This time I took a detour to one street up from Monument Avenue and a block south of the church to my primary school on Pretorius Street. It was named after the poet and chef Louis Leipoldt and in that first-storey room I had sung in the school choir. If I played rugby like my father then I sang like my mother and we would sing of the joys of the veld in Afrikaans and then the heavily accented ‘My Grandfather’s Clock’ in English. “Ninety years without slumbering (tick, tock, tick, tock), his life’s seconds numbering (tick, tock, tick, tock). It stopp’d [beat] short [beat] – never to go again – when the old man died.”
He was still nowhere to be seen but the dog, of course, went ballistic and came charging, if a bloated sack of smooth fur can charge. The old man wasn’t at the back either, but the security gate was open, I could hear a rugby match on the TV and I said loudly: “Dad?”
Nothing.
“Dad?” I said louder.
Still nothing.
“Dad!” I almost shouted.
“Ja!” he said and came into the kitchen, squinting, as if from deep space.
“Hi,” I said, relieved.
“Hello, my boy,” he said, sounding a little delicate, but taking my hand in his big one.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Oh, I’ve just been watching a bit of rugby, but it isn’t rugby anymore.”
“I’ll say.”
“What?”
Who the hell was this man, this stranger? Why had it never occurred to him to remarry? Why did he live his late life so stoically alone? He was so desperately lonely and craved company, but when he got it he just talked, poured out his heart and his soul and then went back to his hermitic life, usually criticising whoever had crossed his path. I sometimes wondered whether he made the same negative statements about me to Uncle Vern as he did about him to me. And yet those who had come into contact with him were fond of him, loved him and cared for him, as I tried to.
“I said I agree with you that it’s just become a kick-and-charge bore,” I said.
“Why the hell haven’t you shaved?”
“Because I didn’t feel like it.”
“I shave every day of my life.”
“Shall we have some coffee?”
“Good idea,” he said.
After we’d run through the usual speeches he settled down with his coffee and Lemon Creams outside, but he’d acquired a new habit. He’d discovered if he wore a pair of Ma’s discarded and scratchy sunglasses he could see much better in the glare and, as usual, he looked good in those too. But I realised I couldn’t sit down again. I was all sat out, sensing that the old man wasn’t going to move off his property that day, so I found the ball and chucked it for the dog, which duly chased and collected it and returned it to its master.
“You’re killing this dog, just like you killed the other one.”
He ignored that, juddered his left foot and picked his right nail and said: “Do you know what I did the other day?”
“What did you do the other day?”
“I handed in my service revolver.”
“So how’re you going to commit suicide now?”
Ignoring that flippancy, he said: “They asked us to.”
“Well, that’s very responsible of you, and I think it’s safer for you.”
“Why?”
“People often get killed with their own weapons, or those weapons get taken and used on others.”
“Well, I’ve got my little dog to protect me, haven’t I my dog?”
Pit-pat, pit-pat the fat bastard’s eager tail went, sitting on his foot.
“Won’t you please reconsider going into an old-age home?”
“Never, never, never.”
“Then won’t you at least let me put up palisades for you?”
“Leave it, Len. Just leave it.”
“Do you realise you could be killed?”
“Let them come. I’ve got my dog.”
“I can’t exactly see him keeping two or three young thugs at bay.”
“We’re fine,” the old man said with some finality. “Those other two came yesterday and I gave them some bread and tea when they asked for food. They thought I was very funny.”
“You must still be careful.”
A plane went overhead to land at OR Tambo as I took that all on board while he looked in its general direction, regretfully.
“Hannah said I must go and live with her in Empangeni,” he said.
“So why don’t you?”
“You people don’t understand something.”
“What don’t we understand?” I asked, wondering who exactly fitted into that broad category of “you people”, though I had to agree that Aunt Hannah was quite bossy.
“My wife is buried here.”
This was probably the closest he was going to get to admitting that he’d loved Ma and that he was missing her, possibly even regretting some things, and ignoring the “until death do us part” bit.
“Dad, every day I read about people who get murdered, raped and tortured. It’s completely out of hand.”
“Don’t worry about me. Worry about yourself. You must get out of here.”
“You mean leave the country?”
“Yes. We’re not wanted here anymore, if we ever were.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“You must go to another country, start a new life.”
“I couldn’t leave you alone.”
“I’ll be fine. But do you know what?”
“No, Dad. What?”
“I’m bored. I’m tired. I want to die.”
“What the hell am I supposed to say to that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay. Shall we go and wash the cups?”
“Good idea.”
So we went inside and I realised he kept the Beethoven bust because it reminded him of Ma. Now he told me exactly how the cups and saucers should be washed, but his sight had deteriorated so badly that some of the cups were still dirty after he’d cleaned up. Halfway through I had to go to the toilet. The passage was dark, the ceiling stained from a leak and Ma’s yellow woollen warmer on the seat was grubby. When I came out I saw that the dog had crapped at the other end of the passage, right next to the phone stool where the old man had implored his wife to come home to him, sobbing. Above that, of course, was the mirror, reflecting his son.