Dictator

3

Zalika Stratten kept hoping that her father would rescue her. Later, she knew, he would ruffle her hair with his strong brown fingers, their skin as rough as bark, and tell her, ‘Don’t you worry too much about what Mummy says. She means well. She just worries about you, that’s all.’ But Zalika didn’t want ‘later’. She wanted him to stand up now and say, ‘Stop it, Jacqui. That’s enough.’

Dick Stratten ruled his own vast personal kingdom – not just the reserve, but farms and ranches all over the country, filled with people who depended on him for their work, their homes, even the food in their bellies. Why couldn’t he rule his own wife? Why did he have to sit there, chewing on his lamb chop and very deliberately looking out at the view from the terrace while he ignored the argument going on right next to him at the table?

And why wouldn’t her mother leave her alone?

‘Honestly, darling,’ Jacqui Stratten was saying, ‘it really wouldn’t hurt, just once in a while, to put on a pretty dress. If you just took off those ghastly trainers and put on some heels, or paid a tiny little bit of attention to your make-up, it would make such a difference. You have such lovely blue eyes, they’re much your best feature, but no one will notice unless you make some effort to show them off. As for your hair, Rene keeps asking me when I’m going to bring you along to the salon. He’s longing to give you some proper highlights. He says it would absolutely transform you.’

‘I don’t want highlights,’ Zalika snapped back. ‘Sitting for hours with my hair wrapped up in tinfoil, getting bored out of my mind while that horrible old man fusses about with his fake French accent – that’s my idea of total hell.’

‘Well you’re never going to get a boyfriend if you carry on with those attitudes, that’s for sure,’ her mother replied.

‘I don’t want a boyfriend.’

‘Oh don’t be silly. You’re a seventeen-year-old girl, of course you want a boyfriend. When your brother was your age, he was absolutely surrounded by girls. But then, Andrew’s never had any trouble making the best of himself.’

Zalika rolled her eyes. ‘Here we go again with my oh-so-perfect brother…’

‘Well, have you seen how many letters he’s had since he got back from New York, all obviously written by girls? All my friends there could talk about was the impression he was making. Every pretty little thing in Manhattan wanted to know him.’

‘God, Mummy, don’t you have any idea what Andy’s like? He’ll be giving all these silly Americans his big stories about going on safari, pretending that he rides on elephants and fights lions single-handed, and they’ll all be dreaming that he’ll take them away to Africa and planning what they’re going to pack. Then as soon as he’s got inside their pants, he’s off telling the exact same stories to some other girl. That’s what he does. Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed.’

‘Honestly, Zalika, you really do talk utter nonsense sometimes. And you shouldn’t be so mean about your brother. After all, he’s the one who worked hard enough to get a place at Columbia Business School. To judge by last term’s reports, you’ll be lucky to pass a single A level. And I’m sure you’re not stupid, really. You’d have a good mind if only-’

‘The plane!’ shrieked Zalika, ignoring her mother and switching straight from furious indignation to utter delight with the speed only a teenager can muster. She leapt to her feet and ran away, dashing from the shade of the thatched veranda and down the steps, her long, slender, butterscotch legs racing out on to the rich-green lawn while Jacqui Stratten called after her, ‘Zalika, Zalika! Don’t leave the table!’

Frustrated by her daughter’s sudden departure, Jacqui turned her attention to her husband. ‘That girl will be the death of me. And you could have done something to help, my darling, instead of sitting there stuffing your face while your daughter was being so rude.’

Dick Stratten didn’t respond. He had long since learned that there were times when nothing a husband said could possibly be right. It was best just to let his wife have her say and get things out of her system.

Out on the lawn, Zalika stopped in mid-stride and spun to face her parents, still sitting at their lunch. ‘Look!’ she cried, flinging one hand back up at the sky. ‘Can’t you see? It’s Andy! He’s back from Buweku! He’s brought Moses home!’

Stratten frowned as he peered out towards the horizon, following the line of his daughter’s arm.

‘My God, the girl’s right,’ he said. ‘I must be going blind in my old age.’

Now he rose too, stepping up to the wooden rail that ran round the edge of the veranda, the evident strength and fitness of his body giving the lie to his claims of decrepitude.

‘Oh, you’re not so bad… not for such a very old man,’ said Jacqui, teasingly.

They’d met when Dick was thirty and she a girl of eighteen, just a year older than Zalika. His family and friends, all stalwarts of white Malemban society, had been appalled: she was too young and, even more importantly, too common for the heir to the Stratten estates. Dick didn’t care what anyone else thought. His view of the world was shaped far more by the law of the jungle than the niceties of social convention. As far as he was concerned, Jacqui Klerk was the most desirable female he had ever clapped eyes on and he was damn well going to have her as his mate. Twenty-six years later, they were still together and that youthful animal passion had deepened into a lifelong partnership.

‘Don’t be too hard on the girl,’ Stratten said.

‘Oh I know,’ his wife sighed. ‘It’s just, well, I worry that she’s going to turn into a wallflower if she doesn’t make a bit more of an effort. All one can see now, looking at her, is a mass of drab mousey hair and that great big Stratten nose.’

‘It’s a very splendid nose,’ said Stratten with exaggerated pride.

‘On a man like you, darling, yes it is. But not on a young girl. I know Zalika means “wondrously beautiful” in Arabic, but we have to accept our daughter will never be that. She could be a great deal less plain, though, if only she accepted even one of my suggestions.’

‘I don’t think she’s plain at all.’

‘Of course not, you’re her father.’

‘Anyway, I’m sure it’s just a phase. She’s trying to work out who she really is. It’s natural for her to rebel a little bit, all children do it.’

‘Andrew didn’t.’

Stratten gave her a quizzical, not to say sceptical look. ‘Maybe you just didn’t see it. In any case, you are famously the most beautiful and best-dressed woman in the whole of southern Africa’ – Jacqui Stratten glowed in the warm light of her husband’s compliment – ‘so she’s rebelling against you by pretending to take no interest at all in how she looks. The second she finds a boy she really likes that will all change, just you wait.’

Jacqui mused on the problem as she watched Zalika take a few more paces across the grass. As the plane drew closer she started waving her arms above her head. The girl’s frantic gestures were answered by a waggle of the plane’s wings. She squealed with delight then ran away again across the grass, calling out as she went, ‘I’ll go and meet them at the strip!’

Zalika disappeared out of sight of the veranda. Not long afterwards came the sound of an engine starting up and the arid scrunch of tyres on dusty gravel.

Jacqui’s thoughts turned to the boys her daughter was rushing to meet. Her son Andy – how handsome he was becoming, she mused proudly – and his lifelong friend Moses Mabeki, the son of the family’s estate manager. Moses was Andy’s equal in looks, with a finely sculpted bone structure made all the more apparent by a shaven head, and full lips framed by a close-cropped beard. But as the horn-rimmed spectacles round his liquid brown eyes suggested, he took a much more earnest approach to his studies. Moses had attended the University of Malemba before being offered a graduate place at the London School of Economics’ Department of Government. As the first member of his family ever to receive a college education, he had no intention whatever of wasting it on girls and parties.

Dick Stratten had insisted on paying the young man’s tuition fees and living expenses. ‘Moses is like a son to me too,’ Stratten had told the boy’s father, Isaac Mabeki, as they shared one of the bottles of thirty-year-old Glenfiddich they polished off from time to time, talking not as master and loyal servant but as one man to another. ‘I know he will do great things for this country one day. With your permission, it would be my pleasure and an honour to help him on his way.’

Moses had spent the past three years in London, returning to Malemba only for occasional visits. Now, with his masters degree completed, he was coming home for good.

The roar of the Cessna’s engines as it passed low over the house and made its final approach to the landing strip roused Jacqui Stratten from her reverie. She blinked, gave a little shake of the head and thought for a second. Yes, there would be time. Then she smiled at a servant who was hovering a few feet from the table. ‘Coffee, please, Mary,’ she said. ‘Mr Stratten and I will have a cup while we wait for the boys to arrive.’