Daddy’s home.
“Mavis, we’ve been sent to Pretoria.”
“But where will we stay?”
“We’ll find a boarding house and the Public Works Department will pay.”
And so Mommy gives up her job and packs the pillow slips you can shoot peas through. We travel on the train all the way to Pretoria and then we climb into a taxi.
“Take us to Haddon Hall,” Daddy tells the man.
Mommy goes shopping.
“Sit at the window,” she says, “and watch the blossoms fall from the trees. They’re called jacarandas. You’ll see, soon they’ll lie in great purple heaps, thick as carpets on the pavements.”
We watch the cars skid on the slippery petals and then, suddenly, big balls of hail tumble from the sky.
“Chicken Licken better watch out for his head,” says Gabriel.
The Pretoria Zoo becomes our favourite place and we make new friends at the boarding house. We have delicious food, served by a big black lady in a white apron and cap, and pudding with every meal. Daddy learns to love toast and marmalade. We’ve never heard of marmalade before. Daddy says it’s British. “Only two weeks to go before we leave Pretoria for Cape Town,” says Daddy. “We’d better find somewhere to stay.”
“Ruby’s found a house for us in Third Avenue in Crawford, near Rondebosch. She knows the Cape Flats like the back of her hand. Aunty Ruby says it’s a sad house, all closed up, and it needs some life, some young happy voices.”
And before we know what’s happening, the time has come for Gabriel to leave his new school and we’re packing up again. We have to leave the jacarandas, the zoo and the hailstones too.
Before we move into the sad house in Third Avenue, we stay with his mother, our ouma, in her house in Parow, so Daddy has to stay sober. The postman brings Aunty Ruby’s letter, thick as a book. Mommy reads the last bit aloud as we crowd around her knees.
There’s Berg’s and Chong the Chinaman in Taronga Road, and an Indian trader, a babbie, Mr Abdullah. There’s another babbie on your side of the line. The school and the church are both in Fourth Avenue and the nearest doctor is Dr West, on the corner of Kromboom and Milner Roads in Rondebosch, not too far for emergencies. There’s Plax Chemist and the Kritz Bioscope, both in Lansdowne. The coloureds live in a place called Mossienes, including Edna. She’s a servant girl I’ve organised for you. Everyone knows her because she has blue-blue eyes. She’s probably the envy of the neighbourhood. I hope you are all well. Love, Ruby and Norman.
P.S. I won’t offer to meet you. I can only take Jacob in small doses. You know how I feel about his goings on.
“Why doesn’t Aunty Ruby want to see Daddy?” Gabriel’s eyes are as wide as one of Ouma’s saucers.
Mommy pauses before she answers.
“Because she belongs to the South African Party, Jannie Smuts’s Party, she is a Sap and Daddy is a NAT because he is a National Party supporter and if they meet they end up arguing about politics.”
Aunty Ruby comes to visit at Ouma’s house while Daddy is at work.
“Please don’t let on to Jacob about Mossienes,” Mommy says to Aunty Ruby.
“Ruby’s directions are spot on,” says Mommy without looking at Daddy as we walk from the station. “Look at our house!”
Desiree and Gabriel run to the gate and squabble over who gets to lift the latch. Mommy forgets to let go of my hand, so I can’t budge. We are so lucky. Because the house stands all on its own, we have a wide, wild field to play on. The curved path snakes from the front gate to the red polished stoep. The grandest part of the house is the two tall pillars holding up the stoep roof.
“This stoep hasn’t seen a sniff of polish for forever,” says Mommy. “We’ll have to buy some Sunbeam.”
Daddy squints at the paper in his hand. “Says there are two bedrooms, a lounge, a kitchen, an afdak lean-to bathroom and a bucket lavatory.”
I wonder which bedroom I’m going to sleep in.
“The only way to heat water is in a copper geyser.”
“I know it isn’t a palace, Jacob, but it’ll have to do.”
“Look at the beautiful cherry-guava tree,” says Daddy. “The only other trees here are pines and Port Jackson … But just you wait – I’m going to transform this garden. I’ll plant agapanthus and plumbago bushes like the ones we had on the farm when I was a boy, and zinnias up the path and sunflowers and mealies in the backyard.”
“Can we keep chickens?” asks Gabriel. “And pigeons?”
“Can we have a dog?” Desiree butts in.
“And what about a cat?” I squeeze in at last.
“This house is so small, we’ll have to call it the Doll’s House,” Mommy laughs.
“Mavis, there’re a lot of coloureds walking past. Mossienes is crawling with them!”
“Beggars can’t be choosers, Jacob!”
I glance nervously at Gabriel and Desiree. I hope Mommy and Daddy are not going to fight. Daddy shrugs his shoulders. “At least there’s a hokkie for me to keep my tools in. That’s a bonus,” he says, almost to himself.
Before we even see inside the house, we line up outside the lavatory to pee. Daddy comes out patting his fly buttons and looking cross.
“It stinks to high heaven in there. A whole household must’ve dropped their load and the kakabalie men haven’t taken the bucket away.”
Desiree skips down the path, climbs the steps and stands on the stoep. She sings ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ as though she’s on a stage, then bows low and makes us laugh out loud.
Then, suddenly, from nowhere a strange hum interrupts our laughter. A man. He’s making singing sounds. Near, but far.
“You better get used to that,” snorts Daddy,
“What’s it, Daddy? Why’s he singing like that?”
Daddy points up the road, but I see nothing. “The Moslems. Part of their religion. You can set your watch by that sound, just like the noon-day gun. But I can do without it, thank you very much.”
“Oh, come on, Jacob. They’re calling the faithful to prayer. It’s no different from the ringing of a church bell.”
“Listen, you were probably born a stone’s throw from a mosque. So maybe you don’t mind the muezzin calling … Me, if I had my way, I’d be miles away from them and their strange ways.”