Free Girl with the Golden Voice by Carl Hancock

yourself.’
    â€˜Let’s face it, fellahs, you’re just jealous …’
    â€˜Oh, bollocks, can’t we cut it now? I’ve been looking forward to this night for ages.’
    But Julius could not cut it. Next day his father took him to England. He got into the school.
    â€˜My dad sat across from the headmaster. He just slid this cheque across his desk … Hakuna Matata! He showed us ‘round the place himself. So, it’s nothing but the best for me. None of those second rate places like some I could mention.’
    The shower queue had started. Six at a time, two minutes each. If a sixth former came along he got to cheat the queue. Tom had just hung his towel on the rail and was about to step into the shower. A hand on his shoulder pulled him back.
    â€˜You’re not in the sixth form yet, McCall!’
    â€˜And you’re not in Eton yet. I’ve hung my towel up. You’re too late.’
    â€˜Watch it, McCall! You could suffer some serious damage here.’
    â€˜Get your hand off my shoulder.’
    The queue of boys, naked except for the towels wrapped around their torsos like kikois, was growing. They started jostling to get a good view of what was going on in the shower room. A small, pale third year slipped off downstairs in search of the duty master.
    â€˜I’m going in front of you, McCall. You know the rules.’
    â€˜Yes, I do and you’re trying to break one.’
    â€˜It’s your last chance!’
    â€˜To get your hand off me.’
    Tom wrenched his shoulder from Julius’s grasp The elder boy’s hard nails drew blood from the younger one’s flesh. Tom, stung to fury, swung a right to the ribs and a left to the jaw.
    The crowd watched in total silence as the blur of fists flew about. A tall, naked black body and a shorter, muscular white body bumped and thrashed, thudded against walls and sinks. There was no standing off, no science. The sound of heavy, panting breath rose and rose. They were reaching the first levels of exhaustion. The fight was ended not by a bell but by the strong arms of Jack Read, the deputy head. Two senior boys were late for supper that night but very early to bed.
    Twelve years on, Tom was still not interested enough in Julius Rubai to try to work the shifts of his thoughts and moods. On other occasions when Papa Rubai came to press for a sale Julius was dragged along, sullen and uninterested. Today Julius was wilfully, irrationally optimistic. McCall had got himself a white woman. Perhaps soon there would be the announcement of an engagement, better still, a summer wedding. Far more important for him, he knew that Rebecca was seeing McCall and this girl, this up-country type white woman together. She would understand the truth at last. In the end the English always do the sensible thing.
    Euphoria loosened his tongue. He was ready to try out his truth.
    â€˜It’s so good to see you together like this.’
    Tom was puzzled by the remark but not suspicious. Rebecca had not whispered a word to him about Rubai’s intentions.
    â€˜Do you think you’ll like living here, Lucy?’
    â€˜I’m just on holiday, you know. I’ve got a job in London.’
    â€˜I love this place, the lake, everything. I’m reading a book about wildlife. Birds, all that stuff. I really want to know … well, the difference between a woodpecker and a hawk, or something. Remember Rob Hunt up in Pembroke? He was our housemaster, Lucy. I used to think he was a bit crazy. Out before sunrise with his binoculars, wandering about the playing fields and the golf course.
    â€˜Saw forty species in an hour. Come on, you boys. You’ll be late for breakfast.’
    Tom was becoming more and more sure that Julius had been drinking. This affable, expansive side was something new in him.
    They stopped to watch a family of giraffe lope their way across a patch of open ground up ahead. The creatures had scarcely