Angola Gaffletter Chapter 7.

Chapter Seven.

 

Proper Romance’

 

If Angola’s approach to life was a neatly ruled ledger, Botswana’s was more like a handful of dandelions tossed into a soft breeze. She didn’t measure time in minutes or hours. She measured it in the way afternoon sunlight fell across the parlour floor, or how rain sounded against the drapery windows.

So it was perfectly natural that her courtship with Zambezi Lollingfolly did not involve timetables, polished boots, or formal strolls. Instead, it unfolded through long, gentle walks, quiet pauses, and the shared understanding that neither of them was in any hurry to get anywhere at all.

Zambezi never tried to impress Botswana by lifting heavy sacks or leaning dramatically against walls. He simply appeared near the millstream when she was watching dragonflies, or sat quietly on a low stone wall while she gathered wild mint. He didn’t talk much, but when he did, his words landed softly, just like hers.

Where other young couples in Nether Wintle negotiated love through nervous chapel teas or stiff walks down Church Lane, Botswana and Zambezi simply found themselves in the same places at the same times.

It began, as most things in Botswana’s life did, without any grand plan.

Zambezi’s work with Corning took him regularly between the warehouse and the weavers’ cottages. Botswana was often sent across the village on errands for the saddlery, fetching thread, returning tools, or wandering off to inspect an interesting beetle near the bridge.

Their paths crossed so naturally that neither could say when a casual “hello” turned into an unspoken agreement to walk back together.

Zambezi learned quickly that walking with Botswana required a different pace. She didn’t march like Angola. She drifted. She paused to inspect moss on old stone walls. She stopped to watch water‑skaters on the millpond. She held quiet conversations with stray dogs that looked lonely.

Zambezi, raised among sheep and long moorland horizons, found this entirely sensible. He stood patiently beside her, satchel under his arm, waiting until she was ready to move on.

“He doesn’t rush me,” Botswana told her mother one evening while peeling apples.

Vera raised an eyebrow. “Does he talk?”

“Sometimes,” Botswana said happily. “When he has something to say.”

When Zambezi did speak, it was usually about small, grounded things: how moorland fleece kept the scent of rain, or how the church tower turned a deep purple just before sunset. Botswana liked his voice, low, steady, and warm.

One Saturday afternoon, while they sat on the timber stack behind the warehouse, Zambezi pulled a small object from his waistcoat pocket and handed it to her.

It was a river pebble, perfectly oval, pale grey, with a thin white band running through it like a ribbon.

Botswana held it gently. “It’s very round,” she said.

“I found it by the lower ford,” Zambezi replied. “Thought you might like it.”

“I do,” she said.

That was their proposal. No dramatic speeches. No blushing. No kneeling. Just a pebble passed from one hand to another on a sunny afternoon.

When news of their upcoming marriage reached Angola, she immediately fetched a blank notebook and a freshly sharpened pencil.

“We shall need a master schedule,” she announced. “The service must begin at eleven. Tea served by twelve‑fifteen. If we are efficient, the carriage can depart by two, leaving the afternoon clear for ironing.”

Botswana simply smiled and continued re‑ribboning her straw hat.

The wedding at St Jude’s was quietly lovely. The church smelled of sweet peas and beeswax. Zambezi stood near the altar in a well‑brushed coat, calm as a hillside, though his boots had been polished by Angola herself to ensure “no disgrace upon the family.”

Botswana walked down the aisle with a light, floating step, her simple linen dress trailing slightly. Her mind was almost certainly occupied by a small thought about a bumblebee near the stained‑glass window.

When the vicar asked Zambezi if he would take Botswana as his wife, he answered promptly and clearly:

“I will.”

Botswana gave him a small, radiant nod before remembering to say the words aloud.

After a modest wedding breakfast, during which Angola accounted for every teacup and Albert Arthur Cyril dropped only one teaspoon, the new Mr and Mrs Lollingfolly set off for their home.

Lollingfolly House sat a mile outside Cudwick‑under‑the‑Moor, tucked into a gentle fold of the valley where the moor began to rise. It was ancient, built of soft local stone, with tall chimneys that leaned slightly east as though listening for the sea. The Lollingfollys had lived there since Elizabeth I.

It wasn’t grand, but it was vast. It had wide oak floors that hummed when the wind blew, deep window seats perfect for sitting and doing nothing, and a garden that had given up on discipline and returned to wild honeysuckle, mint, and bramble roses.

When Zambezi unlocked the front door, the house smelled of dried lavender, old timber, and moorland air.

Botswana stepped into the hall, turned slowly, and let her bonnet slip back.

“It feels,” she said softly, “as though it has been waiting.”

“It has,” Zambezi agreed. “Plenty of room for things.”

“And animals?” she asked.

“As many as choose to come in.”

Botswana pressed her palm against a cool stone window seat. “Angola would say it needs dusting.”

“She would,” Zambezi said, resigned.

Botswana smiled. “But I think it’s perfect.”

And with the moorland wind humming down the chimneys and honeysuckle drifting through the door, Botswana felt something settle inside her, like a pebble finding its place in a stream.

Lollingfolly House was not tidy. Not orderly. Not Angola‑approved.

But it was a Botswana house.

And that was enough.

Angola Muppert had never been on a train. She had seen trains, respectable objects that stayed on rails, but she had never boarded one. Trains were noisy, unpredictable, and full of people who didn’t fold their newspapers properly.

But when Botswana wrote to say the baby was expected “any day now,” Angola closed her ledger, sharpened her pencil, and made a decision that startled everyone.

“I shall go,” she announced.

“On the train?” her father asked.

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Good heavens.”

Angola packed with military precision: one valise, one notebook, one pencil, one emergency handkerchief, and a tin of boot‑polish.

She arrived at the station ten minutes early. The stationmaster touched his cap with the wary respect reserved for government inspectors.

The train arrived with unnecessary steam and noise. Angola stepped aboard, sat upright, and endured.

The first leg was barely tolerable. The man opposite ate a pork pie with reckless crumbs. The countryside blurred past in unsatisfactory asymmetry.

At Taunton, she changed trains with crisp efficiency.

The second train was smaller, noisier, and full of passengers who looked as though they had been outdoors recently. A woman carried two hens. A boy held a fishing rod. A farmer wore boots that had personally offended several fields.

Angola endured.

By the time she reached Cudwick‑under‑the‑Moor, she had spent one hundred and forty‑three minutes among strangers who did not fold newspapers properly. She stepped onto the platform like a general who had survived a siege.

Zambezi was waiting. “You came.”

“I travelled,” Angola replied, as though she had crossed the Alps.

They walked up the lane. Zambezi’s boots were clean; the lane was muddy. The wind tugged at her hat; she resisted.

When Lollingfolly House appeared, Angola paused.

“Is it always like this?” she asked.

“Yes,” Zambezi said cheerfully.

Angola inhaled sharply.

Inside, the hall was warm and entirely unconcerned with order. A dog trotted past with a stick. A hen wandered across the floor. A pair of muddy boots lay abandoned near the stairs.

Angola stopped dead. “People are allowed indoors with dirty boots.”

Zambezi nodded. “It’s easier.”

Angola closed her eyes briefly.

Botswana appeared at the top of the stairs, pale but smiling. “Angola! You came!”

“Of course I came. You require supervision.”

“I require company.”

Angola marched up the stairs, brushing aside a cobweb. She examined her sister thoroughly.

“You look tired.”

“I’m about to have a baby.”

“That is no excuse for disorder.”

Botswana smiled. “It’s not disorder. It’s life.”

Angola made her sandpaper sound, entirely inadequate, but all she had.

Yet she stayed.

She stayed through the afternoon, through the evening, and through the long night when Zambezi Junior arrived with the solemn steadiness of someone who already understood his parents’ pace.

Botswana held the baby with soft wonder. Zambezi looked at him as though he were a precious river stone.

Angola inspected the infant critically.

“He is acceptable,” she declared.

Botswana laughed. Zambezi smiled. And Angola, who had travelled by train, endured mud, tolerated livestock indoors, and witnessed dirty boots on flagstones, allowed herself a very small, very rare, almost affectionate smile.

She resolved never to travel by train again.

But she would always remember that she had done it.

For Botswana.