Unknown by Unknown Page B

on.”
    He’d thought of everything. Phil tugged in her lip between her teeth.
    “I’ll send Sam over with an extra lamp and a meal.” He paused. “I doubt if we’ll be able to hire you another woman servant. Manoela must care a lot for you. Could you stand having her around again?”
    “Yes. Oh, yes.”
    “I’ll chase her up tomorrow. She can prepare your food in my kitchen and sleep next door. You needn’t worry at night. A couple of boys always patrol the buildings in case of attempted theft.” He laid his box of matches beside the lamp and cast a final glance around the room. “Whatever you want, tell Sam. Shoot the bolt when I’m gone and he’ll knock. Good night.”
    Mechanically she answered and obeyed his instructions. Restlessly, she drifted back to the lowboy and pulled open the top drawer, expecting it to be empty. But inside there were a pile of printed handkerchiefs such as Matt sold in his store, and a few large white ones with a J in one corner; a new military hairbrush and a black comb, a card of hair grips, a canister of talcum, a toothbrush, toothpaste, sponge and soap.
    Heartstrings unbearably stretched, Phil examined the next drawer. Towels, sheets, pillow-cases, check tablecloths and napkins. The bottom drawer held lengths of material from Matt’s bales, and ... a cellular shirt and a pair of shorts!
    Phil sat on the side of the bed, cradling her wounded arm, her whole being heavy with useless longings. She ate a little of the dinner Sam brought, and got ready for bed. Slowly and painfully she sloughed her clothes. Then she put out one lamp and dimmed the other, and turned down the blankets.
    On the crisp white pillow lay the final push to the floodgates: a folded suit of men’s blue pyjamas. Phil laid her cheek against them and cried.
     

CHAPTER X
    AS soon as she could use her arm Phil’s buoyancy returned. It needed courage to visit the blackened area where her house had stood, but already the pale green of new growth speared from the ashes, and it would not be long before all traces of the fire were overlaid by a young jungle. So she looked on it as dispassionately as she could, and passed on. Clin Dakers’ house, too, was demolished, leaving only Matt’s solid structure and the cream-washed building shared by Roger and Drew.
    In her own log cabin, kept sweet and polished by Manoela, and in the small garden which had been fenced off in front, she found plenty to fill her time. Apart from replenishing her wardrobe, there were curtains and bedcover to stitch, and mats to embroider. As a change from sewing and gardening she made a couple of sketches of the waterfront, and knocked up frames to contain them. Impossible, of course, to get hold of any glass, but one benefit of creating one’s own pictures was that when flies had ruined them new ones cost nothing.
    Yes, there was plenty to do and see, and when night had swept in and noises ceased Phil could, if she wished, loop back a curtain and enjoy the sense of companionship offered by the lights at the house. Entertaining was beyond her hut’s capacity, but occasionally Matt or Roger came over at sundowner time, the trader bringing his own bottle of whisky and Roger more than willing to absorb the lime or grenadilla she served.
    Phil had written to the lawyer in Cape Town stating her plight and begging him to send part of next year’s allowance. At the rate mails moved in equatorial regions she would be lucky to receive a reply within six weeks, but it would be good to be independent again. Even here, where she could run a stores account with Matt and tot up Manoela’s wages against the day when her cheque would arrive, it irked to possess no ready cash. A trip through the market was no fun at all if you couldn’t purchase a few yams or a pair of beadwork slippers that caught the eye.
    It was astonishing, when one was forced to begin again at scratch and accumulate fresh property, what a vast number of goods make up the normal