Loot by Nadine Gordimer Read Free Book Online Page B

and pants. There was another man with him and as she neared she found they were bent over some sort of pump installation. Now, up on the horse, she was beside them. He was different; he had stripped off his shirt, hands stained with grease and dirt he rose bare-breasted. Nothing significant in a man naked to the waist, as there is when every magazine cover uses the evident evocation of bare-breasted females. But perhaps because this man was always so fully dressed in the abstract as well as the material sense, what was revealed couldn’t have been
guessed at. This torso seemed to belong to someone other in the gleaming beauty, sweat-painted, of perfectly formed muscle, the double path below pectorals, left and right, of smooth ribbing beneath lithe skin. Black. Simply black. No mark, no hairy pelt. Who is this man?
    â€”Every time I’m here, it’s some problem. Pump packed up.—
    She laughed. (The problems of the maison secondaire .) She was sweating, too, her forehead gleamed hot and rosy.
    â€”The ride was good?—
    Wonderful, wonderful.
    He took a shower. She was directed to what must be the wife’s bathroom; a pink comb and an empty bath-oil bottle on the shelf, a gown hanging in folds like a crestfallen face.
    They were having a farewell whisky on the patio—in the itinerary of her day’s treat—about to leave for the long drive back when the woman in charge of the house burst out flustered. A rising tempo of exchange began between her and the host; he followed her into the house with a gesture of exasperation. But when he came back to the patio he was his composed self, distanced from whatever this problem was.
    â€”The man’s been drinking. My driver. They’re having a big party there, all the time.—
    â€”Drunk?—
    â€”He can’t drive.—
    Not a tragedy. She spread her hands and cocked her head cheerfully. She was used to all sorts of necessary changes of arrangements, in the course of working journeys with her Administrator. —We can drive—you and I.—
    â€”In the dark, at night. It’s not safe.—

    â€”Oh I don’t mind, we’ll be all right, sharing, I’ve often driven in rural areas at night.—
    â€”Not the driving. It’s not safe.—
    Not safe. Ah yes, the drunk’s not just a driver, he’s a bodyguard.
    â€”He’ll be back in his head in the morning. We can go very early. Is that okay for you? Sunday tomorrow—you don’t have some appointment? I’m sorry.—
    â€”Well I suppose … nothing else for it. I mean if there’s risk, for you. No, I don’t have anything particular planned … Nobody expects me. Nobody sits up for me.—She smiled to assuage his concern.—That’s freedom.—
    â€”I appreciate your attitude. Many women …—
    The woman in charge of the house produced a tray with cold meats and bread and they drank whisky, talking ‘development shop’ in an indiscreet way, criticising, analysing this individual and that as they had never done (he would never allow himself to?) without the whisky, anywhere but hidden safe in the house that must have been a lit-up fantasy in ancient total darkness surrounding them. Not only the driver-bodyguard had made his escape, that night, from the restraints of official duty.
    When both began to yawn uncontrollably he found it appropriate (every situation has its protocol) to rise from the sofa’s fake leopard-skin velvet and decide—I’ll show you where you can sleep.—
    In the rhythm of their progress along a passage she told him—What a lovely day, and the ride—and he put an arm up around her shoulder, rather the gesture of a man towards a male friend.
    There was no sign of whose room it was she was left in: the
character of the misplaced Californian house that there were rooms for purposes that did not match needs where it had been set down. It seemed to