It made sense that she loved the flower, thought Geoffrey. Michelle was as vibrant, robust and commanding as a king protea. He walked on, imagining how it would have been if his wife had been with him on the hike as planned. What would she have done? Of course, if Michelle had come, Clare wouldn’t have been there and he wouldn’t be climbing a mountain looking for help for their daughter. Even so, he pictured his wife at the Bloukrans River as the group prepared to cross it two days earlier. Would she have tried to convince them otherwise? Probably not. She wouldn’t, as they hadn’t, have known that it had rained heavily in one of the river’s catchment areas before it reached them. Michelle would have had no idea the river would flood at the precise moment they were crossing it—when Diane was midway across.

Geoffrey felt ill as he thought again of what could’ve happened if Diane hadn’t had the strength to hold onto the ropes or if Derek hadn’t got to her in time. He recalled how the colour had drained from Bruce’s face and how his friend had whimpered with frustration as they’d wrestled to free the tree entangled in the rope. Geoffrey was frantic with panic; he could only imagine how Bruce felt. He thought about how he would’ve reacted if Michelle had been trapped in the deluge of water and debris.

Others thought it—some had even said it—and Geoffrey knew it: he and Michelle were an unlikely couple. She was the lion who roared and ruled. He was the elephant who could have, but didn’t care to reign.

Michelle was self-assured and ambitious to the point of sometimes being ruthless. She didn’t enrol at university to become a lawyer; she signed up so that she could become a high court judge. And she did. Geoffrey, on the other hand, went because he got excellent grades at school and his father thought getting a degree was a good idea. The boy was grateful for his father’s encouragement and didn’t want to let him down. He studied hard and graduated, but his best memories about being at university were watching the seasons change in the trees, chatting to the gardeners on campus and discovering that Michelle Lowe was interested in him.

He had been surprised and flattered by Michelle’s attention.

“She told Diane she’s ‘intrigued’ by you,” said Bruce. “Diane insists that in ‘Michelle-language,’ that means she has a major crush on you.”

“Crush?” said Geoffrey, hoping his friend hadn’t noticed that he was blushing. “She doesn’t seem like the kind of girl who has crushes.”

Bruce gave him light punch. “Exactly. That’s why she’s ‘intrigued’. The question is, what are you going to do about it?”