Part Four
They had dinner at a place called The Greenhouse, recommended and booked by the front desk. Even with the favourable exchange rate it wasn’t cheap, but the food was excellent and the setting was relaxing, almost country-like while still within the city. After they got back to the hotel they sat out on the balcony and drank Scotch and listened to the sea and to people having a good time – the Waterfront had excellent security and stayed busy till late. Erestor, the only one who had spent time exploring, loved it.
Next day they left mid-morning for Prince Alfred Hamlet, less than two hours’ drive from town according to Google. Erestor was learning to add an extra hour to Google’s optimistic timelines. The drive was pleasant, through countryside that had a lot of green to offer, with farmland and vineyards stretching to mountains that drew ever near around them. The air was cool and clean and Erestor was torn between the urge to get there and find Glory while still wishing there was time to stop and explore. They went inland, bypassing Paarl while he was still reading its history and stopped briefly in Worcester so that Elrond could buy cigarettes. Gil had wanted to complain about the car’s GPS not working, but that would take time so Elrond and Erestor both insisted it was hardly necessary in such a well-mapped area: all they needed was a phone.
And then somehow they took a wrong turn, only realising this when they passed a sign saying ‘Welcome to Tulbagh’.
“That’s not possible, we came through the pass and then went — oh, we went left there, didn’t we?”
“As you told me to, yes,” Gil said politely.
“I meant my other left,” Elrond retorted. “I’m used to Germany. We drive on the other side of the road there.”
“You’ve lived in Germany for all of eight months this time,” Gil pointed out. “And I doubt the Germans have swapped left for right as directions since I was last there.”
“What now?” Erestor asked, still reading. “Tulbagh sounds like a nice place. We can’t stop and look around can we? Listen: Travel back in time over 300 years… Tulbagh is the fourth oldest town in South Africa (after Cape Town, Stellenbosch and Swellendam) dating back to the early 1700s. Charming Church Street boasts the largest number of Cape Dutch, Edwardian and Victorian provincial heritage sites in one street in South Africa…
“No, we can’t. We’ll end up spending the night again. If I have to pay for that hotel suite, we’re damn well going to use it. No, what we do here is turn round and go back the way we came. Unless our navigator has a shortcut that we can trust.”
It wasn’t that Gil was angry, strictly, but Erestor had noticed he was getting more and more short with Elrond as time passed. So much for the oft repeated rumours that they had a secret romance going back in the old days. Not that he ever believed them: Elrond had been way too happy to move out to Imladris.
And if there was some history of a romance, one of them would have told him. Failing which, Gildor certainly would have said something when Erestor started seeing Gil. He had gone out of his way to try and convince Erestor it was a bad idea, on the grounds that Gil was terminally bad relationship material.
Elrond consulted Google again. “No short cut, you have to go back to where the road forks and get on the R46 again. Then we follow that – the right way this time – through Ceres and we’ll be there. “
“Elf houses!” Erestor exclaimed. “Down there somewhere. Can we go look?”
Gil had already started the car. He gave Erestor a hard look. “Too much sun? Elf houses?”
“Yes. Look. It’s a place called Vindoux – they have tree houses. Do we know how long Glory’s been around here?”
“What’s your topaz saying?”
“Um…” Erestor hauled it out and dangled it up to the light. As usual, it did nothing. “No, well, I wasn’t expecting to look for him here, though it does seem like a nice town. I mean, tree houses? And no, he’s not here.”
“Unless he’s on the other side of town and out of range,” Elrond suggested. He liked to tweak things to see what people would do.
Erestor, who had known him a very long time, turned back and glared at him. “Can we go and see…?”
“No,” Gil said firmly. “You’ve seen tree houses before. You’ve even seen the originals in Lórien. I am not driving out of my way so you can peer at holiday accommodation from the road.”
“Gil…”
“No!”
Erestor was quiet.
Gil swore and pulled out from the side, almost side swiping a truck. “Oh for god’s sake, where is this place?”
“We can just take a quick look, then go back onto the national road.”
“I was not planning on stopping for tea.”
Erestor smiled and squinted at the map. “You keep going down here and take the second to your right….”
In the back seat Elrond huffed but sensibly kept his mouth shut.
They had a look at the tree houses, which were somewhat bigger and more solidly built than a flet, and then drove back the way they had come. Elrond promised it wouldn’t take more than half an hour even with backtracking to the main road as Gil seemed to be driving a fair bit above the speed limit. No one said anything after that, least of all Erestor who knew asking to see the tree house accommodation had pushed Gil’s irritation level up at least three more notches.
Prince Alfred Hamlet, when they reached it, was less a town than a place amongst the orchards and farmlands where old fashioned buildings clustered together along a main street and an ambitiously large church could be seen on the next block. They only knew for sure that they had arrived because there was a good-sized sign saying so. Erestor pulled out the pendant one last time and waited for it to do something. It stayed dull.
Even though there was no point, Erestor shook it. “Elrond, are you sure we’re in the right place?” he asked dubiously. “There’s nothing happening here.”
Gil glanced over at him frowning. “I’ll drive around but I don’t know if the place is big enough for that to make a difference.”
“Your aunt must be wrong,” Erestor flatly. It was the only thing that made sense and realising that did not help with the little thread of true fear that was starting to make itself known. Time was passing and there had still been no response to his email and his attempts at phoning had all met with the usual voicemail message.
“Stop here a minute,” Elrond exclaimed. “It’s a perfect frame for a picture – village in the middle of nowhere. You get awards for that kind of shot.”
Gil braked abruptly, pulled in at the side of the road and got out the car, slamming the door behind him.
“God, I just wanted to take a bloody photograph,” Elrond said. He had let his window down, preparatory to leaning out but now he opened the door instead.
“It’s not you,” Erestor said, breathing the fear down out of sight. “At least it’s not JUST you. He’s gone into the shop.”
It was the kind of general store you found in country towns all over the world, rather run down, with boards advertising a wide range of things from Coke and milk to fresh vegetables and cellphone airtime. Elrond photographed the doll-sized town and then got back in the car. “That came out well, I got the mountain in the background and the wires over the street.”
“You’ll have to mark it ‘village of Prince Alfred Hamlet,” Erestor said drily. “You can’t tell it’s more than a bump in the road by looking. Do you know, it was named for Queen Victoria’s eldest son? It was founded shortly before he came out to the Cape for a visit.”
“Why was he visiting?” Elrond asked. “A long sea voyage back then wasn’t very safe. Or pleasant.”
“I have no idea,” Erestor said. “That’s all it says in Wiki.”
Gil came back out, pausing to shake hands with a middle aged man in shorts and a button down shirt who had walked to the entrance with him. He threw a couple of bags of crisps into the car then went round front and spread something out over the bonnet. Erestor and Elrond looked at each other then slowly got out to join him.
“Map,” he said. “Honest to god real paper map. Not that damn little window that shows you next to nothing and with a wide view that has hardly any detail. I’ve had enough. We’re doing this my way now.”
“You hate technology,” Erestor said accusingly.
Gil looked up from tracing the route back to Cape Town with his finger. “No, I don’t hate technology. I just think sometimes the old ways work a lot better, that’s all. Like maps. We’ve been spreading out maps for centuries. Why? Because they work.”
“But Gil, the ones in the phone are as maply as this is…”
“No they’re not, you need to know where you’re going before you bother with those. These – you use them to help you decide.”
“Don’t argue,” muttered Elrond.
“I’m not,” Erestor replied equally quietly. “It’s not like we have anything better to do right now.”
“What did she say?” Gil asked suddenly. “The name of a British royal, right? And that it might be Albert, but we thought that was because I’d just told her we were staying at the Victoria and Albert Waterfront. “
“And your point would be?” Elrond asked. It looked as though they might not be getting back in the car for a while so he lit a cigarette.
Gil tapped the map hard and beckoned them in. “Here, right here. What does it say?”
Erestor leaned past him and tried to make out the small lettering. “You can at least zoom in on a Google map if it’s too… oh my god.”
“Yes, but you also don’t see the bits you’re not deliberately looking at. Go on, what does that say, right there?”
“Prince Albert,” Erestor admitted after taking another look.
“Where?” asked Elrond, blowing a smoke ring. This would normally annoy Gil, which would in turn give Elrond the gap to mention how Gandalf had done it in the movies. They all knew that in real life Gandalf had never smoked.
This time Gil ignored him, just tapped the map again and straightened up, starting to fold it. “It’s simple. We go back on the same road and we keep on through Touws River and – what’s it called – Laingsburg. And then follow the road right to Prince Albert.
“And if it’s another false alarm?” Erestor asked. They would go from town to town for weeks and never find him. Then it would be time to sail, leaving him behind to fade and remain part of this world forever. Glory who had been born in Aman and would truly be going home.
Gil rested a hand on his shoulder before getting back in the car. “We’re going to find him, Ery,” he said firmly. “Stop worrying, you’ll make yourself ill. He’s got to be out here somewhere, and now we have a real map it’ll be that much easier to track him down.
—–o
They went through a pass after which the countryside grew flatter and the mountains stood green merging into blue against the sky on all sides. They were travelling through a valley, and valleys always made Erestor happy; Imladris was still, even after so long, the home he measured other homes against. No one talked. Elrond was going through his photographs, Erestor read about Ceres, which was a proper town, bigger than their other stops and would have been interesting if there had been time to look around. They were near Laingsburg when the flowers started, little spring daisies growing in ever increasing clusters on the side of the road and back over the uncultivated land.
“I was reading about this back at the hotel,” Erestor said, turning around to speak to Elrond – Gil was ignoring them and focusing on his driving. “They get this massive burst of flowers this time of the year for about two months and then they’re gone for another year. People come from Europe just to see the wildflowers.”
It was a mistake. Elrond, who had been paying scant attention to the scenery, took a good look and straightened up. “Oh, this is good. Gil? Can we stop for a few minutes? I want to take a few shots of this.”
Gil said nothing, just sped up and overtook the dusty Jeep Cherokee travelling ahead of them. Erestor tapped his leg lightly and gestured with his eyes to Elrond in the back and to the passing scenery. Gil’s lips compressed and he seemed to have a bit of an internal battle. They rounded a curve in the road and the flowers spread out on both sides and up a small hill. With a sigh Erestor could actually see, he parked but left the engine running. “Don’t take all day,” he said. “This is not a smoke break.”
“I’ll just have a few puffs,” Elrond swore. “Not a whole one.”
He got out quickly before Gil could change his mind, jumped over a small ditch and went a short distance into the floral carpet. Gil sighed. Erestor leaned against him, head on his shoulder. “Just let him, otherwise he’ll get long suffering and he’s a pain when he’s like that.”
“When the hell did he get the photography bug? It’s been every single stop.”
“I know, but he’s having fun with it. Everyone needs some kind of a hobby. He has photography.”
“I don’t have time for a hobby,” Gil growled, but he put his arm round Erestor.
“Yes you do,” Erestor said smugly. “You have me.”
Elrond smoked an entire cigarette on the grounds, he explained, that it would have been inconsiderate to interrupt the making out that was going on in the car until he absolutely had to. Gil couldn’t say a word to that. Erestor just smiled.
It took another hour to reach Prince Albert, by which stage it was already going on five in the afternoon and the sun was preparing to dip behind the mountains. As he fumbled in his pocket for the topaz, Erestor reminded himself to look up the name of the range. He held the crystal up by its chain and stared at it. Elrond leaned over the seat to watch. For a moment nothing happened and he thought it would be one more false lead and then his stomach lurched as, miraculously, the stone started to flicker almost as though there was a candle burning behind it.
“There,” Elrond exclaimed. “It’s doing – something.”
“She said it’d glow,” Erestor said dubiously. “She said nothing about it going on and off like this.”
“Maybe we’re not close enough?” Gil suggested, splitting his attention between the road and the pendant. Fortunately, Prince Albert wasn’t much larger than Prince Alfred Hamlet and traffic could hardly be termed heavy. There did seem more buildings though, more of a cohesive village effect of old Victorian houses rubbing shoulders with more modern structures.
“Well, drive around. Places of interest, Res?” Elrond was looking out the window as though expecting at any moment to see a tall blond elf crossing the road.
Erestor looked down the page he had found on Prince Albert – the place, not the consort – and shook his head. “Nestling beneath the Swartberg mountains – oh, is that what they’re called? – lies the village of Prince Albert, possibly the prettiest small town in South Africa, with its Karoo style, Cape Dutch and Victorian houses lining quiet arboured streets, canals lead mountain water into the lush gardens of flowers and fruit trees, a veritable oasis… Nature reserves, hiking trails, a cooking school – odd that, star gazing, a cheese tour at – oh my god, look, there it is, Gay’s Dairy.”
“I’m guessing that’s someone’s name, not people like us running a dairy,” Gil said grinning. The whole atmosphere in the car had lifted now they knew they were near the end of the search.
“I’ll look it up later. There’s a theatre, a ghost walk – that should be interesting – wineries, a fig farm…. I have no idea, there’s nothing here that says Glory to me. El?”
“If it was you, I’d take a look at the theatre, but for him – nothing really. I can see him passing through, staying a couple of days if something caught his eye, but then he’d move on. Wouldn’t he?”
The topaz was glowing softly now, rather like a light bulb that needed to warm up. Gil drove in something like a circuit of the town and it no longer flickered at all, simply stayed unhelpfully constant.
“I have no idea how to find him.” Erestor hoped he didn’t sound as sick as he felt. Everything about this was wrong and he was starting to feel that something bad might have happened to Glory and it would be his fault for not having made more effort to stay in touch.
“What we need to do is find somewhere to stay, preferably one that serves dinner,” Elrond said, unexpectedly empathetic to his mood. “Once we’re settled we can work out the best way to search.”
“I’ll accept technology is good for some things,” Gil said. “Top of the list right now is finding accommodation.”
“Shouldn’t we drive around a bit more first?” Erestor asked, looking at the sky. He had no idea how early it would get dark out here.
“No, we shouldn’t,” Gil said. “We should find somewhere to shower and eat and relax. We’ve been in this car most of the day. Give me options, is this place big enough for a hotel?”
It seemed that Prince Albert was quite popular for hiking and other locally offered events and was handy to other places, so there was a decent selection of guest houses and bed and breakfast establishments. Elrond refused under any circumstances to share a room, despite there being several places offering a room with double bed plus one single, clearly aimed at families. There was a hotel, the Swartberg, which they agreed must mean Black Mountain, but Elrond and Erestor agreed it looked dreadful. Eventually they settled on a guest house that promised air conditioning, spacious bedrooms and wifi in a comfortable 19th century house.
“I hope they’ve done a few renovations since then,” Elrond said gloomily. “Especially to the plumbing.”
Gil followed directions and handed over his credit card without even asking what the rooms would cost. All he showed an interest in was a shower and where to find a decent dinner.
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