beyond the kitchen.
âYou are a big girl, angel,â he answered. âYou must learn to feed yourself.â
âI can feed myself â I just like it better when you do it. Please, Daddy, pretty please a trillion times.â
âA trillion?â Shasa asked. âI am bid one trillion â any advance on a trillion?â but he went to her summons.
âYou spoil her,â Tara said. âSheâs becoming impossible.â
âI know,â said Shasa. âYou keep telling me.â
Shasa shaved quickly while his coloured valet laid out his dinner-jacket in the dressing-room and put the platinum and sapphire studs into his dress shirt. Despite Taraâs vehement protests he always insisted on black tie for dinner.
âItâs so stuffy and old-fashioned and snobby.â
âItâs civilized,â he contradicted her.
When he was dressed, he crossed the wide corridor strewn with oriental carpets, the walls hung with a gallery of Thomas Baines water-colours, tapped on Taraâs door and went in to her invitation.
Tara had moved into this suite while she was carrying
Isabella, and had stayed here. Last year she had redecorated it, removing the velvet drapes and George II and Louis XIV furniture, the Qum silk carpets and the magnificent oils by De Jong and Naudé, stripping the flocked wallpaper and sanding the golden patina off the yellow-wood floor until it looked like plain deal.
Now the walls were stark white with only a single enormous painting facing the bed; it was a monstrosity of geometrical shapes in primary colours in the style of Mir6, but executed by an unknown art student at the Cape Town University Art School and of no value. To Shasaâs mind paintings should be pleasing decorations but at the same time good long-term investments. This thing was neither.
The furniture Tara had chosen for her boudoir was made of angular stainless steel and glass, and there was very little of it. The bed was almost flat on the bare boards of the floor.
âItâs Swedish decor,â she had explained.
âSend it back to Sweden,â he had advised her.
Now he perched on one of the steel chairs and lit a cigarette. She frowned at him in the mirror.
âForgive me.â He stood up and went to flick the cigarette out of the window. âIâll be working late after dinner,â he turned back to her, âand I wanted to warn you before I forget that Iâm flying up to Joâburg tomorrow afternoon and Iâll be away for a few days, maybe five or six.â
âFine.â She pursed her lips as she applied her lipstick, a pale mauve shade that he disliked intensely.
âOne other thing, Tara. Lord Littletonâs bank is preparing to underwrite the share issue for our possible new development on the Orange Free State goldfields. I would take it as a personal favour if you and Molly could refrain from waving your black sashes in his face and from regaling him with merry tales of white injustice and bloody black revolution.â
âI canât speak for Molly, but I promise to be good.â
âWhy donât you wear your diamonds tonight?â he changed the subject. âThey look so good on you.â
She hadnât worn the suite of yellow diamonds from the Hâani Mine since she had joined the Sash movement. They made her feel like Marie Antoinette.
âNot tonight,â she said. âThey are a little garish, itâs really just a family dinner party.â She dusted her nose with the puff and looked at him in the mirror.
âWhy donât you go down, dear. Your precious Lord Littleton will be arriving at any moment.â
âI just want to tuck Bella up first.â He came to stand behind her.
They stared at each other in the mirror, seriously.
âWhat happened to us, Tara?â he asked softly.
âI donât know what you mean, dear,â she replied, but she looked down and
Elizabeth Amelia Barrington