Nicola Marsh - A Wedding at Leopard Tree Lodge / Three Times A Bridesmaid…

As Emma tossed notebook and pen in the air, whooping with excitement, her irritation at Marji’s attitude quite suddenly melted away.

‘Where?’ she demanded. ‘Where is it?’

‘I could tell you,’ she replied, a broad grin spreading across her face. ‘But then I’d have to kill you.’

‘Dumela, Rra. O tsogile?’

‘Dumela, Francis. Ke tsogile.’’

Gideon McGrath replied to the greeting on automatic. He’d risen. Whether he’d risen well was another matter.

This visit to Leopard Tree Lodge had taken him well out of his way, a day and night stolen from a packed schedule that had already taken him to a Red Sea diving resort, then on down the Gulf to check on the progress of the new dhow he’d commissioned for coastal cruising from the traditional boat-builders in Ramal Hamrah.

While he was there, he’d joined one of the desert safaris he’d set up in partnership with Sheikh Zahir, spending the night with travellers who wanted a true desert experience rather than the belly-dancer-and-dune-surfing breaks on offer elsewhere.

He was usually renewed by the experience but when he’d woken on a cold desert morning, faced with yet another airport, the endless security checks and long waits, he’d wondered why anyone would do this for pleasure.

For a man whose life was totally invested in the travel business, who’d made a fortune from selling excitement, adventure, the dream of Shangri-La to people who wanted the real thing, it was a bad feeling.

A bad feeling that had seemed to settle low in his back with a non-specific ache that he couldn’t seem to shake off. One that had been creeping up on him almost unnoticed for the best part of a year.

Ever since he’d decided to sell Leopard Tree Lodge.

Connie, his doctor, having X-rayed him up hill and down dale, had ruled out any physical reason.

‘What’s bothering you, Gideon?’ she asked when he returned for the results.

‘Nothing,’ he lied. ‘I’m on top of the world.’

It was true. He’d just closed the deal on a ranch in Patagonia that was going to be his next big venture. She shook her head as he told her about it, offered her a holiday riding with the gauchos.

‘You’re the one who needs a holiday, Gideon. You’re running on empty.’

Empty?

‘You need to slow down. Get a life.’

‘I’ve got all the life I can handle. Just fix me up with another of those muscle relaxing injections for now,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a plane to catch.’

She sighed. ‘It’s a temporary measure, Gideon. Sooner or later you’re going to have to stop running and face whatever is causing this or your back will make the decision for you. At least take a break.’

‘I’ve got it sorted.’

Maybe a night spent wrapped in a cloak on the desert sand hadn’t been his best idea, he’d decided as he’d set out for the airport and the pain had returned with a vengeance. Now, after half a dozen meetings and four more flights, the light aircraft had touched down on the dirt airstrip he’d carved out of the bush with such a light heart just over ten years ago.

It had been a struggle to climb out of the aircraft, almost as if his body was refusing to do what his brain was telling it.

His mistake had been to try.

The minute he’d realised he was in trouble, he should have told the pilot to fly him straight back to Gabarone, where a doctor who didn’t know him would have patched him up without question so that he could fly on to South America.

Stupidly, he’d believed a handful of painkillers, a hot shower and a night in a good bed would sort him out. Now he was at the mercy of the medic he retained for his staff and guests and who, having conferred with his own doctor in London, had resolutely refused to give him the get-out-of-jail-free injection.

All he’d got was a load of New Age claptrap about his body demanding that he become still, that he needed to relax so that it could heal itself. That it would let him know when it was ready to move on.

With no estimate of how long that might be.

Connie had put it rather more bluntly with her ‘…stop running’.

Well, that was why he was here. To stop running. He’d had offers for the Lodge in the past—offers that his board had urged him to take so that they could invest in newer, growing markets. He’d resisted the pressure. It had been his first capital investment. A symbol. An everlasting ache…

‘Are there any messages, Francis?’ he asked.

‘Just one, Rra. ’ He set down the breakfast tray on the low table beside him, took a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and, with his left hand supporting his right wrist, he offered it to him with traditional politeness. ‘It is a reply from your office.’ Before he could read it, he said, ‘It says that Mr Matt Benson has flown to Argentina in your place so you have no need to worry. Just do exactly what the doctor has told you and rest.’ He beamed happily. ‘It says that you must take as long as you need.’

Gideon bit back an expletive. Francis didn’t understand. No one understood.

Matt was a good man but he hadn’t spent every minute of the last fifteen years building a global empire out of the untapped market for challenging, high risk adventure holidays for the active and daring of all ages.

Developing small, exclusive retreats off the beaten track that offered privacy, luxury, the unusual for those who could afford to pay for it.

Matt, like all his staff, was keen, dedicated, but at the end of the day he went home to his real life. His wife. His children. His dog.

There was nothing for him to go home for.

For him, this company, the empire he’d built from the ruins of the failing family business, was all he had. It was his life.

‘Can I get you anything else, Rra? ’

‘Out of here?’ he said as he followed the path of a small aircraft that was banking over the river, watched it turn and head south. It had been a mistake to come here and he wanted to be on board that plane. Moving.

The thought intensified the pain in his lower back.

After a second night, fuming at the inactivity, he’d swallowed enough painkillers to get him to the shower, determined to leave even if he had to crawl on his hands and knees to Reception and summon the local air taxi to pick him up.

He’d made it as far as the steps down to the tree bridge. Francis, arriving with an early morning tray, had found him hanging onto the guard rail, on his feet but unable to move up or down.

Given the choice of being taken by helicopter to the local hospital for bed rest, or remaining in the comfort and shade at Leopard Tree Lodge where he was at least notionally in control, had been a no-brainer.

Maybe the quack was right. He had been pushing it very hard for the last couple of years. He could spare a couple of days.

‘Is that someone arriving or leaving?’ he asked.

‘Arriving,’ Francis said, clearly relieved to change the subject. ‘It is the wedding lady. She will be your neighbour. She is from London, too, Rra. Maybe you will know her?’

‘Maybe,’ he agreed. Francis came from a very small town where he knew everyone and Gideon had long ago learned that it was pointless trying to explain how many people lived in London. Then, ‘Wedding lady?’ He frowned. ‘What wedding?’

‘It is a great secret but Mr Tal Newman, the world’s greatest footballer, is marrying his beautiful girlfriend, Miss Crystal Blaize, here at Leopard Tree Lodge, Rra. Many famous people are coming. The pictures are going to be in a magazine.’

As shock overcame inertia and he peeled himself off the lounger, pain scythed through him, taking his breath away. Francis made an anxious move to help him but he waved him away as he fell back. That was a mistake too, but whether the word that finally escaped him as he collapsed against the backrest was in response to the pain or a comment on whoever had permitted this travesty of everything his company stood for was a moot point.