The Sound of Thunder (58 page)

And then savagely: f hope he dies. Please let him die.

I

“Please let him die.” Anna Courtney said it softly, so that Garry standing below her seat in the buggy did not hear her. He stood with his shoulders hunched, and his head thrust forward in thought, hands hanging at his sides slowly folding and unfolding, then he raised one of them and squeezed the fingers into his closed eyelids.

“I’m going to him,” he said. “God help me, but I’m going to him.

” “No! I forbid it. Leave him-let him suffer as I suffered.”

Slowly, bewildered, Garry shook his head.

“I must. It’s too long, too much. I must. Pray God it’s not too late.

“Let him die.” Then suddenly it snapped in her head, broke under the weight of the hatred so long sustained.

She rose screaming in her seat. “Die! Damn you. Die!” And Garry uncovered his eyes, and looked at her in alarm.

“Compose yourself, my dear!”

“Die! Die!” Her face was blotched with flaming spots of red, and her voice squawked as though she were being strangled.

Garry scrambled up beside her and flung his arms around her Protectively.

“Get away from me. Don’t touch me.” She screamed at him; fighting from his embrace. “Because of you I lost him. He was so big, so strong. He was mine-and because .

“Anna, Anna. Please don’t.” He tried to soothe her raving.

“Please stop it, my dear.”

“You, you crawling, crippled thing. Because of you.” And suddenly it had to come out, like pus from a canker. “But I paid you back. I took him from you also-and now he’s dead. You’ll never have him. ” She laughed, gloating, demented.

“Anna. Stop it.”

“That night-do you remember that night. Will you or he ever forget it? I wanted him, I wanted him big like a bull on top of me, I wanted him rutting deep like it was before-I begged him. I pleaded-but because of you. Because of his crippled little weakling brother.

Christ, I hated him! ” She laughed again, a shriek of pain and hatred.

“I tore my clothing and bit into my own lips, as I had wanted him to do. When you came-I wanted you to … but you, I had forgotten you were only half a man!

I wanted you to kill him-kill him! Pale, so that the sweat on his face shone like water on white marble, Garry pulled away from her with loathing.

“All this time I thought he-I believed you.” And he half fell from the buggy, leaning against it for a moment to steady himself.

“… All this time wasted. ” Then he launched himself and began to run, his bad leg jerking and catching under him.

“You want a lift, Garry?” Dennis Petersen drew level with him and called down from the car rage

“Yes. Oh, yes. ” Garry caught the handrail and dragged himself up beside Dennis. “Take me to him, please, as fast as you can.

Silent, deserted, the great house crouched over her. Dark with shutters closed against the sun, brooding and immense, smelling musty as though old passions had died within its walls.

Anna stood alone in the huge central room and screamed its name.

“Theuniskraal!

And the thick stone walls smothered the sound of her madness.

“He is dead! Do you hear me? I took him away from all of you. ” And she shrieked in triumphant laughter, with the tears greasing her cheeks. “I won! Do you hear me! I won!” And her grief distorted the laughter She picked up the heavy glass lamp and hurled it across the room; it burst and the paraffin sprayed wide, glistening on the walls and soaking into the carpet.

“Theuniskraal! Hear me! I hate you also. I hate him. I hate you all-all of you.”

She raged through the room tearing down the gilt-ri-amed pictures and smashing them so that the glass sparkled like tiny jewels in the gloom; she used a chair to smash in the front of the display cabinet and wreck the old china and glassware in it; she swept the books from the shelves into fluttering heaps, and threw their torn pages in the air.

“I hate! ” she screamed. “I hate! ” And the great house waited silent. Exhausted with worn-out emotions-old and sad and wise.

“I hate you-all of you.” And she ran out into the passage, through the kitchens to the pantries. On the lowest shelf stood a four-gallon drum of methylated spirit and she panted as she struggled with the stopper. The stopper came out, the clear liquid welled and ran down the metal sides, and she picked the drum up across her chest and stumbled back into the kitchen. It spilled down her skirts, soaking in, drenching the heavy cloth.

forming a spreading pool on the stone flags.

“I hate!” She laughed and stumbled, staggering off balance, still clutching the drum she fell against the kitchen range. Hot metal scorched her clothing and burned through to the flesh of her hip, but she did not feel it. Her sodden skirts brushed over the fire-box, a tiny point of flame caught and grew. So when she ran on into the house a fiery train swept behind her.

Back in the central room, she poured from the drum over the books and the carpet, laughing as she splashed the long-draped velvet curtains.

Oblivious of the flames that followed, until her petticoats caught and burned against her legs. Then she screamed again at the agony of her tortured flesh and brain. She dropped the metal drum and it exploded, showering her with liquid blue flame, turning her hair and her face and her whole body into a living torch, a torch that fell and writhed and died before the flames reached the thatch of the roof of “heuniskraal. They faced each other across the waist of the bow, and the bright sunlight threw their shadows along the filthy planking of the deck. TWo tall young men, both dark-haired and burned rich brown by the sun, both with the big Courtney nose-both angry. From the poop three of the Arab crew watched with mild curiosity.

“So you won’t come home, then?” Michael asked. “You’re going through with this childishness?”

-Why do you want me to?”

“Me? Good God, if I never see you again it would be too soon.

Ladyburg will be a cleaner town without you.

“Then why did you come?”

“Your father asked me.

“Why didn’t he come himself?” Dirk’s bitterness echoed in his voice.

“he’s still a sick man-his head. Hurt badly.”

“If he wanted me, he would have come.”

“He sent for you, didn’t he?”

“But why did he want you to win, why did he stop me? “Listen to me, Dirk. You’re young yet. There are many things you don’t understand.

” “Don’t I! ” And Dirk threw back his head and laughed scornfully.

“Oh, I understand all right. You’d better get off this boat, we’re just about to sail.”

“Listen, Dirk …”

“Get off. Run back to him-you can have my share.”

“Dirk, listen to me. He said if you refused to come-then I was to give you this.” From inside his coat Michael drew an envelope and offered it.

“What is it? “I don’t know-but I expect that it’s money.

Dirk came slowly across the deck and took the envelope from him.

“Have you a message for him?” Michael asked, and when Dirk shook his head he turned and jumped down on to the wooden jetty. Immediately a bustle began behind him as the Arab crew cast off the lines.

Standing on the edge of the jetty, Michael watched the stubby little craft drift out on the waters of Durban Bay. He could smell the stench of her bilges, her sides were streaked with human filth, and the single sail that rose slowly as the crew hoisted the long teak boom was stained and patched like a quilt.

The wind took her and the pregnant belly of the sail bulged Out, she heeled and thrust forward through the chop of dirty green water-headed towards the bar, where a low surf broke In languid lines of white.

The two half-brothers stared at each other across the widening gap. Neither of them lifted an arm or smiled. The dhow bore away.

Dirk’s face was a tiny brown fleck above the white tropical suit, then suddenly his voice.

“Tell him … 11 Small in the distance. “Tell him . and the rest of it was lost on the wind, in the soft lap and sigh of the wavelets beneath the jetty.

Below where they sat on the lip of the escarpment, the walls of Theuniskraal stood up like smoke-browned tombstones marking the burial ground of hatred,

“About time you started rebuilding,” Sean grunted, “you can’t stay on at Protea Street for ever. ” “No.” Garry paused before going on: “I’ve picked out the new site for the homestead-there, beyond the number two dip.

Both of them looked away from the roofless ruins, and they were silent again until shyly Garry asked,

“I’d like you to have a look at the plans. It won’t be as big as the old house now that there is just Michael and I. Could you … ?”

“Good,” Sean cut in quickly. “Why don’t you bring them across to Lion Kop tomorrow evening? Ruth will want you to stay for dinner.”

“I’d like that.”

“Come early,” said Sean, and started to stand up from the rock on which he sat. He moved heavily, awkwardly-and Garry jumped up to help him. Hating the weakness of his slowly Mending body, Sean would have brushed Garry’s eager hands away. But he saw the expression on his brother’s face and instead he submitted meekly.

“Give me an arm over the rough ground, please.” He spoke gruffly.

Side by side, with Sean’s arm across Garry’s shoulder, they moved to where the buggy waited.

Ponderously Sean climbed up and settled himself into the padded leather seat.

“Thanks.” He gathered up the reins and smiled down at Garry, and Garry flushed with pleasure and looked away to the infinite lines of young wattle trees that covered the hills of Theuniskraal.

“Looks good, doesn’t it?” he asked.

“You and Michael have done wonders up here,” Sean agreed, still smiling.

“Courtney Brothers and Son. ” Softly Garry spoke the name of the new company which had merged the lands of Theuniskraal and Lion Kop into one vast estate. “Now at last it is the way it should have been long ago.”

“Until tomorrow, Garry.” Sean flipped the reins and the buggy rolled forward, rocking gently over the uneven Surface of the new road.

“Until tomorrow, Sean,” Garry called after him, and watched until the buggy was lost to sight among the blocks of dark mature wattle, Then he walked to his horse and mounted. He sat a while watching the distant ranks of Zulu labourers singing as they worked. He saw Michael moving on horseback amongst them, stopping occasionally to lean from the saddle and urge them on.

And Garry began to smile. The Smile smoothed away the lines from around his eyes. He touched the horse with his spurs and cantered down to join Michael.