While Heidi went to fetch her Kodak camera, Manfred stripped off his shirt which was stained with fish blood and stooped to the tap of the rainwater tank and washed the blood from his hand and the salt from his face.
As he straightened up again, with water dripping from his hair and running down his bare chest, he was abruptly aware of the presence of a stranger.
'Get me a towel, Ruda,' he snapped, and his eldest daughter ran to his bidding.
'I was not expecting you." Manfred glowered at Shasa Courtney.
'My family and I like to be alone here." 'Forgive me. I know I am intruding." Shasa's shoes were floury with dust. It was a mile walk from the airstrip. 'I am sure you will understand when I explain that my business is urgent and private." Manfred scrubbed his face with the towel while he mastered his annoyance, and then, when Heidi came out with the camera in her hand, he introduced her gruffly.
Within minutes Shasa had charmed both Heidi and the girls into smiles, but Lothar stood behind his father and only came forward reluctantly to shake hands. He had learned from his father to be suspicious of Englishmen.
'What a tremendous kob,' Shasa admired the fish on the scaffold.
'One of the biggest I have seen in years. You don't often get them that size any more. Where did you catch it?" Shasa insisted on taking the photographs of the whole family grouped around the fish. Manfred was still bare-chested, and Shasa noticed the old bluish puckered scar in the side of his chest. It looked like a gunshot wound, but there had been a war and many men bore scars of that nature now. Thinking of war wounds, he adjusted his own eye-patch self-consciously as he handed the camera back to Heidi.
'You will stay to lunch, Meneer?" she asked demurely.
q don't want to be a nuisance." 'You are welcome." She was a handsome woman, with a large high bosom and wide fruitful hips. Her hair was dense and golden blond, and she wore it in a thick plaited rope that hung almost to her waist, but Shasa saw Manfred De La Rey's expression and quickly transferred all his attention back to him.
'My wife is right. You are welcome." Manfred's natural Afrikaner duty of hospitality left him no choice. 'Come, we will go to the front stoep until the women call for us to eat." Manfred fetched two bottles of beer from the ice-chest and they sat in deckchairs, side by side, and looked out over the dunes to the wind-flecked blue of the Indian Ocean.
'Do you remember where we first met, you and I?" Shasa broke the silence.
'da,' Manfred nodded. 'I remember very well." 'I was back there two days ago." 'Walvis Bay?" 'Yes. To the canning factory, the jetty where we fought,' Shasa hesitated, 'where you thumped me, and pushed my head into a mess of dead fish." Manfred smiled with satisfaction at the memory. 'da, I remember." Shasa had to control his temper carefully. It still rankled and the man's smugness infuriated him, but the memory of his childhood victory had softened Manfred's mood as Shasa had intended it should.
'Strange how we were enemies then, and now we are allies,' Shasa persisted, and let him think about that for a while before he went on.
'I have most carefully considered the offer you made to me. Although it is difficult for a man to change sides, and many people will put the worst construction on my motives, I now see that it is my duty to my country to do what you suggest and to employ what talent I have for the good of the nation." 'So you will accept the prime minister's offer?" 'Yes, you may tell the prime minister that I will join the government, but in my own time and my own way. I will not cross the floor of the House, but as soon as parliament is dissolved for the coming elections, I will resign from the United Party to stand for the National Party." 'Good,' Manfred nodded. 'That is the honourable way." But there was no honourable way, Shasa realized, and was silent for a moment before he went on.
'I am grateful for your part in this, Meneer. I know that you have been instrumental in affording me this opportunity. In view of what has happened between our families, it is an extraordinary gesture you have made." 'There was nothing personal in my decision." Manfred shook his head. et was simply a case of the best man for the job. I have not forgotten what your family has done to mine - and I never will." 'I will not forget either,' Shasa said softly. 'I have inherited guilt rightly or wrongly, I will never be sure. However, I would like to make some reparation to your father." 'How would you do that, Meneer?" Manfred asked stiffly. 'How would you compensate a man for the loss of his arm and for all those years spent in prison? How will you pay a man for the damage to his soul that captivity has inflicted?" 'I can never full compensate him,' Shasa agreed. 'However, suddenly and unexpectedly I have been given the opportunity to restore to your father a large part of that which was taken from him." 'Go on,' Manfred invited. 'I am listening." 'Your father was issued a fishing licence in 1929. I have searched the records. That licence is still valid." 'What would the old man do with a fishing licence now? You don't understand - he is physically and mentally ruined." 'The fishing industry out of Walvis Bay has revived and is booming. The number of licences has been severely limited. Your father's licence is worth a great deal of money." He saw the shift in Manfred's eyes, the little sparks of interest swiftly screened.
'You think my father should sell it?" he asked heavily. 'And by any chance would you be interested in buying it?" He smiled sarcastically.
Shasa nodded. 'Yes, of course I'd like to buy it, but that might not be best for your father." Manfred's smile withered, he hadn't expected that.
'What else could he do with it?" 'We could re-open the factory and work the licence together as partners. Your father puts up thelicence, and I put up the capital and my business skills. Within a year or two, your father's share will almost certainly be worth a million pounds." Shasa watched him carefully as he said it. This was more, much more than a business offer. It was a testing. Shasa wanted to reach beyond the man's granite crust, that monumental armour of puritanical righteousness. He wanted to probe for weaknesses, to find any chinks that he could exploit later.
'A million pounds,' he repeated. 'Perhaps even a great deal more." And he saw the sparks in the other man's fierce pale eyes again, just for an instant, the little yellow sparks of greed. The man was human after all. 'I can deal with him now,' Shasa thought, and to cover his relief he lifted his briefcase from the floor beside his deckchair and opened it on his lap.
'I have worked out a rough agreement--' he took out a sheaf all typed blue foolscap sheets '--you could show it to your father, discuss it with him." Manfred took the sheets from him. 'da, I will see him when I return home next week." 'There is one small problem,' Shasa admitted. 'This licence was issued a long time ago. The government department may wish to repudiate it. It is their policy to allow only four licences--' Manfred looked up from the contract. 'That will be no problem,' Manfred said, and Shasa lifted his beer tankard to hide his smile.
They had just shared their first secret. Manfred De La Rey was going to use his influence for personal gain. Like a lost virginity, the next time would be easier.
Shasa had realized from the beginning that he would be an outsider in a cabinet of Afrikaner Nationalists. He desperately needed a trustworthy ally amongst them, and if that ally could be linked to him by shared financial blessings and 'a few off-colour secrets, then his loyalty would be secured. Shasa had just achieved this, with the promise of vast profits to himself to sweeten the bargain. A good day's work, he thought, as he closed the briefcase with a snap.
'Very good, Meneer. I'm grateful to you for having given me your time. Now I will leave you to enjoy what remains of your holiday undisturbed." Manfred look up. 'Meneer, my wife is preparing lunch for us. She will be very unhappy if you leave so soon." At last his smile was genial. 'And this evening I will have a few good friends visit me for a braaivleis, a barbecue. There are plenty of spare beds. Stay the night.