rock a mile or so ahead.
For a moment he’s rooted to the spot, torn between hope and alarm, but he dreads his current vulnerability more than any unspecified danger. Twice he’s been bent double from the onset of shooting abdominal pains, twice he’s been hit by waves of giddiness that he’s sure are linked to the blow to his head. He’s still peeing blood, feels himself weakened by the physical trauma he’s experienced, knows he needs medical intervention. He’s running on adrenalin and fear but knows his tank’s nearly empty.
He stumbles on towards the lip of the ridge. As he crests it, he pauses to examine the terrain ahead through the binoculars he’s hung around his neck. He can see the rocky ground sweeping down gently for a couple of hundred metres, then flatten out for a kilometre or so before giving way to small, barren hills. Half way along the flatland he can make out the source of the smoke clearly. What was once a small village, six or seven huts, a thorn tree and cattle kraal, is now empty, just smouldering ruins. He scans the site slowly, checking for signs of human life, but it is deserted.
It takes him twenty minutes to reach the village, a further five to inspect the huts, check for sure that they are uninhabited and find a suitable place to rest. The roofs of the huts have all been burnt away, the ochre walls scorched black by flame. One of them, the cooking hut he presumes, is littered with shattered clay pots. A fire has been lit outside it, perhaps to destroy what could not be carried off, and it is this, smouldering gently, that had first caught Greg’s attention. He glances briefly at the wide circle of embers, distinguishing between the charcoal remnants twisted sculptures of unidentifiable melted plastic, fragments of scorched cloth and something which could once have been bone.
Several of the huts are still smouldering but of the others he chooses the cleanest. He leaves his bag there, then carries his blanket, rifle, crackers and a bottle of water over to the tree. He settles down, sips at the water, chews the crackers. He returns to the hut, retrieves his phone, tries again to make a call, then digs out his sketch book. He holds it for some minutes in his hands without opening it, seeking within it some distraction from his present predicament, then limps back with it to the tree.
He lies still in the shade gathering his strength, too weary to do more than hug the book to his chest. When he eventually opens it, he forces himself to skip the recent photos of Nuala and Beth and Sammy that he’s slipped in the front cover for protection – he’s not strong enough for those yet – and stops at the first of his sketches.
What he’s looking at is a pencil drawing, a scene of dunes infinitely stretching, perpetually shifting, the swirling undulating patterns in the sand created by wind and time. It’s based on a postcard, a photograph of the Grand Erg Oriental, the Tunisian Sahara. And it’s this postcard, sent by Nuala on holiday in North Africa over ten years before, that has played such a crucial role in his life.
Ten years ago. He’d still been an art teacher at that time, too timid and insecure to imagine himself as a full-time artist even though he’d harboured such ambitions since childhood. But the postcard had struck a chord, set off his imagination, and from it he’d produced first one painting, then a series, a collection of desert scenes that had formed the basis for his first solo exhibition, Sand Seas, the first stepping stone that would lead to his professional career as a painter.
Gazing at the sketch, he conjures up a mental picture of the postcard and this sparks a series of associations, memories of a significant time in his life, a crossroads in his relationship with Nuala, a reminder of a moment when their bond moved from live-for-the-moment pleasure to long-term commitment. For it was after this Tunisian holiday that Nuala had agreed to marry him.
And so
For a moment he’s rooted to the spot, torn between hope and alarm, but he dreads his current vulnerability more than any unspecified danger. Twice he’s been bent double from the onset of shooting abdominal pains, twice he’s been hit by waves of giddiness that he’s sure are linked to the blow to his head. He’s still peeing blood, feels himself weakened by the physical trauma he’s experienced, knows he needs medical intervention. He’s running on adrenalin and fear but knows his tank’s nearly empty.
He stumbles on towards the lip of the ridge. As he crests it, he pauses to examine the terrain ahead through the binoculars he’s hung around his neck. He can see the rocky ground sweeping down gently for a couple of hundred metres, then flatten out for a kilometre or so before giving way to small, barren hills. Half way along the flatland he can make out the source of the smoke clearly. What was once a small village, six or seven huts, a thorn tree and cattle kraal, is now empty, just smouldering ruins. He scans the site slowly, checking for signs of human life, but it is deserted.
It takes him twenty minutes to reach the village, a further five to inspect the huts, check for sure that they are uninhabited and find a suitable place to rest. The roofs of the huts have all been burnt away, the ochre walls scorched black by flame. One of them, the cooking hut he presumes, is littered with shattered clay pots. A fire has been lit outside it, perhaps to destroy what could not be carried off, and it is this, smouldering gently, that had first caught Greg’s attention. He glances briefly at the wide circle of embers, distinguishing between the charcoal remnants twisted sculptures of unidentifiable melted plastic, fragments of scorched cloth and something which could once have been bone.
Several of the huts are still smouldering but of the others he chooses the cleanest. He leaves his bag there, then carries his blanket, rifle, crackers and a bottle of water over to the tree. He settles down, sips at the water, chews the crackers. He returns to the hut, retrieves his phone, tries again to make a call, then digs out his sketch book. He holds it for some minutes in his hands without opening it, seeking within it some distraction from his present predicament, then limps back with it to the tree.
He lies still in the shade gathering his strength, too weary to do more than hug the book to his chest. When he eventually opens it, he forces himself to skip the recent photos of Nuala and Beth and Sammy that he’s slipped in the front cover for protection – he’s not strong enough for those yet – and stops at the first of his sketches.
What he’s looking at is a pencil drawing, a scene of dunes infinitely stretching, perpetually shifting, the swirling undulating patterns in the sand created by wind and time. It’s based on a postcard, a photograph of the Grand Erg Oriental, the Tunisian Sahara. And it’s this postcard, sent by Nuala on holiday in North Africa over ten years before, that has played such a crucial role in his life.
Ten years ago. He’d still been an art teacher at that time, too timid and insecure to imagine himself as a full-time artist even though he’d harboured such ambitions since childhood. But the postcard had struck a chord, set off his imagination, and from it he’d produced first one painting, then a series, a collection of desert scenes that had formed the basis for his first solo exhibition, Sand Seas, the first stepping stone that would lead to his professional career as a painter.
Gazing at the sketch, he conjures up a mental picture of the postcard and this sparks a series of associations, memories of a significant time in his life, a crossroads in his relationship with Nuala, a reminder of a moment when their bond moved from live-for-the-moment pleasure to long-term commitment. For it was after this Tunisian holiday that Nuala had agreed to marry him.
And so
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