Patchy jumped up softly, padding up to Hannah’s head. With one paw, she gently batted at Hannah’s face. Hannah groaned and pulled the quilt up over her face. Patchy eyed her through a gap in the sheets, and then a paw prodded Hannah’s cheek again.
‘Okay, okay, I’m getting up!’
Stumbling down the passage, she tripped over the Victorian iron doorstop as she headed into the kitchen. Both Patchy and Tim received a curse as she nursed her toe, the nail torn and bruised.
Sipping her strong cup of tea, she opened the French doors and stepped onto the deck. The sun was already deliciously hot on her skin, the garden humming with life after the rain.
Her thoughts wandered to the journal. Why not spend today exploring the site of the camp? She gobbled her breakfast and pulled on her running shoes, envisaging a walk up a hillside to the memorial site. Twisting her hair into a ponytail and, with her scribbled notes folded into her jeans pocket, she locked the cottage.
Just outside of Leliehoek, she took a tar road to the right, and drove for ten minutes before seeing a sign post for Goshen Farm. A dirt road ran between pastures on either side. Around a corner, the fields dropped away to a wooded ribbon which, she guessed, followed a stream. The road curved and, crossing a cattle grid, she found herself in a park-like garden where lawns stretched between the shades of old trees. She passed a quaint stone cottage, where standard iceberg roses stood in a row along the drive, and flowerbeds rambled up against the walls of the little house.
Further along the drive, she caught sight of a much larger house, also of tawny sandstone. A wide veranda sprawled along three sides of the house. It too was set amid a striking garden, but it was far more utilitarian, with agapanthus plants and succulents massed in huge groups, giving it a more formal feel than the warm softness of the cottage. The drive ended in a circle that had a sundial and aloe garden at its centre.
She took a minute to admire the setting. The house looked over the garden towards the steep red-gold cliff faces of a mountain. Trees grew thickly at its base along what she thought must be the river she had seen earlier. She slammed her car door shut, and then froze as a storm of barking came around the house. First to appear was an enormous ridgeback who galloped straight for Hannah, as though intent on swallowing her whole. She braced herself, squeezing her eyes shut in terror. When, a second later, she opened them again, the huge dog was standing in front of her, sniffing her jeans and wagging his tail. By this time, two Labradors had joined them and proceeded to gambol around her, their tails thumping her legs. She gingerly offered the dogs her hand to sniff, and was rewarded with licks and broad grins from all three.
As she looked up from stroking the ridgeback’s head, she saw a tall, lean man standing in the farmhouse doorway. His brows were drawn down into a frown, darkening his face.
‘Um, hi,’ said Hannah, smiling uncertainly and trying to direct the ridgeback’s nose out of her crotch.
The man came down the three steps and, as he drew closer, she could see that a white scar ran from his nose, slicing his right cheek and pulling the corner of his mouth down. It destroyed what must once have been a beautiful face.
‘Visitors are by appointment only,’ he said curtly.
‘Sorry,’ Hannah stumbled over her tongue. ‘I was looking for Alistair Barlow? I’ve just arrived from Cape Town—’
‘I thought I made it clear in my email a few weeks ago that I wasn’t interested in your eco-tourism venture.’
‘Um, actually, no—’
He cut her off again: ‘What do you mean, no? This isn’t a debate.’ His eyes hardened to a flinty glare.
‘Um, no, I mean I’m not here about a tourism venture… I’m looking for the camp site.’
‘There is no camping here.’ His voice dropped to a scary softness. ‘Get the fuck off my farm.’
Realising she was not going to rescue this, Hannah got into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and drove off. She looked in her mirror and saw the man staring after her. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets, the dogs sitting at his feet, looking up at him, their tails thumping the ground.
Hannah was furious. She drove back over the cattle grid, the rumbling of the tyres over those bars jarring, just like her thoughts. What the hell was that? That horrible man. Maybe she should just turn the car around and go back. Shred that cold façade with the hot words that were boiling out of her now. She thought of a million things she could have shouted at him, but she had been completely tongue-tied. He had walked all over her, told her to get the fuck off his farm. Nobody had ever spoken to her like that. Well, you bastard. I will not. I’ll find the camp site myself. She swung the Mazda onto a track that trailed between two sloped fields. Her little car bounced and scraped along the track, and she slowed to a crawl. The storm had softened the track, and what were clearly tractor tracks had now become two parallel ditches of mud. Anger fuelled her determination to keep going along the track which was deteriorating fast. Eventually, the Mazda ground to a halt, tyres spinning in her increasingly futile attempts to rev the car out of there. She gave up at last and, opening her door, managed to leap from the cab to the grass edge of the track. From this angle, she could see that her car was well and truly stuck. This made her even angrier. She had left her cellphone in her bedside drawer, loving the freedom of not being contactable. That had come back to bite her. Dammit!
She slammed the Mazda’s door as hard as she could, reaping tiny satisfaction from the car’s shudder. Then, turning back, she made her way down the track towards the farm road, keeping to the grass verge. By the time she came to the road, her running shoes were sopping wet, the hems of her jeans mud-soaked. She stopped at the end of the track, debating with herself whether to make her way back to the farmhouse for help or head for the main road. Thinking that she would rather take her chances with potential axe-murdering motorists than approach the farm owner again, Hannah turned for the road.
Five minutes later, walking resolutely down the farm road, she heard the approach of a vehicle. It came into view before she could scramble and hide, so she kept walking, her head high. The Isuzu pickup drew alongside her and a good-looking older man hung his elbow over the window frame.
‘Can I help you with something?’
Hannah stopped and looked into warm eyes, crinkled at the corners. He was wearing a two-toned khaki-and-blue shirt. A Jack Russell lay across the seat behind the man’s shoulders, its stubby tail wagging against the man’s sunburnt neck.
‘My bakkie got stuck up the track. I need a tow, I think.’
‘That, I can help you with,’ he said, smiling. ‘Hop in. I’m Neil Barlow and this is Jim Beam.’ He put a hand behind his neck to the little dog.
‘Hannah Harrison,’ she said and grinned at him in relief.
He looked quizzically at her as he drove off down the road. ‘I’m at a complete loss as to who you are and how you got stuck on the farm. We don’t see many young people here any more.’
‘I’m new in town,’ she said, wanting to steer the conversation away from exactly how she had ended up stuck on the track. ‘I’m managing the bookshop in Leliehoek.’
‘Tim’s shop? For how long?’
‘Well, Tim and Chris are going to try life in Australia. If they settle there, then…’ Hannah shrugged.
Neil looked back from the road to her. ‘Isn’t that interesting. It’s about time we had another beautiful girl in town.’
‘That’s the best welcome I’ve had since I arrived,’ said Hannah, laughing. ‘So, who is the other beautiful girl?’