The Sunbird Read online

  She looked up with those big soft eyes. ‘Come,’ she said, ‘let’s play.’

  If I can weather the storm of her first lightning, volatile attacks then I can smother and wear her down with pawn play and superior development. She calls it the creeping death.

  At last she toppled her queen with a little groan of exasperation and stood up to pace restlessly about the room, hugging her own shoulders under the vivid poncho. I sipped coffee and watched her with covert pleasure until suddenly she swirled and faced me with long legs astride and clenched fists on her hips, her elbows tenting the poncho around her.

  ‘I hate the bastard,’ she said in a tight, strangled voice. ‘A big arrogant god-man. I knew the type as soon as I saw him. Why, in the name of all that’s holy, does he have to come with us? If we make any significant discovery, you can guess who will hog all the glory.’

  I knew immediately she was talking of Louren - and I was startled by the acid and gall in her tone. Later I would remember it, and know the reason. But now I was stunned and then angry.

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ I demanded.

  ‘The face, the walk, the flock of idolaters, the condescending air with which he dispenses favours, the immense overpowering conceit of the man—’

  ‘Sally!’

  ‘The casual, unthinking cruelty of his presumption—’

  ‘Stop it, Sally.’ I was on my feet now.

  ‘Did you see those poor little men of his - shaking with fright?’

  ‘Sally, you’ll not talk of him like that - not in front of me.’

  ‘Did you see yourself? One of the gentlest, kindest, most decent men I have ever known. One of the finest brains I have ever been privileged to work with. Did you see yourself, scampering and tail-wagging - God, you were rolling on your back at his feet - offering your belly to be tickled—’ She was almost hysterical now, crying, tears of anger running down her face, shaking, white-faced. I hated you - and him! I hated you both. He was demeaning you, making you cheap and, and—‘

  I could not answer her. I stood stricken and numb - and her temper changed. She lifted her hand and pressed it to her mouth. We stared at each other.

  ‘I must be mad,’ she whispered. ‘Why did I say those things? Ben, oh Ben. I’m sorry. So very sorry.’

  And she came and knelt before me, her arms went around my body and she hugged me to her. I stood like a statue. I was cold with fear, dread of what was to come. For although this was what I had long prayed for, yet it had come so suddenly, without a moment’s warning, and now I had been thrust far beyond the point of no return, into unknown territory. Sally lifted her head, still clinging to me, and looked up into my face.

  ‘Forgive me, please.’

  I kissed her, and her mouth was warm and salty with tears. Her lips opened under mine, and my fear was gone.

  ‘Make love to me, Ben - please.’ She knew instinctively that I must be led. She took me to the couch.

  ‘The lights,’ I whispered harshly, ‘please switch off the lights.’

  ‘If that’s what you want.’

  ‘Please, Sally.’

  ‘I will,’ she said. ‘I know, my darling.’ And she switched off the lights.

  Twice in the darkness she cried out: ‘Oh, please Ben -you’re so strong. You are killing me. Your arms are - your arms.’

  Then not long after, she screamed, an incoherent cry without form or meaning, and my own hoarse cry blended with it. Then there was only the ragged sound of our breathing in the darkness.

  I felt as though my mind had broken free from my body and floated in warmth and darkness. For the first time in my life I was completely at rest, contented and secure. There seemed to be so many first times with this woman. When at last Sally spoke, her voice came as a small shock.

  ‘Will you sing for me, Ben?’ And she switched on the lights on the table beside the couch. We blinked at each other, owl-eyed in the muted glow. Her face was flushed rosily, and her hair a dark unruly tumble.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I want to sing.’ I went through into my dressing-room and took the guitar from the cupboard, and as I closed the door there was my reflection in the full-length mirror.

  I looked with full attention, for a stranger stood before me. The coarse black hair framed a square face, with dark eyes and girlishly long lashes, a heavy simian jaw and a long pale forehead. The stranger was smiling at me, half shy - half proud.

  I glanced down the strange, telescoped body over which I had agonized since childhood. The legs and arms were overdeveloped, thick and knotted with slabs of muscle, the limbs of a giant. Instinctively I glanced at the body-builder’s weights in the corner of the room - and then back to the mirror. I was perfect around the edges - but in the centre was this squat, humped, toad-like torso, covered in a shaggy pelt of curly black hair. I looked at that remarkable body, and again for the first time in my life, I did not hate it.

  I went back to where Sally still lay on the soft monkey-skin kaross that covered the couch. I hopped up, and squatted cross-legged beside her with the guitar in my lap.

  ‘Sing sad - please, Ben,’ she whispered.

  ‘But I’m happy, Sal.’

  ‘Sing a sad song - one of your own sad ones,’ she insisted, and as I picked out the first notes she closed her eyes. I was grateful, for I had never had a woman’s body to gloat over. I leaned forward and as I touched the singing strings, I caressed the long smooth length of her with my eyes, the pale planes and rounds and secret shadows. Flesh that had cradled mine - how I loved it! I sang:

  ‘In the lonely desert of my soul,

  The nights are long.

  And no other traveller journeys there

  O’er the lonely oceans of my mind

  The winds blow strong—‘

  And in a short while a tear squeezed out between her closed lids for there is a magic in my voice which can call up tears or laughter, I sang until my throat was rough and my picking finger tender. Then I lay the guitar aside and went on looking at her. Without opening her eyes she turned her head slightly towards me.

  ‘Tell me about you and Louren Sturvesant,’ she said. ‘I would like to understand about that.’

  The question took me by surprise, and I was silent for a moment. She opened her eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ben. You don’t have to—’

  ‘No,’ I answered quickly. ‘I’d like to talk about it. You see, I think you were wrong about him. I don’t think you can apply ordinary standards to them - the Sturvesants. Louren and his father, when he was alive, that is. My own father worked for them. He died of a broken heart a year after my mother. Mr Sturvesant had heard of my academic record, and of course my father had been a loyal employee. There are a few of us, the Sturvesant orphans. We have nothing but the best. I went to Michaelhouse, the same school as Louren. A Jew at a church school, and a cripple at that - you can imagine how it was. Small boys are such utterly merciless little monsters, Louren dragged me out of the urinal where four of them were trying to drown me. He beat the daylights out of them, and after, that I was his charge. I have been ever since. He finances this Institute, every penny of it. At first it was something just for me, but little by little he has become more and more involved It’s his hobby and my life - you will be surprised how knowledgeable he is. He loves this land, just as you and I do. He is caught up in its history and future more than you or I will ever be-’ I broke off, for she was staring at me in a way that seemed to pierce my soul.

  ‘You love him, Ben, don’t you?’

  I blushed then, and dropped my eyes, ‘How do you mean that—’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Ben,’ she interrupted impatiently. ‘I don’t mean queer. You just proved the opposite. But I mean love, in the biblical sense.’

  ‘He has been father, protector, benefactor and friend to me. The only friend I’ve ever had. Yes, you could say I love him.’

  She reached up and touched my cheek.

  ‘I’ll try to like him. For yo
ur sake.’

  It was still dark when we drove in through the gates of Grand Central Airport. Sal was huddled into her coat, silent and withdrawn. I was light-headed and brittle-feeling from a night of love and talk without sleep. There were floodlights picking out the private Sturvesant hangar at the east end of the runway, and as we approached I saw Louren’s Ferrari parked in his reserved bay, and beside it another half-dozen late model saloons gleaming in the floods.

  ‘Oh God.’ I groaned. ‘He’s got the whole team with him.’

  I parked beside the Ferrari, and Sal and I began unloading our equipment from the boot. She picked up her easel and slung it over her shoulder, then with a huge folder of parchment in one hand and a box of paints in the other she ducked through the wicket gate into the hangar. I should have gone with her, of course, but I was so absorbed in checking my luggage that it was three or four minutes before I followed her. By then it was too late.

  As I stepped through the low aperture into the brightly lit hangar, my stomach churned with alarm. The gleaming sharklike silhouette of the Lear jet formed a backdrop for a tension-charged tableau. Seven of Louren’s bright young men clad in the regulation casual garb - smartly cut safari suits and fleece-lined car coats - stood in a discreet circle about the two protagonists.

  Louren Sturvesant very rarely loses his temper, and when he does it is only after severe and prolonged provocation. However, in less than two minutes Sally Senator had managed to achieve what many experts before her had never accomplished. Louren was in a towering, shaking, tight-lipped rage, which had his seven BYM awed and slack-mouthed.

  Sally had dropped her load of equipment on the concrete floor and was standing with clenched fists on her hips and bright explosions of colour burning in her cheeks, trading Louren glare for glare.

  ‘Dr Kazin told me I could come.’

  ‘I don’t care if the goddam King of Woody England told you that you could come. I’m telling you that the plane is full -and that I have no intention of dragging a female with me on the first break I’ve had in six months.’

  ‘I didn’t realize it was a pleasure jaunt—’

  ‘Will somebody throw this bitch out of here?’ shouted Louren, and the BYM roused themselves and made a tentative advance. Sally picked up the heavy wooden easel, and held it in both hands. The advance petered out. I scuttled into the void and grabbed Louren’s arm.

  ‘Please, Lo. Can we talk?’ I almost dragged him into the flight office - although I thought I detected a twinge of relief from Louren as I rescued him.

  ‘Look. I’m terribly sorry about this, Lo. I didn’t have a chance to explain—’

  Five minutes later Louren strode out of the office, and without a glance at either Sal or the frozen group of BYM, climbed into the jet and a moment later his head appeared beside that of the pilot in the window of the cockpit as he adjusted his earphones.

  I went to the junior BYM and gave him the word of the law.

  ‘Mr Sturvesant asked me to tell you to arrange a charter to Gaberones for yourself.’ Then I turned to the others, ‘I wonder if you could give us a hand with the luggage.’

  While a gang of the most highly paid stevedores in Africa carried in Sally’s luggage, she preened with shameless triumph. I managed to whisper a harsh warning.

  ‘Back seat,’ I snapped. ‘And try to make yourself invisible. You will never know how close that was. Not only did you nearly miss the trip, but you almost talked yourself out of a job.’

  We had been airborne for ten minutes before the pilot came back along the aisle. He stopped beside us and looked at Sal with open admiration.

  ‘Jesus, lady.’ He shook his head. ‘I would have given a month’s salary not to miss that! You were great.’

  Sally, who had been suitably subdued since my warning, immediately perked up.

  ‘With boys that size I don’t even spit out the bones,’ she declared, and a couple of BYM who heard it swivelled in their seats with startled expressions.

  The pilot laughed delightedly and turned to me. ‘The man wants to speak to you, Doctor. I’ll change places with you.’

  Louren was chit-chatting with flight control over the radio, but he waved me into the co-pilot’s seat and I squeezed behind the wheel and waited. Louren ended his transmission and turned to me.

  ‘Breakfast?’

  ‘I’ve eaten.’

  He ignored it and passed me a leg of cold turkey, and a huge slice of chicken and egg pie from the hamper beside him.

  ‘Coffee in the thermos. Help yourself.’

  ‘Did you get your £25 million loan?’ I asked with a full mouth.

  ‘Yes - despite a last-minute panic.’

  ‘I didn’t think you needed to borrow, Lo. Have you fallen on hard times?’

  ‘Oil prospecting.’ He laughed at my suggestion. ‘Risk money. I prefer to gamble with other people’s money, and play the certainties with my own.’ He changed the subject smoothly. ‘Sorry about the detour. I am dropping the boys off at Gaberones. They’ve got a series of meetings with the Botswana government. Routine stuff, just settling the details of the concession. Anyway, it’s not too far off our course. Then we can press on alone.’ He filled his mouth with turkey and spoke around it. ‘Met report is lousy, Ben. Thick cloud down on the deck over the whole northern area. Happens about once in three years that you get low overcast in the desert - but today’s the day. Anyway we’ll have a stab at picking up the hills and the ruins, no harm done if we can’t though. We’ll not learn anything more from the air.’ He was relaxed and easy, not a trace of his early rage, he could switch it on or off as he wished, and we talked and laughed together. I knew his mood, it was holiday and release. He was truly looking forward to it. Lost city or no lost city, it was an excuse to get out into the wild country that he loved.

  ‘This is like the old days. God, Ben, how long is it since we got away together? Must be all of ten years. Remember the canoe trip down the Orange River - when was that? 1956 or 7? And the expedition to find the wild bushmen.’

  ‘We must do it more often, Lo.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, really meaning it; as though he had a choice.

  ‘We must, but there is so little time. It’s running out so quickly - I’ll be forty years old next year.’ And his voice was wistful. ‘God, if only we could buy time with money!’

  ‘We’ve got five days,’ I said, heading the conversation away from the quicksands, and he picked it up eagerly. It was another half an hour before he mentioned Sally.

  ‘That assistant of yours, the prize fighter. What’s her name?’ And I told him.

  ‘Are you having it away with her?’ he asked. It was said so naturally, so casually, that for an instant I did not realize what had been said. Then I felt my vision blur with red rage, felt the blood pound in my temples and heat my throat and face. I think I could have killed him then, but instead I lied in a thick, shaken voice.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Just as well,’ he grunted. ‘She’s a wild one. Well, as long as she doesn’t mess up the trip.’ If only I had told him then, but it was too private a thing - too precious and fragile to despoil with words, especially the words he had chosen. Then the moment was passed, and I was sitting trembling and shaky as he talked on lightly about the five days ahead.

  As we flew the cloud solidified beneath us, congealing into a dirty greyish blanket that stretched away in all directions to the horizon. We crossed the border between South Africa and the independent African state of Botswana. At Gaberones the ceiling was down to a thousand feet when we landed. Despite Louren’s assurance that we would be speedily airborne once more, there was a deputation of senior government officials, and an invitation to drinks and food in a private dining-room of the airport. Hot, sticky weather with intent white faces talking softly and greedily to shiny intent black faces - all of them sweating in the heat and whisky fumes, and the thick swirls of cigar and cigarette smoke.

  Three hours more before the Lear jet w
ith just four of us aboard slashed up into the cloud cover, then burst through into the high bright sunshine.

  ‘Wow!’ said Louren. ‘An expensive little party. That black bastard Ngelane has just raised the price of his honour by another 20,000. I’ll have to square him, of course. He could squash the whole deal. It has to go through his ministry.’

  Louren flew northwards with the map on his lap and a stopwatch in his hand. His eyes darted from compass to airspeed indicator and back to the watch.

  ‘Okay, Ben. You’d better let Roger take over the controls. We’ll go down into the porridge and take a look-see.’

  With Louren and the pilot, Roger van Deventer, at the controls and Sal and I braced in the doorway of the cockpit behind them, the jet slanted down towards the floor of dirty cloud. A few wisps of the stuff flickered past and then suddenly the sun was gone and we were enfolded in the dark grey mist.

  Roger was flying, his attention completely on the instruments panel, and as the needle of the altimeter slowly unwound I saw his hands tightening on the wheel. We dropped steadily lower through the grey filth. Now Roger pulled on the flaps and airbrakes and throttled back. The three of us staring forward and down for the first glimpse of the earth. Down we sank, and still down. The pilot’s tension turned to active fear. I could smell it, the rank greasy tang of it. It was infectious. If he, the hardened fly-bird, was afraid, then I was prepared to be terrified. I knew suddenly that rather than risk Louren’s wrath he would fly us straight into the ground. I decided to intervene, and opened my mouth. It was unnecessary.

  ‘Overflown,’ grunted Louren. checking the stopwatch. ‘Ease up, Rog.’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Sturvesant, there is no bottom to this stuff.’ Roger said it like a sigh, and lifted the Lear’s nose. He opened the throttle and let off the airbrakes.

  ‘No go!’ I murmured with relief. ‘Forget it, Lo. Let’s go on to Maun.’

  Louren turned to look back at me, and instead looked into Sally’s face. She stood behind his shoulder. I could not see her expression, but I could guess what it was by the tone in which she asked softly, ‘Chicken?’

  Louren stared at her a moment longer, then he grinned. I could have turned Sally over my knee and beat that luscious backside to a pulp. The warm active fear I had felt the minute before, turned now to cold numbing terror for I had seen Louren grin like that before.