Roots of Outrage. John Davis Gordon

Don’t you care if I’m being unfaithful to you?’

      ‘Oh yes I care. But there’s nothing I can do about it, I can’t compete with another woman, I can’t move in with you and make myself indispensable, I can’t throw a tantrum outside your door or scratch the other woman’s eyes out. So although I care like hell, it’s impractical to have sleepless nights over it. So, I’m busy making my heart unbreakable.’ She was silent a moment. ‘Are you? Unfaithful to me?’

      ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said grimly, ‘I’m not.’

      She smiled in the dark.

      ‘I didn’t think you were. You’re too honest to be much good at cheating – unless you didn’t care about me.’ She sighed. ‘And, I’m not being unfaithful to you either. Which, in the circumstances, is dumb, Mahoney – for both of us.’ She sat up and swept back her long black hair. ‘Dumb! Because … Oh – I’m so sick of talking about it! But dumb it is! So shall we please stop? And think about something practical.’ She added: ‘Like sexual fantasies?’

      ‘Sexual fantasies are practical?’

      ‘More practical than “us”.’ She snorted. ‘And the other good thing about fantasies – so I’ve read – is that when you fulfil your partner’s fantasy, you’ll find –’ she fluttered her eyelids – ‘that they’re eternally grateful to you.’

      He didn’t know what to make of this. But it was wildly erotic. ‘Where did you read that?’

      ‘In some wicked magazine smuggled into this country. Or was it Freud himself? So, what’s your fantasy?’ She waved a hand. ‘Is it leather? Is it boots? Is it plastic raincoats? Two girls? Tell me.’

      ‘Are you trying to make me eternally grateful?’

      She looked at him with big liquid eyes. ‘To stop taking each other so bloody seriously!’ She glared, then strode to the bathroom. She ran the tap.

      Mahoney followed her. He slipped his arms around her and cupped her breasts. He whispered: ‘I love you.’

      She hung her head, so her long black locks swirled in the water.

      ‘And I love you. And that’s the bloody problem – I’m not allowed to love you.’ Then she threw back her head, so her hair flew, and looked at him in the mirror. ‘So the answer is to brutalize it.’

      He stared at her in the mirror. ‘Brutalize it?’

      ‘So we stop taking each other so bloody seriously! So we just treat it as fun. Because there’s no other way to treat it!’

      He didn’t want to hear. ‘And how’re you going to brutalize it?’

      She looked at him in the mirror. ‘And you’re going to be eternally grateful.’ She closed her lovely eyes and turned and slipped her arms round his neck and held him tight. She took a deep breath. Then, as if she’d resolved to be happy, or suddenly saw the funny side of it, she giggled. ‘Gloria Naidoo, that’s who we’ll start with. Don’t all you guys drool over Gloria?’

      He was astonished. ‘But she’s a lesbian.’

      ‘A bi-sexual, darling. Maybe more lezzie than bi, but bi she is.’

      He grappled with all this. ‘And have you and Gloria …?’

      She leant back in his arms. ‘Ever got it together? But of course, darling!’ She made big beautiful eyes. ‘What do you expect two good-looking Indian girls to do in sunny South Africa where all they’re allowed is nice Indian boys?’ Then she dropped her head and giggled. ‘The look on your face.’ Then she kissed him hard on the mouth. ‘Can we please stop taking life so seriously? And I refuse to talk about it any more … !’

      But they had to take life very seriously indeed. Because the next week the police raided Buck’s farm, and all hell broke loose.

16

      The editor slammed down the telephone. ‘The cops have found the ANC’s headquarters on a farm in Rivonia called Lilliesleaf – grab a photographer and get your ass out there!’ The name Lilliesleaf didn’t mean anything to Mahoney but the sketch map the editor thrust at him sure did. Christ, it must be right next door to Buck’s Farm! It wasn’t until he saw the policemen guarding the gate that he realized Lilliesleaf was Buck’s Farm … Christ … His hand was shaking as he held out his press card to the policeman. The ANC’s headquarters … And he’d been screwing himself flat in the middle of it.

      He drove up the track towards the main house. Over there, amongst the trees, was the cottage, two police cars parked outside it. His mind was racing – God, had he left anything there that would identify him? Was there anything of Patti’s? Oh God, he had to get to a telephone and warn her. His heart was knocking. He crested the rise, and there was the main house. It was swarming. A dozen police vehicles, policemen everywhere, police dogs. Cars from the newspapers. He got out and walked shakily over to the group of pressmen, his face ashen. ‘What’s the story?’

      ‘We’re going to be briefed in a moment.’

      ‘ANC headquarters … ? Anybody arrested?’

      ‘Lots. They’ve all been whisked off to town. In irons.’

      The terrible question: ‘Any women?’

      Then Colonel Krombrink walked towards them, a malicious smile on his weathered face. ‘Ah, so Drum has arrived an’ we can begin our little tour. How are you, Mr Mahoney?’

      Mahoney felt white with fear. ‘Fine thanks, Colonel.’

      ‘Did you bring a photographer? Good. We want your black readers to realize the police aren’t asleep, hey, man. An’ we want them to realize what the penalty for treason is – death, hey, man. Will you make sure they understand that?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Good. So first I’ll read to you the official police press release, then you can take your nice photographs.’ He produced some sheets of paper and began to read in his heavy South African accent:

      ‘On the afternoon of Wednesday 23 July 1963, the South African Police, as the result of intensive undercover investigations, conducted a raid on Lilliesleaf Farm in the Rivonia area on the fringes of Johannesburg. A hundred and ten policemen were deployed. The first party of them arrived at the farmhouse inside two panel vans, one a bakery truck, the other a laundry van. The house was stormed. Inside we arrested nine leading members of the banned African National Congress gathered around a table studying a mass of documents which cursory examination proved to be plans for military-style insurrection and sabotage within South Africa. In different rooms were found two telex machines, two powerful two-way radios capable of reaching anywhere in the world, a photocopy machine, numerous cameras and film-development equipment, filing cabinets full of documents pertaining to the ANC and the Communist Party and other subversive matters, and a large quantity of arms, ammunition, land mines, grenades and explosives, all of Russian origin. The police believe that this raid has exposed the headquarters of the ANC and the Communist Party. Investigations continue and it is expected that a large number of other persons will now be traced who will be able to assist the police in their enquiries.’

      He folded up the paper with a little smile. ‘Any questions, gentlemen, before you are taken over the house?’

      Andy Murphy of the Star said: ‘Who is the owner of the farm?’

      ‘The registered owner is a certain white person whose name we cannot divulge at this time, but clearly somebody sympathetic to the ANC and SACP, who bought it on their behalf.’

      ‘What are the names of the people arrested?’

      ‘When