Power of the Sword - Smith Wilbur. Страница 87

The rains had come late this year, delaying the spring explosion of growth, so that although it was only weeks before Christmas, the veld was ablaze with its royal show of colour. For most of the year these plains were dun and windswept, sparsely populated and uninviting.

But now the undulating expanses were clothed in an unbroken mantel so bright and vividly coloured that it confused and tricked the eye. Wild blooms of fifty different varieties and as many hues covered the earth in banks and flocks and stands, massed together with their own kind so that they resembled a divine patchwork quilt, so bright that they seemed to burn with an incandescent light that was reflected from the very heavens and the eye ached with so much colour.

Closer at hand the earthen road, rough and winding, was the only reference point in this splendid chaos, and even it was soon obliterated by flowers. The twin tracks were separated by a dense growth of wild blooms that filled the middle ridge between them and swept the underside of the old Ford with a soft rushing sound like the water of a mountain stream as Centaine drove slowly up another gentle undulation and stopped abruptly at the top. She switched off the engine.

The ocean lay before her, its green expanse flecked with brilliant white and lapped by this other ocean of blazing blooms. Through the open window the sea wind ruffled Centaine's hair and caused the fields of wild flowers to nod and sway in unison, keeping time to the swells of ocean beyond.

She felt the care and terrible strain of those last months recede in the face of so much vibrant beauty, and she laughed spontaneously at the joy of it and shaded her eyes from the glare of orange and red and sulphur-yellow flower banks and searched the seashore eagerly.

It's a shack, Blaine had warned her in his last letter. Two rooms and no running water, an earth latrine and an open hearth. But I have spent my holidays there since a child and I love it. I have shared it with nobody else since my father's death. I go there alone whenever I can. You will be the first. And he had drawn a map of the road to it.

She picked it out immediately, standing on the edge of the ocean, perched upon the horn of rock where the shallow bay turned. The thatched roof had blackened with age but the thick adobe walls were whitewashed as bright as the foam that curled out on the green sea, and a wisp of smoke smeared towards her from the chimney.

Beyond the building she saw movement and picked out a tiny human shape on the rocks at the edge of the sea, and suddenly she was desperate with haste.

The engine would not fire, though she cranked the starter until the battery faltered.

Merde! And double merde! It was an old vehicle, used and abused by one of her under-managers on the estate until she had commandeered it to replace the ruined Daimler, and now its failure was an unwelcome reminder of her financial straits, so different from when she had driven a new daffodilyellow Daimler every year.

She let off the handbrake and let the Ford trundle down the slope, gathering speed until she jumped the clutch and the engine started with a shudder and roar of blue smoke and she flew down the hill and parked behind the whitewashed shack.

She ran out onto the black rocks above the water and the swaying beds of black-stemmed kelp that danced to the scend of the sea, and she waved and shouted, her voice puny on the wind and the rumble of the ocean but he looked up and saw her and came at a run, jumping from rock to slippery wet rock.

He wore only a pair of khaki shorts, and he carried a bunch of live rock lobsters in one hand. His hair had grown since last she had seen him. It was damp and curly with sea salt, and he was laughing, his mouth open and his big teeth flashing whitely and he had grown a mustache. She wasn't sure whether she liked that, but the thought was lost in the tumult of her own emotions and she ran to meet him and flung herself against his bare chest.

Oh Blaine, she sobbed. Oh God, how I've missed you. Then she lifted her mouth to him. His face was wet with seaspray and it was salty on his lips. His mustache prickled.

She had been right first time, she didn't like it, but then he lifted her high and was running with her towards the shack, and she held him tightly with both arms around his neck, bouncing in his arms, jolted by his long strides, and laughing breathlessly with her own fierce need of him.

Blaine sat on a three-legged stool in front of the open hearth on which a fire of milkwood burned and perfumed the air with its fragrant incense. Centaine stood before him, working up a lather in the china shaving mug with his badger-hair brush, while Blaine complained.

It took five months to grow, and I was so proud of it. He twirled the ends of his mustache for the last time. It's so dashing, don't you think? No, said Centaine firmly. I do not. I'd prefer to be kissed by a porcupine. She bent over him and lathered both sides of his upper lip with a thick foam, and then stood back and surveyed her handiwork with a critical eye.

Perched on the stool Blaine was still stark naked from their love-making, and suddenly Centaine grinned wickedly.

Before he could fathom her intentions or move to protect himself, she had stepped forward again and daubed his most intimate extremity with a white blob of lather from the brush.

He looked down at himself, appalled. Hi-in too? he demanded.

That would be cutting off my nose to spite my own face, she giggled. Or something like that. Then she put her head on one side and gave her considered opinion. The little devil looks a lot better with a mustache than you do. Careful with that adjective Iittle", he admonished her, and reached for his towel. Come along, old fellow, you don't have to put up with this disrespect. He wrapped the towel around his waist and Centaine nodded.

That's better. Now I can concentrate on the job without distraction, and she took up the cut-throat razor that lay ready on the table-top and stropped it on the leather with quick practised strokes.

Where did you learn that? I am beginning to feel jealous. My papa, she explained. I always trimmed his moustaches. Now hold still! She took the tip of his large nose between thumb and forefinger and lifted it.

For what we are about to receive, Blaine's voice was muffled by her grip on his nose. He closed his eyes and winced as the steel rustled over his upper lip, and a few moments later Centaine stepped back and wiped the lather and hair from the blade, laid the razor aside and came back to dry his upper lip and then stroke the smooth skin with her fingertip.

It looks better; it feels better, she told him. But there is still the final test. And she kissed him.

Hmmm! She murmured her approval, and then still without breaking the kiss she wriggled round and sat on his lap.

It went on for a long time until she broke away and looked down. The towel had slipped. I say, here comes the little moustached devil again, obviously spoiling for trouble. She reached down and gently wiped away the last traces of lather from the tip.

You see! Even he looks a lot better cleanshavem, Blaine stood up with her in his arms. I think it is time, woman, that you learned the hard way that you can get away with just so much and then we must establish who is the boss around here. And he carried her to the bunk against the far wall.

Much later they sat side by side cross-legged on the bunk with a single brightly coloured Basuto blanket draped over their bare shoulders, leaning together and watching the fire shadows flicker along the rough plastered walls, listening to the wind off the ocean soughing around the eaves of the thatched roof in the darkness outside, cupping their hands around steaming mugs of fish soup.

One of my specialities, Blaine had boasted, and it was thick with chunks of fresh galjoen fish and lobster that he had caught that day. 'Wonderful powers of rejuvenation for those suffering from over-exertion. Blaine recharged the mugs twice, for they were both ravenous, and then Centaine went to the fire, her naked body gleaming in the ruddy glow of the firelight, to bring him a smouldering twig to light his cheroot. When it was burning evenly, she climbed under the blanket again and snuggled against him.