Hannah laid her hand lightly on Sarah’s arm. The older woman smiled back at her, then gave a small shake of her head. ‘It split the families too. We pulled Alistair back into ours, defending him fiercely from…’ She paused, then: ‘As well as I know the family, though, the name Rachel doesn’t ring a bell. Gisela was the last Badenhorst before she married Bryant de Jager.’
Hannah nodded. ‘Alistair said I have to give him some kind of proof that Rachel was a real person, that this journal is not a fictional account. If I can do that, he’ll consider allowing me to look into the camp on Goshen. I’ve been wondering if there aren’t photos or letters or something at Silwerfontein which might tell us about her.’
‘But Esme is the obstacle?’
Hannah’s mouth lifted in a small smile of acknowledgement, but she didn’t say anything more. She didn’t want anyone to know about the phone call. It had been too personal an attack, and Hannah still felt a niggle of guilt about provoking it. ‘I’ve found nothing so far. I really want to get into that house.’
Sarah lifted a hand. ‘It’s impossible with Esme there. Maybe Karl… Let me think about it, Hannah.’
The doorbell tinkled and the book club ladies began to arrive, filling the shop with chatter and the clink of tea cups. Hannah didn’t get the chance to say anything further to Sarah, but she felt a faint glint of excitement that someone, at last, seemed to be interested in Rachel too. Perhaps having Sarah in her corner would turn the tide.
On the surface, she calmly managed the afternoon, refilling tea pots and replenishing plates of tartlets and cheese muffins. And beneath it, she enjoyed the feeling of anticipation – a sense that something was about to break open for her.
Later that evening, her house phone rang. Hannah paused in her supper preparations, wondering who had her home number. She padded barefoot into the passage to answer. Sarah’s voice came down the line, bright and excited: ‘I’ve arranged it! Esme’s in Wilderness and it’s just Karl at home. I asked if I could look for some of his mum’s recipes.’
‘That’s so sneaky, Sarah! And completely genius.’
‘I know!’ Hannah could hear the grin in Sarah’s voice. ‘Can you manage a visit to Silwerfontein tomorrow?’
‘Barbara is in the shop tomorrow afternoon – I can come out then.’
‘Meet me here first and we can go together.’
Hannah replaced the receiver in its cradle and returned to her plate of reheated lamb casserole, one of the many contributions to have come out of the freezer from her welcome a few weeks before. Savouring the stew, Hannah’s mind turned to the following day. She had no idea what to expect – what they would find – but her sense of anticipation grew, and she wondered if perhaps this was indeed her break.
The next morning crawled by. The shop was quiet, and Hannah was not able to settle. She was making herself a sandwich in the kitchen when Barbara came down the passage.
‘Hello, Hannah-Belle,’ she said breezily as she helped herself to a wedge of cheese. ‘That has a nice ring to it.’
Hannah looked sideways at Barbara. ‘Hannibal Lector comes to mind, not quite the image I try to project.’
Barbara grinned back at Hannah and munched her cheese. Hannah bit into one half of her sandwich, balancing the other half with her keys as she slung her bag over her shoulder. She waved and left Barbara cutting a thick slice of bread, slathering it with Sarah’s cherry jam.
At Goshen, Sarah was waiting for her and they climbed into her Ford to drive to Silwerfontein. Though the farms shared a boundary, it took twenty minutes to drive back to the main road, take the next farm entrance along, and reach an avenue of old oaks which lined the road to the farmstead. Hannah wondered when they had been planted. Could they have been young trees when Rachel and Wolf played there?
The avenue ended at old stone gate posts, which stood as sentinels on either side of the drive. Passing through, Hannah could see the house. Built from similar sandstone as the Goshen house, this dwelling was laid out in a horseshoe shape with two wings jutting forwards, topped by gables. A veranda ran around the inside of the U, shaded by pergolas with old wisteria creepers twisting across the beams.
As they pulled to a stop in front of the house, a cloud of small dogs erupted from the front door. Hannah climbed out the car, wincing at the high-pitched cacophony of three dachshunds and two Yorkshire terriers. An enormous man followed the dogs down to the car, opening Sarah’s door for her. His grey hair curled around a warm, sun-beaten face. When he hugged Sarah hello, she disappeared into his huge arms. He was heavily built, but so tall he could carry off at least twenty kilograms more than most men. He was dressed in what Hannah imagined was his uniform, a short-sleeved checked shirt with khaki shorts and dusty farm boots. Even in the middle of winter, he probably just threw on a fleece and went about his business. He came around the car and held out his hand for Hannah to shake.
‘Hannah, this is Karl. One of my oldest friends,’ said Sarah, smiling fondly at him.
Karl met Hannah’s eyes and, despite the warmth of his smile, she could see deep sadness in the depths, of a sort that would never go away.
‘Aangename kennis,’ he greeted her with the traditional Afrikaans welcome.
Slinging an arm around Sarah, he led them around the side of the house. Hannah, walking behind them, was sure he would not have been so unreservedly friendly if his wife had been home. They followed a path and came to a small house set towards the back of the garden. It too was built of sandstone blocks. A simple rectangular house with a steep-pitched roof of grey corrugated iron. White wooden trellises formed a balustrade to the stoep and prolific old-fashioned pink roses scrambled along their lengths.
Karl turned back to Hannah. ‘We call this the “Ou Huis”. It was my mother’s after I got married.’ He took a ring of keys from his pocket and unlocked the front door, stepping back onto the stoep. ‘I’m afraid it’s been mostly shut up since she died. Esme can’t stand, what she calls, the old lady smell, and I just don’t know where to begin or what to do with all the old stuff.’ He shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
Sarah patted him on the arm. ‘Don’t worry, I probably know this little house better than you do. We’ll be fine.’
Karl smiled at her. ‘Ma certainly loved you. I think when you brought Neil home that holiday, all sorts of plans went up in smoke. For both our mothers.’
Sarah smacked her palm on his arm. ‘A good thing I did, then! We would’ve bickered each other to death.’
Karl laughed and raised one brow suggestively. ‘I don’t know about that – we used to agree you had the finest legs in Leliehoek.’
Sarah shook her head. ‘Don’t listen to a word he says, Hannah. He’s always teased me relentlessly.’ She turned her back on him and went into the house, leaving Karl grinning on the stoep.
‘I’ll send over some tea for you,’ he said and walked away, the buoyancy in his step disappearing as he approached the main house. How hard his life must be now, alone, with a wife like Esme, thought Hannah.
The Ou Huis was neat inside but completely still. An abandoned atmosphere had settled there. Hannah felt the emptiness, as if this house longed to have someone living in it, loving it. It was furnished with old, heavy furniture, upholstered in brown velveteen. Each chair had a white-lace doily set neatly over the back. Ornaments crowded a glass-fronted cabinet and a book case was filled with red bound Reader’s Digest books and Christian devotionals. Sarah called from the next room. The bedroom was furnished simply with a high single bed and a large wardrobe reflected in the wings of a glass-topped dressing table. Photographs crowded there, narrow white-and-gilt-scrolled frames leant on cardboard stands. Hannah picked up a wedding picture. The couple stood on the steps of the Dutch Reformed church in town. The bride’s smiling face was crowned with a fifties-style veil falling below her lace-covered shoulders.