Neil wiped the remains of soup from his bowl with a crust of bread. ‘Stories all start somewhere, though. Just because we lose the beginning of the thread doesn’t mean it never happened. That wind pump up on the plateau is pretty old.’
Sarah smiled across the table at him. ‘I remember my grandfather telling me about that metal one arriving in a kit all the way from America. It was a big event on the farm.’
Alistair frowned at his parents. ‘How is it that I don’t know any of this?’
‘Anyway,’ Neil said, not so deftly shifting the conversation, ‘I hope we see more of that girl. Maybe we should invite her round, Sarah?’
Alistair pushed his chair away from the table. ‘Just warn me, please. I’ll make sure I’m out of the way.’ He came around to Sarah’s seat and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. ‘Lovely lunch, Mum, thanks.’
May 1901, Goshen Camp, Orange River Colony
Dear Wolf,
At night, I dream of the farm. I dream of you, my brother and my best friend. I see you in my sleep. You come in from the veld with your face brown from the sun, and the smell of wind and grass on your clothes.
I think of our playing together as children, hiding from the little ones and feeling so grown up that we could build forts and swim in the river on our own. Then we were older. I had more work to do in the house and you were out helping Pa. Sometimes I brought lunch to you in the fields, where we lay on the grass and talked about being grown up. You wanted to breed horses. You said Pa would listen when you were older because your plan was good. I lay with the grass tickling my neck and looked at the sky. It was clear and bright, and I couldn’t imagine anything beyond the moment. Being happy with you.
Now I dream of food, of being warm. I even long for the cauldron of washing, that boiling soap that made my eyes sting. Hot water and being properly clean is a thought too luxurious to allow myself in the daylight. I would never get out of my blanket if I let the dreams take me in the day. I wake every morning thinking I’m home. I open my eyes and the awful truth hits me that it is the nightmare which is real.
Do you long for the past as I do? Do you dream of me, Wolf?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Patchy woke Hannah early again the following morning. The creeping sun on the deck drew her outside to curl into a chair with her cup of tea. Her thoughts returned to the previous day, as they had many times since she’d left the farm. That man. That bitter, arrogant man. How had he got like that? She pushed the thought aside. Who cares. If she could avoid him, all the better.
The morning brought a steady stream of curious visitors to the shop. Barbara managed the till and shamelessly exploited the unusual surfeit of customers, persuading them to buy a paperback or a knitting pattern before they left the shop, while Hannah tried to be as friendly as possible while deflecting their personal questions. In all her years with Todd, she had perfected the art, and spent much time talking in depth about the other person. By the end of the conversation, the person left feeling like they had really engaged her but, in actual fact, had learnt nothing about Hannah at all.
When the shop quietened down by lunchtime, Hannah’s kitchen had already accumulated numerous foil-covered dishes and various bottles of pickles and jams. As overwhelming as the people and their questions had been, Hannah had never experienced such a welcome from strangers before. She wondered if her Cape Town friends would’ve been as happy to see her as the residents in this new town were.
‘Barbara, do you mind if I sneak out and get a take-away coffee? I feel like I deserve one after that.’
Barbara looked up from the computer, her bright orange reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. A beaded string looped from each earpiece and matched her Ndebele-style necklace. Her eyes crinkled and she said dryly, ‘You survived the vultures – you do deserve one. Go ahead, get me one too? Black, three sugars?’
Hannah crossed the street and walked along the edge of the square where enormous plane trees projected deep green shade across the lawn. The bistro next door was open for lunch. Tables and umbrellas were set up on the deck, edged with boxes of tumbling geraniums and bright petunias. The school year was wrapping up in the next month. Holidaymakers from Gauteng would arrive at their country getaways and the town would burst open with activity.
Cutting across the corner of the square, she passed a blanket shop. Rows of multicoloured Basotho blankets hung on display. Hannah’s mother had inherited four Basotho blankets from Hannah’s ouma, blue with black lions marching across the width. They were used every winter and Hannah could hear her mother in her head: Sixty years old and still as warm as when they were bought!
She wondered if her parents had tried to contact her. She hadn’t checked her phone since arriving in Leliehoek. Its battery had no doubt died by now. She brushed the thought of her parents aside, pausing in front of a pink-and-white-painted shop. A sign hung above the door, ‘Coffee and Cake’. White-painted tables and chairs filled the interior. The décor was eclectic, glass jars jostling with old-fashioned tea tins and pink-and-white daisies. The effect was girlishly charming.
A large glass cabinet filled with beautiful pastries, cakes, and iced biscuits ran the width of the shop. The decadent smell of fresh brewing coffee filled the room. A waitress came out from the kitchen, carrying a tray with floral cups and two tea pots covered in crocheted pink tea cosies. She smiled at Hannah. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’ Two older ladies were seated in the window. They only paused in their stream of chatter to smile at the waitress, before digging into enormous slices of carrot cake.
‘May I help you, sweetheart?’ the waitress asked, returning to the counter.
‘I’ll have two coffees to go, please.’
The waitress began pulling levers and twisting knobs on a coffee machine. ‘My kids say this beast is straight out of Willy Wonka’s factory. They could be right too.’ She looked up at Hannah. ‘You visiting Leliehoek?’
‘Um no, I’m working at the bookshop. I arrived on Friday.’
The woman’s face lit up. ‘Oh my goodness, you’re Hannah! Of course, I should have known… I mean, you wouldn’t have your surfboard in the middle of the Free State, would you?’
‘Pardon?’ Hannah tried to hide her confusion.
‘Oh,’ said the woman, ‘it’s just that the picture of you in my head was in a wet suit with a surfboard under your arm.’
Hannah nodded slowly. ‘I suppose, coming from Cape Town, people might assume I’m a surfer.’ Though nobody ever had before.
‘I’m also from Cape Town, but not Kenilworth,’ said the woman, putting two take-away cups and lids in front of Hannah, and gesturing to a large ceramic milk jug and bowl of sugar.
Hannah was too mystified by the interaction to reply. How did this woman know she surfed, and where she’d lived? She clipped the lids onto the cups and pulled out her wallet to pay.
‘I’m Kathryn, by the way. My parents still live on the Flats, but I haven’t been back to the Cape for years.’ She shook her head at the money in Hannah’s hand. ‘Your first visit to the shop is on me. Tell Barbara I made red velvet cupcakes just for her.’ Kathryn turned and began packing the cupcakes into a white box.
Hannah glanced at the cabinet full of beautiful cakes. ‘You make all of these?’
‘Aren’t they gorgeous?’ Kathryn grinned. ‘Who would’ve thought that a girlie from the Flats would end up with a boutique bakery in the Free State? Not me, anyway!’
It dawned on Hannah for the first time that she was speaking to the owner of this lovely place. ‘It’s an amazing shop. I can see it’s going to be a disaster for me.’