The Sun Between Their Feet: Collected African Stories Volume Two

Mom said: ‘What did he say then, you talked about him saying something?’

‘Oh you all make me sick,’ said Moira, and lay down on her bed, turned away from us. Mom hitched her head at me, and we went out. By then it was five in the afternoon and the cars would be leaving at six, so Mom finished the sausage rolls in the oven, and packed the food, and then she took off her apron and went across to Jordan’s house. Moira did not see her go, because she was still lost to the world in her pillow.

Soon Mom came back and put the food into the car. Then Jordan came over with Beth from the store and said to me, ‘Betty, my Mom says, will you and Moy come in our car to the braavleis, because your car’s full of food.’

‘I will,’ I said, ‘but Moira’s got a headache.’

But at this moment Moira called out from our room, ‘Thanks, Jordan, I’d like to come.’

So Mom called to Pop, and they went off in our car together and I could see she was talking to him all the time, and he was just pulling the gears about and looking resigned to life.

I and Moira went with Jordan and Beth in their car. I could see Jordan was cross because he wanted to be with Beth, and Beth kept smiling at Moira with her eyebrows up, to tell her she knew what was going on, and Moira smiled back, and talked a lot in her visiting voice.

At the braavleis it was a high place at the end of a vlei, where it rose into a small hill full of big boulders. The grass had been cut that morning by natives of the farmer who always let us use his farm for the braavleis. It was pretty, with the hill behind and the moon coming up over it, and then the cleared space, and the vlei sweeping down to the river, and the trees on either side. The moon was just over the trees when we got there, so the trees looked black and big, and the boulders were big and looked as if they might topple over, and the grass was silvery, but the great bonfire was roaring up twenty feet, and in the space around the fire it was all hot and red. The trench of embers where the spits were for the meat was on one side, and Moira went there as soon as she arrived, and helped with the cooking.

Greg was not there, and I thought he wouldn’t come, but much later, when we were all earing the meat, and laughing because it burned our fingers it was so hot, I saw him on the other side of the fire talking to Mom. Moira saw him talking, and she didn’t like it, but she pretended not to see.

By then we were seated in a half-circle on the side of the fire the wind was blowing, so that the red flames were sweeping off away from us. There were about fifty people from the station and some farmers from round about. Moira sat by me, quiet, eating grilled ribs and sausage rolls, and she was pleased I was there for once, so that she wouldn’t seem to be by herself. She had changed her dress back again, and it was the dress she had last year for the braavleis, it was blue with pleats, and it was the dress she had for best the last year at school, so it wasn’t very modern any more. Across the fire, I could see Greg. He did not look at Moira and she did not look at him. Except that this year Jordan did not want to sit by Moira but by Beth, I kept feeling peculiar, as if this year was really last year, and in a minute Greg would walk across past the fire, and say: ‘Moira Hughes? I wouldn’t have known you.’

But he stayed where he was. He was sitting on his legs, with his hands on his knees. I could see his legs and knees and his big hands all red from the fire and the yellow hair glinting on the red. His face was red too and wet with the heat.

Then everyone began singing. We were singing Sarie Marais, and Sugar Bush, and Henrietta’s Wedding and We don’t want to go home. Moira and Greg were both singing as hard as they could.

It began to get late. The natives were damping down the cooking trench with earth, and looking for scraps of meat and bits of sausage roll, and the big fire was sinking down. It would be time in a minute for the big dance in a circle around the fire.

Moira was just sitting. Her legs were tucked under sideways, and they had got scratched from the grass. I could see the white dry scratches across the sunburn, and I can tell you it was a good thing she didn’t wear her best muslin because there wouldn’t have been much left of it. Her hair, that she had curled yesterday, was tied back in a ribbon, so that her face looked small and thin.

I said: ‘Here, Moy, don’t look like your own funeral,’ and she said: ‘I will if I like.’ Then she gave me a bit of a grin, and she said: ‘Let me give you a word of warning for when you’re grown-up, don’t believe a word men say, I’m telling you.’

But I could see she was feeling better just then.

At that very moment the red light of the fire on the grass just in front of us went out, and someone sat down, and I hoped it was Greg and it was. They were looking at each other again, but my skin didn’t tingle at all, so I looked at his face and at her face, and they were both quiet and sensible.

Then Moira reached out for a piece of grass, pulled it clean and neat out of the socket, and began nibbling at the soft piece at the end; and it was just the way Mom reached out for her knitting when she was against Dad. But of course Greg did not know the resemblance.

‘Moy,’ he said, ‘I want to talk to you.’

‘My name is Moira,’ said Moira, looking him in the eyes.

‘Oh heck, Moira,’ he said, sounding exasperated just like Dad.

I wriggled back away from the two of them into the crowd that was still singing softly Sarie Marais, and looking at the way the fire was glowing low and soft, ebbing red and then dark as the wind came up from the river. The moon was half-covered with the big soft silvery clouds, and the red light was strong on our faces.

I could just hear what they said, I wasn’t going to move too far off, I can tell you.

‘I don’t know what I’ve said,’ said Greg.

‘It doesn’t matter in the slightest,’ said Moira.

‘Moira, for crying out aloud!’

‘Why did you say that about marrying?’ said Moira, and her voice was shaky. She was going to cry if she didn’t watch out. ‘I thought you thought I meant …’

‘You think too much,’ said Moira, tossing her head carefully so that her long tail of hair should come forward and lie on her shoulder. She put up her hand, and stroked the curls smooth.

‘Moira, I’ve got another five years at university. I couldn’t say to you, let’s get engaged for five years.’

‘I never said you should,’ said Moira, calm and lofty, examining the scratches on her legs.

The way she was sitting, curled up sideways, with her hair lying forward like syrup on her shoulder, it was pretty, it was as pretty as I’ve ever seen, and I could see his face, sad and almost sick.

‘You’re so pretty, Moy,’ he said, jerking it out.

Moira seemed not to be able to move. Then she turned her head slowly and looked at him. I could see the beginning of something terrible on her face. The shiver had begun under my hair at the back of my neck, and was slowly moving down to the small of my back.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ he said, sounding angry, leaning right forward with his eyes almost into her face.

And now she looked the way she had last night, when I was not awake and said, was it raining outside.

‘When you look like that,’ he said, quite desperate about everything, ‘it makes me feel …’

People were getting up now all around us, the fire had burned right down, it was a low wave of red heat coming out at us. The redness was on our shoulders and legs, but our faces were having a chance to cool off. The moon had come out again full and bright, and the cloud had rolled on, and it was funny the way the light was red to their shoulders, and the white of the moon on their faces, and their eyes glistening. I didn’t like it; I was shivering; it was the most peculiar moment of all my life.

‘Well,’ said Moira, and she sounded just too tired even to try to understand, ‘that’s what you said last night, wasn’t it?’

‘Don’t you see,’ he said, trying to explain, his tongue all mixed up, ‘I can’t help – I love you, I don’t know …’

Now she smiled, and I knew the smile at once, it was the way Mom smiled at Dad when if he had any sense he’d shut up. It was sweet and loving, but it was sad, and as if she was saying, Lord, you’re a fool, Dickson Hughes!

Moira went on smiling like that at Greg, and he was sick and angry and not understanding a thing.

‘I love you,’ he said again.

‘Well I love you and what of it?’ said Moira.

‘But it will be five years.’

‘And what has that got to do with anything?’ At this she began to laugh.

‘But Moy …’

‘My name is Moira,’ she said, once and for all.

For a moment they were both white and angry, their eyes glimmering with the big white moon over them.

There was a shout and a hustle, and suddenly all the people were in the big circle around the big low heap of fire, and they were whirling around and around, yelling and screaming. Greg and Moira stayed where they were, just outside the range of the feet, and they didn’t hear a thing.

‘You’re so pretty,’ he was saying, in that rough, cross, helpless voice. ‘I love you, Moira, there couldn’t ever be anyone but you.’