported a case of poaching. This is not the first night we’ve been called out for that around here.”
“We’ve got a permit to travel between town and here.” Fiona ventured timidly. “We arrived here well before the start of the curfew. I’ll get it from the cubbyhole.”
“No you won’t!” A hairy arm pulled her back as someone else opened the passenger door and scrutinised the permit.
“Legit.”
“This isn’t the hunting season. We’ll still get you for poaching. Follow us into town.”
“What about the kudu?” Ollie bellowed. “I’ve got a permit to shoot them!”
“You can tell that story at the police station.”
The convoy drove at a speed well below the limit. Ollie and Fiona were hemmed between the two police vehicles. Both were conscious of the heavily armed man occupying the seat behind them and so drove in silence. As they turned into the carpark outside the police station, Ollie touched Fiona lightly. “It’ll be okay Fiona. I’ll show them my permit and we’ll go home.”
It was not all well. They were photographed and fingerprinted. Both were sent to separate stuffy rooms to make statements that were written down at the speed of a snail. Fiona willed her tears away at the sound of Ollie yelling at the charge desk, “I will not be charged with poaching kudu on my own farm! COVID-19 or no COVID-19. I have a permit to shoot them!” She wished he would calm down. “A permit issued at this police station! Give me back my phone and I’ll show you!”
Freed at last, Fiona joined Ollie, who was stabbing at his cell phone as if it was about to bite him. “It’s here. I know it’s here. They sent it to me on my phone!” She gently prised the phone from his fingers.
“Let me look through your WhatsApp images Ollie. When did you receive it?”
“On Wednesday.” Ollie turned to his accusers. “Of course I didn’t come in to fetch the original. There’s COVID-19 all around us. Sergeant Immelman said the image on the phone would be fine.”
“It’s not here Ollie. Is it on my phone?”
“That’s right! I couldn’t remember my number at the time and so I gave him yours.”
“Where is your phone ma’am?” Fiona nearly wept at the reasonable tone of voice.
“The battery is flat. I left my phone at home to charge on the kitchen shelf.”
“I’ll have to escort you home to fetch it then. Come with me.” The friendly looking policeman put his arm out to show her the way.
“You’re not taking my wife anywhere without me!” Ollie’s defence of her was rendered ineffectual by the denizens of the police station still surrounding him.
Once in her kitchen, Fiona unplugged her phone and scrolled down to Wednesday’s images. “Here it is!” She triumphantly handed her phone to her armed companion.
He smiled. “Thank you ma’am. Let’s get this over and done with.”
Ollie swallowed the dregs of his coffee and looked up at the kitchen clock. “It’s after midnight,” he said wearily. “We’ll sort out the kudu first thing in the morning.”
Once again they parked on the slight incline overlooking the lucerne field. Apart from two flattened patches there was a churned up section obviously made by a vehicle driving through the dark green plants. They scanned the field. There was no sign of the kudu.
Something Over Tea 