Wild Fiction

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‘What’s up with you?’ Rebecca felt embarrassed and looked around the pub to see if anyone was watching them.
‘It’s bloody Conrad. It’s my mate from Don’t Sleep with your Brother’s Girlfriend.’
She followed James’s eyes to the door. Wearing a khaki shirt with rolled-up sleeves, blue jeans and boots, he stood at the door surveying the bar. His tanned face sported a goatee beard surrounded by blonde stubble. His sun bleached straw-coloured hair was too long and in need of a cut. Rebecca felt a tingle of excitement in her stomach as a bevy of butterflies took off and landed again. This man looked like Indiana Jones and she was just about to meet him.
James had already left the table and when he reached Conrad they grinned at each other and hugged. They talked briefly at the bar while Conrad ordered a drink. Rebecca sat alone at the table, a feeling of nervous excitement swirling around inside her stomach as she waited for them. James introduced them and she felt giddy as soon as their hands touched in a formal handshake.
‘What are you doing here?’ James asked. ‘I thought you’d escaped. I thought you were free, independent?’
‘I am free,’ Conrad replied. His English accent slightly affected by his exposure to the harsh guttural South African English he had been exposed to. ‘I received a telegram from the author asking for help. He’s in fear of his life apparently. The telegram was very brief, nothing more than that.’
‘Have you seen him yet?’
‘No, I came straight here. I haven’t had a proper pint of bitter since I left England. You don’t appreciate things like this until they’re not there. You know what I mean?’
James and Rebecca nodded enthusiastically even though they did not know what he meant. Neither of them had ever left England. Conrad filled them in on what he had been doing in Africa. It was mostly voluntary work building clinics and teaching farming practices to the indigenous people. It was a great deal less glamorous than what they had imagined adventuring in Africa to be.
‘We were stringing a rope bridge across a tributary to the Umgeni River in the Valley of a Thousand Hills when the telegram arrived,’ he said. ‘There were instructions to pick up my ticket from Durban Airport, if I was prepared to come back and help.’
‘You could have stayed there,’ James said. ‘Why did you come back?’

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