Acacia: Secrets of an African Painting

THE PAST

PROLOGUE – CHASE

The man was near exhaustion as he staggered the final few feet towards the riverbank. The pain that coursed through his body was real enough, but to him it seemed to be a separate thing with a life of its own and with no true heart.

At the river’s edge, swift flowing, brown water surged before him, tempting him down into its chocolaty murk. The horrors he had witnessed had long since turned his mind in on itself and he didn’t stop to think about the consequence of throwing himself into the churning torrent; a primal instinct for escape was all that drove him on. As he hit the water, he was instantly swept away and simultaneously dragged under the surface so that the blood flowing from his body had only the briefest of moments to tinge the water a muddy pink before it was assimilated and diluted into nothingness.

The group of warriors, who had until this moment, pursued the man for many days, stopped at the water’s edge and watched his body disappear rapidly. They leant on their spears in silence, hardly out of breath despite the chase, until the tallest of them gestured with a quick movement of his head to turn and start the long run back home. The white man was dead; there was no need to go further. They had their vengeance and would soon find the hiding place and would return the treasure to its rightful owners. Within moments, the group had broken into a loping trot and the spot by the river was again deserted and silent, save for the rushing of the water.

It might have been more merciful if he had perished at that moment and those who knew him in later years would wonder if death might have been kinder. As it was, the spot at which he had flung himself into the rushing Limpopo was close to a long, slow bend where an ox-bow had been created; a loop of the river that had closed in on itself to create a separate section of still water.

His body was swept into the loop. The force of the flow pushed him up onto the mud on the opposite bank. In all, he had spent less than two minutes in the water and was still holding onto life as he lay in the mud, blood dripping from his wounds.

Next to him lay a small bag of oiled canvas and animal skin, bound tightly with leather thongs. Just before he lapsed into a long and tortured unconsciousness, his hand reached out and gripped it tightly to his chest.

THE PRESENT

CHAPTER ONE – THE FUNERAL

A squall raced through the graveyard like an avenging spirit and I hugged down into my thick coat while trying not to think about the cold, wet and windy weather that encircled the small group there to say their final farewells to Great Aunt Nellie. Not that Nellie had any worries about the miserable conditions. I figured she was a prime candidate for eternal happiness if there ever was one, although I did have to pause to reconsider that thought in the ensuing weeks.

The freshly dug hole was rapidly filling with water as the heavens opened once more and the mahogany coffin, with its solid brass fittings, was lowered. We could all see that the bottom couple of inches would be sitting in a muddy, cold puddle. It didn’t seem right somehow that such a vibrant, warm person should end up this way. Nellie was surely worth more than this. She had lived to a ripe old age and had a great and full life. I knew that no one around me would believe for a second that she would suffer in any way from now on. I was equally sure that this select little gathering didn’t give any credence to the idea of an afterlife as they were all family in one way or another and this particular family was about as down to earth as they come.

I looked across at Tara, a distant cousin with whom I had shared so much in the past and a brief smile flitted across her face. Her normally smoky complexion looked pale in this cold autumnal weather, her dark locks tied back and hidden in the realms of an enormous hood, surrounded by fur.

For an instant, I had an absurd thought about Eskimo Nell and I had to bite my lip hard to keep back the giggle that nearly escaped. She must have sensed something as she gave me a disapproving look from under her furrowed brow. This made things worse and I feigned a coughing fit to cover the laugh. Several heads turned my way, all with the same dark brows, shaped like diving V’s, and I rapidly came back to my senses.

I wouldn’t like you to think I was being disrespectful in any way to Nellie. She would probably have been the first to welcome a bit of levity at her own funeral. After all, her life had been polarised between laughter and tragedy, but it was always laughter she would turn to no matter how hard oppression struck. I had loved her probably more than anyone else in the family. More than that I, respected her enormous sense of responsibility to the family, which to her included anyone with whom she had but the briefest contact. As long as she had met and liked you, she was a friend and supporter for life, no matter how daft you might be or how many mistakes you might make. She always said that she could tell if someone was essentially a good soul within a scant few minutes of meeting them. She was like a family pet in that way; if you were approved, she would immediately warm to you and treat you as one of ‘us’. The flipside of course was that if you ‘weren’t quite the full ticket’, you would feel the cooler side of her personality. If she didn’t quite growl and bare her teeth, you might be forgiven for thinking that’s what had happened.

As the vicar finished his seemingly interminable service, everyone turned away, keen to be inside and away from the bitter cold of this bleak, grey day. I stood a moment longer however, silently saying my own farewells to the person with whom I had spent so much time and who had taught me so much.

‘Not a bad old stick was she.’

Tara had stayed too and now hooked her arm in mine and looked into my eyes with a concerned look on her face.

‘You okay?’ She asked.

‘Yeah, I’m fine. Just thinking how much I’m going to miss her, that’s all.’

‘I know. I feel the same way. She was just one in a million.’ Tara stared down at the now rapidly filling hole in the ground as both water from the heavens and earth from the gravedigger’s shovels sealed Nellie into the ground.

‘Come on,’ she gently pulled me away from the spot where I had taken root, ‘let’s get into the dry before we catch our death.’ She grimaced as she realised what she had said. I smiled to reassure her and we hurried toward the line of cars parked in the lane by the ancient churchyard.

‘Where’s Eden by the way?’ she asked as we ran.

‘She couldn’t make it.’ I brushed the question aside, not willing to get into a discussion on the current state of my love life, about which I was perpetually confused and mystified.

There was no good reason for confusion in the case of Eden to be honest. She was a tall, dark haired stunner, with olive skin and piercing green eyes. Her looks were only eclipsed by her wit, intelligence, and sense of humour. The only real mystery was what she was doing with someone like me, leaving me thinking that it could all go wrong at any time. I had decided that crunch time had been reached in this particular relationship. I had to either open myself up to the risk of a spectacular amount of hurt by committing properly to ‘us’ or I had to do what came more naturally and run like hell. I know we had to talk, but it always seemed easier not to, to be honest; the path of least resistance, which is the path I generally preferred.

Tara gave me a look that said tell me more, but luckily as I folded my six-foot frame into her tiny car, the rain suddenly stopped, and incredibly, a ray of sunshine broke through the clouds, illuminating the graveyard like a spotlight. As the light hit the puddles of water around the graves, it was reflected with such brilliance that we had to blink and turn away. We both stopped at the sudden beauty of the moment, which was gone almost as quickly as it had arrived. There was silence for a moment or two before either of us could speak.

‘My God!’ Exclaimed Tara, ‘Wouldn’t you know she’d get the last word in?’

I looked at her wondering if her Braughton common sense had deserted her at long last. She smiled at me though and I realised that she wasn’t serious. Not totally, anyway.

‘Yeah, right.’ I scoffed. ‘Come on; let’s get back to the booze-up before they finish all the prawn vol-au-vents.’

We grinned at each other, partly in denial of even the possibility that Nellie had given us her final, dramatic farewell. However, underneath the grins, I detected a doubt in both of us. On the way back to Nellie’s house, I dwelt upon the fact that the golden light, which had shone down from between the clouds, had reflected from the water like the sparkle of a thousand diamonds. Funny what the atmosphere of a funeral can do to your mind. Mind you, the sparkle of a thousand of diamonds was an image central to the great family myth. A myth that was discussed with smiles and jokes, but which I am sure each and every Braughton secretly dreamt of on occasion.

The story goes that somewhere in Africa there is hidden a great treasure. From where no one knows, but that hidden within the family are clues to the treasure’s whereabouts. Apparently a distant ancestor, I think he must be a great, great something or other, stole this treasure from an African king, but then promptly lost it again. If you think about it, it’s not very likely is it? If you were to stumble across a fortune, you are probably going to remember where the hell you put it, or at the least you would have a map or something so you could find it again. Anyway, it all sounds like a wonderful story for a Hollywood movie with Harrison Ford, but I always maintained that the chances were pretty slim. Like I say though, I am sure that every member of the family wishes it were true and I’m equally sure that they would all like to be the one to find it. Some have tried over the years too, but for some reason nobody really speaks about those attempts. It’s almost as if a collective veil has been drawn over that side of the story. Maybe it is believed that if you are mad enough to look for it then you are probably just mad. No family likes to air its problems like hereditary ‘loony-tunes’, especially the Braughtons.

These thoughts rushed through my head as we drove in silence to ‘Acacia’, Nellie’s wonderful bungalow, the scene of so many family gatherings over the years. It was a place where I always felt at total peace, no matter what was happening in my life. When I was young, not so long ago I might add, I spent as much time here as I could, just Nellie and me and her stories of Africa. She made the place seem so romantic, filled with improbable characters, adventures out in the bush which stretched for hundreds of miles and where you only had the slightest chance of ever meeting another living soul.

Her home of as many years as I could remember, ‘Acacia’, was as close as I thought I would ever get to the times she described. Although redecorated from time-to-time, the colours never changed from the natural hues that reminded her of her African home. These colours always made it seem warm, cosy, and inviting no matter how inclement the weather outside. It is filled with wonderful mementoes of her previous life; wooden carvings that were rough hewn, but absolutely brimming with life. The wood so dried over the years that small cracks and splits had appeared that only served to increase their beauty.

Nellie used to bring out blankets made of animal furs, called karosses, one of several African words I had learnt over the years, which she would throw over our knees late at night when the English weather closed in. The kaross was a magic carpet, instantly transporting us to places with exotic sounding names like Bulawayo, Mutare, Great Zimbabwe, or to the farms deep in the bush where she grew up. There are small soapstone carvings of animals, birds, and people; paintings, amateur watercolours framed in dark wood, which, like the carvings had cracked and warped over time.

There is one painting in particular, which to me sums up Africa, and which I have stared at for millennia, dreaming of far away people and places. Its scene is a small African village of thatched mud huts, their roofs soaring above low, dark doors in conical perfection. There are several people in the scene and although most are in the background, two main characters are closer to the artist. One is an old man sitting outside his hut, cross-legged on the ground, smoking a long stemmed clay pipe. His hair is white and his face has the traces of humour of someone, I have always thought may have lived so long as to have seen and done everything there was to do or see, and who was now simply content to sit and wait to die. The other character is a young girl, walking towards the artist carrying a large basket on her head. She is bare breasted, with colourful, patterned cloth wrapped around her waist. One arm is crooked with the hand on hip and the other hand is raised to support her load. She is standing in the shade of an acacia tree, its spreading, flat-topped form typifying the African scene. In the far distance are purple mountains, distinctively in a ‘W’ shape as they stride across the landscape. The whole composition, including those two people, to me is everything I imagined Africa to be.

My favourite room in the place is the verandah where in summer the sun shines and provides the sort of warmth I imagined one would find in deepest Africa. In the winter it’s cosy with gas stoves inside while the rain batters the transparent Perspex roof panels. Fully enclosed its wooden floor is covered with rugs of all shapes and descriptions, all threadbare and lived in. The walls are composed from floor to ceiling glass, mostly hinged like French-doors, so that on particularly fine days Nellie would open up the entire room to the outside. There are huge armchairs and an enormous overstuffed antique leather sofa covered with the skins of animals hunted by Nellie’s father and grandfather. The leather is cracked and worn, but the frame is made from solid chunks of timber hewn from the African bush and held together with massive iron struts and stays. Nellie told me of the trouble it caused when she decided to bring it to England as it took four or five burly men to lift it and negotiating it through the doors of ‘Acacia’ had caused the injury of two removal men; one from a torn back muscle and the other from a broken bone when it dropped on his foot. They had manoeuvred it into place in 1932 and it hadn’t moved since; the original paint is on the wall behind it and the original varnish on the floor underneath.

The centrepiece of the verandah is a great coffee table, made from a section cut through the trunk of a baobab tree and then polished and varnished until it shone. The wood seems to glow from the inside with deep amber shades and hues; the cups, plates, feet and games of generations haven’t so much as dented the surface because, as Nellie had once told me, there were over twenty coats of varnish applied to the wood, each of which had been polished to a high sheen.

It was in this room that the family now gathered to eat and drink to the memory of a great matriarch. Over the years she had been the font of all family wisdom and had unstintingly provided equal measures of advice, comfort, and common sense to anyone who requested it of her. She really would be missed, but her legacy would at least continue through the words of advice and encouragement given to each member of the family who would then hopefully pass on the same to future generations of the Braughton clan.

By the time Tara and I arrived, the rest of them were well into the event and the sounds of murmured respect were already starting to elevate to something a little more raucous. The adults were exchanging regards, words of condolence, and greetings as the younger members of the family started to make more and more noise as boredom set in. I moved to the vicar’s side, whose ancient, furrowed face showed just the right amount of humour and respect, practiced over years at similar events, I imagine.

‘Thank you for the service John’ I said. ‘It was perfect and I know that everyone here appreciated your personal words.’

‘It was my privilege to perform at her farewell,’ he replied, ‘Such a wonderful woman despite…’ He stopped there, and frowned as if not sure whether to go on or not. Then he seemed to come to a decision and continued.

‘Apologies, I mean to say, she had a full life didn’t she.’

I wasn’t sure if this last comment was a question or a statement, but before I had chance to ask him, he put his hand on my shoulder.

‘She always had a good word for you, you know James. I mean she spoke well of many, many people, but you were something very special to her. I hope you know that.’

‘I always loved and respected her and hoped she approved of me, but I didn’t really think about favourites. She seemed to treat everyone pretty much equally, didn’t she?’ I was a little embarrassed about this revelation of my status, and within hearing of other family members too, but was secretly glad he had told me.

‘How long have you actually known Nellie?’ I asked him.

‘Since she first arrived in Bishop’s Down in 1932,’ he said. ‘I was in my first month as vicar of this parish back then and was perhaps overly keen to impress my new congregation. I was having problems however, as the previous chap had been in the role for a long time too, and everyone was a little suspicious of this young upstart who thought he could replace such an institution in the village. Nellie was the making of me though. As I say, she arrived in the village very soon after I started here and when I went to see her, she immediately knew that I wasn’t happy. She forced me to tell her about my problems with the local folk and told me not to worry. To this day I don’t know how she did it, but within days, the village rallied behind me and I have enjoyed their support ever since.’

I was amazed by this revelation, not because of what Nellie had done, but by the age that would make him now. If he had been around twenty in that first year, he must be into his eighties by now.

‘I thought vicars retired earlier than this,’ I blurted out rather bluntly, realising how abrupt it sounded as I said it. ‘I’m sorry, that was a little rude of me.’ I rushed to apologise.

He chuckled and sought to calm my fears.

‘My boy, I did retire some years ago now, but nothing would have stopped me being here for this. I felt I owed her a happy and fulfilling life and today was but little to pay in return for the gift she gave me.’

I smiled at him, thankful for his understanding of my little faux pas.

‘You were going to say something a moment ago though,’ I ventured, "and then you stopped.’ Can I ask what it was?’

He looked troubled, and I immediately wished I hadn’t asked.

‘I’m sorry; I don’t want to pry into your private thoughts.’ I tried desperately to back-peddle.

He looked at me closely for a moment and then took my arm, leading me to one side.

‘I will tell you,’ he almost whispered, ‘because I know how close you were and to be honest, it’s something I never really got to the bottom of. Maybe you know more of it than I and could help fill in the gaps.’

By now I was intrigued as he continued. ‘When Nellie first arrived, she seemed bright, busy, and confident, as she has been for all the rest of her life.’ He paused as if unsure how, or if to go on. Then he took a deep breath and continued, ‘She was busy of course, what with moving in here, organising everything, redecorating, and getting this verandah built. Not to mention smoothing the way in the village for a rather nervous and overwhelmed young vicar.’ He smiled at the memory, but just fleetingly before the frown returned to his brow. ‘But, I sensed something was troubling her, something had happened in her recent past which was causing her great pain and I never found out what it might have been.’

He looked at me, asking the question without speaking.

‘I don’t know anything about that,’ I answered, ‘maybe it was just the stress of leaving her beloved Africa. Homesickness can be an awful thing for some people.’

He pondered this, but didn’t seem convinced.

‘No, I thought about that too, and even asked her once. She shrugged it off though and I’ve always believed that moving to England was a positive move for her and not one to be mourned. No, there was something more, something deep within her that she could never seem to let out.’

He gripped my arm tightly as he said this with a slightly wild look in his eyes and I started to think that perhaps these were just the musings of an old man who had lived and worked in one place for a long, long time. It all sounded a bit melodramatic. I had certainly never sensed anything like this from her, and as the vicar had said, I had been one of her favourites. Surely I would have picked up something over the years.

I smiled at John to lighten the mood a little, as he had become quiet and looked saddened by his memories.

‘I’m sure it would have been the stress at the time," I assured him. ‘After all, she had left a lot behind. All those things combined would have been very hard for a young woman to take back then, wouldn’t it? The uncertainty of not knowing how she was going to be able to afford to live the same life she had been used to, saying goodbye to friends and family to move to a strange country. It would be hard on anyone. As you said, she lived a long and full life and I for one can’t ever remember her being sad or down at all.’

‘Yes, I suppose you could be right.’ He didn’t look convinced, but his features brightened and after a surprisingly firm handshake, moved on to the next group in the room.

Tara sidled up to me as I stood, pondered, and then asked, ‘What was all that about then? You and the vicar looked as if you were deep in some secret conversation. Anything you want to share?’

‘Ah, it was nothing, just an old fellow remembering old times. I’ll tell you about it later if you like.’

The party continued in the way that these things do, with old acquaintances being re-forged; promises to ‘keep in touch more often’ made and then promptly regretted or simply forgotten; kids running amok, not really understanding the significance of the gathering; older family members frowning at the young and then fretting on the possibility that they may be the next honoured guest. Tara and I sat quietly in the corner, chatting about everything and nothing, remembering times gone by.

I can remember distinctly the first time I met Tara, or more accurately, the first time I can remember anything at all, as she made up my earliest recollection of life. I was just four years old and she, a newly born, noisy, squealing package that was deposited under my rather mucky nose for approval. I remember being at once disgusted by the smell of dirty nappy, and fascinated by the scale of her. Fingers and toes were tiny replicas of my own and her eyes, nose and mouth were squashed together in a round pink face with a thick mop of fine, dark hair positioned in the centre of her crown. She looked up at me from her bundle of blankets on the floor and was immediately quiet. Her eyes seemed to focus on mine, with an intensity that made me stop still too. They were, and still are, a deep, dark amber, almost orange in places, with depths into which many a young and ambitious suitor has fallen, never to be seen again. When she truly gazed into your eyes, only a move by her allowed you freedom again. You were as much in a trap as if you were tied, bound, and trussed inside a cage of solid iron. I remember this first meeting, then because of those eyes and the connection we made in some out-of-this world way that I will never even come close to explaining. With even as limited a vocabulary as I then possessed and without the knowledge needed to bind into real human relationship, I vowed that this person would be part of me forever and that I would love her as deeply as any person could ever love another. That was the gist of it anyway, something inside me said keep close to this one and so I have tried ever since.

She was there for me during the lowest point of my life thus far. After falling headlong and completely in love with a beautiful and wonderful woman, to whom I (and most everyone I knew) had never thought I would stand a chance of getting close and who, after a two year relationship, had run off with another bloke. He was older, richer, and more successful than I and even I had to admit he was more suited to her than I was. However, the whole episode crushed me and I spent many weeks afterwards moping, which spiralled into depression, the like of which I hope never to experience again. If not for Tara, I don’t know where I would have ended up. It sounds almost trite to say so now, but at the time, the thought of ending it all really didn’t seem like a bad option. Tara shook me out of it though, with a mixture of gentle love, tough love, commonsense, and friendship that further sealed the bond between us.

After that initial kiddie meeting between us though, I didn’t see her again until I was nearly ten and she was a six-year-old tomboy who loved to challenge and beat any boy with whom she came into contact. Her hair was as thick as it had been as a baby, but had now spread to the sides and back of her head and was cut short in what looked to be a very DIY style. The round pink face was now olive-dark, longer and thinner, without any trace of baby shape to it. Her eyes were as they had been before, pools of infinite darkness, into which I again fell headlong.

I was staying with Nellie at the time at ‘Acacia’, as my parents were overseas taking a well-deserved holiday ‘sans kids’. Tara’s parents were also overseas, although working on an archaeological dig somewhere in deepest Africa. Her folks were the sort of people every kid wishes for their own, but who for Tara were just Mum and Dad. When she was growing up, the family was constantly on the move from one exotic destination to another: South America, Egypt, Asia, all over Europe, and now the depths of the African continent. They had become fixated with stories of great wealth secreted away in great burial sites all over the continent, which was kind of strange as they had always been fairly serious-minded when it came to archaeology. The sites they normally worked on were more about uncovering the treasure of knowledge rather than material wealth of any kind, but then all of a sudden, they started to search for gold and diamonds and anything associated with loads of money.

This treasure hunting started with a long period spent in southern Africa, where according to family sources, they were trying to find the mysterious Braughton hoard. The period also coincided with the time that Tara and her brother were more often left at home with relatives rather than being taken to learn onsite from history’s archives. Rumours flew through the family that their parents had both gone a little mad and that no good would come of it. It was almost as if they had contracted gold fever like the prospectors of old, who would go anywhere and do anything to find just a few paltry grains of the stuff.

After a couple of years of this, Nellie went overseas too, the only time I can ever remember her being away from Acacia. Then after they had all returned, Tara’s folks stopped travelling for a while staying in England for several years before once again resuming their archaeological wanderings in the way they always had. That was what I remembered of that episode anyway, and that mostly from overheard conversations and a lively mind filling in the gaps. At the time, it didn’t seem very important, and as it meant that I spent a lot of time with Tara, I was actually quite glad about it. Later though, Tara and I talked about that time and wondered if her parents really had experienced some kind of madness. She remembers vividly that their usual relaxed but inquisitive style changed and they both became more withdrawn, even argumentative on occasion. It was a period that Tara looked back on with mixed feelings of bewilderment at being left at home so often; sadness at the arguments, even more worry at the silences, but mingled with happiness at the time they had managed to spend together.

Now though, she was good old Tara, solid as a rock with a wicked sense of humour and an adventurous spirit struggling to get out.

‘So, what was it you and the vicar were whispering about earlier then?’ Tara asked, fixing me with one of her more penetrating gazes.

I hesitated, much as John had earlier, unsure of the best way to start and not really sure if there was anything to tell.

‘He said that when he first met Nellie, he had the feeling that she was deeply troubled by something.’

‘By what exactly?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know, and I’m not really sure he does either. As I said, it was probably just the memories of an old man coming back to him at the time of a friend’s death.’

Tara was not one to let a story lie half told, so she insisted I recount the whole conversation. ‘Come on James, don’t stop there, I can tell you’re troubled by it, so spill the beans.’

She was right too. I was troubled, although for what reason I really couldn’t tell. It was just very odd that John had brought the subject up in the way that he had, almost secretively. After all, it was decades ago, so why did he feel the need to offload his story now?

‘He felt she was worried about more than just the move and what the future held. I said to him it was more than likely just the move to a new country, but I got the feeling that even though he agreed with me, he knows more about it than he’s letting on.’

Tara’s eyes lit up with the possibility of a mystery in the unfolding.

‘God, it sounds like Nellie may have had some secrets we don’t know about.’ She enthused. ‘I wonder who we could ask about it.’

‘I don’t think we should jump to conclusions you know. It is probably completely innocent. If Nellie had had any secrets, don’t you think one of us would have had some inkling by now? After all, we were both very close to her and have spent a lot of time with her over the years. She has told us all sorts of things that we know she hasn’t told to even our parents for instance.’

Her face fell a little as the sense of what I was saying sunk in. Unfortunately, Dotty Hanshaw picked that precise moment to come over and sit with us.

Dotty had been Nellie’s best friend for many years and had lived across the road from her since she first moved in all those years ago. She was a tall, thin, birdlike woman with incredible amounts of energy who matched Nellie’s verve almost point for point. With a sense of humour to match, she was truly a member of the old school to whom the modern world threw up far too much rudeness and bad manners, but who would laugh like a drain at the goings on of friends, family, politicians, and celebrities who got themselves into trouble through their own stupidity.

As she sat down next to Tara she sighed. ‘It never ceases to amaze me how silly some people are you know. Old Mrs. Bartholomew from down the road is here and pretends to be devastated by Nellie’s passing, whilst everyone knows that she was constantly jealous of her and tried to get one up on her at every opportunity. She looked down on Nellie’s colonial roots you know: believes to be of better standing because her nephew is a minor bod in parliament. He’s only marginally better than a clerk up there, yet she would have everyone believe he is akin to the ‘Speaker of the House’ himself.’

We all laughed as we had met and understood Mrs. Bartholomew’s views on the world and her over-inflated opinion of herself.

‘So, how are you two bearing up then?’ She gave us both a clear gaze of compassion and understanding whilst clasping Tara’s hand in both of hers.

‘We’re fine thanks Dot,’