after lunch set off northward for Makata’s kraal. The new tobacco manager agreed very happily to come with his car and fetch her later on.
She had become unused to trekking any distance. Her energy ebbed after the first mile. A cloud of locusts caught her attention and automatically she stopped to watch anxiously whether the swarm would settle on Chakata’s mealies or miss them. It passed over. She sat to rest on a stone, disturbing a baby lizard. “Go’way. Go’way,” she heard.
Daphne called aloud, “God help me. Life is unbearable.”
A house-boy came running to Chakata who was round by the tobacco shed resting on two sticks.
“Baas Tuys is gone to shoot buck. The piccanin say he take a gun to shoot buck.”
“Who? What?”
“Baas Tuys with gun.”
“Where? Which way?”
“Is gone by north. The piccanin have seen him. Was after lunch piccanin say, he talk that he go to shoot buck.”
A few more natives had gathered round.
“Run, quick, all of you. Get that gun off Old Tuys. Fetch him back.”
They looked at him hesitantly. It was not every day that a native was instructed to wrest a gun from the hands of a white man.
“Go, you fools. Run.”
They returned slowly and fearfully half an hour later. Chakata had hobbled to the end of the paddock to meet them.
“Where’s Tuys? Did you get him?”
They did not answer at first. Then one of them pointed to the path through the maize where Old Tuys was staggering home, exhausted, dragging something behind him.
“Go and pick her up,” ordered Chakata.
“I got me a buck,” said Old Tuys, looking with pride at the company. “Man, there’s life in the old dog yet. I got us a buck.”
He looked closely at Chakata. He could not understand why Chakata was not impressed.
“We have buck for dinner, man Chakata,” he said.
Burials follow quickly after death in the Colony, for the temperature does not allow of delay. The inquest was held and Daphne was buried next day. Michael Casse came over for the funeral to the cemetery outside the dorp.
“I knew her quite well, you know. She stayed with my mother,” he said to Chakata. “My mother gave her a bird, or something like that.” He giggled. Chakata looked at him curiously and saw that the man was not smiling.
Chakata was being helped into the car. “I must see a specialist,” he said.
Ralph Mercer was moved when he heard the news. It was like the confirmation of something one knew already. Daphne had begun to live when he had first met her, and when she had gone she had been in a sense dead. He tried to explain this to his mother.
“Like flowers, you know, in the garden. One can’t say they really exist unless one’s looking at them. Or take –”
“Flowers, garden … You are talking of a human soul.”
* * *
It was a year later that Ralph felt a crisis in his work. His books were selling, but on the other hand they were not taken seriously enough by serious people. All his novels had ended happily. He decided to write a tragedy.
He ranged his experience for a tragedy. He thought of, and rejected as too banal, the domestic ruptures of his friends past and present. He rejected the story of his mother, widowed young, disappointed in her son, but still pushing on: that was too personal. He thought of Daphne. That might lead to something both exotic and tragic. He recalled her stories of Old Tuys and Chakata, the theme of the lifelong feud. He took a ticket on a plane to the Colony in order to obtain background material at first hand.
Almost immediately he arrived in the Colony he found himself beset by admirers. He had never before been so celebrated and popular in his person. He was invited to Government House. Dinners were given in his honour, and people drove in through swollen rivers from outlying districts to attend them. He had to pick and choose amongst the invitations he received. Everyone with a white skin had heard of, if they had not read, Ralph Mercer. Moreover, seated among this company on wide verandas after dinner he could look round without catching the cool eye of some critic, some frightful man whom the public hardly ever heard of, but who, at home, was always present at parties of this sort, and who put Ralph out. He began to think he had vastly underrated the intelligence of his public.
“I have been thinking of changing my style. I’ve been thinking of writing a tragedy.”
“Good Lord,” said the retired brigadier whom he had addressed, “you don’t want to do that.”
Everyone said the same.
Another thing everyone said was, “Why don’t you settle here?” or “Why don’t you take a place and live here for part of the year? It’s the only way to avoid the heavy taxes.”
At the Club he had met Michael Casse who had come up to the Capital to see the Land Bank about a loan.
“My wife adores your books,” said Michael. He giggled. Ralph wondered for a moment if Michael was a critic.
“We have a mutual friend,” said Michael, “or rather had. Daphne du Toit. I went to her funeral.” He giggled.
“The reason I’ve come out here is to see her grave,” said Ralph defensively. “And to talk to her uncle.”
“Got a car?” said Michael. “If not I’ll drive you down. I live near them.” Ralph realized that Michael’s giggle was a nervous tic.
“I might settle in the Colony – seven months in the year, you know,” he confided.
“There’s a nice place near us,” said Michael. “It’s coming up for sale soon.”
Ralph had been two months in the Colony, had toured the country, had been shown all the interesting spots, and met the enjoyable people, when at last he accepted Michael’s invitation to stay at his farm.
“Are you writing anything at the moment?” said Michael’s wife.
“No, but I’m collecting material.”
“Oh, will it be about the Colony?”
“It’s difficult to say.”
He was not sure now that the Daphne idea would be as appealing as he had thought. He could not envisage his public, especially that section which he had recently met at close quarters, appreciating such a theme.
Michael showed him over the farm which was up for sale. Ralph said he would almost certainly take it.
They went to see Chakata and Ralph spoke of Daphne. Chakata said, “Why didn’t she settle down in
