‘I don’t know. There’s so much violence and killing. Pa has to go out on more and more patrols, and his cousin chooses him every time there’s a skirmish in the area. Ma says the man is downright crazy. She sounds so hopeless when I talk to her. I still feel guilty about leaving her. But I couldn’t have stayed, and I can’t see them coming back for the time being.’

‘So your time is all taken up with the farm. And Viktor.’

‘That’s about it. And Piet’s just as bad as Lars – they’re like brothers. Neither of them can bear the idea of my falling for Viktor. Or for anyone, in fact. Piet once punched a guy who was kissing me at the Nanyuki Club, you know. He’s worse than the dominee from the Dutch Reform Church!’

They laughed out loud, scaring a couple of warthogs in search of a mud-bath.

‘And talking of Piet?’ Hannah said, her eyebrows raised in enquiry.

‘You know as much as I do.’ Sarah ran her fingers through her dusty mop of hair. She could not look Hannah in the eye.

‘He is still such a mutt!’ Hannah said. ‘But he really does love you. I know it, and he knows it too, even if he hasn’t said it to himself in so many words. Just give him time. He’s so taken up with the farm and the lodge and all.’

‘Do you think he’s really over Camilla?’ Sarah asked, deeply unsure. On the ridge he had kissed her. But he had not said that he loved her. Instead, she had been given a summary of his troubles.

‘You and Piet are made for each other, Sarah. You’re soulmates,’ Hannah said. ‘He values your judgment, tells you things he never discusses with anyone else. He knows you understand him, and he talks about you all the time when you’re not here. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. Like today, when I barged in on your little moment.’ She gave a wicked grin. ‘Don’t fret about my thick brother. He’ll come round. And you’d better watch out when he does.’

The weekend flew past, hours and minutes devoured at a relentless speed over which Sarah had no control. She worked alongside Hannah at the dispensary, visited the dairy, counted bags of feed and fertiliser in the stores, hemmed curtains for the lodge and framed pictures with driftwood she picked up in the forest. In the early mornings she rode with Piet, and as the sun rose to blister the land they stopped under the shelter of a thorn tree and reached for one another, touching, exploring, caressing. Then he would be off to work with Lars. She and Hannah often heard the sound of their rifle practice.