It’s Sunday. We’re back home and walking on eggshells. There’s silence in their bedroom. Daddy has mended the table legs and put a new knob on the pot. The bottom of the pan isn’t level any more and it does a little dance on the stove when the plate gets hot. The grown-ups whisper secret plans and we just have to fit in. If my daddy died from alcoholic poisoning we would be free, free to just be and to get on with our lives like other children, ordinary children.
Today is Gabriel’s birthday and Desiree and I offer to put on a concert especially for him, but he says concerts are for sissies. He’s sitting on the back step whittling a boat. He skulks off, scuffing his bare feet in the dirt. His shoulders are hunched over and we think he’s crying softly to himself.
It’s the weekend so Mommy puts aside her knitting – my pink bunny-wool bolero with dancing ballerinas – and ties on her apron. She has time to make us a nice breakfast. Sunny-side up, broken yolk, we don’t care, because when it’s in your tummy with bread and coffee it doesn’t really matter. Gabriel and Daddy work hard pulling electrical cable through pipes to make extra money, so they get all the double yokes. We understand the strain of being men. After breakfast we can do what we like. We can fuss the cat, play hopscotch, or dream of tomorrow’s tupenny cakes and yeasty ginger beer.
I’m in another world, so I jump when Mommy calls.
“Colleen, I want you to go over the line to Aunty Ruby and fetch my knitting pattern.”
It’s a hot day on the Cape Flats and there are heat patterns coming off the tar. I’m barefoot and wearing my cool blue-and-white gingham frock with the square neck. As I make my way through the station turnstile, a man in a long black car calls me. I race over the burning tar and jump onto the wide running board. He’s holding his thing, pointing it at the ceiling. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. He pats the seat beside him.
“Get in. I want you to touch me here,” he says in a deep voice.
He wiggles his thing around, but I’m not budging. Then I run for my life.
Heart thumping, I race down First Avenue as fast as my skinny legs can carry me, my feet barely touching the hot tarmac. He drives slowly beside me. As I round the bend into Kromboom Road I ignore the sign that tells you to Stop, Look and Listen. I scoot across the line as fast as I can as the ting-ting-ting sounds a warning. I turn to look at him before the train comes between us. He’s wearing a blue shirt and a maroon tie and he has a moustache. He looks so ordinary. He could have been my daddy.
Out of breath and wide-eyed, I race through Mr Chong’s doors.
“Can I help you?” Mr Chong asks kindly.
“I’m waiting for my mother.” Sometimes you have to tell a fib to save your skin.
I stay inside his shop for a long time, sifting through all the things from China. There are satin slippers and handbags, silk pyjamas, school bags, and paper lanterns in a row. We never buy them, but other people do. We only buy the things we need, like bread and milk, and coffee and tea, and beans and cheese. I watch Mr Chong unhook a pair of shoes from the ceiling with a long forked stick. He presents the shoes laid on his open palms. Mrs Uys doesn’t look convinced.
“Very durable, waterproof,” his gold tooth sparkles. “Can withstand the Cape Flats winters.”
Mr Chong finds me hiding behind one of the mirrored pillars, pulling funny faces and wondering what to do. “Where’s your mother?”
I run home like the wind, taking every secret short cut I’ve ever known.
Desiree is in the front yard. “Where have you been?
“There was a man in a big black car with his thing. It was big like Leonore’s gardener’s thing.”
How do men’s things grow so big? I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. It must be like Pinocchio’s nose.