Free Superstar by T C Southwell Page A

a
conversation, Carrin barely heard her prattle, and after a while
she desisted, clearly put off by Carrin’s preoccupied air.
    The sweltering
African heat met her when she stepped out at Durban Airport, and
she passed through the building without seeing it. Collecting her
bag, she walked out of the sliding doors. Paul smiled and gave her
a peck on the cheek, taking her bag.
    "Welcome
back."
    "Thanks."
    "Have a good
time?"
    She nodded.
"Yes, it was fun."
    "Good."
    Paul slung her
suitcase into the back of the truck and climbed in, starting the
engine as she settled beside him. As they rattled along the
freeway, he told her how many calves had been born on the farm,
which were heifers, and which cows were milking well. One was lame,
and he detailed the problem. The horses were fine, the weeds were
lush, and her dog had howled every night that she had been gone.
Carrin wanted to cry.
    As they bumped
up the rutted track, she spotted her mother hanging up washing,
Julia lounging in a hammock nearby. Her dog rushed to meet her, and
she fended off his muddy greeting. Paul parked the truck and strode
off in the direction of the cowshed. Her mother waved, her mouth
full of clothes’ pegs, and Julia glared. Carrin carried her case to
her cottage and unlocked the door. In the sanctuary of her bedroom,
she flung herself down on the bed and stared numbly at the ceiling.
Well, that was that. It was over, her dream destroyed, her life
back to what it had always been; drab, hard and cheerless. She
almost wished that she had not met him, and she definitely wished
that she had not found out the truth about him. Too late now, the
damage was done, and her dreams would never be the same again. She
still wanted to cry, but that was not something that she did
easily. The trip seemed like a dream now, as if she had not left at
all, but had just woken up from it a moment ago.
    At dinner, she
told her family a short, unadorned version of the story of her
trip. Julia made some snide remarks, but no one asked about her
screenplay, and she was glad in a way. It was unlikely that it
would come to anything any way.
    For the next
week, she threw herself into the farm work that had accumulated in
her absence. Mark Lord seemed like someone from a fairy tale that
she had briefly lived. Her time with him played over and over in
her mind like an endless reel of film. She cut weeds until blisters
formed on her hands, put plasters on them and cut some more. A
tractor was beyond her family's means, and the weeds grew at an
astonishing rate. Her days were grey and colourless, her life a
dull slog of work and sleep with little to relieve it. During the
second week, she worked on the screenplay, but her concentration
was poor. It took almost a month before she decided that it was
ready, and she posted it, placing its fate in the lap of the gods.
It would not be accepted, she was sure of it.
    The summer
rains watered the burgeoning weeds, and pools bred a plague of
mosquitoes. A late calf brought the last cow into milk, and last
year's bullocks, put out to pasture to fatten for slaughter, were
ready to be rounded up. Carrin took long rides to brood in the
bush. Time passed slowly, despite the amount of farm work, or
perhaps because of it.
    As autumn
approached, the son of a neighbouring farmer asked her out, and she
refused. Her collection of Mark Lord sketches increased. She had
drawn him from every conceivable angle at least three times now.
She watched his old films and tried to revive her dreams, but they
remained elusive. Paul borrowed a tractor and cut the fields, then
the hay had to be gathered. Carrin and Paul did most of it, with
the help of a few labourers. The hay rake made fresh blisters on
her callused palms, different from the ones the slasher had
caused.
    The winter
winds had started when the letter arrived. It came in a plain white
envelope with her address typed on it. Carrin stared at it,
convinced that it was not from Mark. Opening it, she pulled