The morning was cold, the mountain above Corriebush lightly iced with snow. ‘Sjoe!’ puffed Lily. ‘Just look at the steam coming out of my mouth. ‘Sjoe!’ she puffed again. ‘I’m smoking like a pipe.’ She wrapped her yellow scarf tightly round her neck; rubbed her gloved hands together. ‘My fingers have all gone to sleep.’
‘And the train’s blerrie late,’ complained Sophia.
‘Perhaps she’s not even on it,’ remarked Nellie. ‘Missed the connection. You know how these young people are, especially when they’re famous.’
‘I just hope she’s been sensible and remembered to dress for the Karoo in July,’ went on Amelia. ‘Corriebush isn’t Hawaii, you know.’
‘Isn’t that a little white puff in the sky?’ asked Maria. ‘Look, over there! Just above the koppie beyond Van Wyk’s dairy.’
‘Ja-nee, that’s smoke alright,’ agreed Anna.
And together they turned their heads and stared into the middle distance.
The Welcoming Committee had come to the station much too early, because the train from the north seldom arrived according to schedule. It all depended on how many cows were in milk. If all the neighbouring farmers were having a good season, there were several stops to be made in order to load the full cans. If there were no cans at the farm gates, the train just rattled past. So one never knew. And that was why they had come early and, for a good hour, had stood side-by-side outside the ticket office, clucking about the weather, anxiously peering this way and that, teetering a little on their high heels like birds on a telephone wire. They were not given to early rising in winter, did not enjoy standing on the station in the biting easterly wind, but as Nellie said, they had no right to complain. ‘How would we feel, after all, if we were Jacoba van Rhyn? If we were famous and coming back to visit our home town out of the kindness of our hearts, how would we feel if there was no-one to welcome us and say “Hello” and “How Are You?”’
‘Nellie, you’re right,’ agreed Sophia. ‘What does a bit of standing around matter, when it’s such a suspicious occasion?’
‘Auspicious, Sophia.’
‘A first for Corriebush.’
‘A once-off. Never to be repeated.’
‘What if fame has gone to her head and she walks right past us and into a taxi?’
‘Never. Not our Jacoba. She might be a star now, but she was always a sweet, polite child and she won’t have changed. I can feel it in my waters, as my mother used to say. Basically, she’ll still be our own little Jacoba van Rhyn, come home to roost for a while.’
‘Preen her feathers a bit.’
‘Show Corriebush a thing or two.’
‘Nothing wrong with that.’
‘She’ll probably be dressed up, though. After all, when you’ve been to Russia and seen all those churches and museums and palaces, you don’t walk round in flat shoes anymore.’
‘So what will she be wearing, I wonder?’
‘Oh furs, that’s for sure. Furs and fine leather boots. Jewels too.’
‘A Brown Bear hat on her head,’ added Amelia, looking wise.
‘That’s right. A Brown Bear hat,’ they echoed.
‘And a muff right up to her elbows.’
‘That too.’
‘Now remember, she may be so dolled up that we don’t recognise her, but if we all shout “Yoo-hoo!” as she climbs down the steps, she’ll be sure to notice us.’
‘Get ready, then. I see the engine’s coming round the bend.’
Like a flock of long-necked geese they peered down the line, still chattering excitedly. But when Jacoba stepped onto the platform, a silence fell as suddenly as though a blanket had been thrown over a cage of canaries.
Soon after matriculating, Jacoba van Rhyn had left Corriebush for Port Elizabeth, as had many of her friends. But in Jacoba’s case it wasn’t the bright lights that beckoned. Music was her passion, and she had been accepted as a pianoforte student at a leading college of music in the city.
The women had been astonished by her decision.
‘I really thought it was Hollywood for her.’
‘A Miss World in the making.’
‘A bride fit for a king!’
‘And who does she choose? Chopin.’
If Jacoba had not been such a lovely young woman, her choice of career would not have caused such surprise. But the trouble was, Jacoba was absolutely stunning. Although her parents, Geo and Joey, were quite an ordinary-looking couple, their only child had inherited the best genes from both sides.
‘A flawless beauty, that one,’ the women often remarked. ‘Flawless, with a nature to match.’
‘Not high and mighty either.’
‘Nor hoity-toity, like some of the other good-lookers.’
In spite of the fact that she had been elected Spring Queen in her final school year, and had every young man in the district asking for a date, Jacoba remained sweetly shy and seemingly unaware of the admiring looks she received wherever she went. Her hair was long, very long, blonde streaked over brown, her skin a pale ivory, her eyes startling sea-green under arched black brows. Added to this were the blessings of long shapely legs and generous breasts, which made her waist seem even smaller, her hips rounder.
‘There’s a model there,’ the women told Joey.
‘Send her to Milan and you can retire.’
But all Jacoba wanted to do was play the piano. She was awarded honours for all her examinations, right up to the Licentiate Division, when she faultlessly played Liszt’s lyrical Consolation No. 6.
‘She seems to go into another world,’ Joey told them. ‘When she’s playing I can drop an empty bucket behind her and she won’t even hear it.’
‘Old soul,’ remarked Daniel, who knew about these things.
Although Geo and Joey had to get a loan from the bank, they did not try to dissuade their daughter from studying further. They paid her fees and found safe lodgings for her in a boarding house in Port Elizabeth. It was close to the college, and there was a piano in the dining room. It stood next to the dessert trolley and Mrs Parks, the owner, said she was welcome to use it.
‘Never had a finger on it since old Mr Jingles died. His real name was Arthur, but we all called him Mr Jingles because he used to play while we had our meals. Tickled the ivories, as they say. All the old tunes. Sometimes people even got up and did a foxtrot or two. It will be good to have some music in here again.’
Jacoba couldn’t play a foxtrot, but at the evening meals she introduced them to Beethoven and Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Schumann and the elderly boarders would sit spellbound, heads cocked to one side, forks poised, forgetting to eat, focused on the beautiful girl, mesmerised by the music.
After just one year, Jacoba was giving solo recitals in the City Hall. And this was when the unbelievable, unforeseeable happened.
She was scheduled to play two works by Schumann, Des Abends and Soaring, followed by Grieg’s Sonata in E minor after the interval, and posters went up all over the city. The advertising was clever: the posters featured a romantic photograph of the young pianist with the flowing hair, perfect profile, bent over the keys, wearing a long, white evening gown. Predictably, every ticket was sold within days, including one to Richard Evans.
As a scout for the Carter Trust, Richard wasn’t particularly interested in music. His job was to fly the world in search of talent. Richard was a nephew of Edward Carter, a wealthy philanthropist who, before his death, had set up a trust fund with the young man as executor. ‘This is my aim and it will be your mission, Richard,’ he had told him, and then dictated these exact words: ‘The Carter Trust will embrace the fields of music, art and literature. It will honour young women with both beauty and intelligence, who would use the prize money not only to further their talents, but to enhance the lives of others less fortunate.’ Each year the venue for the competition was held in a different country. That year it was Russia.
After Jacoba’s performance in Port Elizabeth, Richard went backstage, introduced himself, asked her a few details and explained his mission. Richard was glib and experienced and he knew that, however much Jacoba might waver, he held the trump card. If she won she would get a great deal of prize money, she could reimburse her parents for her fees and she could bring music to the children of Corriebush; even teach some of them how to play.
‘You could set up a music school, fill it with instruments, and bring much happiness into other people’s lives.’ Seeing Jacoba’s hesitation, he knew how to hit the final chord.
‘Perhaps this is your vocation, Jacoba. Your chance to give back some of the blessings with which you have been endowed.’
Richard had gauged her nature correctly. He knew she would capitulate, and she did. But he couldn’t resist a barb about her name. ‘I wish, though, that you had another name.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like – like Opal, for example. Or even Rosemary, just as a stage name. But Jacoba?’
Jacoba wouldn’t hear of it. ‘If the name was good enough for my grandmother, then it’s good enough for me.’
The details that followed terrified her. ‘This year the competition will be in Russia – Moscow, to be exact. You will fly over next week, and this will give you just one month to practise there and meet the other contestants – there will be several pianists, a cellist, at least one violinist, as well as artists, poets and authors. There will be both scheduled and unscheduled performances for the musicians; the artists can expect workshops and exhibitions; and there will be reading and practicals for the poets and authors. All the contestants will also have several interviews with the judges. One month will give you time to acclimatise to the weather, buy some appropriate clothes and pay a few visits to a beauty parlour before your final performance. Remember, the judges will be looking not only for ability and dedication, but also for poise, intelligence and grace. You should score highly and I wish you luck.’
Geo and Joey were not happy about allowing their nineteen-year-old daughter to travel so far away, but they were proud of her having been chosen, and realised it was an exceptional opportunity. Richard actually wrote to reassure them that ‘all the girls’, as he put it, would be well managed and taken care of, and in the end they sent her off with their blessing, a hot water bottle and sheepskin gloves tucked into her suitcase.
‘You say the child is going to RUSSIA?’ exclaimed Sophia, when Joey broke the news at tea one afternoon.
‘Yes, to Moscow.’
‘Oh my glory. Well, at least it’s not Blerrievostok.’
‘Vladisvostok, Sophia.’
‘I once had a lovely boyfriend who joined a Russian ship. He was a deck-hand, you know, out to see the world on the cheap. And they sailed to Blerrievostok and when they parked in the harbour he ran away and was never heard of again.’
‘Ag fie.’
Sophia dabbed at her eyes. ‘Clean gone.’
Jacoba shivered as she unpacked in the modest hotel room in Moscow. She had met the other contestants, could not understand all the different languages, but she knew that in any case they would all be too busy to socialise much. And so it was. Every day, for most of the day, they practised their art. Jacoba spent at least eight hours at the piano, hardly taking time off to eat. She lost weight, because when she wasn’t at the piano, she would sit in her room brooding. And because she was so weary, physically, her confidence had plummeted. By day her thoughts kept turning to the heart-thumping performance that lay ahead; her nights were haunted by nightmares of what might happen. It helped a little to write these things down in her diary. ‘It’s that final, hushed moment when I sit down on the piano stool; the terrible, inevitability of it! No escape. My mind a blank. I sit staring at the keys. Then I fumble, stumble, sharps instead of flats, I’m in a minor key instead of a major, I hesitate, start again … stand before the judges, answer questions … If only it were over, finished, home again, gone … Why did I come?’ Often she cried herself to sleep. And yet, and yet … on the night of the performance, when she sat down to play, from the very first note Jacoba lost all her fears; forgot where she was; allowed the notes to float under her fingers, now soft and slow, then forte and joyous. Once again she was in the dream world that artists enter when they become one with creation. Her performance was brilliant.
Once the news had been telegraphed to the Corriebush Daily, it spread through the town like a veld fire. ‘JACOBA TRIUMPHS!’ read the headlines. ‘OUR DAUGHTER OF THE VELD, OUR GEM OF THE KAROO, BRINGS GLORY TO CORRIEBUSH!’
Geo and Joey were ecstatic. Joey could not stop crying. In the end the women had to forbid her to come to the station. ‘After all, this is a joyous occasion, Joey, and we know she’s your child and all, but we can’t have you sniffling there. We’re going to clap and call Yoo-hoo when she arrives. And you’d be a sorry sight, blowing your nose all the time.’
And so that is the story, and the reason why the Welcoming Committee of Corriebush – Anna and Lily and Maria and Nellie and Amelia and Sophia – came to be standing on the station platform so early one biting July morning.
Jacoba jumped from the train onto the platform and that was when a shocked silence fell on them. There were no furs, and no jewels. Jacoba was wearing jeans, a turtle-neck sweater and tackies. Their smiles drooped briefly, but then she held out her arms. ‘Aunties!’ and quickly they came to their senses, rushed to embrace her. It was an emotional moment for them, they were all choked up, now laughing, now reaching for their handkerchiefs. Sophia was the first to find her voice.
‘Where’s your yak hat, then?’
‘My what?’
‘Ag child, never mind,’ said Lily, embarrassed. ‘We’ll explain another day. Right now Herman is waiting with the car over there under the pepper tree. And your parents have put the kettle on. Come! We’ll all help you with your things.’
They drove to Geo and Joey’s smallholding just outside the town.
Lily raised her cup of tea. ‘To Jacoba!’
‘To Jacoba!’
Joey cut the cake. ‘The whole of Corriebush is buzzing with plans to celebrate you, my child. We thought perhaps a big party in the Town Hall? Such an award needs to be honoured, not so ladies?’
They nodded furiously, but Jacoba held up her hand.
‘Ja, I won the award, but the whole point is to try and double the prize money now. It’s my duty.’
‘Ag, the child wants to do her bit by the community.’
‘That’s right, Auntie Maria. That’s exactly what I have to do. So we must think of a plan.’
‘A bazaar?’ suggested Sophia.
‘Ag no, not enough profit there.’
‘A raffle then?’
‘Still not good enough.’
They went home to think, and it was Servaas who came up with a sensational idea.
‘A float procession!’ he exclaimed. ‘Like they have at the universities. Lorries cruising down the street, all decorated with streamers and things, and you ladies standing on them shaking tins.
All our friends will line the streets and throw money at you.’
Maria presented the idea to all the women at a tea the following afternoon. Jacoba loved it.
But Lily had reservations. ‘We have to have a theme,’ she told them, remembering her days at University, when she had been Carmen Miranda with a bowl of fruit on her head. ‘You can’t just have lorries looking like birthday cakes, there must be something more, to encourage people to give.’
They stirred their tea thoughtfully; nibbled the cookies; said ‘I just can’t think of a thing,’ and ‘I’m no good at this sort of game,’ when Jacoba suddenly jumped up. ‘I’ve got it! I’ve got it! We’ll have a “Guess-who? Fancy Dress!”’
‘Brilliant!’ Amelia exclaimed. ‘Absolutely the jackpot! And seeing that the money is for children, why don’t we each dress up as a character from a children’s story?’
‘Or a fairytale! Or a myth!’
Their enthusiasm started to sparkle.
‘And there’ll be six lorries – we’ll borrow them from the sheep farmers, they all have big lorries with railings round – and each of us will be on a lorry with a tin up front for donations, and a tin at the back for entry forms.’
‘Entry forms?’
‘Ja, people will have to guess who we are, and the first one drawn with all the correct answers will get a prize. Perhaps one of the farmers will donate a sheep.’
The women whooped with excitement. The plan was faultless and fun, and they rushed home to consult their husbands and all the old story books in their dusty bookcases, promising to meet again the following morning to discuss their decisions.
They sat round Amelia’s dining table – they had decided to meet there because Daniel was known to be the brains among the men and might come up with some great suggestions. Lily set the ball rolling. ‘I’m going to be the siren of the Rhine, sitting on the Lorelei,’ she announced proudly.
‘Sitting on what?’
‘A rock.’
‘That’s nice,’ said Sophia.
‘Yes. The siren sat on a steep rock called the Lorelei, on the bank of the river, and sang songs that lured sailors to her and then they died.’
‘Ag fie.’
‘So Herman will build a little rock for me and I’ll sit on it, undo my bun so that my hair hangs down, and I’ll beckon and sing ‘Ich Weiss Nicht’ – that one. I might even drape a fish across my lap if old Vissie the Fishmonger has a good catch that day, a yellowtail perhaps, to give them a clue.’
‘A tricky one, Lily. A tricky one that. But very original.’
Maria chose to be Cinderella. ‘Simple. I’ll just stick some patches onto my blue ball gown – you know the one I wore to the Show Ball and Servaas put his foot right through the skirt in the foxtrot? It’s spoilt anyway. Then I’ll tie an apron round my waist and sweep the lorry floor with a broom and hold my hand to my forehead and look very sad and hungry and faint.’
‘Now I don’t wish to sound vain,’ said Anna, ‘but I’d like to be The Sleeping Beauty. James will make up a nice soft bed for me, and I’ll just lie down in a pretty pink nightdress, with a crown on my head and my little canary on my chest. Maybe, after a while, I’ll give a big yawn, and sit up and look about me, very confused. That will give them a clue alright.’
Both Nellie and Amelia chose quickly guessable ones, to encourage the children to support. ‘Red Riding Hood for me,’ said Nellie. ‘I’ll wear a red scarf round my head and Charlie’s big red mackintosh, and I’ll tuck a basketful of goodies under my arm. Charlie can put a potted tree on the back of the lorry, to look like a forest, and I’ll walk round and round it, and now and then I’ll dip into my basket, throw a biscuit to a child and ask for a tickey or a sixpence for my box, in payment.’
Amelia would be a perfect Goldilocks. Not only did she have truly flaxen hair, but she was short and girlish and plump. She’d sit at a table on her lorry, surrounded by three teddy bears of just the right size – father, mother and baby bear, which she would borrow from Tom at the ToyShopStop. ‘I’ll put three bowls of porridge, a jug of milk and a jar of honey on the table, and from the time the lorries take off, I’ll start eating. I’ll go on until all three plates are empty, and then I’ll press the buttons in the backs of the bears and they’ll growl. The children will love it.’
‘Your turn, now Sophia.’
‘Olive.’
‘Olive?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘But I don’t know of a fairy tale with an olive – do you, Lily?’
‘Never heard of one. Is it just Olive Sophia? Or does it have a surname?’
‘Olive’s Twist,’ Sophia replied smugly.
‘Oh dear, Sophia, it’s Oliver Twist and that’s a whole novel!’
‘Oh my glory. Well then I’ll be Olive Schreiner.’
They began to look desperate. ‘She’s not a fairy tale, Sophia.’
‘Then it’s Olive Oyl for me.’
‘Olive Oyl?’
‘Ja, Popeye’s wife. You know, the one who ate the spinach.’
It was no use arguing further, except to ask her how she was going to look like an olive.
‘There’s an old rain barrel in our back yard, a round belly and narrower top and bottom, it will look just like an olive once Dawid has painted it green. Then I’ll sit inside with a bunch of spinach sticking out of the top, and Bob’s your uncle. I’m Olive Oyl.’
The float procession was scheduled for the following Saturday morning, as most of the farmers came to town on Saturdays. The mayor and town councillors had promised their support, and the shopkeepers had agreed to close their doors for the duration so that their staff and would-be shoppers could help swell the crowds and toss up their money. And, of course, being a Saturday, all the school children and their teachers would be free and able to cheer them on.
It was a glorious sight. Slowly the lorries rumbled their way down the main street, then down towards the mountain, and up to the houses on the hill – the elite area. The men had gone to heaps of trouble to brighten up the old, rather weary farm lorries, for the planks had been scratched by a million hooves over the years. They draped them with streamers and calendulas and nasturtiums, which grew in every garden in Corriebush, because they were hardy and did not need much rain. They wound ivy leaves round every possible wheel, strut, axle and cab, twisted streamers into the wooden rails, and tied big bunches of balloons on the backs, so that they would dip and rise in the breeze. The tins, painted in bright colours, were hung in prominent positions.
The Corriebush Carnival was a total, hooting success. People dropped coins not only into the tins, they threw them onto the lorries as well.
‘Sjoe! On my blerrie head,’ wailed Sophia as a half-crown struck her forehead. Some farmers thrust notes into the tins, others stuffed in their cheques, and everyone entered for the prize draw, except the husbands who said it would be a skelm thing to do because they all knew who their wives were. In the end, Vissie won the prize, and the total donations amounted to close on £l,800.
Jacoba was ecstatic. Even after paying her parents for her fees, she had enough over to hire a hall, buy an upright piano, two violas, a trumpet, a triangle and two recorders. For six months she stayed in Corriebush and in that time the thrall of classical music touched 45 pupils of all races. They left their rugby and marbles, their tricycles, bicycles, even their dolls. And in no time she had a little orchestra going, holding concerts for all the parents.
Before long, however, Jacoba had to go back to the college to continue her studies, but she promised to return once a month for further rehearsals and tuition. In the end, the Corriebush Children’s Orchestra was playing all over the district, as far away as Graaff-Reinet and beyond. After five years, during which time Jacoba never missed a single monthly visit, she finally had to stop. Her classes had increased to 70, but she had married a Port Elizabeth doctor and felt it was time to stay at home. Geo and Joey became the proud grandparents of four boys, including a set of triplets.
Corriebush will never forget Jacoba: there’s a plaque on the wall outside the little hall in which she taught, and on it is written simply:
JACOBA’S MUSIC SCHOOL
It might still be there, just past the museum, in the avenue lined with oak trees.
