'I have just explained what steps we will take." 'Yes." Shasa cut him off quickly. 'We know that the foreign view is distorted. We know that we still have a strong and stable government, that the country is prosperous and productive and that the vast majority of our people, both black and white, are lawabiding and content. We know that we have our guardian angel, gold, to protect us. But we have to convince the rest of the world." 'Do you think that's possible, man."?" Manfred asked quickly.
'Yes, with a full-scale and concerted campaign to give the truth of the situation to the businessmen of the world,' Shasa said. 'I have recruited most of our own leaders in industry and commerce to assist.
We will go out at our own expense to explain the truth. We will invite them here -journalists, businessmen and friends - to see for themselves how tranquil and how under control the country truly is, and just how rich are the opportunities.
Sfiasa spoke for another thirty minutes and when he ended, his own fervour and sincerity had exhausted him; but then he saw how he had finally convinced his colleagues and he knew the results were worth the effort. He was convinced that-from the horror of Sharpeville he could mount a fresh endeavour that would carry them to greater heights of prosperity and strength.
Shasa had always been resilient, with extraordinary recuperative powers. ,:en in his airforce days, when he brought the squadron in from a sortie over the Italian lines and the others had sat around the mess, stunned and shattered by the experience, he had been the first to recover and to start the repartee and boisterous horse-play. Shasa left the cabinet room drained and exhausted but by the time he had driven the vintage SS Jaguar around the mountain and through the Anreith gate of Weltevreden, he was sitting up straight in the bucket seat, feeling confident and jaunty again.
The harvest was long past and the labourers were in the vineyards pruning the vines. Shasa parked the Jaguar and went down between the rows of bare leafless plants to talk to them and give them encouragement. Many of these men and women had been on Weltevreden since Shasa had been a child, and the younger ones had been born here. Shasa looked upon them as an extension of his family and they in turn regarded him as their patriarch. He spent half an hour with them listening to their small problems and worries, and settling most with a few words of assurance, then he broke off and left them abruptly as a figure on horseback came down the far side of the vineyard at full gallop.
From the corner of the stone wall Shasa watched Isabella gather her mount, and he stiflened as he realized what she was going to do.
The mare was not yet fully schooled and Shasa had never trusted her temperament. The wall was of yellow Table Mountain sandstone, five foot high.
'No, Bella!" he whispered. 'No, baby!" But she turned the mare and drove her at the wall, and the horse reacted gamely. Her quarters bunched and the great muscles rippled below the glossy hide. Isabella lifted her and they went up.
Shasa held his breath, but even in his suspense he could appreciate what a magnificent sight they made, horse and rider, thoroughbreds both - the mare with her forelegs folded up under her chest and her ears pricked forward, soaring away from the earth, and Isabella leaning back in the saddle, her back arched and her young body supple and lovely, long legs and fine thrusting breasts, red mouth laughing and her hair flying free, sparkling with ruby lights in the late yellow sunlight.
Then they were over and Shasa exhaled sharply. Isabella swung the mare down to where he stood at the corner.
'You promised to ride with me, Pater,' she scolded him. Shasa's instinct was to reprimand her for that jump, but he prevented himself.
He knew she would probably respond by pulling the mare's head around and taking the jump again from this side. He wondered just when he had lost control of her, and then grinned ruefully as he answered himself.
'About ten minutes after she was born." The mare was dancing in a circle and Isabella flung her hair back with a toss of her head.
'I waited almost an hour for you,' she said.
'Affairs of state --' Shasa began.
'That's no excuse, Pater. A promise is a promise." 'It's still not too late,' he pointed out, and she laughed as she challenged him.
'I'll race that old banger of yours down to the stables!" And she booted the mare into a gallop.
'Not fair,' he called after her. 'You have too much start,' but she turned in the saddle and stuck her tongue out at him. He ran to the Jag, but she cut across north field and was dismounted by the time he drove into the stableyard.
She tossed her reins to a groom and ran to embrace him. Isabella had a variety of kisses, but this type, lingering and loving, with a little bit of ear-nuzzling at the end, was reserved for when she badly wanted something from him, something that she knew he was going to try to refuse.
While he pulled on his riding boots she sat close beside him on the bench and told him a funny story about her sociology professor at varsity.
'This huge shaggy St Bernard wandered into the lecture theatre and Prof. Jacobs was quick as a flash. Better that the dogs should come to learning, he said, than learning should go to the dogs." She was a natural mimic. As they left the saddle room, she hugged his arm.
'Oh, Daddy, if only I could find a boy like you, but they're all so utterly dreary." 'Long may they remain that way,' he wished fervently.
He made a cup with his hands for her to mount, but she laughed at him and sprang to the saddle easily on those long lovely legs.
'Come on, slowcoach. It'll be dark soon." Shasa enjoyed being alone with her. She enchanted him with her mercurial changes of mood and subject. She had a quick mind and quirky sense of humour, to go with her extraordinary face and body, but Ste alarmed him when she showed flashes of that restless refusal to coneentrate for long on a single topic. Sean had been like that, needing constant stimulation to hold his interest, easily bored by anything that could not keep the same breathless pace that he set.
Shasa was amazed that Isabella had lasted out a year of university studies, but he was resigned to the fact that she wasn't going to graduate. Every time they discussed it, she was more disparaging of the academic life. Make-believe, she called it. Kids' stuff. And when he reed, 'Well, Bella, you are still a kid', she bridled at him. 'Oh, Daddy, you don't understand!" 'Don't I? Don't you think I was your age once?" 'I suppose so - but that was in biblical times, for God's sake." 'Ladies don't swear,' he remonstrated automatically.
She attracted admirers in slavish droves, and treated them with callous indifference for a while and then dropped them with almost feline cruelty, and all the time the restlessness in her was more apparent.
'I should have been stricter with her right from the beginning,' he decided grimly, and then grinned. 'What the hell, she's my only indulgence - and she'll be gone soon enough." 'Do you know that when you smile like that you are the sexiest man in the world?" she interrupted his thoughts.
'What do you know about sexiness, young lady?" he demanded gruffly to cover his gratification, and she tossed her head at him.
'Wouldn't you like to know?" 'No thank you,' he refused hastily. 'I'd probably have a hernia on the Spot." 'My poor old Daddy." She edged the mare over until their knees touched and she leaned across to hug him.
'All right, Bella,' he smiled. 'You'd better tell me what you want.
Your heavy artillery has demolished my defences entirely." 'Oh, Daddy, you make me seem so scheming. I'll race you down to the polo grounds." He let her lead, holding his stallion's nose just behind her stirrup all the way down the hill. Nonetheless, she was flushed with triumph as she pulled in the mare and turned back to him. 'I had a letter from Mater,' she said.