Daddy can’t wait for Ouma to leave. Her eau de cologne is still wafting on the air in the lounge when he hits the bottle. It’s a rough night with not much sleep. The school bell rings, but we lie in bed until the last minute. Our rumpled school uniforms and broeks are on the chair beside our bed, ready to be filled by little unwashed people with unbrushed teeth. As usual, we skid into the schoolyard at the last minute, out of breath, but in line with the best of them. While we wait we tidy our loose bits. We force smiles and keep a stiff upper lip, but sometimes my bottom lip quivers and tears roll down my cheeks, but I brush them away. Only brothers and sisters understand.
Today we have Gulliver travelling in the Land of Lilliput. The giant Gulliver is tied down with ropes, helpless, while the little folk swarm all over him. Mrs Findlay says it’s only a story and not to worry, but I worry anyway. I bite my nails and wriggle in my seat, unable to concentrate for longer than a minute. I’m sitting at my desk, drawing a picture of snowdrops and gabled houses, and dreaming of the school holidays, when the teacher startles me.
“Stand up, Colleen Le Seuer. You will take Thelma’s place. She’s not well.”
I can’t believe my ears.
“Th-thank you, Miss,” I stammer, with my heart hammering in my chest. I pinch myself. I’m going to be the shepherdess in the school play. Thelma lives in a big house on the right side of the railway track and she has a father who never touches a drop. I’m quite sure she has breakfast in bed, and roast chicken every day.
“Class dismissed.”
The girls cast envious sidelong glances at me as they file out of the classroom. The white satin dress has puff sleeves, lots of lace, a scoop neck and a basque, and best of all is that Thelma’s mother paid for it. It slides over my waiting body.
“You’re such a skinny child,” says Mrs Findlay after class when I’m trying on Thelma’s costume. “I’ll have to put some tucks in the sides.”
I don’t care what she does as long as I can take part in the concert. Mrs Findlay says I can wear my white boots that stabilise my skinny ankles, because they match the white satin dress and the dress will cover them anyway. I know I can do the steps, because I’ve watched Thelma de Wit like a hawk. Desiree has performed many times, but she’s never worn a white satin dress and stood opposite Ernest du Toit. I like him a lot and sometimes sit next to him in class, but now I like him even more. He wears knee-length white satin trousers with white stockings. The silver buckles on his shoes shine, and on his hat there’s an ostrich feather, white as snow. I just know I’m going to fall in love. I’ll carve his name in a heart on a tree: C.L.S. loves E.d.T. I can tell Ernest is not as excited as I am. He’s more interested in sending paper darts whizzing around the classroom. One more sleep. I hope Ernest doesn’t let me down.
The setting sun reflects in the panes of the sash windows and in the fanlight above the double doors. Butterflies are doing a jitterbug in my stomach. It’s real, because I’ve seen my name in the programme. The cloakroom is abuzz with the high-pitched voices of over-excited children. Mrs Findlay checks my hair. My curls are bouncy, because last night Mommy did my hair in rags, all twisted tight and tied off in knots. When they put the poke bonnet on my head I’ll look like Miss Muffet in the picture books. Mrs Findlay puts some rouge on my cheeks and a little lipstick on my lips. Squinting at the hand-mirror, I look like Jean Harlow in the bioscope. My heart is beating in my ears. Alice has finished performing her recitation and now it’s my turn. I stand on my pedestal holding my crook with the big satin bow. The choir sings about the shepherd and shepherdess made of stone and how they come alive and fall in love. The teacher in the wings will tell me when to come alive.
In a quaint old chateau garden …
Stands a shepherdess of carven stone.
Another hidden teacher tells Ernest to come alive and he climbs off his pedestal. I’m frozen in position.
“Get down!” hisses the teacher, but my feet won’t move. The choir repeats the chorus.
In a quaint old chateau garden …
I remember my mommy telling me there’s no such word as can’t and suddenly it makes sense. I can see the steps in my head and my wobbly legs take me to the centre of the stage. Ernest joins me and together we dance to the other side. Mrs Findlay had said be brave, keep smiling and don’t fall over the edge. So I try to keep a smile on my face but it looks more like a scowl. Just before the choir sings the last lines, Ernest puts out his hand and helps me climb back onto my pedestal. I stand like a statue, not moving a muscle. He dances back to his pedestal, climbs up and stands still. The curtain closes and the audience claps and claps. The curtain opens again and Ernest takes off his hat and bows. The ostrich feather tickles my nose and I sneeze.
“Excuse me.”
Someone shouts Bless you! and suddenly they’re all clapping like mad. This time I smile with all my heart. I feel warm inside almost like when Aunty Dolly gives me the milk and brandy.
That night the stars are shining above my head and my name is up in lights with Jean Harlow and Shirley Temple. In my bed I relive every step of the concert. I wish I could be the shepherdess again and again, just for that warm feeling.
The Dorothy Perkins roses are coming into bud and the Christmas butterflies are flitting about. Mommy says you can depend on the seasons. Like clockwork they come round, bringing order to our disorderly lives. Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat. It’s time for a new dress for the Sunday School Anniversary. We practise weeks ahead and our anniversary stage is Daddy’s stepladder. I sit on a rung halfway up and Desiree gets to sit right at the top. We sing all the Christmas hymns and do all the actions. On the big day we’ll know all the words off by heart and we won’t miss a beat. Lying in bed we listen to the clickety-click. There’s silence while Mommy changes the bobbin and then she turns the handle at top speed until way past midnight. We finger the pink material. There are blue rosebuds nestling in the folds around the neck and the skirt and we can’t wait to wear the dresses. No one will recognise us on Christmas morning.
Mommy comes home from work with lots of rustling packets. Millions of shopkeepers are keeping secrets and surprises in dark corners. The lay-by system was designed for hardworking mothers, overworked and underpaid.
“God bless the understanding shopkeepers,” mutters Mommy.
Brown paper parcels, tied up with hairy string, are hidden out of reach on the top shelf of Mommy’s wardrobe. We wear our eyes out trying to work out what’s inside.
“It d-doesn’t make s-sense. W-we know those p-presents are for us.”
Although we don’t buy his fancy paper lanterns and satin slippers, Mr Chong still gives us a Christmas box. It might be a beautiful glass jug, a shoehorn, or a tin tray with his name on. We feel proud because he calls Mommy his esteemed customer.
The Selbournes’ dining-room table will be laden with sweets and biscuits. Mr Selbourne will wear his red Christmas hat and, with tears in his eyes, sing along with Bing Crosby about a white Christmas. Despite the tears, he says, By Jove, this is the best time of the year! Daddy will cut a Christmas tree in the bush. Aunty Katarina will stop at the chemist to buy a fresh roll of cotton wool for our tree. Aunty Beryl will invite us to her house to see the gingerbread men, tied with red ribbon. They’re ornaments, but you can eat them and every year they give you one. She will put ‘Schlaf wohl du Himmelsknabe’ on the turntable. Her Jesus, Mary and Joseph come all the way from the Black Forest in Germany. We don’t have a baby Jesus, a crib or gingerbread men, but we always have a drunk Daddy.
We eye the Atwells’ Christmas Pudding on the kitchen shelf. The Osrin’s bottle-store man delivers strange brews from Lansdowne in the sidecar of his big Harley-Davidson motorbike. Daddy says he is not going to be caught with his pants down. There are big bottles of beer, the glass so dark it’s hard to see inside, the hated big flat bottle of brandy, and a bottle of Advocaat.
“Don’t you bring Advocaat into this house,” says Mommy. “It’s a drink for prostitutes.”
Desiree dances around singing, “The prostitutes are coming to our house, the prostitutes are coming to our house.”
The man from Osrin’s strains under the weight of a crate of cool drinks and the glass bottles clink together, beautiful colours, red, green and yellow. But we have to wait until after church on Christmas day. We never bother to use glasses. That would be too much trouble.
Pink Christmas-morning light wakes me. Mrs Bells’s rooster is crowing and Bessie is pawing the side of the bed. I recognise the shape of a shoebox in the white pillowcase tied to the bedpost. The shiny shoes have black patent-leather ankle straps with a single round button, like a teddy bear’s eye. We are allowed to wear them only on Sundays and special days. There are new socks to go with the patent-leather shoes, snow white with turnovers, and a box of crayons and a colouring-in book with pictures of children playing in the snow with hats and muffs.
“Desiree, is it snowing in England?”
“Yes, of course.”
“By Jove! Just asking.”
Desiree’s has pictures of children in costumes from around the world. Her shoes are the same as mine. Gabriel has a farm set made of lead. His lace-up shoes are black and he has a pair of sand shoes for school sports. There’s also a chrome lamp for his bike that works off a dynamo. He’s going to show us how it works when it gets dark. I rush to the lounge, hoping for a bicycle like Gabriel’s. It serves me right for getting my hopes up, but then there she is … the doll with the sleeping eyes – and she more than makes up for it. I name her Vanessa. Mommy has spoilt me too, because Vanessa is sitting beside a blue wicker pram. Desiree has a pink pram with a pretty doll inside. We wheel our prams right into Mommy’s bedroom, jumping up and down with excitement.
“I could drink every last drop of water in the Molteno Dam,” mumbles Daddy, opening one eye. “Go and fetch the biggest glass of water you can find.”
Falling over one another, we race for the kitchen. Despite walking carefully with our brimming glasses, we still get water down our fronts. Daddy grabs both glasses and swallows thirstily. Mommy gets up to make coffee and we dive into the bed next to Daddy. His breath nearly knocks us out but we lie one in each arm as he puffs on his pipe and sends blue clouds of smoke above our heads. We are his little girls and we know our daddy really loves us. It’s just the tokoloshe who gets into him and makes him do things he wouldn’t choose to do. Smuts never lies. We watch him, waiting for the next move in his morning-after-the-night-before ritual. He gargles loudly with salt water and splashes water onto his face. Sometimes he dunks his whole head under the water. He lets us mix his Andrews Liver Salts. The little bubbles rise to the surface and pop on our cheeks. He puts maroon-coloured paste onto the strop and sharpens the blade of his cut-throat razor. What happens if his hand slips? Light shines through the dark blue glass eye bath as he rinses both his eyes and now he is almost ready to face the world. The raw egg and Worcestershire sauce is next and then the streaky bacon, sausage and eggs.
The prostitutes never come to drink the Advocaat, but Aunty Dolly swallows a glass in one gulp and gets the hiccups.
“Gabriel, go and fetch Aunty Dolly a glass of water.”
Daddy shows her how to drink the water from the other side of the glass.
“Isn’t that just an old wives’ tale?”
Aunty Dolly looks funny bent over, her bum sticking up and her head down like our drinking ostrich.
“Stop staring,” hisses Mommy out the side of her mouth.
Ouma didn’t know she would see us again so soon. Only yesterday afternoon we wished her Merry Christmas and gave her a present, the new maroon jersey Mommy knitted. But Daddy’s eyes are bulging and the veins in his neck are throbbing. He threatens to burn the house down. He turns the furniture upside down and saws the legs off the kitchen table again. Enrico Caruso’s voice fills the lounge as we leave. I am crying, hanging onto the wicker pram handle for dear life.
“I want to take my doll too!”
“Don’t be so difficult – there’s not enough room!”
The coloured Christmas lights on the stoep reflect in the bonnet of the black taxi as we climb in. Mommy looks washed out as she sits forward to make herself comfortable. Her big tummy hangs over the edge of the seat, fighting with the pram handle. There’s not a single light on around us.
“Aunty Dolly is on duty tonight,” says Mommy, seeming to read my thoughts. She tells the taxi driver to take us to Parow.
The driver glances in his rear-view mirror and shakes his head. We’re crammed together in the back seat, my wicker pram squashed against our knees. The sky is inky black when we spill out of the taxi. The taxi driver gives Mommy too much change. “You need it more than I do. I hope things work out for you.”
Ouma is standing under the light on the stoep, wearing a soft pink dressing gown with the buttons done up to her wrinkled neck. As she bends down to kiss me a long plait escapes from under her pyjama top. Ouma’s long hair is usually tied up in a bolla, a neat round bun. Her hair is a pretty colour around the edges, where it hasn’t turned grey yet. Insects buzz around the naked light bulb.
“Shh!” says Ouma. “We don’t want to wake Oupa.”
Oupa can be scary when he’s cross, but not as scary as my daddy when he’s drunk.
Desiree and I both need the lav, so Ouma lights the way to the lavatory with the wobbly tin walls. Behind her Desiree recites in a singsong voice.
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick,
Jack jump over the candlestick.
While Desiree’s pee goes tinkle-tinkle in the balie, Ouma teaches us something in Afrikaans by a man named Langenhoven:
Uit die blou van onze hemel, uit die diepte van ons see …
When Ouma sings, our Doll’s House seems a million miles away. Tomorrow we’ll sit around Ouma’s kitchen table eating boer bread and stoof patats, sweet potatoes baked in the oven. We’ll leave with crisscross patterns on our legs from the riempie chairs and with a bit of luck Oupa will let us pull fresh vegetables from the rich earth.
I’m bawling my eyes out. My doll is smashed to smithereens on the floor beside my bed. All that’s left are her staring blue eyes. Her head is pushed in and she has no cheeks. Her mouth has disappeared under the bed. The blue clothes are still in place, but her arms and legs are soft pulpy bits, clinging to wool. Aunty Dolly says we could look for a doll hospital, but Mommy just sighs. I only had Vanessa for a day and I loved her with all my heart. Mommy promises me that on my birthday we can go to the CTC Bazaars and buy a new doll, but I know we can’t afford another one like her. I don’t know what Grandma is going to say because she was the one who gave me the doll in the first place. I’m scared she might blame me.
All things bright and broken
When it’s your birthday you’re queen for the day. It’s a rule in our house. Mommy says I have to be nice to Desiree, it’s an order. Desiree is lucky, because she was born on 31 December, and New Year’s Eve puts people in a good mood. Mommy says everyone is looking forward to celebrating new beginnings and brighter futures. For her birthday Desiree has parted her hair in the middle like Vivienne Leigh as Scarlet O’Hara in Gone with the Wind. Any moment now Clark Gable will scoop her up in his arms and carry her up the sweeping staircase of Tara, the big house in the Deep South, where she will be safe for the rest of her life. Desiree can never resist playing the part. When we go swimming at St James, she is Ester Williams. Desiree tries all the Ester Williams swimming styles in the tidal pool, even though Ester Williams doesn’t wear a bubble bathing costume and she doesn’t do belly flops.
The children from Mossienes have taught me well and I’m going to give Desiree a surprise. I find a quiet spot among the mealies and the sunflowers and line up the hole in my bum with the brown paper on the ground. I pray that my number two is not too soft and there’s also the smell to worry about. All goes well and once the parcel is tied with a stiff bow it looks like a real present. Underneath the kitchen dresser is a perfect hiding place.
I sing ‘Happy Birthday’ and the queen for the day bows.
“I have a present for you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I stuck a knife into my money box and slid a few pennies out.”
“Where? Am I warm?”
“No, you’re cold.”
“If you tell me where it is, I’ll share my present.”
“I pass! If it were a snake it would have bitten you.”
Desiree drops to her knees and squeals with delight. She undoes the string, but before she rips the paper apart she screams and flings the parcel over the stable door.
“If I catch you, I’ll kill you!” She chases me around the kitchen table. “Wait ’til I tell Mommy!”
I laugh so much I wet my broeks. Gabriel is standing in the corner, doubled over.
“It’s only number two. It won’t hurt you.”
But Desiree doesn’t stay cross for long. She won’t let me spoil her special day, she says. She’s still queen for the day.
She tells all the neighbours it’s her birthday, hoping they will give her something. Mrs Selbourne pretends she baked especially for Desiree’s birthday and sends some scones over with Gracie. The scones have lashings of strawberry jam and cream. Desiree sinks her big white teeth into a scone and I beg her to give me a taste, but because of the number two she won’t give an inch. Tonight, like always, I am going walkabout with my daddy and there’ll be little iced cakes by the dozen. When we leave, Mommy is sitting in the lounge with a faraway look in her eyes. Bing Crosby is working overtime, half singing and half reciting his way through a song all about a New Year’s wish.
Daddy’s feet step firmly on the path when we leave, but coming home it will be a different matter. He begins next door, with glasses of amber-coloured Portuguese sherry with bits of Madeira cake. The neighbours all know Daddy’s New Year’s Eve pattern and they’re not surprised to find him knocking. I sit beside him on strange couches sipping cool drink and eating iced cakes. By the time he’s knocked on every door, it’s way past midnight and he’s stammering and swaying. I lead him by the hand as he stumbles up our path singing.
0 brandewyn, laat my staan …
It means oh brandy, leave me alone, but it never seems to happen.
The sandman doesn’t stand a chance tonight. I run to the lavatory to vomit up iced cakes. Slippery spit spills down my chin. Back in bed I pull the blankets over my head and my stomach settles down. I dream of clowns in the circus and nuns in the convent and the marbles I’m going to win at school. I dream about sinking in the riverbed. It’s called quicksand. Only your hand sticks out and the clown in the circus jeers at me and the nuns are too old to save me. Black inky waters close over me and I’m drowning. My pee is flowing in a warm smelly yellow river. It runs down my legs, and adds to the quicksand in the riverbed. I remember the boy with his finger in the dyke in Holland. Maybe I can stick my finger in my hole to stem the flow. If I’m lucky I’ll pull out a plum, like Jack Horner sitting in the corner. Then there’s an eerie glow up river and Jesus is walking on water. I shout hooray, because Jesus has come to save me, just as He always does in Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories.
“Listen,” says Mommy, “I can hear a saxophone. Soon you’ll hear the banjo and the goema too. And probably the bones.”
“What’s a goema and bones?”
“The goema is a Malay drum and the bones are sticks you knock together.”
We run down the path towards the noise and shimmering colour.
Daar kom die Alibama,
die Alibama, die kom oor die seeeee …
Mommy and Daddy laugh as Desiree dances down the path. I climb halfway up the gate, my feet crammed into the wire mesh. I can almost touch the Coons.
Mommy says we are not to call them coons. “It’s rude,” she says. “Disrespectful.” We must call them Klopse, or minstrels. Daddy shakes his head at Mommy. But Mommy just ignores him. “Gold Dollars, Young Meadows, All Stars,” she reads their placards aloud.
The men are wearing stars and stripes in red satin, white satin, yellow, green and pink. Their whitened faces are sweaty from dancing fast in their white sand shoes.
“They’re drunk,” scoffs Daddy. “That’s why they can do those fancy steps.”
“Aren’t the pikkies sweet!” says Mommy. “Their tiny feet keep up with the big men with no trouble.”
A toddler trails behind the troupe, crying. His father calls out over his shoulder:
“Moenie huil nie, don’t cry. When I get home I’ll train you vir die Klopse!”
Desiree shoos me off the gate and runs into the street. She falls into step with the Klopse amid gales of laughter.
“Jislaaik! Just look at the small white medempie dans. Sy’t rhythm!”
“Los haar uit,” warns his friend. “Leave her alone. Can’t you see haar pa is a Nationalist Party heavy?”
Desiree is ready to follow the Klopse all the way to Hartleyvale, but Daddy gives her a look and Mommy calls her back through the gate. The music fades and we wait until the last of the parade disappears before we traipse back inside, Desiree still moving to the rhythm.
Daar kom die Alibama,
die Alibama, die kom oor die see.
Mommy tells us how she used to watch the Klopse getting ready for their celebrations when she was a little girl visiting her grandmother in Schotsche Kloof. “Klopse is their real name. People call them Coons, but that’s not right.”
“And how would you know?” Daddy wants to know.
“I grew up in the shadow of Table Mountain. I know all about the traditions of Cape Town.”
Daddy puts an Al Debbo record on the turntable and dances around the lounge with Desiree. Mommy and I sit on the couch and I clap my hands and smile while Daddy hums along with Al Debbo. It’s daytime and he’s sober, so we won’t have to listen to the same record over and over.
There’s a knock on the door.
“We mustn’t let anyone who looks fishy into the house!”
“It says F-Fletcher and C-C-Cartwright on the s-side of the v-van.”
The man carries the last box into the kitchen and our fingers are itching to get to the string.
“No, m-man, w-wait ’til M-mommy comes h-home!”
Her feet have no sooner touched the path than we rush her.
“It’s here, Castle on the Lake!”
“For heaven’s sake, give me a chance!”
We can’t wait to see the cream dinner service with the wavy edge and the castle towering above the lake and everything else. We attack the boxes, not stopping until all the china is stacked on the kitchen table.
“Save the string, Gabriel.”
“Isn’t that a sight for sore eyes? Fifty-four pieces!”
It’s even better than we imagined. We sit at the table with crossed legs and pinkies in the air as we hold the teacups, just the way the Queen does.
“Do pass me the cream and the sugah, please.”
“Ta,” we say, the way my Uncle Nick does.
“Look, it says Made in England underneath.”
“I can’t wait to show Leonore.”
As my fingers trace the clouds and the roses, I feel sorry for the Haroldsons. They need Castle on the Lake more than we do, but for the moment I can only see the joy in my mommy’s eyes. The Queen of England on her throne couldn’t be happier than our mother on her Globe chair, gazing at the gleaming china piled up high.
It’s not long after Castle on the Lake arrives that Mommy stops work because her tummy is very big. She huffs and puffs and her clothes are all like circus tents. One afternoon, I hear her tell Edna to watch Daddy closely and report him to Mrs Finneran across the road if he comes home drunk. When we wake up in the morning, Edna tells us that Mommy left in the middle of the night.
“Yipeee! Is it a girl or a boy?”
“Only God knows that.”
“When can we see the baby?”
At lunchtime we run home at breakneck speed, but Edna doesn’t know a thing. I go to play at Alice’s house.
“Sometimes the number two is green,” says Alice pulling a face, “and it stinks to high heaven. The nappies lie in the bath and if your mommy is too sick you will have to wash them.”
I don’t like the sound of that, but I still can’t wait to see the baby. I wonder if it will look like me. When I get home Edna comes running towards me. “It’s a boy!”
“We’ve got a baby brother!” I laugh. And when I’m inside our gate, I fall to my knees and give thanks. The baby is a boy, which means Jesus listened to my prayers.
“Get ready,” says Daddy after supper.
We give our faces a lick and a promise, and then we’re off!
The front door of the Leighwood Nursing Home is wide open. There are asters in a vase on a desk and a stern-looking nurse in a starched white uniform and a veil. We want to run up the steps, but Daddy grabs our arms.
“Put your best foot forward and behave. You can be poor, but you don’t have to show it.”
I wipe my nose on my jersey sleeve and push my hair out of my eyes. We’re scared of the nurse who gives us sidelong glances. Gabriel doesn’t like the hospital smells. His face turns pale, his legs go weak and he has to take deep breaths because it reminds him of the Hope Street Clinic where they have a strong man to hold you down and the dentist has to hide the syringe.
Mommy is sitting up in bed, wearing a pink bed jacket, a present from Aunty Ruby.
Next to her bed is a big bowl of blue flowers.
“C-congratulations on the b-birth of your s-son. From the l-ladies in the p-prayer circle, G-Gospel H-Hall, Crawford,” reads Gabriel.
The nurse’s starched uniform rustles as she places the baby in Mommy’s arms.
“Please can I hold him?”
“His neck is still floppy.”
He has dark, damp curls stuck to his forehead. His tiny thumb is in his mouth and his little fingers curl around our daddy’s pinkie. Daddy and Mommy exchange glances and smile.
“Look at the birthmark on his neck,” says Mommy. “When he cries it gets mottled and it spreads.”
I don’t know what mottled means, but I’m jealous of him because he’s getting all the attention.
“Who do you think he looks like?” I ask Desiree when we’re in bed.
“He looks like Daddy and I think they are going to name him Jacob.”
“D-do you know O-ouma is practising for her f-finals?” asks Gabriel, out of the blue.
“What does that mean?”
“Kicking the b-bucket. Going to h-heaven.”
“How do you know?”
“I heard D-Daddy telling M-Mommy.”
“Why’s she dying?”
“There’s s-something wrong w-with her b-bum.”
“Like Aunty Beryl’s bunches of grapes?”
“No more sugar mice if she dies,” says Desiree.
“Shush, in there! You’ve got school to-morrow.”