A Sport of Nature by Nadine Gordimer Read Free Book Online

beautiful. You’ll have a wonderful time. The beaches are so long you feel you can walk round Africa. And you’ll go to the Tsitsikamma Forest—
    Pauline, cutting sweet peppers for a stew and crunching slices as she worked, could not be silenced entirely. —Olga suddenly wakes up to the fact: she has ‘as much right over you’ as I have,I’ve no right to deprive you of a holiday. For reasons of my own. That was her phrase exactly: ‘for reasons of your own’. That’s all Sharpeville and sixty-nine dead meant to her. She is
also
Ruthie’s sister, etcetera. She has you to dinner a few times a year … but suddenly she’s Ruthie’s sister, she feels responsible—Pauline turned her anger into a grin and popped a wheel of pepper into the girl’s mouth.
    Joe put a hand on Hillela’s head in absolution. —Really beautiful. Hillela ought to see it.—
    The day Hillela returned from the holiday a woman was sitting with Pauline under the dangling swags of orange bignonia creeper that made private one end of the verandah. The old dog came up barking blindly behind his cataracts, then recognized Hillela’s smell under new clothes and swung about panting joyfully while Pauline jumped up and stopped her where she had approached, hugging her, admiring—Olga, eh? Everything she chooses to wear is always exquisite—her voice whipping around them distractedly, a lasso rising and falling.
    â€”Shall I bring out some tea when I’ve dumped my things?—
    â€”No, no. I won’t be long: As soon as I’m free … I’ll come and hear all about …— Behind her, Hillela saw crossed legs, the stylized secondary female characteristic of curved insteps in high-heeled shoes, the red hair of the woman who had come that time with the Burger girl, Rosa.
    Everyone else was out; Carole must have had a friend sleeping over, there were short pyjamas that didn’t belong under the pillow on the second bed. The kitchen was empty; Bettie in her yard room. Beginning to move again along the familiar tracks of life in this house, Hillela went into the dining area of the living-room to see if there was any fruit in the big Swazi bowl kept there. The voices on the verandah just beneath the windows did not interest her much. Pauline’s less arresting than usual, evading rather than demanding attention: —The woman who worksfor me sleeps in; her friends come and go through the yard all the time … she has to have a private life of her own. There’s someone Joe’s given a job to—we’ve converted the second garage for him. So even if I had some sort of out-house … it’s just not possible … even if I got a promise from Bettie and that young chap not to say anything … how would I know that their friends … We’re right on the street, it’s not a big property. There’s nowhere anyone like that would be safe.—
    â€”It wouldn’t be for long. Haven’t you somewhere in the house; anything.—
    â€”If it were somebody I knew. I’d feel the obligation, never mind the consequences, I assure you. But what you tell me—it’s just a name. And you don’t know the person, either, I mean, through no fault of yours it might just be a plant … a trap.—
    â€”These ‘strangers’ are more than friends. There are times when personal feelings don’t come into it. Now … well, people are expected to put their actions where their mouths have been.—
    At supper Sasha was there but Carole had gone with a youth camp project to build a clinic for blacks in the Transkei.
    â€”Tell us about Olga’s house—is it lovely? Up on the hills or near the beach? Oh of course it must be lovely! What heaven, just to run out of bed straight onto the beach, and on that side of the headland, completely private, right away from the crowds. And did you eat lots of