She started to say something, but it was as though she was speaking a different language. Half of my mind struggled to follow her, while the other half shied away from connecting the gun she was holding to the ugly, gaping wound in Ginie’s side. She began to pace up and down, tearing flowers and leaves to pieces with her trembling fingers.

‘I know; I do know,’ she was saying, feverishly, ‘there now, do you see? I wasn’t deceiving myself.’ Her shrill, disjointed voice was ghastly.

She stopped talking abruptly and clapped her hand over her mouth, shaking her head as if to clear it. My father’s truck had swung in at the gates and was speeding up the driveway. I watched Dad get out and hurry towards us. A look of hatred and dread passed over my mother’s face and a vein bulged in her forehead, but the corners of her lips twisted up into a smile.

‘Hello, Mark,’ she said, brightly.

Dad didn’t reply. His eyes travelled from her face to the gun and back again. My stomach lurched, for I realised Mum was pointing the gun right at him. She gripped it with both hands, but they were shaking so badly, she could scarcely hold it. I screamed at her to stop.

Dad was looking at her with a strange, weak gaze, as though he was repelled by her, but couldn’t tear his eyes away.

‘Go on, Di,’ he said, his features distorted in pain. ‘Do it.’

For the longest moment, she stared back at him, an expression of stubborn wistfulness on her face. ‘You’ve destroyed us,’ he said. ‘Go on, pull the bloody trigger. It would be a relief.’

The gun was still wobbling in her hands and there was no sound except for her ragged breathing. Then a nightjar shrieked, making her jump. I braced myself for the gunshot, but it did not come. Mum’s head drooped, her legs buckled and she sank to the ground in a foetal crouch, the weapon falling uselessly from her grip.

43 The Courtaulds, Rhodesia, 1950s

43

The Courtaulds, Rhodesia, 1950s

The pain in Ginie’s side felt like she was being struck by lightning. Like falling through the sky, wrapped in layers of flame. She tried to scream, but her lips had become dead-weights, her jaw clamped shut. She felt the sharp prick of a needle and sunlight began to flow through her veins. Her body grew lighter, her mind loopy and euphoric. . . She lay in a hum, floating off into a memory that was as fresh and vivid as if she were living it there and then: her first sight of the land that would become La Rochelle.