Twenty Chickens for a Saddle Read online

  To reach the lounge from the driveway, you passed through this oddest of rooms: table on the left, bed on the right, wings above – meeting at their tips in the middle of the roof. Sometimes, when the door banged closed, the ropes creaked gently.

  ♦

  On that first day in Botswana, nearly everything about the house was surprising. But it was the passage through the front and back doors that would preserve its wonder. Even years later, it would be impossible to walk beneath the old Aeronca wings or pass beside the lonely freezer without the fleeting sensation that everything wasn’t quite right; that, as with Granny’s jigsaws, the last pieces were missing or misplaced.

  Nearby, where the bare dirt ran into thorny bush, a second aeroplane – winged but even more damaged than the first – lay beneath a scraggly thorn tree, disintegrating into the scrub and dust. The red-and-white wreck was the Piper Colt, a part of family legend that, like the Aeronca, I’d felt I had known long before the day the two aeroplanes left the realm of stories, appearing as real objects in this strange new world.

  Aeroplanes starred in most of our favourite tales about Grandpa Ivor. And although he’d first flown in the South African Air Force during World War II, the backdrop to these jaw-dropping flying stories was always Botswana, which did not become his home until the early 1960s. After the war, repelled by all associated with a time that had seen the loss of a brother and many of his dearest friends, Grandpa had started a string of unsuccessful businesses, and it was not until his forties, when he left South Africa – and with it Granny Mavis, his first wife, and his three young sons, Henry, Keith, and Jonathan – that flying again became his livelihood.

  Based, initially, in a remote bush camp near the Okavango Delta, Grandpa Ivor worked as a commercial pilot, flying the first road builders, the last of the great white hunters, game department officials, mining prospectors, and, for a time, Sir Seretse Khama, Botswana’s late, great, beloved first president. With a single plane, a Beechcraft Baron, he established the impressive-sounding Okavango Air Services, one of Botswana’s first charter flight businesses. With the Aeronca, he began to teach flying, going on to found the country’s first flying school.

  The school’s students included Grandpa’s own sons, who made yearly visits to Botswana during their school and then university holidays. By the time he came to teach Jonathan, his youngest, Grandpa’s infamously scant reserves of patience had been severely depleted. He was by then living in Selebi, where he’d moved in the early 1970s, with the start of the mine. He instructed Jonathan in the Piper Colt. The Aeronca – after a forced landing due to engine failure – was by then languishing in a farmer’s field, where Grandpa had simply abandoned the old plane, surrounded by cattle, on the dirt.

  After six hours’ flying time, father and son were barely speaking. Jonathan protested angrily at Grandpa’s intolerance of mistakes. “Fly it yourself, then,” yelled Grandpa. Jonathan did, making several uneventful solo flights. Then one day, as he touched down and taxied in towards the Selebi airport building, a whirling tunnel of dirt and leaves sped across the bush towards the runway. Unsure how to handle a dust devil, Jonathan was caught at the wrong angle and the wrong speed. The plane flipped several times, landing upside down on the grass beside the tar.

  Jonathan escaped with a few cuts and scratches. The Colt, a wreck, was left there, as it landed, an unsettling welcome for new visitors to Selebi-Phikwe. After many months, Grandpa finally got round to towing it away, with the intention of repairing the battered fuselage and wings. He never did. The day we arrived in Botswana, the little aeroplane lay under the thorn tree in a sorrier state than it had been in, all those years ago, when a bruised and bewildered Jonathan had crawled out.

  Scattered around the wreck stood another small shed, an empty kraal with a ramp for loading cattle and two lopsided caravans – the same caravans that Grandpa Ivor had lived in, decades earlier, in his first bush camps. A short distance away was one other house: a small, squat building, its walls barely recognisable as once white, its broken windows gaping forlornly. A little further away, hidden by a clump of trees from the main houses, was an even smaller, equally neglected old building where Grandpa said his staff sometimes stayed.

  Encircling the houses, caravans, sheds, and plane was a rickety barbed wire boundary fence. Beyond this, in every direction, was bush, stretching endlessly and almost uniformly until it became sky at some faraway point on the flat horizon, interrupted only by a few distant purple hills.

  That was all.

  The only reminder that anyone else still even existed was a railway track that ran parallel to the fence behind Grandpa’s house. Every few hours, passing close enough to rattle the kitchen windows and suspend all conversation, an old black steam train chugged along the line. If the driver saw us waving, he’d wave back, a loud hoot piercing the din of the passing ore-piled carriages. Then the train would rattle out of sight, the lone man in the caboose shrinking to a blur, and the bush’s gentle noises resurfacing.

  After sunset, shadowy figures shovelling coal into the flames twisted and straightened across the red glow of the furnace.

  That train was to become a beloved part of our Botswana.

  The deafening clatter, the black smoke streaming into bright blue sky, the flame-lit passage across the darkness – sounds that would become as comforting as the calls of dawn francolins, dusk owls, and the ever-tinkling cowbells, an occasional dramatic presence that, like the poisonous creatures that slithered, crouched, and scuttled everywhere, would soon be utterly natural and reassuring.

  That was later, though. Come nightfall on our first day, the lingering image of the furnace only deepened the sense of wondrous danger, of a surreal place in which the strange and the fierce had collided, oddly, where barely believable reality slid effortlessly into the imaginary.

  After dinner, gazing into the lamplight shadows, I tried to follow the conversation. Then I wondered where the scorpion had got to, and whether it was alone, and the voices receded as I conjured deadly creatures beneath every shadow. Soon, I was as far away as Lulu and Damien, who slept on the sofa beside me.

  Even a discussion about Dad’s uncertain new career, I only just managed to follow.

  Dad had never enjoyed being a doctor, and he’d come to Botswana to stop, once and for all, being one.

  “Whatyou going to do?” I’d nagged, repeatedly, as we packed up in New Zealand.

  “Who knows, Robbie. Farm something, maybe. Start a business. I’ll cross that dry riverbed when I come to it…”

  Then, I’d been obsessed by the possibilities and uncertainties. Now, they were nothing to what might lie beneath the furniture, let alone beyond. By midnight, when we traipsed outside, under the aeroplane wings, to see the stars, my head was swirling with a menagerie of perils. Of the conversation, all I remembered was Grandpa: he and his flight, plight, fright stories the only equal match for the absorbing wonders of his world.

  ♦

  “Bloody terrible what happened to old Meyer. Didya hear about that?”

  “Who’s Meyer?” asked Dad.

  “Ya dunno who Meyer is?” Grandpa raised his palms dramatically. “Ya bloody out of touch, Keith. The famous flying doctor…the man was a living legend – – – maids to ministers, every Motswana loved Meyer.”

  But just months earlier, as we were packing up our house, and Dad was happily closing his practice in Auckland, Dr. Meyer had died. Botswana had been shaken. “Bloody incredible, Keith. In the papers, on the radio. National mourning for the poor old bugger.”

  On the day Meyer died, a thick blanket of winter mist had shrouded Tonota village.

  “He was crazy to try and land,” said Grandpa, shaking his head. “Dunno what got into him.”

  I’d tried to imagine clouds that could make Grandpa think a landing crazy.

  That morning, when Grandpa had collected us in Johannesburg, he’d used orange hay-bale twine to secure the door. Having blithely dismissed questions about the d
aylight streaming through a gap between the door and the fuselage, he’d climbed into the front and announced calmly that the little plane was overloaded. Just so we didn’t worry if we came rather close to the end of the runway before takeoff.

  I couldn’t imagine such clouds. I could barely imagine there ever being any clouds at all in the brilliant blue sky we’d arrived in that afternoon.

  Nor did clouds seem any more possible as we stood outside that night and stared up at the brilliant sky. Nothing lay between us and the vast sparkling dome, and above the bush, the stars, like the sun before them, shone impossibly bold and bright.

  ∨ Twenty Chickens for a Saddle ∧

  Two

  The Cowshed and the Witch Doctor

  The door to the old house opposite Grandpa’s was unlocked. But rust had seized the handle, and the wood, warped snugly against the peeling frame, resisted for several minutes as Dad tried to break in.

  We’d been staying with Grandpa for just a few days when Dad sprung the startling news upon us. “Come on, then,” he’d said, striding off across the dirt between the houses, “let’s go and explore.”

  Mum said, brightly, “At least you’ll still hear the train, Robbie.”

  I said nothing. Staring at the empty railway track that stretched behind Grandpa’s house, I regretted at once having said that I would miss the train when we found our own home. It would take a lot more than the comforting sound of the train to make up for this.

  Dad slammed himself shoulder-first against the door, bursting through and sending a whoosh of dried leaves and dirt into a small room, marked as a kitchen only by a dead-insect-scattered sink. For a moment, the floors, ceiling, and walls were alive with scurrying movement. Then, almost at once, everything was still again as scores of tiny crocodile-like creatures retreated behind piles of’wood stacked against the walls.

  “Geckos’,” said Dad. “Good grub for them, with all the insects in here.”

  One by one, we followed him inside. There were no cupboards, and holes in the ‘wall where the taps must have once been. Hot afternoon sunlight streamed through a dirty window, and dust particles whirled and jigged across the beams, thousands floating up with each new footprint on the powdery carpet of dust.

  The next room was larger, with more wood stacked against each wall. Strung across these piles, huge spiderwebs sagged under the weight of uneaten victims; above them, more carcass-laden webs stretched from a stained ceiling to the tops of filthy walls.

  It was otherwise completely, depressingly empty.

  A faint hum came from the closed door in the opposite wall. The sound was of flies, in their hundreds, and as we stepped through the doorway, clouds swarmed up around us in the stale air. The floor of the long, dimly lit room before us was covered entirely by mounds of dry cow dung.

  “That’ll take a bit of work,” said Mum, sneezing as we retreated into the lounge. “But it’s east-facing, so it’ll be lovely in the morning sun.”

  “Mmm,” sighed Dad, faraway. “The first mine geologists used to live here, you know. Before the cows moved in. Had some great parties here when I came up to visit Ivor.”

  “And we’ll have lots more.” Mum surveyed the room with a smile. “With a bit of paint and a few nice curtains. I wonder what to do about this floor, though…” Her voice trailed off as she gazed down at the dirty concrete.

  “Lovely to live out in the bush,” said Dad. He wrapped his arm around Mum’s waist. “Happy, guys?”

  Lulu grinned and nodded. As long as Mum and Dad were happy, Lulu was happy. “That’s my girl,” said Dad, picking her up so she could see out of the window.

  “Yip,” said Damien, sounding not particularly interested. Even at five, Damien had learned not to bother arguing or worrying about our parents’ plans – like this one – that definitely couldn’t be changed. Damien saved all his energy to fight for things he might actually get.

  I envied him for not caring. I glared at Dad, still not quite believing that this was going to be our home.

  “Not up to your standards, Robbie?” asked Dad, winking at Mum.

  I wanted to cry: partly with disappointment, mostly with fury that Mum and Dad had chosen this, of all places, to live in. And that they were so happy about it.

  “You said you wanted to live in the bush,” added Dad.

  I had, and I did. Just not like this; not in an old cowshed. I hung my head miserably.

  “Why can’t you build one?” I asked. Dad had built one of our houses in New Zealand. It had been much nicer than this. We even took the house with us when we moved to a new farm – cut in half on the back of two big trucks. Like a snail.

  “Too much hassle. I’ll be busy with the clinics.”

  “Cheer up,” said Mum. “It’ll be such fun to fix up. You won’t recognise it once we’ve finished.”

  “The only hard part,” muttered Dad, “will be living next door to Grandpa Ivor.”

  Mum walked to the window. “Now imagine what a few flowerbeds will do for this view.”

  “And a veggie garden and an orchard…”

  “So much potential, Keith.”

  Mum and Dad went on like this, interrupting each other, laughing, planning; turning the cowshed into a splendid house, the bare dust into a beautiful garden.

  It was exhausting to listen to. I stopped, and stared through the cracked glass at the dirt and the dry bush behind the fence.

  A plastic bag had caught against one of the fence posts, and a scrawny goat on the other side nosed gently through the torn white folds. Finding nothing of interest, it strolled over to a finger-leafed acacia tree, paused for a moment, and then rocked back on its hind legs. Front feet resting daintily against the trunk, it stretched upwards, nibbling at a few leaves that hung just below the browse line. All the trees had been stripped to the same even level, and after a few attempts the goat gave up, lying down under a mopane tree, peacefully resigned to its fate.

  Afew days later, rattling across Selebi’s blue skies beside Grandpa Ivor, I was feeling much better about mine. Up here, even the most desolate bits of bush were beautiful. Thick treetops masked the goat line, and around the buildings, magnificent green mopane bush radiated unbroken but for the ribbons of road, railway, and the snaking dirt tracks. The cowshed itself was transformed from this dizzying perspective. Tiny beneath us, surrounded by a red dust skirt, it almost fitted Mum’s description of “charming cottage.”

  “Give it a push, then,” said Grandpa. “Whaddaya waiting for?”

  I felt for the pedal, and hesitated.

  “Come on. Just take it easy and you’ll be fine.”

  I pushed gently, and shuddered with excitement as the horizon swung sideways.

  “Steady on,” Grandpa bellowed from the seat beside me, “this isn’t bloody aerobatics. Press the other one.”

  I did, more gently this time, and the little Cherokee leveled.

  “Marvellous,” said Grandpa, his grin reappearing. “You’ll make a fine little pilot one day. Off you go, then. Give your brother a turn. Hurry up. Haven’t got all day here. I’m a busy man…”

  I climbed into the back, tumbling over Damien, and pressed my nose to the window.

  Staring out into the great blue, still exhilarated from just a few minutes at the helm, I understood why Dad had suddenly decided to give his job one last chance. Flying to work each day, across the endless skies above this endless land, might transform, it seemed to me, any job imaginable: even one you’d never really enjoyed, never even intended to do in the first place.

  Dad was an accidental doctor.

  As a teenager, fond of animals, and falling in love with the bush during long, wild holidays in Botswana, he’d dreamt of becoming a flying vet and working in a vast African game park. But liberal, beautiful Cape Town University, where he’d wanted to study, did not offer veterinary medicine. And after a year of compulsory army service, he was more reluctant than ever to spend the next half decade in Pretoria, capital city and he
art of the old apartheid regime.

  So at twenty, Dad had talked himself into a decision he spent most of the next fifteen years regretting.

  For fifteen years, he tried desperately to find comfort in his ill-fitting career. Qualifying as a doctor, he moved immediately to the UK to be near Mum, whom he’d met in Botswana shortly before she started university in England. After just a few months, already tiring of general practice, he began to experiment with then-pioneering alternative therapies, including acupuncture, in which he trained under Dr. Felix Mann, one of the early Western experts in the technique.

  Not content simply to meet the established demand in England, when Mum graduated he moved with her to Cape Town, where Dad started the city’s first medical acupuncture practice. He gave talks, wrote articles, and battled scepticism, and then, after two years, just when his practice was thriving steadily, Dad decided to move on. He and Mum, now married, moved back to England, where Dad studied homeopathy at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital.

  Once more, however, the novelty of a new direction was not enough. After another two years, Mum and Dad moved to New Zealand, where Dad inherited the practice of the country’s only medical homeopath, who was returning to England. An interest in homeopathy here expanded to an interest in biodynamic farming, a system and philosophy that treats the farm as a holistic unit, incorporating organic cultivation methods, as well as homeopathic principles. During the next five years, in addition to his practice, Dad helped form the Biological Producers Association, the first in New Zealand to certify organic food, and took a prominent role in the debate about the impacts of chemical pesticides on health.

  But none of this had been enough. And one day, a few months before, when soggy, gentle, green New Zealand was the only world I knew or expected to know, Dad had returned from his practice in Auckland, eyes gleaming. “I’ve had enough, Lin,” he said. “I’m stopping medicine. And I want to move to Botswana.”