Talk to Me Tenderly, Tell Me Lies

Ben examined it. The bed for the gem was substantial.

‘About a thousand dollars,’ he said regretfully. ‘Counting cutting, and so forth.’

Helen sighed. ‘Forget it …’ She looked at the empty ring sadly, then put it back on her finger. She went on: ‘So – how long have you been in Australia, Ben?’

‘A couple of months. Landed in Perth. Covered the west coast, then crossed the Nullarbor Plain. Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, et cetera. Then up here into Queensland.’

‘Landed in Perth? Where from?’

‘Africa. Came across on a freighter, with my bike.’

‘Africa?’ Helen sounded envious. ‘Where were you in Africa?’

‘I sailed from South Africa, but I was all over the place. Crossed from Gibraltar into Morocco, then made my way down along the western bulge to Nigeria, Ghana, et cetera. To the Congo. Got on a steamer up the Congo River into Zaire and crossed over to Uganda and Kenya. Then down through Tanzania and Zambia and Zimbabwe, et cetera, into South Africa.’

Helen smiled. ‘“Et cetera”, huh? And, before Africa?’

‘Well,’ Ben said, ‘I went round South America, then crossed to the Far East. Japan, Hong Kong, then got a freighter to Thailand. Did a side trip by air to the Philippines and Indonesia, then rode the bike over to India.’ He smiled. ‘Decided against trying to ride across the Middle East – not the healthiest place for a Jew. So from Bombay I got a freighter through Suez to Greece.’ He shrugged. ‘Went around Europe for a while, then crossed over into north Africa.’

Helen was fascinated. ‘Wow. How wonderful! And where’re you going from here?’

‘Brisbane. Then up through northern Queensland to Darwin, see that Northern Territory.’

‘And from there?’

‘Back down to Perth. And then back to South Africa. I want to make a base there, then go off and do my thing.’

Helen echoed: ‘South Africa again? Why there?’

‘Great country.’ Ben shrugged.

‘But what about the politics?’

Ben shrugged again. ‘Great things are happening.’

Helen snorted. ‘Is there going to be democracy?’

‘That’s what the negotiations are all about.’

‘What’s there to negotiate?’ Helen demanded. ‘Why not good old-fashioned democracy? Is there going to be One Man One Vote or not?’

‘I believe so, but they’ll work it out to suit the local conditions.’

‘You mean the white man’s conditions?’

Ben shook his head. But he didn’t want to argue about it – people who hadn’t been to Africa just didn’t understand. ‘However, the reason I’m going back there is not for the politics, interesting though that is, but because of the animals.’

Helen was disarmed. ‘The wildlife?’

Ben sat back. ‘Oh, the wildlife out there is wonderful. And it’s being butchered out of existence. Not in South Africa, but in the rest of the continent.’ He shook his head. ‘There’re only three black rhino left in the whole of Kenya, d’you know that? In ten years the only wild animals left north of the Zambesi will be in isolated pockets, unless a great deal more is done. And that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to join the guys who’re trying to do something about it.’

‘Like who?’

Ben said: ‘I’m a life-member of Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature. But there’re various outfits you can join who believe in fighting fire with fire, and they’re the guys I want to team up with. As a foot-soldier.’

Helen frowned at him. ‘Foot-soldier? And what does a foot-soldier do? Shoot people?’

Ben smiled. ‘There’re more ways of killing a cat than stuffing its throat with butter. Like destroying their infrastructure. Destroying their camps, their weapons, their snares, their vehicles. Their routes. Their products. Raiding the warehouses of their middlemen down on the coast in Mombasa and Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar and Maputo – generally knocking the living shit out of them.’ (Helen blinked – she didn’t like that familiarity.) Ben shrugged. ‘But if it comes to shooting the poachers themselves, why not? Those bastards shoot game rangers all the time in Africa.’

Helen sat back. And folded her arms. She didn’t know what to make of Mr Ben Sunninghill, jeweller, from New York. On his motorbike. Foot-soldier? ‘Have you ever had any military training?’

‘Sure, I was in the National Guard. That’s the States’ militia. Volunteer basis.’

She thought, Volunteer, huh? ‘Did you enjoy that?’

‘Sure. Most of the time. And nice to get away from the shop.’

‘And they trained you in … weapons and all that?’

‘Yeah. I was in the infantry.’ He smiled. ‘Never killed anybody though. I was too young for Vietnam.’

She said. ‘What’re you – about thirty-five?’

He took her aback by saying: ‘Right, and you? Forty-ish?’

‘You might have been gallant and said thirty-nine-ish!’

Ben gave that smile. ‘But forty is a beautiful age for a woman.’

Helen managed to return his smile, though she somehow didn’t like the comment. ‘Well, I’m forty-two, actually. That is hardly a beautiful age for this woman.’

‘But you are beautiful.’

Helen certainly didn’t like that forwardness. Oh no, she thought – not one of those, and him a guest in my house for the night! She sat up and said brightly:

‘Well, we better have something to eat, it’s getting late.’

Ben said earnestly: ‘Don’t worry about me, I had supper just before finding your gate.’

That was fine with Helen. ‘Some coffee, then?’

‘No, it’ll keep me awake.’

Well, that gave her an opening. ‘Yes, you must be tired. I’ll show you to your room. I’ll put you in the foreman’s cottage, it’s empty. It’s just half a mile over there.’ She pointed.

Ben said: ‘I don’t mind sleeping outside in my sleeping-bag, in fact I like it. Pity to use your sheets.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it. You deserve a nice soft bed after all the way you’ve come.’ She stood up.