“I’m sorry I’m so late.” The young, dark-haired woman briefly hugged her hostess and proffered a bottle of wine before turning aside to hang up her cape on the already overflowing coat rack in the narrow entrance hall.
“Never mind, we’re about to eat. Come in and help me in the kitchen. You’ve a lot of wine to catch up on …” Edward listened to the cheerful voice of their hostess booming down the passage and reluctantly turned his attention to the buzz of indignant conversation around him: most of the guests had become drawn into a heated discussion about the general decline of the town’s nature reserve.
“The roads there are shocking!” An elderly woman waved her glass of wine dangerously in the air as she spoke. “One practically needs a 4×4 to deal with the ruts these days.”
“Even then, you’d be lucky to see any animals,” another responded. She raised her voice above the general hubbub. “Harold reckons they’re being poached.” She drained her wine glass in a gulp. “We only go there once a year now, only to see the beautiful aloes blooming.”
In his mind, Edward reviewed some of the photographs he had taken of aloes in the reserve over the past few weeks. He had already managed to sell nine of them to be used as illustrations for a forthcoming guide to aloes in the country.
“He may be right about that.” Oliver moved closer to the knot of people surrounding the now empty array of snack containers on the low coffee table in the centre of the small sitting room. “The last time I was there, a herd of zebra took off in a cloud of dust. I could hear their hooves clicking on the loose stones as they galloped off. The kudu too: let them catch sight or sound of a vehicle and they slip away, deeper into the bush.”
Rachel Adami’s journalistic nose began twitching with interest as she squeezed through the throng to confront Oliver. “Would you be prepared to co-operate on an interview about this? We could go out there together one day and maybe get Edward to photograph the zebras disappearing ‘in a cloud of dust’ as you put it, or even kudu horns just peeping through the bush – he’s very good. I know several publications that would happily print an article on the possibility of poaching in a proclaimed area.”
On hearing his name mentioned, Edward ducked out of the way to lean against the frame of the open French doors behind the crowd. Rachel had been dogging him for months on the pretext of requiring photographs of one thing or another. Only the previous week, she had cornered him in the supermarket to try and convince him to document the deterioration of graves in the town’s oldest cemetery. “I want to submit an article to the Genealogical Society,” she had insisted.
His response then had been a churlish “I have a day job, Rachel. I can’t go haring off on private missions as dictated by your whims.” She had been eyeing him all evening, while he had ensured that he was as distant from her as possible in that confined space. Watching the gathering from the back, he idly tried to link the motley collection of guests with their hosts. Earlier conversations had revealed that several were in the field of either nature conservation or environmental education, at least one was an historian and he knew two were artists. The long-haired man with puppy-dog eyes staring soulfully from his unshaven face was a musician who regularly played with a local band over weekends. His hobby turned out to be identifying succulents growing in the veld. He must have been very useful to Walter, Edward mused.
His eyes rested briefly on Callum Emslie, a local poet whom he had got to know well through their shared enjoyment of rock climbing. Alletta Snyman and Callum’s brother, Leon, had provided the sketches and paintings that livened up the pages of Walter’s book …
“Come on, you lot.” Katie Kemp, a dishcloth tossed over her shoulder, boomed at her assembled guests. “You must all be starving. Squeeze around the table next door and the food will arrive.” They needed no persuading.
Having made sure that Rachel had entered well ahead of him, Edward joined the hustle and bustle as fifteen guests pushed and shoved gently to fit around the table that was too small to accommodate them all comfortably. He was relieved to see Rachel seated next to Puppy-dog Man. The noise was a deafening roar of laughter, exclamations over the candles, mis-matched wine glasses, along with the sharp scraping of chairs and stools on the uncarpeted tiled floor.
The momentary stillness of hunger about to be assuaged, Edward thought as Katie and the dark-haired latecomer deftly passed around earthenware bowls of thick butternut soup. A wooden platter of warmed bread rolls followed. His keen eyes took in the light-coloured scarf loosely wound around the woman’s neck despite the heat of the enclosed space. He noticed the slight flush of her cheeks and the tendrils of hair escaping from the velvet-covered Alice band that swept her long hair from her face.
She slipped into a vacant chair diagonally opposite him, squeezing between Yarrow Dolman, the botanist, and Oliver Henry, the geologist. Edward covertly watched her spoon the soup carefully into her mouth, her hand trembling slightly with each dip and lift. She absent-mindedly crumbed her small roll between the fingers and thumb of her left hand while she listened, seemingly attentively, to one or other of her fellow diners and smiled at them, giving the impression of outward confidence.
By listening carefully, it didn’t take Edward long to work out that she was Karen. He sensed a tension in her neck and shoulders and noted how quickly she rose to help clear the bowls and bring in the next course. She and Katie placed large bowls of steaming food down the centre of the table so that guests could help themselves and pass the food on to others.
He recalled seeing her some weeks before at a choral recital in the campus chapel. There, his attention had been snared by the red-haired woman who had accompanied Karen. Both women had become immersed in the music and listened with rapt attention. Edward had enjoyed the way the older woman’s face had softened during the recital and had smiled inwardly at the younger woman mouthing the words of some of the more familiar songs. They had both looked happy and completely at ease – then.
This evening, by contrast, Karen had initially looked wide-eyed and even a little frightened. Now she was consciously projecting a happy image of herself as she returned the banter around her. For him, the give-away was her touching the scarf around her neck every now and then as if to check it was still there. He caught her eye and impulsively raised his wine glass in her direct. She smiled beautifully and lifted her glass of water. Hers was a face he would love to photograph!
At last Walter Kemp banged his knife against a nearby wine bottle and rose to make his long-anticipated speech. His recently published book on the environmental and historical aspects of their town and the surrounding countryside had already been successfully launched in some of the major centres of the country.
“I cannot thank you all enough,” he began. “This project would never have been completed without the willing assistance and co-operation of so many of you.” He filled his glass and allowed his gaze to fall on every person in the room. “You will be pleased to know, that for the first five years, half the royalties for this book will benefit our local wetlands conservation project.”
Once the enthusiastic applause had died down, Edward leaned back in his chair and listened to the personal thanks Walter gave each of his guests squeezed around the table by listing how they had assisted in some way with the success of the publication. Karen, he noticed, was clutching a cloth napkin so tightly that her knuckles showed white. She appeared to be listening to their host so intently that her eyes never moved from his face.
Edward had taken most of the photographs whilst others had assisted with historical information, the geology of the region, with layout … the thanks seemed to exceed the number of people present. Karen, it appeared, had edited and proofread the manuscript several times. “Her patience and endurance went way beyond the call of duty,” Walter exclaimed. This made her face light up with a broad smile. Were there tears glistening in her eyes? His attention was distracted by the final thanks reserved for Katie Kemp. This was followed by a thunderous applause. Small gifts were handed round, each beautifully wrapped and labelled in Katie’s clear hand.
Karen rose abruptly from the table while the table was being cleared and disappeared towards the front door. She returned moments later, her face flushing deeply as she thanked Oliver for filling her bowl with fruit salad and laughingly turned away the offer of cream.
The assembly scraped back their seats and began moving back towards the sitting room. Before she could carry a second pile of dishes to the kitchen, Edward moved in behind Karen and guided her through the French doors to the vine-covered veranda. “Are you okay?” He asked her softly, taking a trembling hand in both of his. “Something’s been bothering you all evening. Even now, you look a little wary of something.”
She withdrew her hand in a flash and sat on the low brick wall. Facing him in the dark, she looked up at his towering figure. “Does it show that much?” He caught the slight tremor in her almost whispered response.
“Perhaps not to the others,” he answered lightly. “I have at times this evening likened you to a cat ready to spring -.”
“More like a mouse ready to scamper while I can.” She hugged herself tightly. “I was meant to be here early to help Katie set up everything, but I -.” Karen bit her lip and turned away. Edward sat next to her, placing an arm around her shaking shoulders in response to an instinctive need to protect her. He was shocked to hear her haltingly relate how she had been accosted by a stranger as she was leaving for the dinner.
“It all happened so quickly,” she explained through her tears. “This man jumped from behind a bush and demanded I let him into the house. Fortunately, I have an alarm button on my remote, so the armed response team arrived soon after and later sorted out the police.” She shuddered involuntarily and blew her nose on Edward’s handkerchief.
“He pushed me to the ground and tried to wrestle the keys away from me. I managed to throw them into the fishpond.” A small, defiant smile briefly lit her face. “He grabbed my throat … I thought I was going to choke to death, then I heard the footsteps and saw the lights …”
“That explains the striking scarf.” He smiled at her in the dark. “Have you told Katie?”
”And spoil their special evening? I couldn’t do that!” Her voice sounded stronger as she straightened up and squared her shoulders. “The security company retrieved my keys and brought them round a while ago. No need to change the locks, they say.”
“I’ll drive home behind you tonight and see you safely indoors.” She squeezed his hand and headed towards the bathroom as he returned to the guests enjoying coffee or gathering their things to leave.
Karen’s home was reached via a long, narrow, stone-flagged path overgrown with what smelt like honeysuckle in the dark. A welcoming light glowed at the front door, highlighting the stone step and shining on the green leaves of mint, lavender and rosemary growing in pots clustered next to the step and surrounded by smooth white stones.
Edward insisted on coming in to check the doors and windows. Although her home looked cosy and inviting, he declined her offer of a warm drink. Instead, he gave her his cell phone number and made sure that she had locked her security gate behind him.
“I’d like to see you tomorrow,” he had said gruffly when taking his leave and smiled at her positive response. He was still smiling as he strode purposefully towards his waiting vehicle. “And, perhaps, many tomorrows after that.” He grinned foolishly at having voiced his thoughts aloud.
Something Over Tea 