Although the clouds hadn’t cleared completely, they no longer looked threatening. Perhaps the hike could still be rescued, even if it meant being transported further along the original route and only walking the last two days. While he was initially disappointed Michelle couldn’t make it, Geoffrey was pleased his daughter had agreed to join him. He’d enjoyed the first day’s hike with her. It was a chance for them to get to know each other again after she’d been away at university for the past three years. They’d always been so close, but with her illness and the miles between them, things had changed. He realised she was no longer the same young girl who, during the school holidays, would jump into his bakkie and travel to his clients with him, watching him work alongside his team, and asking him to explain what he was doing as they worked.

“You’re not thinking about becoming a gardener, are you?” Michelle asked pre-teen Clare when the girl had told her mother about the tree that Geoffrey had transplanted that day.

Geoffrey had looked up from the sink where he was washing his hands, interested in his daughter’s response.

“I don’t think so,” said Clare. “But I wouldn’t mind becoming a botanist.”

Michelle raised her brows. “Hmm. Not sure what botanists do outside of academia. Is there any money in it?”

Clare hadn’t studied botany. Instead, she’d graduated with a degree in environmental science and was hoping to find work that focused on sustainable energy. Geoffrey was proud of her, her interest in the environment and the fact that she wasn’t driven primarily by money. Of course he worried about her health and wished that she hadn’t got so thin. He tried not to watch what she ate and reassured himself he was no longer worried she would starve herself to death like he had been when she first came home. She wasn’t out of the grips of the illness, but neither was she entirely in its clutches. Geoffrey hoped that, as soon as Clare found a job that tested and engaged her, she would find she didn’t have the time or inclination to obsess about her diet and exercise.

He wondered, thinking about his own high school obsession with rugby, whether Clare was genetically predisposed to compulsive behaviour. Success in the sport was a badge of honour among Geoffrey’s friends and peers and their families. Before he reached his teens, his agility and enthusiasm meant he was always chosen for his age group’s first team. At high school though, his slight physique and medium height put him at a disadvantage. He wasn’t brawny enough for the squads of rangy, rough-edged youths who fought their way over, under and through one another in the feature games on Saturdays.