‘But I like rattling around the estate! It’s my home. And all the people on it are my family,’ Saffron pleaded.
‘I know, my darling, and there’s not one of them that doesn’t love you as their own. But you need to be around girls your age, and you need women you can look up to and learn from. There are things I just can’t teach you. Things only women know. And … well … you know …’
Yes, of course Saffron knew. In the end, so many conversations with her father came back to the great hole in their lives where her mother should have been. He had never found another woman to replace her. There had been plenty of women who liked the idea of being Mrs Leon Courtney and mistress of one of the largest, best run and most breathtakingly beautiful estates in East Africa. Several of them had found their way to Lusima and done their best to impress Saffron’s father by sucking up to her.
‘If one more silly woman tells me that she’s sure we shall be the most terrific chums, I am going to scream,’ Saffy had told Kippy, during one of their daily heart-to-hearts (though in truth the pony was only really interested in the apple that she knew her mistress was hiding behind her back). But each of the women disappeared within a matter of days, weeks, or in one case a full three months, and Saffron had long since given up paying any attention to any of them.
That did not, however, mean she loved her father any less, or was bored with her home. Lusima was a magical kingdom in which she was the Crown Princess and there was nowhere else in the world she wanted to be. So she had fought with every logical argument she could muster and every emotional trick she could play, but it had done her no good. Her father had made up his mind, and when Leon Courtney did that, no force on God’s earth could budge him from his decision.
Going to Roedean meant that Saffron would have to leave home for the first time. Leon knew that the experience was bound to be hard for her, so he was keen to make it as exciting as possible, to distract her from any thought of homesickness for as long as possible. To that end, he did not take her on a steamship to Durban, the nearest port to Johannesburg, but instead booked tickets on the final legs of the brand new Imperial Airways service from England to South Africa. And he did not take her to Johannesburg. Instead, shortly after Christmas 1932, he and Saffron flew all the way to Cape Town.
‘I thought it was time you met the South African branch of the family,’ Leon told her, ‘starting with your cousin Centaine.’
‘That’s an odd name,’ Saffron replied.
‘It’s French, and it means a hundred. So “Une centaine d’années” means “a century”.’
‘Well that’s even odder. Who calls a girl “Century”?’
‘Someone whose daughter is born in the first hour of the first day of the first month of the first year of a century might, if they were French. Centaine’s maiden name was de Thiry and she met my cousin Michael in France when he was stationed there with the Royal Flying Corps during the war. Michael was a fighter pilot.’
‘Did they fall in love?’
‘Yes.’
‘How romantic!’ Saffron’s imagination instantly conjured up an image of a dashing pilot and a beautiful French girl swooning at one another, though she still knew too little about love to have much of an idea what would happen after that.
‘I’ve decided that Centaine is a lovely name,’ she said, with characteristic decisiveness. But then something struck her. ‘You said Michael was a fighter pilot, and you haven’t said we’re meeting him in South Africa. So …’
‘He died, yes. The damn Germans shot him down.’
‘So how did she end up in South Africa?’
‘Well, Michael and Centaine got married,’ Leon began. In truth, he had always had his doubts as to whether the knot had ever been tied, but the family had accepted Centaine as one of their own and any doubts had been discreetly swept under the carpet. ‘When he died Centaine was pregnant with his baby, and she had no family left in France so it was decided to send her down to South Africa because she and the child, when it came, would be safer there.’
‘Wasn’t there any war in South Africa, then?’
‘Nothing to write home about. South West Africa had been a German colony, so plenty of people there were on the Kaiser’s side. So were some of the Boers, because they hated the British. The Germans actually planned to help the Boers rise up and conquer South Africa but … well, that never happened.’
Mostly because your mother and I stopped it happening, Leon thought, but did not say. Instead he went on, ‘Anyway, there was far, far less fighting of any kind in South Africa than there was in France, so it should have been much safer for Centaine to be here, except for one thing …’
‘Ooh, what?’ asked Saffron, who was becoming more curious about Centaine by the minute.
‘The ship Cousin Centaine was on was torpedoed by a German submarine. Somehow she survived and was washed ashore on the coast of South West Africa.’
‘What a lucky escape!’
‘Yes, but her troubles weren’t over, because, as you should know if you’ve been paying attention in geography lessons, the coast there is part of the Namib Desert, which is one of the oldest and driest deserts on earth. That’s why they call it the Skeleton Coast. There’s no water there, no food, nothing. Not for a white man, anyway.’
‘So why didn’t she die?’
‘She was rescued by a San tribesman and his wife. The San have an extraordinary ability to survive in the desert and they kept Centaine alive until her baby son was born. Anyway, while she was travelling with them, she found a diamond, just lying on the ground.’
‘A diamond!’ Saffron exclaimed. ‘Who’d left it there in the middle of a desert?’
‘No one left it there,’ Leon laughed. ‘It was an uncut diamond. It was there naturally. So Centaine claimed the land and all its mineral rights and it turned out that there were a lot more diamonds where that first one had come from. So she became the owner of a diamond mine.’
Saffron’s eyes were as wide as huge sapphire saucers. ‘Goodness! Cousin Centaine must be the richest woman in the world!’ she exclaimed.
‘Well, she has been very rich, that’s true. But these are hard times for everyone and there’s not much of a market for diamonds these days, or anything else, come to that. I think she’s been lucky to keep hold of the mine at all, to be honest, but now I gather she’s putting her home outside Cape Town on the market. All its contents too, apparently: pictures, furniture, family silver, the lot. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to see her. Thought I might be able to help.’
Saffron thought that this was a rather sad subject, so she decided to change it. ‘Can you tell me about Centaine’s son? What’s his name? How old is he?’
‘He’s called Shasa and I suppose he must be fifteen by now. I think you were born about eighteen months apart.’
‘What’s he like?’ she asked, really meaning to say, ‘Is he handsome?’ but not daring to be that obvious.
‘I honestly don’t know,’ her father replied. ‘I’ve met Centaine a couple of times, but not her lad. But I’m sure you two will have plenty to talk about.’
When they landed at Winfield Aerodrome, just to the east of Cape Town, the first thing Leon and Saffron saw was an enormous yellow Daimler parked on the field, barely twenty yards from where the Atalanta had come to a halt.
‘Look