‘How do you know?’

‘We have played together. We play and play and that’s how we learn.’

Roeloff fitted a stone into his sling and stood up.

‘Do you like this game?’

‘No. Boys like it very much, but not girls. We do it because it pleases them. One time an old man tried to force me and I told my mother and she told him he was already losing his teeth, he should look elsewhere for a bride.’

‘Will you go when Toma comes?’

‘He’s the son of a great hunter. I’ll have food.’

‘You will go with him for food?’

‘Yes,’ she laughed gaily, picking the last leaf from the stem. ‘A husband gives you food and things to wear. He protects you.’

He catapulted the stone over the sand.

‘Four seasons have gone, Zokho. He hasn’t come.’

‘He will, you’ll see. Toma won’t leave me here.’

‘Don’t you like it here? You have food, you’re protected.’

‘I’m not protected.’

A shadow fell over them and they looked up. David was standing on the overhanging rock looking down at them.

Zokho’s smile froze and she skipped off.

Roeloff watched her run back to the house, his brother following at a leisurely pace. He felt suddenly cold.

‘Ratel! Riempie!’

The dogs came bounding up.

He made a signal and they scampered off towards the sheep.

At the house Willem Kloot, still in his coat, his unruly hair made respectable with pomade bought from a smous, waited for Roeloff at the back door.

‘You’ve decided to bless us with your presence, then. Didn’t Zokho call you? I hear you’ve been on Boerhaan.’

For a moment Roeloff thought he was in trouble for trying to ride his father’s stallion, but his father was in an exceptional mood.

‘He threw me.’

‘So I hear. He takes to that bosjesman, though. Twa has a way with him.’

Boerhaan came from champion stock but, volcanic and skittish, he allowed no one except Willem Kloot on his back. He was Willem’s favourite horse, greedy for mares, but he’d refused to mount Kobus Steenkamp’s brood mare, causing much head-scratching and embarrassment. Twa had watched the performance and come up with a plan. ‘We have to dig a hole for the mare to stand in. She’s bigger than him, he can’t reach.’ Everyone had laughed at the ridiculous suggestion. Twa dug the pit himself and led an agitated Boerhaan up to the brood mare, holding onto the rein. It was pump and snort with Twa almost getting hooved to death, but the plan worked, and in due course the mare foaled. The stallion was no further ahead in his manners, but some bond had formed between them, and now Twa, too, could ride on his back. But not Roeloff. He’d tried several times to get on, but Boerhaan had snorted like a high-born prince and flung him off. His father was referring to the incident that morning in front of the Koi-na, who’d all had a good laugh as Roeloff landed backside first on the ground.

‘A man cannot live alone in this wilderness,’ Willem started. ‘God made us in twos.’

Roeloff looked at the other faces around the table. David seemed anxious, as if he’d been wrenched away from something important and wanted to get back, and his grandfather had a strange expression, the same one as he’d had the time the smous had tried to sell him a set of brass candle holders he didn’t want.

‘Jan’s sister’s widowed as you know, and she’s without children, a young woman like that, and all alone. It’s a sin letting healthy people go to waste. God didn’t intend it.’ He paused for a moment to see if anyone would argue with him. ‘This morning she agreed to be my wife.’

‘Well,’ Oupa Harman knocked the dead ash out of his pipe. ‘When does the happy event take place?’ The look on his face didn’t at all match the tone of his voice, which had to it a quality Roeloff knew he reserved for things he didn’t approve of.

‘December.’

‘Does that mean we’re now related, Pa?’ Roeloff asked.

Willem combed his fingers through his beard and looked at his younger son.

‘You don’t like the Jouberts, Roff.’

Roeloff chanced his father’s good mood.

‘Oom Jan’s a …’

Willem laughed.

‘Oom Jan’s a fine man, and I’ll marry his sister in the summer.’ Softening a little, he added, ‘You’ll be related, but only in name.’

‘Krisjan must come to the wedding.’

There was an uncomfortable silence. Everyone looked at Oupa Harman.

‘The family has not been in touch,’ Willem said, the look on his face suddenly changed.

‘They can be in touch now. This is an opportunity,’ Oupa Harman coughed into his hand. ‘What better reason than a wedding to invite him?’

‘It will be a small affair. No need to disturb old nests. And there’s no one going that way to tell him.’

‘Well, that’s that, then,’ Oupa Harman got to his feet. ‘Anything else you want us to know?’

Willem Kloot lost a little of his earlier confidence. Oupa Harman still had the power to unsettle him.

‘No.’

‘Who’s Krisjan?’ David asked when his father and grandfather had left the kitchen.

Roeloff looked at his brother. He had never told David, and he wouldn’t have known himself if Oupa Harman hadn’t surrendered so completely to the apricot brandy at Pietie Retief’s grandchild’s doopmaal. Retief’s fiery brew was known for its tongue-loosening power and Oupa Harman was as affected as anyone by its potency. If Roeloff hadn’t happened to be standing near his grandfather when the words popped from his mouth, he wouldn’t have known there was a brother, still living, in the Cape. But there was some mystery attached to Krisjan Kloot. Why was his father reluctant to have him visit? Why did no one mention him? One day he would travel to the Cape, look up this lost relative and find out.

Chapter Four

The night was moonless, wet, the rain beating down on the house on the rise.