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'He rides like a sack of potatoes,' Shasa thought with irritation, following them at the sedate pace set by Isabella's portly Shetland on the lead rein. Shasa was an international polo player, and he took his middle son's maladroit seat as a personal affront.
Tara was in the kitchens overseeing the last-minute details for dinner, when they came trooping in. She looked up and greeted Shasa casually.
'Good day?" She was wearing those appalling trousers in faded blue denim which Shasa detested. He liked feminine women.
'Not bad,' he answered, trying to divest himself of Isabella who was still wrapped around his neck. He dislodged her and handed her over to Nanny.
'We are twelve for dinner." Tara turned her attention back to the Malay chef who was standing by dutifully. 'Twelve?" Shasa asked sharply.
'I invited the Broadhursts at the last moment." 'Oh God,' Shasa groaned.
'I wanted some stimulating conversation at the table for a change, not just horses and shooting and business." 'Last time she came to dinner your and Molly's stimulating conversation broke the party up before nine o'clock." Shasa glanced at his wristwatch. 'I'd better think about dressing." 'Daddy, will you feed me?" Isabella called from the children's dining-room beyond the kitchen.
'You are a big girl, angel,' he answered. 'You must learn to feed yourself." 'I can feed myself- I just like it better when you do it. Please, Daddy, pretty please a trillion times." 'A trillion?" Shasa asked. 'I am bid one trillion - any advance on a trillion?" but he went to her summons.
You spoil her,' Tara said. 'She's becoming impossible." 'I know,' said Shasa. 'You keep telling me." Shasa shaved quickly while his coloured valet laid out his dinnerjacket in the dressing-room and put the platinum and sapphire studs into his dress shirt. Despite Tara's vehement protests he always insisted on black tie for dinner.
'It's so stuffy and old-fashioned and snobby." 'It's civilized,' he contradicted her.
When he was dressed, he crossed the wide corridor strewn with oriental carpets, the walls hung with a gallery of Thomas Baines water-colours, tapped on Tara's door and went in to her invitation.
Tara had moved into this suite while she was carrying Isabella, and had stayed here. Last year she had redecorated it, removing the
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velvet drapes and George II and Louis XIV furniture, the Qm silk carpets and the magnificent oils by De Jong and Naud, strippin the flocked wallpaper and sanding the golden patina off the yellov wood floor until it looked like plain deal.
Now the walls were stark white with only a single enormot painting facing the bed; it was a monstrosity of geometrical shape in primary colours in the style of Mir6, but executed by an ur known art student at the Cape Town University Art School an of no value. To Shasa's mind paintings should be pleasing dec orations but at the same time good long-term investments. Thi thing was neither.
The furniture Tara had chosen for her boudoir was made of an gular stainless steel and glass, and there was very little of it. The be was almost flat on the bare boards of the floor. 'It's Swedish decor,' she had explained.
Send it back to Sweden,' he had advised her.
Now he perched on one of the steel chairs and lit a cigarette. Sh4
frowned at him in the mirror.
'Forgive me." He stood up and went to flick the cigarette out o the window. 'I'll be working late after dinner,' he turned back to her 'and I wanted to warn you before I forget that I'm flying up to Jo'burg tomorrow afternoon and I'll be away for a few days, mayb five or six." 'Fine." She pursed her lips as she applied her lipstick, a pale mauve shade that he disliked intensely.
'One other thing, Tara. Lord Littleton's bank is preparing to underwrite the share issue for our possible new development on the Orange Free State goldfields. I would take it as a personal favour it you and Molly could refrain from waving your black sashes in his face and from regaling him with merry tales of white injustice and bloody black revolution." 'I can't speak for Molly, but I promise to be good." 'Why don't you wear your diamonds tonight?" he changed the subject. 'They look so good on you." She hadn't worn the suite of yellow diamonds from the H'am Mine since she had joined the Sash movement. They made her feel like Marie Antoinette.
'Not tonight,' she said. 'They are a little garish, it's really just a family dinner party." She dusted her nose with the puff and looked at him in the mirror.
'Why don't you go down, dear. Your precious Lord Littleton will be arriving at any moment." 'I just want to tuck Bella up first." He came to stand behind her.
They stared at each other in the mirror, seriously.
'What happened to us, Tara?" he asked softly.
'I don't know what you mean, dear,' she replied, but she looked down and adjusted the front of her dress carefully.
'I'll see you downstairs,' he said. 'Don't be too long, and do make a fuss of Littleton. He's important, and he likes the girlies." After he had closed the door Tara stared at it for a moment, then she repeated his question aloud. 'What happened to us, Shasa? It's quite simple really. I just grew up and lost patience with the trivialities with which you fill your life." On the way down she looked in on the children. Isabella was asleep with teddy on top of her face. Tara saved her daughter from suffocation and went to the boys' rooms. Only Michael was still awake.
He was reading.
'Lights out!" she ordered.
'Oh, Mater, just to the end of the chapter." 'Out!" 'Just this page." 'Out, I said!" And she kissed him lovingly.
At the head of the staircase she drew a deep breath like a diver on the high board, smiled brightly and went down into the blue drawingroom where the first guests were already sipping sherry.
Lord Littleton was much better value than she had expected - tall, silver-haired and benign.
'Do you shoot?" she asked at the first opportunity.
'Can't stand the sight of blood, me dear." 'Do you ride?" 'Horses?" he snorted. 'Stupid bloody animals." 'I think you and I are going to be good friends,' she said.
There were many rooms in Weltevreden that Tara disliked; the dining-room she actively hated with all those heads of long-dead animals that Shasa had massacred staring down from the walls with glass eyes. Tonight she took a chance and seated Molly on the other side of Littleton and within minutes Molly had him hooting with delighted laughter.
When they left the men with the port and Hauptmanns and went through to the ladies room, Molly pulled Tara aside, bubbling over with excitement.
'I've been dying to get you alone all ex/ening,' she whispered.
'You'll never guess who is in the Cape at this very moment." 'Tell me." 'The secretary of the African National Congress - that's who.
Moses Gama, that's who." Tara went very still and pale and stared at her.
'He's coming to our home to talk to a small group of us, Tara. I invited him, and he especially asked for you to be present. I didn't know you knew him." 'l met him only once --' she corrected herself, 'twice." 'Can you come?" Molly insisted. 'It'll be best if Shasa does not know about it, you understand." 'WhenT 'Saturday evening, eight o'clock." 'Shasa will be away and I'll be there,' Tara said. 'I wouldn't miss it for the world." Sean Courthey was the stalwart of the Western Province Preparatory School first fifteen, or Wet Pups, as the school was known. Quick and strong he ran in four tries against the Rondebosch juniors and converted them himself, while his father and two younger brothers stood on the touchline and yelled encouragement.
After the final whistle blew Shasa lingered just long enough to congratulate his son, with an effort restraining himself from hugging the sweaty grinning youngster with grass stains on his white shorts and a graze on one knee. A display like that in front of Sean's peers would have mortified him horribly. Instead they shook hands.