And Then Dawn Broke Over The Hills

She jolted awake in her chair. It was darker. Disoriented, Mary scrambled a little over the armrest to sit up straight, a familiar coat slipping down her lap and smelling faintly of sandalwood and antiseptic soap.

"I didn't expect you back, already," a warm voice said.

Mary turned. Charles Graves stood in the doorframe, sleeves rolled up and shirt wrinkled in folds, the wear of the day visible under his eyes. Water bottle in his hands. Charles's hair was longer now, hanging loosely about his jaw, and a beard, somewhat unkempt, adorned his face. Her husband gave her a charming smile, cheeks lifting and deepening the small wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, beard and hair looking softer than usual in the last yellow-red light of the evening. He had a palpable presence based on modest aptitude and soft charm that instilled a sense of warmth in Mary. And when their eyes met, Mary saw a flicker of something cross Charles's features, but it was gone so fast she wasn't sure what it was. She turned her back with a slight clench located low under her sternum.

"Charles." It was worth travelling here to say that name aloud again. But it was so desperately indulgant, she continued: "there wasn't much to wait for."

That wasn't the reason, though. And Mary thought Charles knew.

"Alright." Charles closed in and leant his lower body against the back of the lounge chair and Mary had forgotten how deep that voice resounded from Charles's chest when he spoke. Mary tilted her head back to look at him. She could feel his warmth through the rattan webbing. His free hand trailed over the worn side. Charles's eyes searched hers. "How's Bates?" He asked, softer now. Van t'Sand must have told him.

"Shaken. And a bane of my existence. But alive."

"Will he be coming here?"

"Later. He insisted he was fine." She relaxed into the give of the chair. There was something so inducing and soothing about that warmth. "There's something with his leg. Henderson will be working on him and bring him over one of these days."

His hand stilled. "How are you?"

"Alive as well."

Sudden coldness, as Charles's body moved away from the chair and employed himself by the cabinet. "That's not what I mean, Mary." He spoke.

Mary eyed the windows, her fingers tightening on the armrests, seeing nothing, and thinking nothing, and willing herself to ignore the pressing, heavy air.

"Did you eat, yet?" She spoke. Her voice too loud in the intimate room.

"I ate at Mdm Adea's. Again, I didn't know you were coming back otherwise I would've stayed."

That clenching feeling was back again. Mugs clinked on hardwood. "Who manned the clinic?"

"Dhakiya."

"Is she the one with the glasses? Out on the porch?"

"The glasses—? No. No, that's Kawaria. Some friend of Hadebe's. I don't know her that well, either." Charles walked back into her line of sight and held out a mug of cold tea. Mary accepted it without thinking. Charles then settled himself with a second mug on the ajoint sofa; left arm slung across the back and one foot resting on the opposite knee.

He looks tired, Mary's mind supplied. And she eyed the greying hairs at his temple. It bothered Charles, Mary knew. Although he'd never admit it. But all the men in his family had been completely grey before forty, Charles had always known he would be no exception.

The windows were open yet the wind was scarcely in the room. But it was pleasant now that the temperature had gone down. The empty mantle sat unmoving on the East wall.

"It reminds me of your old apartments," she smiled, finishing her look of the room and eyes falling back on him. "Is that on purpose?"

"Of course," he lied. "What do you think?"

"That you've certainly made the effort."

"Perhaps."

"Let's lie. Let's pretend you made it like that for me."

"I made it for you," he said. And Mary couldn't help but snicker into her cup. "How long are you here for?" He asked. There was something fragile in his expression. It was the eyes, she noticed. A tightness around them, as though he anticipated a rejection—

"Just tonight." She spoke. He simply nodded and looked away and down. She tightened her grip on the mug and looked out at the line of windows.

Silence fell. Mary felt Charles looking at her, but she did not turn her head to meet his gaze. The staccato of her pulse ratcheted higher to throb in her ears and fingertips. She shifted in her seat. Charles uncrossed his legs. Elbows on his knees and cradling and looking down into his mug. His profile was strong, energetic, and tired; an expression strangely marked: at first it appeared humble, but it soon became severe.

"Mary—"

"Did the aid supplies get here, yet?"

Charles paused and stared. Something in his jaw slid and locked. Then he looked away and back down in his mug, as he rubbed one of his forearms. "Beginning this week. It's good. No more than usual."

"Maybe I'll pass by the governor." She finally looked him in the eye again, saw that subtle spark of hope and warmth in him.

"You think it'll help?"

"They can't soil their image of sympathisers. And she's very adamant on putting on a media-perfect performance."

"She's not the only one."

Immediate silence, as the space between them grew decidedly cold. And she almost recoiled because of it, almost showed how much it affected her. She swallowed. Mary didn't know whether Charles had made the comment on purpose, and she didn't want to think of the implications if he did. She didn't want to think of the possibilities that Denham-Moore and herself were anything alike.

Mary brought her mug up. "I suppose."

A big black and white dog that had been sleeping somewhere had come in and she jumped next to Charles on the sofa. She put her head in his lap. Charles patted her absentmindedly.

"Is he the one you sleep with?" Mary asked.

"She's Hadebe's. She's got a spot on the veranda."

"She's nice."

Charles grinned. "You like her?"

"I like her better than you already and she's just about as sad."

To his credit, Charles only blinked at her, all soft crinkled eyes and soft expression. But then he said: "Don't do that."

Before Mary could answer, the door in the kitchen leading to the patio opened. "He! Daktari!" A voice came. Charles's eyes left hers. "I'm going to need your help with Adamu— oh." Mary turned in her seat to follow Charles's gaze and found a youngvibrant woman standing in the passageway. She had kind eyes, a short-shaven afro, and a cheeky scowl on her lips. "Did I interrupt?" She arched an eyebrow.

Mary paused. And the cheeky smirk on the young woman's face broadened, and the tingling at the back of Mary's neck told her the young woman was making fun of her.

"Good afternoon." Mary spoke.

"What does he need?" Charles rose swiftly, placing his mug on the coffee table and strode over to the girl. "Does he want a bath? We can wash him up, but we'll have to wait for Daudi to come back with fresh sheets."

The young woman, delighted, and tilting sideways so she could throw Mary a grin when Charles put his stature between them, said: "— Bado ninaweza kuona uchafu juuyako," and then she giggled widly. 

"Dhakiya, please..." Charles let out a long-suffering sigh as he ushered the young woman back towards the patio. Dhakiya herself, fully amused and not afraid to show it, remarked: "so that is what you like: women who like to dig in the earth, even for a European, you are a strange man, Daktari—"

And then the patio door slammed hard. The dog let out a discontent groan as it settled deeper into the give of the sofa.

Mary watched the duo move about the yard with distant fondness. The voice of the young woman chattered amiably as they went. She clearly adored him. Charles Graves was not merely liked for his good humour, but for his bright disposition, and his unquestionable honesty. In him, in his figure, and his wiling smile, there was something which produced an instant effect of kindliness on the people around him.

Mary pressed her face into the webbing of the chair and felt the pull of something inside her, like an overstretched muscle in her chest. As Charles was now, making his way towards the extended ground-floor building that housed the patients, he seemed more youthful then.

White hairs at his temples. Lines etched along his forehead, around his eyes. These days he wore clothes so shabby and senesce as to be indistinguishable from the suits he wore when he taught his classes in London. Yet while Mary perceived the physical realities of Charles's appearance, she was not convinced. Mary also saw the confident medic during the war; the strong, young student with the mischievous smile who'd followed her to The Mundi that one time; even the rebellious man at the university that no one had been in any hurry to teach. They were all equally part of Charles, each stage of his existence vivid in this moment.

Maybe it was the faint hint of sandalwood still hanging in the air, a whispering reminder of it lingering in the coat that now lay folded on the armrest. From Charles, who was still her husband, if only in name. Who'd offer her a challenge, a path, a way out of any place she'd sink herself into. It was a good smell. Honest. Welcome, after all the mud and decay. A good, rich cologne, the kind that made a man smell more like himself, made him smell warm.

It was nice, but it shouldn't have reminded her of her home— their home. It shouldn't remind her of what intimacy was, either, and it didn't. But she felt the absence of it in herself where that emotion ought to be, an empty black space, filled with ashes. A place where something ought to be glowing, keeping the rest of her from the rains and the draught and the world's indifference.

Mary sighed. And then turned away.