Vol. 3 Streets Paved with Gold

Vol. 3

Streets Paved with Gold

by: Clive Cooke

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Published by Clive Cooke at Smashwords

Copyright 2018 Clive Cooke

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Cover Design by Joleene Naylor

Cover photo courtesy of CanStockPhoto

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This volume comprises a collection of short stories. I have used the British style of spelling throughout and have taken liberties with English grammar to represent local speech. I have also added a sprinkling of foreign words for local colour. The meanings are given at the beginning of each story.

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Contents

Cradle of Mankind

Shakespeare in the Suburbs

A Good Boy

The White Rose

Lobola 1

Lobola 2

Lord of the Bush

Cuckoo’s Hatchling

Twenty Cents

Buckingham Palace

The White Lion

Dreams

Let Them Eat Cake

Witness

The Hill

The Contest

Three Women

Foundling

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Cradle of Mankind

I was so amused at being misled by my father. Naturally, he did not do it on purpose, but he still duped me. The trouble was that I believed his story without question. Maybe, I am gullible, but there were extenuating circumstances. Look at the facts: the story was plausible, he described it in great detail, he was an eye witness and it happened in broad daylight right in front of him. There was no possibility of his being mistaken. Unfortunately, he had no proof. One had to accept his word for it. It was a unique discovery and possibly important. I actually went as far as to say that it warranted a proper scientific investigation. Even in this day and age, there are many things unknown to science. This is hardly a controversial statement. I am sure scientists would be the first to agree with me. I kept father’s story to myself for many years, always meaning to discuss it with a zoologist when I found the time. Then, when the truth became apparent, I had a huge laugh. Just as well I never consulted a zoologist and made a fool of myself. I should never have accepted father’s story at face value. I should have cross-questioned him. I should have done some research. But then, he believed his own story implicitly and father never lied. It seems that he had duped himself.

I was only a kid when it happened. I was at boarding school when my parents decided to go on a trip to that wonderful game reserve in Mozambique called Gorongoza. According to my father, they had been watching game come down to drink at a waterhole during the heat of the day when a strange animal came out of the bush, waddled across the dirt road directly in front of the car and entered the water. It was no further than six feet away. Father had an excellent view of the animal. He fumbled with his camera, but it was too late. The creature disappeared under the water and did not reappear. He said it was definitely a reptile of some sort. He had never seen anything like it before. However, unlike most reptiles, the creature stood tall. It did not slither or scuttle along the ground on legs protruding from its sides. It was as large as a medium sized dog with long legs and it was hideously ugly. Father stressed its ugliness. The actual word he used was: repulsive. It had a wide mouth like a frog and a smooth reptilian skin with no hair on its body. It was patterned in various shades of brown and its belly was a lighter shade.

I mentioned this story to my sister about thirty years later. Scientists should know about this. It was worth motivating an expedition to Mozambique to find the Monster of Gorongoza. I wish I had seen it. I wish father had taken a photograph. My sister just laughed at me.

‘It was a nightmare, Graham.’

‘What?’

‘Father dreamt it.’

Of course, that was the explanation. How stupid of me. Why didn’t I think of that? Such a pity father was no longer with us, so we could laugh over his mistake together. He would have enjoyed a good laugh. His was not like all those stories about the Sasquatch, that overgrown, hairy ape-man reputed to be wandering around the forests of north-west America. Most of the reported sightings of Sasquatches are cases of mistaken identity or just plain fraud. Maybe some people had nightmares about the beast, just like my father. Then, there are the publicity seekers, the cranks and the liars. I have always wondered about people who commit fraud. The world is full of them. Some of these jokers have been known to dress up in gorilla suits and prowl around at night to frighten the neighbours. What a mentality! There are several organizations devoted to investigating reported sightings of Sasquatches and as of to-day none of the sightings has been proved to be genuine. Although, speaking as a scientist myself, one has to keep an open mind. Just maybe, the next sighting will turn out to be genuine. Let’s be generous for a moment. Let us speculate. It might be possible that such an animal exists. Imagine a lost relative of Homo Sapiens hiding in the woods, on the verge of extinction. They are part of our family. We share the majority of our genes. How romantic. Should we give them human rights? I am not sure. Certainly, we should protect them. There is always some idiot wanting to catch a specimen to put into a cage, or wanting to shoot one for a trophy. We should leave them alone. Let them be. That is, if they really do exist. Zoologists say they don’t. They say the stories of the Sasquatch are in the realm of myth and fable. And scientists are always right. Isn’t that so?

Last year, my family and I went on a camping expedition to a wilderness area in the central Transvaal. We did it in style. Candy does not like to sleep on the hard ground. All right, neither do I. The kids wanted to bring their computers and the portable television set, but I put my foot down.

‘Dad, what are we supposed to do with ourselves?’

‘Walk.’

‘Ugh….’

‘Commune with nature.’

‘Aargh….’

David, the elder of the two brats, makes a face like he is the most deprived child on the planet. Like this is a gross violation of his human rights.

‘Walking is good for you,’ I say.

David says he will die of boredom and if that happens, it will be my fault. Be it on my conscience.

The place we went to was recommended by a friend. It is beautiful, untouched by civilization and called: The Cradle of Mankind. It is a relatively small reserve, but hugely important scientifically. The whole area comprises dolomite rocks riddled with underground caves, rivers and sink holes. Palaeontologists have discovered many sites containing fossils. Two million years ago, animals fell into the sink holes and became preserved in limestone for scientists to discover. More importantly, skeletons of two-million-year old ape-men have been unearthed. More skeletons of these creatures have been discovered in the Cradle of Mankind than anywhere else in the world. They rank amongst the best preserved and the most complete skeletons ever discovered. Scientists are still arguing about the significance of the finds, but one important fact has emerged which is that these creatures walked upright on two feet. The skeletons show substantial differences from apes while there are many anatomical similarities to Homo Sapiens. That’s us. So, if the Sasquatch ever existed, here he is. Only, he is dead and fossilized in the underground dolomite caves of the Cradle of Mankind.

Various universities are busy excavating these caves, however, tourists and campers are not allowed to visit the diggings. If you want to see the fossils, you have to go to the university museum. Teams of workers are engaged in freeing thousands of fossil bones from the dolomite rock matrix. There are so many fossils, the work will occupy them for many years to come. It is a delicate process. After freeing the bones from the rock, they go to the university for cleaning and scientific study. A large proportion of the bones comprise the animals these ape-men dined upon. There are also bones of the big predators amongst the detritus like the now-extinct sabre-toothed lion. Imagine these timid ape-men hiding in the caves at night in fear of the predators. Some of them did not always make it through the night.

We camped near to the university diggings and spent the days hiking and bird-watching. The reserve does not contain big predators, so it is quite safe for family outings.

‘Mummy, I’m hot.’

‘All right sweetheart.’

‘I’m bored.’

‘Quiet!’

The reserve was peaceful and relaxing and I was able to slough off the pressures of work and the big city. Then, towards the end of our stay, David announced over breakfast that there had been something prowling around his tent during the night. Candy said it would have been a harmless animal like an aardvark looking for food, or something like a bat-eared fox. Susan, our youngest, hadn’t heard anything, but this revelation made her anxious. Candy suggested she could sleep in the car, if she wanted. Then David said he did not want to sleep alone with animals prowling around outside. I said he could move into our tent. There was plenty of room. After breakfast, I examined the ground around the children’s tent making sure the rest of the family did not see what I was doing. There were tracks in the soft soil, but these were human, not animal footprints. Could they have been made by one of the neighbouring campers who had lost his way in the dark? I did not tell Candy what I had seen.

That morning, we took a picnic lunch to a hide at a dam and watched animals coming down to drink. We saw a fish eagle sitting on the branch of a dead thorn tree. We did not have to wait long to see it swoop down and catch a large fish in its claws. It was a wonderful sight and I took several action pictures. Even the children were impressed. Susan kept talking about it.

‘It had a horrible smell,’ said David.

‘What had a horrible smell?’

‘Last night. The thing.’

That reminds me: I must put a stop to David watching horror movies.

‘Let’s not talk about it now,’ said Candy. ‘You can sleep in our tent to-night.’

‘I could hear it breathing.’

‘David, that’s enough, now.’

‘I could smell it before I could hear it: very strong, musty, like cat’s pee.’

‘Quiet!’

When we returned to the camp, we noticed an increase in the volume of traffic going towards the university excavation site. It was almost a traffic jam. Something important had happened. Perhaps there had been a new discovery.

‘I am just going to take a stroll to the diggings,’ I said to Candy. ‘Be back in half an hour.’

‘Can I come, too?’ asked Susan.

My daughter joined me. We walked along the dirt track leading to the excavations. In the distance I could see several vehicles parked near to the shed where they stored freshly excavated material. There was a sign identifying the diggings as being run by the Palaeontology Research Unit of King’s University, Ontario. I asked someone standing around if I could visit the diggings, but was told that the site was not open to members of the public. I asked the man what all the activity was about.

‘Are you from the press?’

The man looked at me suspiciously. He gave the appearance of being slightly hostile. I guessed they did not want any unfavourable publicity getting out, although there wasn’t any danger of that happening. I am an ordinary tourist, a medical doctor by profession. But, why the secrecy? The man was clearly a member of the university staff working on the diggings. He was dressed in dirty overalls and had a bushy beard, thick glasses and a weather-beaten complexion. His accent indicated that he was Canadian.

‘I’m a doctor,’ I said.

‘Ah… a doctor. There’s been an accident.’

The man’s whole attitude changed.

‘What happened?’

‘Professor Lennox has been bitten.’

‘Snake?’

‘We believe it was an ape or a baboon. These animals are living in the caves underground. The professor was working down there. They are getting him out right now.’

‘I’ll be back,’ I said turning around. ‘My medical equipment is in the car.’

They brought Professor Lennox to the surface on a rough stretcher made out of two poles with jackets tied between them. He was a large man, young but overweight. It took four people to lift him out.

‘Careful…. careful…. put him down in the shade…. out of my way, please…. I’m a doctor…. I want to examine him’

Professor Lennox was in pain. I stripped off his pants, bloody and torn. Some sort of an animal had bitten him in several places on the leg. Fortunately, no artery had been severed. From the wounds on his hand, it seemed that the professor had tried to fend off his attacker.

‘We must get him to a hospital. I don’t have anti-tetanus with me. He is not in any danger. The bleeding is not severe, but the sooner we treat him the better. I need to do some repairs. Meanwhile, I’ll disinfect the wounds and bind them. Has anyone got a mobile phone?’

I gave the professor a pain killer and we loaded him onto the back of a van. Candy said she would stay with the children as it would have taken too long to pack away our equipment.

‘I want you to sleep in the car,’ I said.

‘Don’t worry. We’ll be all right.’

‘Please, Candy!’

The nearest hospital was three hours’ drive away. I sat in the back of the van with the professor groaning every time we went over a bump in the dirt road. I gave him another pain killer. The bleeding had stopped and he was not in any real danger. The hospital had a small operating theatre where I cleaned and stitched up his wounds. There was no need for a general anaesthetic. My patient babbled away about his ordeal while I treated him. I did not pay much attention to him. Then, we drove back to the reserve leaving the professor overnight in a ward at the hospital. It must have been around midnight when we reached camp. As we drove up to where we had pitched the two tents, the headlights of the van picked out a dark shape slinking off into the trees. Then another one and another. There must have been several of these creatures.

‘Thank God you are back, Graham.’

‘Darling.’

‘There is something out there.’

My family was huddled in the car, windows up and doors locked. They were in a state of shock. Susan had been crying. Our one tent had been wrecked and our provisions scattered.

‘What happened?’

‘It was dark. It was total confusion.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘We’re fine.’

As soon as it was light, I inspected the camp site. It was a mess. I spoke to a family of campers about fifty yards away. They had heard nothing. I told them what had happened to us and advised them to leave. We packed the car and drove off, stopping at a petrol filling station just outside the reserve where we had breakfast at the café. I wanted to ask David if he still thought the holiday had been boring, but it wasn’t the right time to make jokes. Candy told me later in the car that they had just finished supper and were getting ready for bed when a dark shape rushed into the camp. They thought it was a baboon. The animal must have been attracted by the smell of cooking. Susan screamed. David threw some dry grass onto the fire which flared up, scaring off the animal. Candy grabbed the children and fled to the car where they locked themselves in. For the next two hours, several dark shapes took over the camp wrecking the tents, knocking over equipment and looking for food. Candy made the observation that the animals walked on two legs. They were definitely not baboons.

‘I must report this to the authorities,’ I said.

My wife is a committed conservationist and had reservations about telling the park authorities. They might feel pressurized into destroying the animals. Her point of view is that animals were there first. It was far more preferable for humans to be banned from the reserve than the animals destroyed. Perhaps the animals were only responding to maltreatment by humans. In her book, there were no such things as bad animals, only bad humans.

Monday was back to civilization again: brown skies, pollution, traffic jams and aggressive drivers. My secretary always puts the files of the patients I am to see during the day on my desk together with the morning newspaper. A headline caught my eye: Ape-Man Attacks Professor. I scanned the article, reputedly from a source close to the professor. I could guess who that was.

‘Monica,’ I called through the open door ‘am I seeing Professor Lennox to-day?’

‘Yes, Graham. His appointment is at eight thirty.’

‘Thank you.’

The article was sensationalism of the crudest kind. The animal that had bitten him had morphed into a prehistoric ape-man, a monster with glowing yellow eyes and canine teeth as big as a sabre-toothed lion. Its body odour was like rotting flesh, its hot breath asphyxiating…. I wondered why the eminent professor agreed to the interview. This was not science. This was science fiction. Maybe he wanted to sell his story to Hollywood. I could imagine the title of the film: Bride of Pithecanthropus, and I Was Abducted by an Ape-Man, or My Love for a Two-Million Year Old Fossil. Maybe, I should give a press interview myself, to set the record straight. The professor’s wounds were relatively minor. The animal’s teeth were small. If it had had canines like a baboon, the professor would have been torn to shreds. There would have been major surgery necessary. He might not have survived.

Professor Lennox entered my room. He noticed the newspaper article face- up on my desk.

‘Are you well?’

‘Much better Doc, thanks.’

‘Let’s have a look, then.’

We went through to the examination room. The professor lay back on the bed and chatted away while I examined him. His wounds were healing nicely. My repair work was neat and tidy. The scars would hardly be noticeable after a few years. We went back to my consulting room. I picked up the newspaper.

‘Did you do this?’ I waved the paper in the air.

‘A source close to the professor. Yes, I am the source, although, I didn’t write the article.’

‘So sensational.’

‘Well…. yes… it is sensational. I mean the discovery is sensational, but I can’t stand up in public and say that a two million year old pithecanthropus species has survived into the present century. It would damage my reputation. I might lose my job.’

‘That’s a bit far-fetched, isn’t it?’

‘Sure I need to get more evidence, hard facts. I want samples of hair for DNA testing. We need a proper scientific investigation.’

‘Even so….’

‘Look at it this way, Doc: while the northern hemisphere was covered in ice, two to two and a half million years ago, this part of Africa was free of ice. It was a veritable Garden of Eden.’

‘Cradle of Mankind.’

‘Exactly. Plants and animals flourished. Species diversified. There is no reason why some of the earliest animals could not have survived up to the present. The climate was temperate. There was plenty of food.’

‘Okay. But, where is the proof?’

I was starting to doubt the sanity of the learned professor.

‘I witnessed it with my own eyes.’

‘Which was….?’

‘A new and unique species. It was special. I am so privileged. I want to share this with other scientists. We need to study these creatures. We need to protect them.’

‘That article might do the opposite. We will have every trophy hunter in the world wanting to kill them.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Tell me: what exactly happened down there in the cave?’

The professor described the excavation team’s methodology. They had been working in another cave for several weeks and had removed most of the fossil finds from the rock which he called breccia. Then, they decided to broaden their search. The entrance to the new area was narrow and the professor was a tight fit. I smiled at this revelation. They could hear the noise of water running and there was a strong musty odour. Animals were living there: rats or hyraxes. They weren’t sure. The animals had brought dead grass into the cave for nesting. A cursory look at the walls and floor by torchlight showed innumerable fossils. This was a fossil gold-mine. Then, the professor saw a shin bone sticking out of the rock. Jackpot! He had found another ape-man skeleton. He traced the outline of a femur along the wall of the cave. Further on, part of a thumb protruded from the breccia.

The work of chipping and scraping was arduous. The professor lay on his back holding his arms in the air for hours at a time. Then, he noticed the musty odour becoming stronger, intense, asphyxiating. He heard grunting. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his thigh. An animal had bitten his leg. Then, there was a frenzy of biting. He thought he was going to die. He pointed his torch into the blackness and was met with the horrifying sight of yellow eyes, fangs and orange-brown hair. He had never seen anything like this in his life before. He screamed and kicked out. The animal roared a primitive, blood-curdling cry. Hands and fingers tore at the professor’s body.

‘What did it look like?’

‘The animal was hairy, but not like fur. The hair was sparse and there was hardly any on its face. Its eyes were savage, either from fear or from anger. I can’t really say.’

‘And then?’

‘The cave was narrow. That is what saved me. The creature could not get on top of me. My vulnerable organs and my head were away from him. I kicked out. I think the light from my torch and my screaming frightened him and he retreated deeper into the cave. I called for help.’

‘You wrote the newspaper article, didn’t you?’

‘Yes…. I admit it…. don’t tell anybody. I believe this creature is a relic from two million years ago. I can’t go public about this under my own name, for obvious reasons. But, I am convinced about what I saw. Last week, I came face-to-face with pithecanthropus. I am the first present-day human to have done so.’

I smiled. The man’s story reminded me of my father’s encounter with the Monster of Gorongoza. Admittedly, the professor’s wounds were real, but his deductions were fantasy. The whole incident probably only lasted a couple of minutes and it was dark in the cave. The professor was in a state of shock. How could he positively identify his assailant as pithecanthropus?

‘Your ape man’s teeth are small.’ I said. ‘I can tell from the wounds.’

‘That confirms my theory.’

‘I would say the bites are more consistent with a rodent’s teeth.’

‘And his hands.’

‘What about the creature’s hands?’

‘The thumb was long and opposed to his fingers. I saw his hand in the torchlight. He was holding a rock. It is not an ape’s hand and it is not fully human.’

The professor gave me a lecture on the differences between human and primates’ hands. It was all very interesting, but his time was up. I bade him goodbye and good luck with his investigations. I buzzed for the next patient.

While I waited, I thought about the professor. As I once said, there are many things unknown to science. New discoveries are made every day and one must keep an open mind. But, a relic from two million years ago living in the present? The chances are small, negligibly small. I also once said that the world was full of cranks, liars and assorted fraudsters. Perhaps I should contact one of the societies in America dedicated to investigating reported sightings of the Sasquatch. I would like to ask them if they have ever investigated claims made by a certain attention-seeking Professor Lennox from King’s University, Ontario…. I wonder.

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Shakespeare in the Suburbs

Glossary: koko (Sotho) granny; lobola (Zulu) the bridegroom’s gift to his future father-in-law

I saw him too late to stop. I would have liked to have greeted him, but there was a car right behind me sitting on my tail. I stuck an arm out of the window and waved. He probably did not see it. Actually, it was his walk that I recognised. His face was turned the other way. No-one walks quite like Ephraim. He has a loose, floppy sort of gait as if his limbs are attached to the rest of his body by rubber bands. I used to think that his arms and legs might fall off one day if the rubber bands ever became perished. He was still carrying that old leather satchel over one arm and he still did not have a bicycle. Then, I turned down a side street and lost sight of him. I had not seen him in this area before. Perhaps, he was substituting for the usual postman, or maybe he had been transferred here permanently. This was my normal route home from work, so there was a chance I might see him again.

As I waited for the light to turn green, I looked in the rear view mirror to see why the impatient driver behind me was hooting and caught sight of my own reflection. I was smiling. It was my first day back at work after a fortnight’s holiday, so there was no reason to smile. Except that I was not thinking of work, I was thinking of Ephraim.

I first met Ephraim at the local Protestant church hall. I’m a Catholic by the way, not that it makes much difference. As my grandmother