Tin Heart Gold Mine

Ruth Hartley

Description

Heart of Darkness and Lust for Life collide as the Cold War in Africa gets hot. Lara, the artist, loves both Oscar, a suave, older entrepreneur, and owner of the Tin Heart Gold Mine and Tim, a journalist seeking truth. This is a dramatic story, about vibrant, intriguing characters passionate about art, love, the making of money and the African bush, whose lives become entangled in war and politics. How well do we ever know the people we love? The Tin Heart Gold Mine opens in 1985 with Lara and Oscar, lovers in the wilderness of Chambeshi, surrounded by beauty and hidden danger. It immediately switches to London in 1988, where Lara's past love for Oscar is threatening her marriage to Tim. He leaves for Africa on a journalistic assignment, furious because Oscar has left Lara valuable paintings. It is possible that Oscar, not Tim, may be the father of Lara's son - but Tim wants to be his sole provider. A traumatized Lara starts therapy. How has her passionate commitment to art trapped her in this situation? Lara began her career as a wildlife artist in Chambeshi where she met Tim and Oscar at her art exhibition. Tim and Lara become friends, whilst Oscar commissions art from her and promises employment at the Tin Heart Gold Mine. Lara is fascinated and curious about Oscar. They become lovers. Lara finds first-hand how colonialism and the Cold War are causing civil war in Chambeshi. Tim's investigations into Oscar's work make him distrust the man and his political ambitions, and he tries to warn Lara. Neither knows how dark and deep Oscar's plan for his survival is, where it will lead or the violence that Lara will have to physically endure at Oscar's hands... The Tin Heart Gold Mine is a fast-moving novel, providing an intense portrayal of an artist's life in London and painting the landscape and politics of an African country in colourful and truthful detail. It will appeal to fans of contemporary fiction, as well as those who enjoyed Ruth's first novel, The Shaping of Water.

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 janvier 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785898143
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The
Tin
Heart Gold
Mine
Ruth Hartley
Copyright © 2017 Ruth Hartley

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Matador
9 Priory Business Park,
Wistow Road, Kibworth Beauchamp,
Leicestershire. LE8 0RX
Tel: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]
Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador
Twitter: @matadorbooks

ISBN 9781785898143

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

For John.
“Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war for attack and defence against the enemy.” - Pablo Picasso
Contents
Prologue

Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five

Part Two
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven

Part Three
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine

Part Four
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three

Part Five
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four

Part Six
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight

Part Seven
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve

Part Eight
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three

Part Nine
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight

Part Ten
Chapter One
Chapter Two

Part Eleven
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five

Part Twelve
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten

Part Thirteen
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six

Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Ruth Hartley’s first novel, The Shaping of Water , is a character-driven story set around a lake in Central Africa during the Liberation wars.
“With its fragmented time lines, cast of diverse characters and wonderful rendering of landscape, this is a novel of challenging intellect and big ideas,” says Tanvi Bush, author of ‘Witch Girl’, published by Modjaji Books.

Ruth Hartley has published on Kindle “The White and Black Blues”, a short story about African jazz musicians, Louis Armstrong and Tom Waller who loves jazz but is inside the ‘wrong’ skin.

She grew up on a farm in Zimbabwe, learnt about art and politics in South Africa and about life in swinging London. After working in Zambia for many years she returned to England to study, write and travel. Ruth now lives in France and continues to write, draw and paint.

www.ruthartley.com
Prologue
OSCAR AND LARA 1985
Oscar and Lara watch the liquid heat of the day hatch out of a misty lopsided sun. It’s cool and fresh on the riverbank where they sit together, shoulders touching, under a huge fig tree. Its looped and tangled roots half in, half out of the river protect them from a frontal ambush by a crocodile while behind them, its aerial roots and twisted branches mean they won’t be surprised by wild creatures coming down to the water to drink. Oscar and Lara only speak to point out a bird or to identify its song. Their voices are so quiet they’re inaudible half a pace away. The sibilance of whispers carries for a greater distance, but by remaining still and speaking at this low pitch, they won’t disturb the most timid of wild animals.
“What a pretty creature!” Lara touches the back of Oscar’s hand to draw his attention to the creature she’s just seen.
“Beautiful and lethal.” Oscar links his little finger over Lara’s.
They have no need to tell each other that it’s a “boomslang” , a juvenile tree snake. Oscar told Lara a while ago how he watched a friend die from the internal haemorrhage caused by its slow-acting venom.
They watch the elegant reptile wind itself down the curves and folds of the tree nearby. Its apple-green scales shimmer with turquoise light, its bright round eye is functional and pitiless.
“It’s had breakfast – a bird’s egg – now it’ll sleep,” Oscar observes.
Halfway along the snake’s slender length there’s an oval swelling larger than its head that doesn’t impede its supple descent.
Lara looks up to see which bird’s nest has been raided, which bird is fluttering distressed above her head, but there is only the long thin call of a bush shrike and the busyness of the yellow and scarlet bishop birds in the reeds on the sandbank in mid-river. In a moment the boomslang vanishes among the shrubs at the tree’s roots. Lara makes a mental note of its nest and remembers another snake in hiding: the warlord from Angola known as General Njoka, or General Snake. He is rumoured to have burnt down villages a little way north and the local villagers are terrified. Oscar, alone, appears unconcerned.
The grip of Oscar’s hand makes Lara shivery. Yesterday she made sketches of him and his men launching the camp’s flat-bottomed boat into the river for a fishing trip. Though quite short, Oscar is as fit and strong as his African workers and as unselfconscious about his body. Lara can’t imagine him preening himself beside a swimming pool. Oscar is different. Oscar is tough. His body tells the story of his life, of his journeys and his wars. She finds this thought thrilling. She wants to know what he knows. It pleases her that he is so much older than her. Oddly, it makes her feel powerful. Yet last night drifting off to sleep in the iron circle of his arms, Lara had noticed that Oscar’s skin is softening, his flesh is slack in the hollows of his collarbones and under his chin. The hair on his chest is as grey as the hair on his temples. It made her feel tender, but it also made her a little sad. She felt something else as well. Did his mortality excite her? Last night Lara pushed the idea away and snuggled her head into Oscar’s neck.
Now, sitting by Oscar, Lara is certain everything is just as perfect as it should be.



Part One
London 1997
Chapter One
Mile End
At nine-thirty the sun breaks through the clouds above Bow Church Station and tips its load of blinding light into the second floor flat. Its rays are as sharp and clean as knives. Shielding her eyes from its glare, Lara hides behind the curtain in her studio and spies on Tim, her tall husband, and Adam, her small son, as they cross Mile End Road below her.
The part of Lara that is artist observes her family with professional detachment and clarity. Her visual brain calculates the differences and likenesses between her subjects, together with their relationship to the light and colour of their environment. Yesterday Lara told Tim and Adam that it suited her very well to stay home and paint while they spent the day together.
She lied.
The part of Lara that loves Tim and Adam knows that she won’t add one splodge of colour to any of her canvases today. She has no desire to paint. She feels as if she’ll never paint again. It seems a pointless activity. She was working on a commission for her agent but can’t decide if it is complete. She doesn’t care if it ever sells though once she was proud of it. The painting is large; the brushstrokes free and confident, the colours swirl from cool greens and greys to a focus of warm red and orange. It is a painting of the wild and overgrown Bethnal Green Jewish Cemetery in a pearl-pink twilight. A bright-eyed fox sits in the foreground, its front paws neatly together under its tidy tail. Behind the fox a homeless man sleeps on a grave stone under a litter of plastic sheets and dirty blankets. Lara has made several successful paintings inspired by the wildlife and rough sleepers in the cemetery but now she is wearied by the thought of them.
She has assets sitting silently in a bank vault that free her from the need to earn her living. These assets belonged to Oscar and infuriate Tim. Lara has no idea what to do with them. The problem is driving her mad.
When a canvas is almost finished, Lara has a private ritual that helps her judge if she can stop working on it. This ritual amuses Tim and intrigues and puzzles Adam when they catch her behaving oddly outside her studio door.
“I have to catch my paintings by surprise.” she explains. “I get stale – I look and look at what I’ve done – I need to see it with new eyes. Som