A silver blade of moonlight pierced the curtains and Fell on Veronica's pale hair that swirled across the pillow. Sean leaned over her and covered her mouth with his hand. She came awake struggling and terrified.
'It's me,' he whispered. 'Don't be afraid, Ronny. It's me." Her struggles stilled, the fear faded from her huge mauve eyes, and she reached up for him with both arms. He lifted his hand off her mouth and she said, 'Oh, Sean, deep down I knew it. I knew you still loved me." Rufus was furious. 'I thought you had been caught,' he whined.
'What happened to you, man?" 'I was doing the hard work." Sean kicked the Harley Davidson and it roared into life. As he turned back on to the road he felt the weight of the saddle bags pull the machine off balance, but he met her easily and straightened up.
'Slow down, man,' Rufus leaned forward from the pillion to caution him. 'You'll wake the whole valley." And Sean laughed in the wild rush of wind, drunk with excitement, and they went up over the crest at a hundred miles an hour.
Sean parked the Harley Davidson on the Kraaifontein road and they scrambled down the bank and squatted in the dry culvert beneath the road. By the light of an electric torch they shared the booty.
'You said there would be five grand,' Rufus whined accusingly.
'Man, there isn't more than a hundred." 'Old man Weston must have paid his slaves." Sean chuckled carelessly as he split the small bundle of bank notes, and pushed the larger pile towards Rufus. 'You need it more than me, kid." The jewel box contained cuff-links and studs, a diamond tie-pin that Sean judged to be fully five carats in weight, masonic medallions, Mark Weston's miniature decorations on a bar - he had won an M.C. at E1 Alamein and a string of campaign medals - a Pathek Philippe dress watch in gold and a handful of other personal items.
Rufus ran over them with an experienced eye. 'The watch is engraved, all the other stuff is too hot to move, too dangerous, man.
We'll have to dump it." They opened the coin albums. Five of them were filled with sovereigns. 'Okay,' Rufus grunted. 'I can move that small stuff, but not these. They are red hot, burn your fingers." With scorn he discarded the albums of heavy coins, the five-pound and five-guinea issues of Victoria and Elizabeth, Charles and the Georges.
After he dropped Rufus off at the illicit shebeen in the coloured District Six where Rufus had parked his own motorcycle, Sean rode out alone along the high winding road that skirts the sheer massif of Chapman's Peak. He parked the Harley on the edge of the cliff. The green Atlantic crashed against the rock five hundred feet below where he stood. One at a time Sean hurled the heavy gold coins out over the edge. He flicked them underhanded, so that they caught the dawn's uncertain light, and then were lost in the shadows of the cliff face as they fell, so he could not see them strike the surface of the water far below. When the last coin was gone, he tossed the empty albums after them and they fluttered as they caught the wind. Then he flung the gold wristwatch and the diamond pin out into the void.
He kept the medals for last. It gave him a vindictive satisfaction to have screwed Mark Weston's wife and daughter, and then to throw his medals into the sea.
When he mounted the Harley Davidson and turned it back down the steep winding road, he pushed the goggles up on to his forehead and let the wind beat into his face and rake his eyes so that the tears streamed back across his cheeks. He rode hard, putting the glistening machine over as he went into the turns so that the footrest struck a shower of sparks from the road surface.
'Not much profit for a night's work,' he told himself, and the wind tore the words from his lips. 'But the thrills, oh, the thrills!" When all his best efforts to interest Sean and Michael in the planetary system of the Courtney companies had resulted in either lukewarm and devioasly feigned enthusiasm or in outright disinterest, Shasa had gone through a series of emotions, beginning with puzzlement.
He tried hard to see how anyone, particularly a young man of superior intellect, and even more particularly a son of his, could find the whole complex interlinking of wealth and opportunity, of challenge and reward, less than fascinating. At first he thought that he was to blame, that he had not explained it sufficiently, that he had somehow taken their response for granted and had through his own omissions, failed to quicken their attention.
To Shasa it was the very stuff of life itselfi His first waking thought each morning and his last before sleep each night, was for the welfare and sustenance of the company. So he tried again, more patiently, more exhaustively. It was like trying to explain colour to a blind man, and from puzzlement Shasa found himself becoming angry.
'Damn it, Mater,' he exploded, when he and Centaine were alone at her favourite place on the hillside above the Atlantic. 'They just don't seem to care." 'What about Garry?" Centaine asked quietly.
'Oh Garry!" Shasa chuckled disparagingly. 'Every time I turn around I trip over him. He is like a puppy." 'I see you have given him his own office on the third floor,' Centaine observed mildly.
'The old broom cupboard,' Shasa said. 'It was a joke really, but the little blighter took it seriously. I didn't have the heart --' 'He takes most things seriously, does young Garrick,' Centaine observed. 'He's the only one who does. He's quite a deep one." 'Oh, come on, Mater! Garry?" 'He and I had a long chat the other day. You should do the same, it might surprise you. Did you know that he's in the top three in his year?" 'Yes, of course, I knew - but I mean, it's only his first year of business administration. One doesn't take that too seriously." 'Doesn't one?" Centaine asked innocently, and Shasa was unusually silent for the next few minutes.
The following Friday Shasa looked into the cubbyhole at the end of the passage which served as Garry's office when he was temporarily employed by Courtney Mining during his college vacations.
Garry leapt dutifully to his feet when he recognized his father and he pushed his spectacles up on the bridge of his nose.
'Hello, champ, what are you up to?" Shasa asked, glancing down at the forms that covered the desk.
'It's a control,' Garry was caught in a cross-fire - awe at his father's sudden interest in what he was doing and desperation to retain his attention and to obtain his approval.
'Did you know that we spent over a hundred pounds on stationery last month alone?" He was so anxious to impress his father that he stuttered again, something he only did when he was overexcited.
'Take a deep breath, champ." Shasa eased into the tiny room. There was just room for the two of them. 'Speak slowly, and tell me about it." One of Garry's official duties was to order and issue the office stationery. The shelves behind his desk were filled with sheaves of typing paper and boxes of envelopes.
'According to my estimates we should be able to cut that below eighty pounds. We could save twenty pounds a month." 'Show me." Shasa perched on the corner of the desk and applied his mind to the problem. He treated it with as much respect as if they were discussing the development of a new gold-mine.
'You are quite right,' Shasa approved his figures. 'You have full authority to put your new control system into practice." Shasa stood up. 'Well done,' he said, and Garry glowed with gratification. Shasa turned to the door so the lad wouldn't see his expression of amusement, and then he paused and looked back.
'Oh, by the way, I'm flying up to Walvis Bay tomorrow. I'm meeting the architects and the engineers on site to discuss the extensions to the canning factory. Would you like to come along?" Unable to trust his voice lest he stutter again, Garry nodded emphatically.