A man stepped out of the shadows. In the half light she could see the empty sleeve tucked into the right pocket of his jacket.
‘Go home, Sarie,’ he said.
‘But – I’ve come to help you, Jan.’
‘Then go home.’
And before she could answer, he ducked behind the bushes that hid the cleft.
It cut straight and narrow into the face, the floor rising sharply over tumbled rock, then broke to the left and widened to twice the span of a man’s arms. Years of storm water, spilling down from the plateau above, had dammed silt against the rocks of the entrance and left a floor of fine, level earth that stretched back to where one of the walls had caved inwards. The result was a rough chamber, open to the sky.
When the girl entered, Jan was sitting on his heels beyond a small fire, his back towards the fall of rock. She moved forward timidly, expecting anger. But there was none. He sat quite still, watching the fire and ignoring her. His face, bronzed and moulded by the glow, smouldered like a coal against the shadows.
At last he looked up. The line of his mouth was thin and bitter; his dark eyes dancing flecks of firelight.
‘And have you come to take me back?’ he asked.
‘Ja.’
The corner of his mouth twisted up and he laughed.
‘So, they can give me money for killing an old bait seller?’
‘He’s not dead.’
Her answer sounded flat and unimportant; but she was alert, seeing every flicker of emotion that crossed his face. As the tenseness went out of it, and his head and shoulders sagged, she stepped past the fire and dropped to her knees by his side.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know. There’s £60 there,’ he said, nodding towards an old fibre suitcase near the entrance. ‘I’ll go to Jo’burg, maybe.’
‘They’re bringing dogs tomorrow.’
‘Ja. And tomorrow I’ll be gone.’
A dark shiny object caught the girl’s eye, and she picked it out of the sand.
‘Look – is it one of ours?’
He took the mussel shell from her and rubbed it against the lapel of his jacket, cleaning off the sand. Then he dropped it into the fire.
‘Nee. Ours are all buried under sand.’
‘Jan?’
‘Ja.’
‘Please go back. Take back the money – before they come with the dogs.’ He turned his head to look at her, and she went on, her face eager with urgency, ‘Tell them you’d drunk too much. They won’t be hard – not as if they caught you.’
‘They’ll put me in gaol, nooi.’
‘What if they do? That’s nothing. You’ll soon be out again. Please, Jan. You’ll see, everything will come out right. Everything …’
‘Nee!’
‘Please, Jan, please. We can marry – like we were going to – and we …’
He pushed up roughly, knocking her hard against the rock wall.
‘Look at me, Sarie. Look!’ he shouted, shaking the empty sleeve at her. ‘Do you think I’ll grow another one? Do you think – ’
‘Please, Jan!’
‘– I’ll be a man again? I’m nothing; can’t you see? I’ll never work on the boats again – ’
‘No – no – no!’ she screamed, her anger flaring against the acid that was corroding him, destroying the gay, carefree man she loved; reducing him to a snivelling, selfish dwarf. ‘You won’t work on a boat again – never! But there are other jobs, just as good – jobs that don’t need two hands. Only, you can’t see them – you see nothing but that sleeve. You’re like a crab, Jan. A crab with its eyes turning in – a crab, not a man!’ and then his face, staring at her from beyond the fire, blurred out – and she covered her face with her hands and wept.
When she looked up again, he had left. And taken the suitcase with him. She wiped her tears on the hem of her dress and rose stiffly to her feet.
Outside it was quite light. The moon had risen, full and swollen, and the cliff face, the trees, the water of the lagoon, were painted in a thousand shades of silver-grey. She started down the slope, slipping and falling over the uneven surface, her mind and body numb and tired.
Reaching the edge of the rock shelf, she stood staring stupidly down at the water. There was a slight mist resting on the lagoon, the rock was wet and slippery, and the water seemed to be a long way down.
She climbed over the edge and down, until both her feet rested in the crack beneath the surface of the water. Pressing her body hard against the cold cliff face, she reached out for a new fingerhole, gripped, and swung her right foot for the sloping ledge on the corner. But as she started moving her body over, the foot slid up and off.
She grabbed back at the rock, clawing for a grip. Her nails scratched down the smooth wet wall, and then she was arching backwards, twisting like a cat. She hit the water, face down; and a school of startled mullet broke the surface, leaping away into the mist.
As her head came up, she screamed. Again and again, until the terror and the blind panic choked her and her mind went blank; her body writhing instinctively against the grip of the rock, trap-like about her ankle.
There was nothing solid to dig her fingers into – to pull herself free. Just the water in her face, choking, going over her, beating away from her hands.
Then she was clawing into something, dragging it down. But her face wasn’t in the water any longer, it was up against something hard and firm, and there was an iron band around her back, the hold on her foot eased.
When she looked up at him, he was smiling. Like a kid, she thought, and was angry. Because the taste of fear and salt water was still in her mouth.
‘Slowly now, slowly, nooi,’ he said.
Feeling the strength of his arm holding her, his chest pressed against her cheek, she relaxed her body and the fingers clawing into his back.
‘That’s better. Now turn your foot and work it out.’
She twisted round and pulled. Her foot felt free, then caught again.
‘I can’t. Turn me round farther,’ she said.
But it was caught. She bent her head backwards to look at him. ‘It won’t move,’ she said.
They came early; long before the shadows had drawn back from the lagoon. Three of them. The sergeant, a policeman from Cape Town, with a big brown-black Dobermann, and the girl’s father. Jan saw them coming, up among the trees, the way he had come the day before.
He called to them and his voice was harsh, as if covering fear. But when he spoke to the girl, the fear had passed. He spoke as gently as he had done throughout the night; comforting her against the cold and the beating pain in her leg.
‘Everything will soon be over now, nooi; everything will soon be all right.’
And hearing the way he said it, and the men on the beach, and her father splashing towards them, she knew it would. That the pain of the leg she had caught in the rock would soon be gone – and was worth the spirit of a man.
Post-reading
1.State the reasons for Jan’s rejection of Sarie directly after his accident and also, later in the story.(3)
2.Describe the relationship between Sarie and the fishermen.(2)
3.What are the differences in attitude between