Hannah had begun to smile. ‘We’re lucky we didn’t spend the night upside down in a ditch,’ she said. ‘Then we would have had to answer to Lars as well.’

‘That would have been bad, yes,’ Piet said, laughing. ‘But there are things we need to discuss, Sis. I’ve kept them from you, but we should talk about them now, so we can decide together what’s to be done.’

Hannah sat down beside him, and he opened the ledgers and files that detailed the farm accounts and began to go through them with her. Jan had left the farm in debt, and she saw that Lars had done what he could to keep the threat of bankruptcy at bay. Nonetheless, they were still on a thin line between survival and failure.

‘I think we can make it,’ Piet said. ‘If we finish the lodge it will bring in another kind of income that can protect us during years when there’s drought, or we have a problem with the wheat or the livestock. And it would give you a project to run, when the construction is finished. You could take care of the whole thing. People from all over the world will come here. Several of the hunters and the private safari companies are looking for places that aren’t crowded with regular tourists. We’ll only take ten people at a time. It will be a different experience for them, being on a real Kenya farm and a private game reserve, with a third-generation Kenya family.’

‘If we’re so short of cash and we owe the bank, how can we do it?’ Hannah asked.

‘We can build cheaply from materials right here on Langani, if we follow the plans Viktor drew up. And Anthony has put up some of the money.’ He saw that her eyes were alight with interest for the first time since her return. ‘The only thing is, Han, you’ll have to run the office while the construction is going on. Later, there’ll be the decoration of the place, staff to train, menus to plan and organise. That sounds like your territory.’

‘It’s just what I want,’ she said, flinging her arms around him. ‘I’m sorry, Piet. I’ve been a bloody nuisance since I came home. But this is something we can do together, and I love the whole idea. Now, take me through all these accounts files again.’

The running of the farm had changed from that morning, and Hannah had worked long hours each day, creating a new accounting system, filing and typing, ordering and checking incoming supplies. She did not enjoy the office, but she could look forward to a time when the lodge would be hers to run, and then she would be able to entertain guests from Europe and America. In the meantime, they had to survive.