Read an Excerpt
The first time he sees her: they come around the corner and she is standing on the grass, her back to them. The sun is going down in a spectacular arterial sewage of colour, but she appears indifferent to the display. She seems rapt in some private fantasy, holding a long suede coat closed around her body, despite the heat. She hears them and turns. Under the coat she is wearing a short, shimmery blue dress, and her legs are very long. Although her feet are bare, it’s as if she’s wearing high heels. Even before he sees the bright paint on her face, Adam has a flash of the woman on the road outside the town, selling herself. She seems to have been transported here, garish and gorgeous and improbable.
Once that first image fades, he sees past it to how beautiful she is. She is like an exotic doll, all her tiny features in immaculate proportion. She’s also young; at least ten years younger than Canning — which means ten years younger than Adam too.
‘My wife, Baby,’ Canning says. ‘Baby, this is Nappy.’
She holds out her hand. He can feel her long nails in his palm. The sensation lets something loose in him — distaste mixed with desire. He holds her fingers for a second longer than is necessary.
‘I’ve heard so much about you,’ she says. ‘My husband has talked about you so many times.’
Her voice is low, husky, a little disinterested. The accent is neutral and rootless, hard to place. Her eyes linger on him for a moment, summing him up, before dismissing him.
‘What do you think?’ Canning says proudly. ‘I told you my wife is amazing.’
‘Yes,’ Adam murmurs. He doesn’t know what else to say. It’s true: she is amazing —though perhaps not in the way that Canning means. And what kind of a name is Baby?
‘I’m just going to show Nappy around.’
‘Yes, do,’ she says.
But Canning doesn’t move. He stands there, smiling fixedly, appearing almost desperate, staring at his wife as if he’s the one who’s just met her. She pulls the coat tighter around herself and gives a languid little shrug, before turning around and gazing into the distance. Only then, with a discernible effort, does Canning set himself in motion. Adam follows him the last few steps into the big building, both of them casting a backward glance towards the singular figure, standing alone on the grass.
Now they have walked into a tall, sepulchral space, in which Adam’s eyes have to adjust. He sees constituent elements before he sees the whole: slate floors, high conical roof, prints of wildlife paintings on the walls, between signboards with names on them like reception, wellness centre, conference rooms. It feels as if it should be jammed with people, but the place is empty. The sound of their feet quavers coldly around them.
‘What is this? A game lodge?’
‘There you are. Right first time.’
Other details are coming to him now: animal heads mounted on the wall. A fireplace framed by two gleaming white tusks, a zebra-skin spread out on the floor in front of it.
‘But where are the people?’
‘Well, we’re here, aren’t we?’
Canning seems to be enjoying Adam’s confusion. He leads his guest down some stairs towards a bar, fully stocked with drinks. Through a set of doors to one side, Adam sees a kitchen in which there is a flurry of menial activity. ‘No, no,’ Canning says, when Adam holds out the wine he’s brought along. ‘Put that away. Let me mix you one of my lethal little cocktails. It took me years to get the formula just right.’ He concocts a toxic-looking, bright blue mixture and dispenses it into two tall glasses, giving one to Adam. ‘Cheers,’ he says. ‘Here’s to old friends!’
‘Old friends,’ Adam says, and drinks.
‘Are you surprised by my wife?’ Canning asks abruptly.
‘Surprised? No. Why would I be?’
‘Well. Because she’s black, for one thing.’
‘But who cares about that?’
That is, in fact, the least surprising thing about her.
‘We’re a new South African couple,’ Canning says.
Adam feels irritated. There is nothing very new, or even especially unusual, about having a black spouse these days, and it seems gratuitous to be harping on it. Though it’s also true that Canning isn’t your typical modern South African man. But the surprise is connected to Canning, not Baby, and it’s as if he himself recognizes this fact when his tone changes suddenly, from pride to panic:
‘I love my wife, Nappy. I love her very badly! I don’t want to give her up.’
Afterwards, when Adam remembers this conversation, it is that one word, ‘badly’, which stands out for him. How can you love somebody badly? But he says, in a soothing voice, ‘You don’t have to give her up, do you?’
Canning is sunk in gloom now, as if the twilight has affected him. But then his mood switches again. ‘Come with me,’ he says. ‘There’s something special I want to show you.’
The light is fading as they go back out onto the lawn. Adam looks, but Baby has disappeared. Canning leads him away from the complex, in the direction of the river. They pass in silence through concentric rings of cultivation that radiate outwards, each one a little wilder and more unkempt than the last. There is an orchard, and below that an open field, churned-up and broken, in which nothing has been planted. Then a wall of trees goes up, complex and knotted, lush with the proximity to water. Along the way, Adam sees the greeny-blue, outrageous shapes of peacocks everywhere.
