'We will meet again,' he had promised, and she believed him.
Light with joy she went on down the passageway. She had her own key to her father's office and as she fitted it to the lock, her eyes were on a level with the brass plate: COLONEL BLAINE MALCOMESS DEPUTY LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION With surprise she found that the lock was already opened, and she pushed the door wide and went in.
Centaine Courtney-Malcomess turned from the window beyond the desk to confront her. 'I have been waiting for you, young lady." Centaine's French accent was an affectation that annoyed Tara. She has been back to France just once in thirty-five years, she thought, and lifted her chin defiantly.
'Don't toss your head at me, Tara chbrie,' Centaine went on.
'When you act like a child, you must expect to be treated as a child." 'No, Mater, you are wrong. I do not expect you to treat me as a child, not now or ever. I am a married woman of thirty-three years of age, the mother of four children and the mistress of my own establishment." Centaine sighed. 'All right,' she nodded. 'My concern made me illmannered, and I apologize. Let's not make this discussion any more difficult for each other than it already is." 'I was not aware that we needed to discuss anything." 'Sit down, Tara,' Centaine ordered, and Tara obeyed instinctively ,! !
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and then was annoyed with herself for doing so. Centaine took her father's chair behind the desk, and Tara resented that also - it was Daddy's chair and this woman had no right to it.
'You have just told me that you are a wife with four children,' Centaine spoke quietly. 'Would you not agree that you have a duty--' 'My children are well cared for,' Tara flared at her. 'You cannot accuse me of that." 'And what about your husband and your marriage9." 'What about Shasa?" Tara was immediately defensive.
'You tell me,' Centaine invited.
'It's none of your business." 'Oh, but it is,' Centaine contradicted her. 'I have devoted my entire life to Shasa. I plan for him to be one of the leaders of this nation." She paused and a dreamy glaze covered her eyes for a moment, and she seemed to squint slightly.
Tara had noticed that expression before, whenever Centaine was in deep thought, and now she wanted to break in upon it as brutally as she could. 'That's impossible and you know it." Centaine's eyes snapped back into focus and she glared at Tara.
'Nothing is impossible - not for me, not for us." 'Oh yes it is,' Tara gloated. 'You know as well as I do that the Nationalists have gerrymandered the electorate, that they have even loaded the Senate with their own appointees. They are in power for ever. Never again will anyone who is not one of them, an Afrikaner Nationalist, ever be this country's leader, not until the revolution and when that is over, the leader will be a black man,' Tara broke off and thought for an instant of Moses Gama.
'You are naYve,' Centaine snapped. 'You do not understand these things. Your talk of revolution is childish and irresponsible." 'Have it your own way, Mater. But deep down you know it's so.
Your darling Shasa will never fulfill your dream. Even he is beginning to sense the futility of being in opposition for ever. He is losing interest in the impossible. I wouldn't be surprised if he decides not to contest the next election, gives up the political aspirations that you have foisted on him and simply goes off to make himself another trillion pounds." 'No,' Centaine shook her head. 'He won't give up. He is a fighter like I am." 'He'll never be even a cabinet minister, let alone prime minister,' Tara stated flatly.
'If you believe that, then you are no wife for my son,' Centaine said.
Wou said it,' Tara said softly. 'You said it, not me." Oh, Tara, my dear, i am sorry." Centaine reached across the desk but it was too broad for her to touch Tara's hand. 'Forgive me. I lost my temper. All this is so desperately important to me. I feel it so deeply, but I did not mean to antagonize you. I want only to help you - I am so worried about you and Shasa. I want to help, Tara.
Won't you let me help you?" 'I don't see that we need help,' Tara lied sweetly. 'Shasa and I are perfectly happy. We have four lovely children--' Centaine made an impatient gesture. 'Tara, you and I haven't always seen eye to eye. But I am your friend, I truly am. I want the best for you and Shasa and the little ones. Won't you let me help you?" 'How, Mater? By giving us money - you have already given us ten or twenty million - or is it thirty million pounds? I lose track sometimes." 'Won't you let me share my experience with you? Won't you listen to my advice?" 'Yes, Mater, I'll listen. I don't promise to take it, but I'll listen to it." 'Firstly, Tara dear, you must give up these crazy left-wing activities. You bring the whole family into disrepute. You make a spectacle of yourself, and therefore of us, by dressing up and standing on street corners. Apart from that, it is positively dangerous. The Suppression of Communism Act is now law. You could be declared a communist, and placed under a banning order. Just consider that, you would become a non-person, deprived of all human rights and dignity. Then there is Shasa's political career. What you do reflects on him." 'Mater, I promised to listen,' Tara said stonily. 'But now I withdraw that promise. I know what I am doing." She stood up and moved to the door where she paused and looked back. 'Did you ever think, Centaine Courtney-Malcomess, that my mother died of a broken heart, and it was your blatant adultery with my father that broke it for her? Yet you can sit there smugly and advise me how to conduct my life, so as not to disgrace you and your precious son." She went out and closed the heavy teak door softly behind her.
Shasa Courtney lolled on the opposition front bench with his hands pushed deeply into his pockets, his legs thrust out and crossed-at the ankles, and listened intently to the minister of police outlining the legislation which he intended bringing before the House during the current session.
The minister of police was the youngest member of the cabinet, a man of approximately the same age as Shasa, which was extraordinary. The Afrikaner revered age and mistrusted the inexperience and impetuosity of youth. The average age of the other members of the Nationalist cabinet could not be less than sixty-five years, Shasa reflected, and yet here was Manfred De La Rey standing before them, a mere stripling of less than forty years, setting out the general contents of the Criminal Law Amendment Bill which he would be proposing and shepherding through its various stages.
'He is asking for the right to declare a state of emergency which will put the police above the law, without appeal to the courts,' Blaine Malcomess grunted beside him, and Shasa nodded without looking at his father-in-law. Instead he was watching the man across the floor.
Manfred De La Rey was speaking in Afrikaans, as he usually did.
His English was heavily accented and laboured, and he spoke it unwillingly, making only the barest gesture towards the bilingualism of the House. On the other hand, when speaking in his mother tongue, he was eloquent and persuasive, his oratorial attitudes and devices were so skilled as to seem entirely natural and more than once he raised a chuckle of exasperated admiration from the opposition benches and a chorus of 'Haar, boot!" from his own party.
'The fellow has a damned cheek." Blaine Malcomess shook his head. 'He is asking for the right to suspend the rule of law and impose a police state at the whim of the ruling party. We'll have to fight that tooth and nail." 'My word!" Shasa agreed mildly, but he found himself envying the other man, and yet mysteriously drawn to him. It was strange how their two destinies seemed to be inexorably linked.