Esther and Katjie were drinking tea in Esther’s yard when the bakkie stopped in the street. They stood up, holding their mugs carefully so they didn’t spill, to see who it was. Oom Hekkie forced open the driver’s door with his shoulder and stood on the pavement, looking around. Just as Esther was about to shout and ask him who he wanted, Charlie came out of the pipe on his hands and knees, brushed himself off and walked over. The two women looked over the fence.
“It looks like the oom needs directions,” said Katjie.
“I think he’s meeting Charlie,” said Esther.
They were about to sit again when Titty backed out of the pipe, pulling the mattress behind her. Then Apie crawled out and, when he saw the bakkie, he stood up and clapped and danced. Titty went back into the pipe and hauled out two stuffed black bags, a Primus stove, a pot and a plastic basin.
“These people are moving,” Esther said.
“But where are they going?”
“Charlie, where are you people going?” Esther shouted.
“Our house has come through, Antie Esther, it’s good news.” Charlie swung Apie on to the back of the bakkie and the boy squealed.
Charlie and Titty loaded their things while Oom Hekkie waited, leaning against the bonnet and ignoring them all. When they were done, Charlie walked around to join Oom Hekkie in the front and Titty climbed on the back with Apie. The neighbours had come out into the street to watch them go and people were talking. Esther could hear the words “house” and “allocated” bouncing through the group like one of those R2 balls from the machine in Shoprite.
Titty sat flat and kept her eyes down as the vehicle moved off, but Apie waved to Esther and Katjie and shouted, “Apie trek, Apie got a house!”
O Liewe Jesus.
Esther knew. She knew straight away that Titty and Charlie hadn’t qualified for a house. Something had happened. And this something was why she and Katjie were in a shack and queuing month after month for nothing.
Liedjie found the women with empty mugs, staring at the pipe.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“They’ve gone,” Esther replied. “Moved. Their house came through.”
The young woman put down her bag and found an old crate to sit on.
“They got a house?”
For a long time no one spoke. Then Liedjie said, “She stole it, Ma.”
“It has been allocated,” Esther said. “Oom Hekkie took them in his bakkie.”
“I don’t understand,” Katjie said after a while. “All those years standing in that queue, waiting, month after month. What was that for?” Her bandages were off and her fingers moved like butterflies unable to come to rest.
Esther stood and took Katjie’s mug with her own to rinse at the tap. “There is that man organising the houses. That must be where Titty was going when we saw her there,” she said when she came back.
“Ag, come on, Ma,” Liedjie said, “it’s obvious. It’s bribes he is organising.” Her voice was cold and her eyes were black and hard.
“Bribes?” Katjie said. “But Titty’s got no money.”
Liedjie and Esther caught each other’s eye.
“Ja, but maybe it’s not money he is after, Antie.”
After a few days, Liedjie felt glad Titty was gone. She had always been in a bad mood and the yard was less strained without her. All she ever did was lie in that pipe and read love stories borrowed from the library. Titty told everyone she was educated, but Liedjie knew the true story, that Titty only had Grade 4. She told Liedjie she’d wanted to stay in school but her mammie kept her at home to look after her baby brothers while she was out working.
Those were the years when Titty’s mammie did stukwerk and lived on the farm near Calitzdorp, picking apricots for one boer, grapes for another and peaches in between. Nobody knew who Titty’s deddie was. Her ma hadn’t been too fussy about who she chose to be her children’s fathers.
The funny thing was, it was the same farm where Liedjie’s oupa and ouma worked, so she knew Titty from there, long before she moved into the pipe with Charlie. One year, when Liedjie was six, she visited for the school holidays and Titty and her became friends. They wanted to play school-school with dolls, so Ouma made them aspoppe from old lappies, baling twine and ash. Liedjie remembered how much Titty had loved her doll.
Then Titty and all those brothers and sisters left the farm when her ma got the hell in. They came to town and made a hok on the edge of the lokasie. When Titty met Charlie, she left and they came to live in Oom Krisjan’s pipe.
After that holiday when they were little, Titty and Liedjie sometimes saw each other in town, but they never really spoke, not until Titty moved to the yard.
“In Grade 4 my teacher called me Magrieta,” Titty said one day. “Did you know that’s my name, Liedjie? If I had stayed in school, I would have been Magrieta now and not become Grieta and then Titta and now Titty. Magrieta is an educated person’s name. I could have gone the whole way, but my mammie kept me at home for too long and then the school wouldn’t let me come back.”