In the little tearoom, built to resemble an alpine chalet, Molly was waiting for her at one of the tables and she jumped up when she saw her friend.
Tara rushed to her and embraced her. 'Oh Molly, my dear dear Molly, I have missed you so." After a few moments they drew apart, slightly embarrassed by their own display and the smiles of the other teashop customers.
'I don't want to sit still,' Tara told her. 'I'm just bursting with excitement. Come on, let's walk. I've brought some sandwiches and a Thermos." They left the tearoom and wandered along the path that skirted the precipice. In mid-week there were very few hikers on the mountain, and before they had gone a hundred yards they were alone.
'Tell me about all my old friends in the Black Sash,' Tara ordered.
'I want to know everything you have been doing. How is Derek and how are the children? Who is running my clinic now? Have you been there recently? Oh, I so miss it all, all of you." 'Steady on,' Molly laughed. 'One question at a time --' and she began to give Tara all the news. It took time, and while they chatted, they found a picnic spot and sat with their legs dangling over the cliff, drinking hot tea from the Thermos, and with scraps of bread feeding the fluffy little hyrax, the rock rabbits that crept out of the crevices and cracks of the cliff.
At last they exhausted their stocks of news and gossip, and sat ir companionable silence. Tara broke it at last. 'Molly, I'm going to have another baby." 'Ah ha!" Molly giggled. 'So that's what has been keeping you busy.
She glanced at Tara's stomach.
'It doesn't show yet. Are you certain?" 'Oh, for Pete's sake, Molly. I'm hardly the simpering virgin, you know. Give me credit for the four I have already! Of course I'm certain." 'When is it due?" 'January next year." 'Shasa will be pleased. He dotes on the kids. In fact, apart from money, they are the only things I've ever seen Shasa Courtney sentimental about. Have you told him yet?" Tara shook her head. 'No. You are the only one I've told. I came to you first." 'I'm" natterea. I wish you both joy." Then she paused as she noticed Tara's expression and studied her more seriously.
'For Shasa there will be little joy in it, I'm afraid,' Tara said softly.
'It's not Shasa's baby." 'Good Lord, Tara! You of all people --' then she broke off, and thought about it. 'I'm going to ask another silly question, Tara darling, but how do you know it isn't Shasa's effort?" 'Shasa and I - we haven't - well, you know - we haven't been man and wife since - oh, not for ages." 'I see." Despite her affection and friendship, Molly's eyes sparkled with interest. This was intriguing. 'But, Tara love, that isn't the end of the world. Rush home now and get Shasa's pants off.
Men are such clots, dates don't mean much to them, and if he does start counting, you can always bribe the doctor to tell him it's a preen." 'No, Molly, listen to me. If ever he saw the infant, he would know." x 'I don't understand." 'Molly, I am carrying Moses Gama's baby." 'Sweet Christ!" Molly whispered.
The strength of Molly's reaction brought home to Tara the full gravity of the predicament in which she found herself.
Molly was a militant liberal, as colour-blind as Tara was herself, and yet Molly was stunned by the idea of a white woman bearing a black man's infant. In this country miscegenation was an offence punishable by imprisonment, but that penalty was as nothing compared to the social outrage it would engender. She would become an outcast and a pariah.
'Oh dear,' Molly moderated her language. 'Oh dear, oh dear! My poor Tara, what a mess you are in. Does Moses know?" 'Not yet, but I hope to see him soon and I'll tell him." 'You will have to get rid of it, of course. I have an address in Lourenqo Marques. There is a Portuguese doctor there. We sent one of our girls from the orphanage to him. He's expensive, but clean and good, not like some dirty old crone in a back room with a knitting needle." 'Oh Molly, how could you think that of me? How could you believe I would murder my own baby?" 'You are going to keep it?" Molly gaped at her.
'Of course." 'But, my dear, it will be --' 'Coloured,' Tara finished for her. 'Yes, I know, probably carb all lait in colour and with crispy black hair and I will love it with all my heart. Just as I love the father." 'I don't see how --' 'That's why I came to you." Tll do whatever you want -just tell me what that is." 'I want you to find me a coloured couple. Good decent people, preferably with children of their own, who will take care of the infant for me until I can arrange to take it myselfi Of course, they will have all the money they need and more --' her voiced trailed off and she stared at Molly imploringly.
Molly considered for a minute. 'I think I know the right couple.
They are both school-teachers and they have four of their own, all girls. They'll do it for me - but, Tara, how are you going to hide it?
It will begin to show soon, you were huge with Isabella. Shasa might not notice, he's so busy looking into his cheque book, but your mother-in-law is an absolute tartar: You couldn't get anything by her." 'I've already made plans to cover that. I have convinced Shasa that I have conceived a burning interest in archaeology to replace my political activities and I've got a job on the dig at Sundi Caves with the American archaeologist, Professor Marion Hurst, you know." 'Yes, I've read two of her books." 'I've told Shasa that I will only be away for two months, but once I'm out of his sight I'll just keep postponing my return. Centaine will look after the children, 'I've arranged that also, she loves doing it and, the Lord knows, the kids will benefit from it. She's a much better disciplinarian than I am. They'll be perfectly behaved angels by the time my beloved mother-in-law is finished with them." 'You'll miss them,' Molly stated, and Tara nodded.
'Yes, of course, I shall miss them, but it's only another six months to go." 'Where will you have the child?" Molly persisted.
'I don't know. I can't go to a recognized hospital or nursing home.
Oh God, could you imagine the fuss if I produced a little brown bundle on their clean whites-only sheets, in their lovely clean whitesonly maternity hospital. Anyway, there is plenty of time to arrange all that later. The first thing is to get away to Sundi, away from Centaine Courtney-Malcomess' malevolent eye." 'Why Sundi, Tara, what made you choose Sundi?" 'Because I will be near to Moses." 'Is it that important?" Molly stared at her mercilessly. 'Do you feel like that about him? It wasn't just a little experiment, just a little kinky fun to find out what it is really like with one of them?" Tara shook her head.
'Are you sure, Tara? I mean I've had the same urge occasionally. I suppose it's natural to be curious, but I've never been caught at it." 'Molly, I love him. If he asked me, I would lay down my life for him without a qualm." 'My poor sweet Tara." Tears started in Molly's eyes, and she reached out with both arms. They hugged desperately and Molly whispered, 'He is far beyond your reach, my darling. You can never, never have him." 'If I can have a little piece of him, for even a little while. That will be enough for me." Moses Gama parked the crimson and blue butchery van in one of the visitors' bays and switched off the engine. In front of him stretched lawns on which a single small sprinkler was trying to atone for all the frosts and drought of the highveld winter, but the Kikuyu grass was scared and lifeless. Beyond the lawn was the long doublestoried block of the Baragwanath nurses' home.
A small group of black nurses came up the pathway from the main hospital. They were in crisp white uniform, neat and efficientlooking, but when they drew level with the van and saw Moses at the wheel, they dissolved into giggles, hiding their mouths with their hands in the instinctive gesture of subservience to the male.
'Young woman, I wish to speak to you." Moses leaned out of the window of the van. 'Yes, you!" The chosen nurse was almost overcome with shyness. Her friends teased her as she approached Moses and paused timidly five paces from him.