The Smouldering Flame. Anne Mather

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СКАЧАТЬ garb thronged the platform, hauling out crates of supplies and loading other crates aboard. Joanna was amazed that anyone knew which crates had to go where. The confusion was so immense, the noise so deafening, and always the heat to burn through to her prickling skin.

      Beyond the peeling station buildings, a collection of shacks could be seen, and Joanna realised that she could not stand here indefinitely. She wondered uneasily how long the train would remain at the station, and whether, if by some terrible coincidence she missed Shannon, she could get back to Menawi that night. She had brought only an overnight case with her, leaving most of her belongings at the hotel.

      Near the station barrier, the lorry which was supplying the crates being loaded on to the train bore the lettering: LUSHASAN GOLD MINING AUTHORITY, and her drooping spirits lifted a little. Picking up her case, she endeavoured to thrust her way between the Africans who were causing such an uproar, brushing against gleaming black bodies, aromatic with sweat, striped tent-like garments, denims and ordinary European gear.

      The man in charge of the off-loading was not African, but neither was he wholly European. Joanna guessed he was a mixture of both, with handsome olive-skinned features and curly dark hair. His dark eyes widened to an incredible degree when he saw a white girl pushing her way towards him, and he spat commands at the Africans still blocking her path so that she could reach him without further effort. In a mud-coloured bush shirt and shorts, his sleeves circled with sweat, he nevertheless represented sanity in a world gone mad.

      ‘Mademoiselle!’ he exclaimed, giving her a perfunctory bow. ‘Qu’est-ce que vous voulez? Ce n’est pas——’

      ‘Oh, please,’ Joanna broke in, ‘do you speak any English?’ Her French, remembered from schooldays, was not very good, and she prayed that this man had some knowledge of her own language.

      ‘Yes, mademoiselle, I speak English.’ The man gestured to the gaping Africans to get on with the unloading. ‘But what is an English young lady doing here?’ He spread his hands expressively. ‘You cannot be travelling alone?’

      His accent was attractive, but Joanna was in no mood to appreciate it. ‘I am travelling alone, yes——’ she was beginning, only to be interrupted by a flow of invective from his lips as one of the Africans dropped a crate right behind them. After a moment, her companion turned back to her and apologised, indicating that she should go on.

      Joanna tried to gather her thoughts, but this was all so strange to her, not least the way this man could switch from smiling urbanity to obviously crude abuse in seconds.

      Forcing herself to ignore their faintly hostile audience, she said: ‘Could you direct me to the mine, please?’

      ‘The mine, mademoiselle?’

      ‘You are from the gold mine, aren’t you?’ Joanna made an involuntary movement towards the lettering on the cab of the lorry.

      He looked in that direction himself, and then swung his head curiously back to her. ‘You want to go to the mine, mademoiselle?’

      Joanna tried not to feel impatient. ‘Obviously.’

      He shrugged, tipping his head to one side. ‘The mine is over there, mademoiselle.’ He indicated the distant mountains.

      Joanna stared in dismay towards the purple-shrouded range. ‘But that must be—five or ten miles away!’

      ‘Seven, to be exact,’ her companion informed her, thrusting his hands into the hip pockets of his shorts.

      ‘Seven miles!’ Joanna’s echo of his words was anguished.

      ‘Why do you wish to go to the mine, mademoiselle?’ the man asked softly.

      Discarding prevarication, Joanna sighed. ‘I’ve come to find my brother. I believe he works for the mining company. Shannon Carne?’

      The man beside her looked surprised. ‘Mr Carne is your brother?’

      ‘My half-brother, yes.’

      ‘Half-brother?’ He frowned. ‘What is this?’

      Joanna felt like telling him it was none of his business, but so far as she knew he might present her only chance of reaching the mine.

      ‘It means we had the same father—different mothers,’ she explained shortly. ‘He is there, then? You do know him?’

      ‘Yes, mademoiselle.’ The man bowed his head. ‘I know Mr Carne. But——’ His eyes flickered over her for a moment. ‘I did not know he had a—sister.’

      There was something offensive in his appraisal, and Joanna felt her flesh crawl. But short of alienating the only person who might offer her a lift to the mine, there was nothing she could do. Perhaps he thought she was only masquerading as Shannon’s sister. Perhaps wives or girl-friends were not allowed at the mine, and he thought she was only pretending a relationship. It was her own fault. She should not have come here so precipitately. She should have cabled ahead that she was in Lushasa, waited at the hotel in Menawi, trusted that after having come so far, Shannon would at least have the decency to come and see her.

      If only he had replied to her father’s letters, but of course, they had gone to Johannesburg, and he had left no forwarding address. He could have advised them that he had left South Africa. That awful row between him and his father had been all of ten years ago now. Had he never wondered about them in all that time? Never cared to know how they were? Little wonder if this man had doubts about their relationship. Since coming to Africa, Shannon had had no contact with his family whatsoever.

      That was why Joanna had impulsively boarded the train and come to Kwyana. She could not have borne for Shannon to ignore her, and by coming here she had eliminated any excuses he might make. Besides, she was eager to see him again. He had always been her hero, someone she had looked up to and admired. He had appeared to accept the fact of his parents’ divorce when he was six years old without question, and when his father had married again and subsequently produced Joanna, he had shown no jealousy. Eight years her senior, he had taught her to swim and play games as well as any boy of her age, and she had idolised him. He had never talked about his mother or her rejection of him, even though they had known she was alive and well and living in America at that time, and that was why Joanna had found his rejection of the family so hard to take when it happened. She only knew that the row he had had with his father had something to do with his mother, and he had walked out of the house and never come back. For a while her father had been terribly bitter about the whole thing, but later on he had employed a private detective to find him. The man had traced Shannon to Witwatersrand, but although they had written, he had never replied to any of their letters. And now her father was sick, slowly dying in fact, and in spite of everything insistent that Shannon should inherit the estate.

      Now Joanna squared her shoulders, and said: ‘Well, I can assure you, I am Joanna Carne. And I do need to see my brother.’

      The man considered her for a few moments longer, and then he said: ‘Does—Mr Carne expect you?’

      Joanna sighed. ‘No.’ She paused. ‘He doesn’t even know I’m in Africa. Does it matter?’ She controlled a momentary irritation. ‘Is there any vehicle I can hire to get to the mine?’

      ‘There are no taxis here, mademoiselle.’ The man’s lips twisted derisively. ‘But …’ His appraisal abruptly ceased as he slapped at an insect crawling across СКАЧАТЬ