Then a Wind Blew by Kay Powell

Author:Kay Powell
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781779223845
Publisher: Weaver Press
Published: 2021-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

7

Isakata mine; mid-November 1979

Susan was listening to the American Senator. He had a loud voice and a bullish air and the shirt he wore was far too bright. He stood out, as he intended to, no doubt. He was one of four Americans staying at the guest house. Fact-finding.

The Senator was saying, “Give ’em hell! That’s what you should do. Go get ’em and give ’em hell!”

He was talking about what everyone was talking about. The massive airborne raids a few days earlier on terrorist camps in Zambia. Today, on the lunchtime news, they’d played a recording from the cockpit of a bomber in one of the raids. Susan and Reg had listened to it, everyone had. They heard the pilot telling Lusaka Airport Tower to keep all their aircraft on the ground, just for half an hour, thank you very much, we’ve a job to do, we won’t be long. And then other voices in the cockpit. “Jeez man, check out those ******* bombs raining down there! ******* incredible! Christ, look at them scattering like ******* ants everywhere! Did you see how they ran straight into the ******* bombs? Ah, man, just ******* beautiful!”

Lots of bleeping out, of course. You couldn’t broadcast expletives.

“Serve them right.”

Reg had glanced up at her, then looked away, said nothing. Too bad. She meant it. Serve them bloody well right. Too bad if he thought that was going too far. He probably thought, now, that she hated them.

Did she? She didn’t think so. She’d never really liked them, as a people, he knew that. She’d said so often enough. She’d never got used to their neediness. She’d never understood them, what made them tick, and sometimes she found their blackness… well, threatening. But she’d always done what she thought was right by them. Dressed their wounds and vaccinated them and helped them plan their families. Wrapped presents for their children at Christmas time. Taught cookboys how to cook and gardenboys how to garden and fed them and their families and instilled into them the rudiments of cleanliness. She tolerated them, she put up with them, even when they drove her up the wall, but she didn’t think she hated them.

Lord knows, she had reason enough to hate them. For starting this damn Bush War. For their ingratitude. Their brutality. For what they’d done to Colin, the mess they’d left Billy in. For ruining everything.

That afternoon, Susan had put the question to Billy.

“Do you hate them?”

They were by the pool. Billy had gone there after lunch. Susan went down a little later and sat on the sun-lounger. For a while neither of them said anything. Billy was lying face-down on a towel at the pool’s edge, one hand dangling in the water.

There’d been a change in him this past fortnight, since the gun incident on the verandah. He was calmer. Too calm? And he wasn’t going out of his way to avoid them, there was more conversation. Usually, if she joined him anywhere, at the pool, on the verandah, he’d just get up and go.

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