Road to Redemption - Michelle Dalton Page 0,1
had learnt to ride before she could walk thanks to one of Mina’s old university buddies, who had a penchant for horses.
“Drina’s trained you well,” Mina said, “The nationals will be lucky to have you.”
“We’ll see.” Her daughter said.
“Agh, look!” Lullu stopped and picked the rose up out of the dirt. “You dropped your flower.” Lullu dusted off the waxy petals and handed it back to Mina.
A chill ran down her spine. “It’s dying. Throw it away.” Mina waved her hand as though to chase away a fly.
“Waste not, want not,” her daughter mimicked words Mina would often throw at her. “I’ll put it my bible and press it.” She slipped the bloom into her shirt pocket. “Kom, Boessie.” She tugged on her horse’s halter, leading him off to the stables.
A soft wind blew from the inland, pushing against the humidity of the afternoon. A strange sensation snaked its way up Mina’s spine as a memory from another life faded in and out of her mind’s eye.
Ray pulled his bottle of soda from the pocket of the seat in front of him, unscrewed the lid, and gulped down the lukewarm, flat, sugary drink.
The psychiatrist in the dry-out ward of the prison had spent many sessions talking him through the choices he’d made. Doctor Eksteen had understood the trauma he’d had to deal with in silence. The day he’d shunned the girl he’d loved to protect her, and the devastation when his Ma had gotten ill and died. The anger and self-loathing that had eaten him alive from the inside out.
Once the drugs had finally left his system, Raymond had begun to understand the sacrifice his pa had made over the years, and that it was his pa who had saved him from a prison sentence. Six months rehab and six months on Redemption Farm before being released on parole. If he was lucky.
He had to make this work. It was his last chance at some semblance of a life, a life he would now devote to making up for all the evil he’d committed in the past.
The bus screeched to a halt. Through its large front window, the deep blue, froth-laced Atlantic greeted them as it curled, waved and receded. Out the side windows to his right, a number of stone cabins with grass roofs stood stacked in neat rows of three surrounded by what looked like a communal barbeque area and hall. This was paradise compared to the prison’s rehab facility in Cape Town.
To the left of them, rows of solar panels drank up the sun’s heat and beyond, warehouses where Raymond assumed the abalone was farmed and processed.
A ripple of fear rolled over him. He didn’t want to stuff up, but what he knew of abalone was less than the dew found on a desert rose in the morning.
The farm was all about rehabilitation, but cleverly incorporated cheap labour too. The abalone, he assumed, was to keep the institution afloat.
On a hill in the distance, opposite the farm and cabins, stood a beautiful house designed in the same Cape Dutch-style as his pa’s on Nooitgedacht wine farm. A deep emerald lawn and an immaculate garden, larger than the smaller one near the cabins, spread out around it with tall date palms reaching for the heavens. Ray squinted. Behind the abode stood a row of stables.
“Alright, Oakes! This is where you get off. Grab your bags and move it.” The skinny weather-worn Afrikaans driver ordered.
Raymond gripped his duffel bag from the rack above. Inside, were the only possessions he had to his name—two pairs of denim pants, a pair of board shorts, three pairs of socks, four T-shirts, and his toiletries.
They all stumbled out of the bus and onto the soft white sand of Redemption Farm.
Raymond looked up, cupping his free hand over his brow to shield his eyes from the sharp sun. A tall coloured man stood on a mound glaring down at them.
“My name is Benjamin Meintjies. You will address me as sir or Mr Meintjies. I am not your buddy, gabba, or mother,” a deep, angry voice bellowed. “This is not a holiday resort!”
A young boy stood beside Mr. Meintjies as the driver handed him a sheet of paper. The burly man scanned it, looked up and gave each inmate a stern look. His beady eyes fell on Ray. A chill wrapped itself around his spine. Ben nodded, handed the paper to the boy and pointed toward the farm house on the hill before returning his