Far Horizon by Tony Park

buying a ticket on one of the ridiculously crowded local buses and risk ending up as another of Isabella’s patients.
    He borrowed a pen and paper from Patience and scrawled a quick note to Isabella, explaining he was on his way to Mapai and hoped to catch her before she returned to Maputo, or maybe on the road in between. Patience promised to deliver it to her the moment she saw her. Hot, sweaty and angry, he stormed outside and hailed another cab.
    Dr Isabella Nunes was so tired she felt like crying. She had arrived at the small clinic at around nine on Thursday night, an hour later than planned, thanks to a punctured tyre. Father Patrick – she found it odd calling a man five years younger than herself ‘Father’ – had greeted her warmly as usual. Patrick was a good-looking, lanky, red-haired Irish boy of twenty-six and she marvelled at his commitment, isolated in the bush, half a world away from his homeland. She, too, was far from home, but against the odds she had found someone special in this sad, torn country.
    â€˜How are things, Father?’ she asked.
    â€˜Oh, you know, Isabella, same as always – never enough medicine, generator on the blink, water pump broken again. Bloody Africa, excuse my French.’
    The mission had been built by Portuguese priestsin the early part of the twentieth century and expanded over the years with donations from around the world. Father Patrick lived in an old two-bedroom cottage made of stone daubed with a mixture of mud and cattle dung which had set to the consistency of concrete and then been reinforced with countless coats of whitewash over the decades. The cottage, like the neighbouring one where the nuns lived, was topped by a steep-gabled thatched roof. Across a dusty square were the schoolhouse, which catered for seventy children of all ages from infants through to high school, and the clinic itself, where Isabella worked during her visits. Both these newer structures had whitewashed breeze-block walls to waist height, topped by flyscreen mesh the rest of the way up to their new corrugated tin roofs. The clinic had the added protection of metal louvres over the flyscreen mesh, which could be closed to keep out dust during high winds. When she visited, Isabella slept in Father Patrick’s spare bedroom.
    He led her to the cottage, carrying her backpack for her. Once inside, he placed her pack in her room and led her back to the small kitchen. He pulled two bottles of Dois M beer out of the paraffin refrigerator and opened them with a Swiss Army knife. ‘I’m probably blaspheming, but you won’t find any Irish whisky here. I detest the stuff,’ he said as he passed her a bottle. ‘Cheers.’
    As often happened, Father Patrick was using Isabella’s visit as a chance for him to slip away to Maputo for a couple of days. He had a meeting planned with his bishop and also needed to stock upon food and supplies for the mission. He would leave Friday, around lunchtime, and be back the same time on Sunday. With Isabella at the clinic, along with two African nuns who had trained as nurses, he felt sure the mission was in good hands in his absence. Isabella had no fears for her safety, as the mission had a nightwatchman armed with an old shotgun and, besides, Father Patrick and the sisters were well liked and respected in the local community.
    Isabella was sleeping soundly on her first night at the mission, thanks to the effects of the long journey and two more of the priest’s cold beers, but woke with a start to the sound of thumping on her bedroom door. She looked at the luminous dial of the man’s diving watch she wore, and saw it was nearly one o’clock in the morning. ‘ Quem e? ’ she called out, annoyed and confused at the disturbance. ‘Who is there?’ she repeated in English.
    â€˜Isabella, it’s me,’ Father Patrick said. ‘Come quick, there’s been a terrible accident. A