Smit walked over to where Jamie was sitting. “Kin I talk to you a minute, Mr. McGregor?”
“What is it?”
Smit cleared his throat self-consciously. “I know a couple of prospectors who have ten claims up near Pniel. They’re producin’ diamonds, but these fellas don’t have the money to get the proper equipment to work their claim. They’re lookin’ for a partner. I thought you might be interested.”
Jamie studied him. “These are the men you talked to Van der Merwe about, right?”
Smit nodded, surprised. “Yes, sir. But I been thinkin’ over your proposition. I’d rather do business with you.”
Jamie pulled out a long, thin cigar, and Smit hastened to light it. “Keep talking.”
Smit did.
In the beginning, prostitution in Klipdrift was on a haphazard basis. The prostitutes were mostly black women, working in sleazy, back-street brothels. The first white prostitutes to arrive in town were part-time barmaids. But as diamond strikes increased and the town prospered, more white prostitutes appeared.
There were now half a dozen sporting houses on the outskirts of Klipdrift, wooden railway huts with tin roofs. The one exception was Madam Agnes’s, a respectable-looking two-story frame structure on Bree Street, off Loop Street, the main thoroughfare, where the wives of the townspeople would not be offended by having to pass in front of it. It was patronized by the husbands of those wives, and by any strangers in town who could afford it. It was expensive, but the women were young and uninhibited, and gave good value for the money. Drinks were served in a reasonably well-decorated drawing room, and it was a rule of Madam Agnes’s that no customer was ever rushed or shortchanged. Madam Agnes herself was a cheerful, robust redhead in her mid-thirties. She had worked at a brothel in London and been attracted to South Africa by the tales of easy money to be picked up in a mining town like Klipdrift. She had saved enough to open her own establishment, and business had flourished from the beginning.
Madam Agnes prided herself on her understanding of men, but Jamie McGregor was a puzzle to her. He visited often, spent money freely and was always pleasant to the women, but he seemed withdrawn, remote and untouchable. His eyes were what fascinated Agnes. They were pale, bottomless pools, cold. Unlike the other patrons of her house, he never spoke about himself or his past. Madam Agnes had heard hours earlier that Jamie McGregor had deliberately gotten Salomon van der Merwe’s daughter pregnant and then refused to marry her. The bastard! Madam Agnes thought. But she had to admit that he was an attractive bastard. She watched Jamie now as he walked down the red-carpeted stairs, politely said good night and left.
When Jamie arrived back at his hotel, Margaret was in his room, staring out the window. She turned as Jamie walked in.
“Hello, Jamie.” Her voice was atremble.
“What are you doing here?”
“I had to talk to you.”
“We have nothing to talk about.”
“I know why you’re doing this. You hate my father.” Margaret moved closer to him. “But you have to know that whatever it was he did to you, I knew nothing about. Please—I beg of you—believe that. Don’t hate me. I love you too much.”
Jamie looked at her coldly. “That’s your problem, isn’t it?”
“Please don’t look at me like that. You love me, too…”
He was not listening. He was again taking the terrible journey to Paardspan where he had almost died…and moving the boulders on the riverbanks until he was ready to drop…and finally, miraculously, finding the diamonds… Handing them to Van der Merwe and hearing Van der Merwe’s voice saying, You misunderstood me, boy. I don’t need any partners. You’re working for me… I’m giving you twenty-four hours to get out of town. And then the savage beating…He was smelling the vultures again, feeling their sharp beaks tear into his flesh…
As though from a distance, he heard Margaret’s voice. “Don’t you remember? I—belong—to—you… I love you.”
He shook himself out of his reverie and looked at her. Love. He no longer had any idea what the word meant. Van der Merwe had burned every emotion out of him except hate. He lived on that. It was his elixir, his lifeblood. It was what had kept him alive when he fought the sharks and crossed the reef, and crawled over the mines at the diamond fields of the Namib Desert. Poets wrote about love, and singers sang about it, and perhaps it was real, perhaps it existed. But love was for other men. Not for Jamie McGregor.