Lying Perfectly Still

Chapter One

Mbabane's pavements swarm with fast-moving hawkers. Stalls sell watermelons, dusky-pink guava; the air is close, hot and scented bittersweet with marula fruit. Amongst street beggars gathered in the plaza is a girl, aged no more than thirteen, in high heels and a ragged indigo dress. She has a wide forehead, a delicate jawline, a neat pear-shaped nose. Car brakes screech as she totters across the road, a child's doll wedged beneath one arm, a six-pack of beer balanced on her head. Koliwe feels unstable. There is something disconcerting about an adolescent girl in an older woman's clothes.

Koliwe remembers at a similar age she was the contradiction: the one drop of colour on a white canvas. She knew of Swaziland only from the few traditional tales she heard when settled upon her father's knee. "Don't ever go to Swaziland," he once told her. "They'll eat you alive." He cut himself from his country. He had been so proud. But he was damaged by the loss.

Here, amidst mansions, iron shacks and match-box houses, his loss has become her burden. Crossing tarmac dusty and red, she is an invisible other. Then the market's cheerful energy smacks her in the face - a pot of cultures, racy colours, the bustle of bargain-hunters; the reek of rubbish, stale urine, decomposing dreams.

Since leaving Oxfordshire she's seen nothing of the culture she expected. Who created this confusion and mess? The men are not dressed like the warriors in her father's paintings, with animal pelts over red loincloths; neither do they carry ox-hide shields, sturdy knobkerries, or feathers in their hair. Cars taxi along the main road. Boys smoke on every street corner, disillusionment in their eyes. Unlike images on the TV news, here their stares cannot be switched off.

She is now in the back of a taxi on the driveway to Colonel Johnston's house, sweeping away from central Mbabane between colourful flower beds and sleek green lawns. Electric gates stand sentinel before the gatehouse. A line of taxis waits at a rank. The gates swing open effortlessly, revealing more lavish gardens and another set of gates. The Johnstons' impressive three-storey house with wooden shuttered windows stands on the far side. Roses climb the white-washed walls. The drive meanders round the croquet lawn and a shimmering turquoise swimming pool.

Stout, crimson-faced, Colonel Johnston, in a black dinner jacket with polished brass buttons, is stationed between two bay trees; wispy strands of whitish hair stripe his shiny pate. Like the earthenware pots either side of the doorway, he looks too heavy to move.

He raises a glass of sherry. "You must be. er, the new girl Cameron Cuthbert said was joining the fold."

"Yes, I'm Koliwe." She glances at the invitation card's italicised font. She is just a blur mounting the steps of the wide verandah to his home.

"Come, meet my wife." His hand furtively strokes the smooth olive skin on her shoulder.

Human contact has been scarce in the six months since her father drowned, and the shock of the old man's touch sucks away her breath. The colonel guides her to a roomy kitchen. The floor is tiled black and white in the stark contrast of a chessboard.

"Darling, meet. er."

"Koliwe." She tilts up her chin defiantly.

The colonel's wife is quite the opposite of him. In an orange and brown floral-print chiffon dress, she darts around freestanding units and worktops cluttered with sharp knives and electrical appliances. She has brought out as much of England as she could carry; so much, in fact, the Swazi staff, in their lace-up shoes, beige tunics and mop caps, look like foreigners in their own country.

"You're African?" Mrs Johnston glances at Koliwe, slicing carrots urgently.

"English, actually."

"African," announces the colonel abruptly, "so am I." Yet he, too, speaks with a British accent.

Venetian blinds screen the glass door to the back yard. Koliwe squints between the slats to flittering duets of butterflies before a corrugated iron shack. A maid washes clothes in a metal bowl. Her dress is threadbare; strings of glass beads hang into the grey water. Palm tree fronds bow and beckon, casting afternoon shadows over her back.

A rash of liver spots pattern Mrs Johnston's wrinkled face, her thinning, lavender-blue hair is piled high in a nest on top of her head. She examines the canapés. "We don't see God's creatures in terms of black and white. We simply see God's creatures," she says primly, garnishing prawns with lemon and parsley. "Blackie!" she shrieks. "Get out!"

Koliwe jumps, as a Labrador slinks around the kitchen door. Blackie is undeniably black. A nervous friction moves in the air.

"Where in the world has my new blender gone?" Mrs Johnston wheels round, her sequin-blue eyes searching the sideboards. Mountains of crockery are stacked on the drainer. The dishwasher wants emptying. She digs out the liquidiser, then presses lemons into it, squinting in the direction of the pantry while the mechanism moans at full speed.

Another maid emerges from the pantry and places a jar of pickled gherkins amidst a pile of potato peelings. Koliwe presses back against the wall, out of the way.

"I just hope the guests don't arrive all together." Mrs Johnston flusters around the maid, mixing olive oil with balsamic vinegar.

Blackie is back again.

"Don't pester me for food bits, I'm trying to cook," Mrs Johnston says, looking sternly into the dog's beseeching eyes.

The colonel trips whimsically around the kitchen. "Anything I can do to help?"

"Do let the poor girl know who else will be coming," whispers Mrs Johnston. Her hips barrel from side to side and her bosom - two flamingo-pink blancmanges - wobbles in her low-cut dress, as she bends to kiss Blackie's wet nose.

Following his wife's instructions, the colonel turns to Koliwe, "There's. er, an expat couple, they're from England, or Africa, or wherever." He glances at his gold wristwatch. "They really should be here."

His wife yells at Koliwe over the dishwasher's roar, "You'll probably know them, my dear."

The doorbell rings. The guests have arrived altogether. First are two Americans and a British-German couple. Mrs Johnston's expression is animated when she performs the introductions, while the colonel tops up his own glass and downs it in one. Despondency knots in Koliwe's stomach as more women flock in, all talking theatrically in paisley frocks and shimmering, gossiping waves of satin.

"You're here with your husband?" asks a wide-girthed woman with jade-green eyes and a chestnut-brown bob.

"No," Koliwe replies, "I'm with U.K Aid."

"Koliwe's new, aren't you, my dear?" Mrs Johnston swivels Koliwe round to a solid square figure with a ready smile. "Koliwe, meet Jeanette."

"Yaar." Jeanette's rouged and powdered cheeks give her face the crusty appearance of parched, cracked mud.

"Jeanette has recently taken up horse riding," Mrs Johnston chats on.

"The dressage horse died of a heart attack," Jeanette says. "It was attacked by a swarm of bees." Jeanette observes Koliwe as though she is a tropical fish in a display case. "Why did you come to Mbabane? You're running from a man?"

Quietly Koliwe replies, "I just wanted a fresh start."

A man in a jazzy red shirt slides into their conversation.

"Jeanette's husband, Martin," Mrs Johnston announces.

Pressing her lips together, Koliwe half-smiles at him.

Martin's eyes swim with a lively enthusiasm; his hair is mousy-brown; skin a raw beef colour. Koliwe tries to think of something clever to say.

"We adore dinghy sailing," Martin tells her. Armed with good looks, he snatches glasses of wine from a silver tray, offers them around. He rocks back and forth like a metronome as he talks on, "Last summer we raced in the Cowes regatta. We capsized a few times but that wasn't a big problem and we soon set sail again, hey." He slips his arm around Jeanette. She steps aside. Both drink at a rate of knots.

Mrs Johnston introduces Koliwe. "Meet John and Clotilda. Clotilda was born in Zimbabwe and is the country's leading dermatologist. John went to Zimbabwe to study malaria, met Clotilda, and stayed. He's now an authority on diseases. As it happens, there's a plague of malarial mosquitoes sweeping through eastern Zimbabwe at the moment, so there will be a lot to talk about!" Mrs Johnston stops in full flow and rushes to the kitchen.

Beyond Clotilda and John is a view of Blackie at the far end of the house on his hind legs, front paws resting on the sideboard, wolfing down carefully prepared canapés. Mrs Johnston flies at her dog, whooping.

A maid emerges from the back doorway. Koliwe swipes a glass of spumante from the silver tray. The skin...