by Carol Gibbs
“M-makes me think of w-weevils.”
We get to know the horses well, with their shining withers, beautiful manes and muscled bodies, hot from pulling the big cream-and-green dirt cart all the way from the Mowbray Depot. Front teeth missing, wearing their caps with brass badges, the friendly council men allow us to ride on the dirt cart any time we like. They know when they come knocking for their Christmas box we will nag on their behalf. Gabriel collects the horse manure for our vegetable garden. Girls don’t pick up horse number two, because it’s unladylike. So is riding on the dirt cart, but Desiree and I dare each other to climb aboard. We stand on the back step as the men smile their gap-toothed smiles, jerk the reins and the horses break into a trot. They click their tongues and the big horses pick up speed and gallop for the Mowbray Depot. I pretend I’m on a stagecoach, but Desiree is a queen on her chariot, her straight hair streaming behind her. As the cart flashes past the Gospel Hall, I decide to jump. I hit the pavement hard and skin my knees. Desiree is waving like the Queen as I clutch my bloody knees and scream and she doesn’t even notice.
Daddy is at home because he hasn’t gone to work, so I slink through the doorway trying to be invisible.
“You’ve been riding on the dirt cart again, haven’t you?”
The strap comes out and he gives me the hiding of my life. I soon forget about my skinned knees.
“Where’s your sister?”
“I left her outside the Gospel Hall,” I say through my tears.
With no one else at home – Desiree still riding on the dirt cart – I have the stepladder to myself. It’s scary at the top.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I hear the man say, “please put your hands together for Colleen Le Seuer. She would like to sing a song for you. Her mother sang the same song right here on this very stage at the City Hall when she was a little girl.”
I’m wearing my golden dress and my silver shoes and my curls are pushed behind my ears so the audience can see my gypsy earrings catching the light. I curtsey and smile as the audience applauds.
When Desiree comes in hiding behind Mommy’s skirt, I hear she’s been sitting on the station waiting for Mommy.
“You deserve a hiding.”
“Leave the child alone.”
Desiree peeps out from behind Mommy and gives me a lopsided grin. I think of the red trails on my bum.
“D-desiree i-is the w-wise one.”
I’m back on Daddy’s stepladder. I put my lips close to the cardboard box that is my microphone and sing the chorus of Mommy’s song. I’m just getting it right when Desiree appears from nowhere.
“You’ve got the words wrong and you’re out of tune.”
Before I can follow in my mommy’s footsteps, I have to practise without Desiree bothering me.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Daddy isn’t home yet. I lie in bed stiff with fear, waiting for the sound of his hand on the doorknob. I’m trying to sleep with my eyes open, so nothing can happen to me without me knowing. With a bit of luck, we will only have to put up with Afrikaans singers at top volume, not his voice. There’s the familiar sound of the key in the lock, but there’s another voice too. Desiree and I are up in no time, Gabriel trailing behind.
“Make yourself at home,” we hear Daddy say. “Sit down, loosen your tie and have a drink.”
“Is that the debt collector?” I whisper to Gabriel.
“Daddy w-wouldn’t be so s-stupid as to bring the S-scarlet Debt C-collecting man h-h-home from the pub.”
Everyone knows about the bright red van with Scarlet Debt Collecting Agency painted in black on the side. The man knocks at the door without any warning. If you manage to duck on a Friday night he’ll be back to collect his dues any time of the week he pleases.
“Hot feet?” asks Daddy. “Take off your shoes and socks.”
He leads the barefoot stranger into our bathroom and fills the basin. We watch as they sway. The man does a little dance as he tries to lift his leg. He staggers and holds on to the tap, almost pulling the basin off the wall, but the foot washing goes on. They sit on the side of the bath smoking a cigarette and laughing as Daddy dries the strange man’s feet. I watch in wonder and think of Jesus. Daddy finds the nail-clippers in the medicine cupboard. Bits of toenail fly around our bathroom. I’ll never eat coconut cakes ever again without thinking of the man’s toenails. We lie in the dark listening to their laughter, while Daddy plies him with drink. As my eyes droop, I hope he will drop some money when he goes to the lavatory.
In the morning we rush to the lounge. The stranger is asleep on our couch. He’s on his back, snoring open-mouthed, sour-smelling, with big, fat, blue brommer flies buzzing around him, but at least his feet are clean. At the front door I put my suitcase down and run to the lavatory for a last pee. I find a penny overlooked by Desiree.
“He spent a f-free night on our c-couch with special service,” Gabriel frowns. “Even b-barbers like Uncle N-neels don’t wash y-your feet and cut y-your toenails as a b-bonus. He’s a ch-chcheapskate.”
When we get home from school only his smell and his toenail clippings remind us he was ever there.
Daddy allows us to keep bantams. We love the chicks’ fluffy yellow feathers and the smell of the mash, but we can do without their number two. It looks like the little heaps of ground that the hum-dum-dawlies push up.
“Hum-dum-dawlie, come out your hole.”
When you put a stick into the hole and stir it round and round, a big earthworm magically pops his head out.
But then Desiree and I come home from school to find two bantams lying flat on the ground.
“It m-must have just h-h-happened. Their bodies are still w-warm. H-hold their heads up to r-r-resurrect them like in the Bible.”
Desiree holds the soft, yellow bantam against her cheek, holding the delicate neck.
“Please wake up and take a breath. Your mommy will be glad.”
“Wake up, wake up!” I say. “Jesus died for your sins and will give you everlasting life.”
Desiree stands up and sings.
Stand up, stand up for Jesus …
I stand up and sing with her because Desiree always knows best, but the chicks won’t wake up.
“Let’s bury them.”
“Not yet, mine might still come alive.”
Desiree tells the mother hen how sorry she is that she hasn’t been able to revive her children like Jesus did in the Bible. She sticks her tongue out in the direction of the Gospel Hall.
“I’m cross with Mr Anderson and Gabriel! They tell lies!”
I trail behind Desiree.
“Their heads have to point to Mecca, the babbies do that.”
We sing our funeral song for dead animals.
All things bright and beautiful, all creatures big and small,
All things bright and beautiful, the Lord God loves them all.
We jam our crosses into the ground, above their little heads.
Then, happy that we’ve given them a good funeral, we go and play with our paper dolls. Desiree makes beautiful clothes: full skirts with purple flowers and bunches of cherries and ball gowns by the dozen. Once she starts she can’t stop. She gets into trouble at school because all her exercise books have pages torn out the back.
From after school until Daddy comes home, the street belongs to us. We know every pebble in the tarmac.
“Let’s play hopscotch!”
I’ve just jumped into ‘home’ when Mrs De Gouveia calls from over the fence. She’s the Portuguese lady who has just moved into the house next door.
“We’re going out,” she calls. “Maybe you two look after Antoniosh?”
“Please can we look after Antonio?”
“Yes, and if you’re in trouble you can always scream,” laughs Mommy as she pokes her head from behind the door. “You’re both good at that.”
Mommy means the lift. We had once visited her at work, in Namaqua House, just off Green Market Square. We were alone in the old-fashi
oned lift that looked like a cage when the lights went out. As the lift hurtled down, all we could see was a blur of concrete and faces. We were hysterical, but our lungs still worked. I don’t know who stopped the lift and how they got us out, but it was frightening.
“Haven’t they experienced enough terror in their young lives?” Aunty Dolly said.
“We leave radio on for you,” says Mr De Gouveia. I can’t keep my eyes off his face because perched on the end of his nose is the biggest, blackest mole you’ve ever seen in your life.
Desiree and I have both lost our front teeth and we smile our haasbek smiles.
“And Antoniosh will soon be asleep.”
And then they’re walking down the path, holding hands to the strains of Mr Mantovani, Mommy’s favourite, playing sweet music on the radio. We tiptoe into Antonio’s room. He has his thumb in his mouth, his eyes all heavy and droopy. He is nearly asleep.
We tiptoe back out of the room, and into the De Gouveias’ kitchen.
“I’m hungry,” I tell Desiree, lifting the lid of the bread bin.
“Nothing there,” Desiree scoffs. “Mrs De Gouveia is a stingy Portuguese.”
“Let’s play I Spy.”
“I spy with my little eye, something beginning with K.”
“I know – key!”
“No. Kettle.”
“I spy with my little eye, something beginning with T.”
“Tap.”
“No.”
“I know – tin, the tin on the top shelf!”
“Yes.”
“What’s in the tin?”
“Don’t know … Let’s look.”
We climb on a chair to reach and Desiree pries off the lid. There’s a picture of a girl in traditional Voortrekker costume, framed by proteas. Inside is the top layer of a wedding cake, with a tiny bride and groom and a pair of white icing-sugar doves with gold rings in their beaks.
“If that cake were in our house we would have gobbled it up long ago!”
“Shall we cut a small piece?”
“Thou shalt not covet they neighbour’s things.”
“It’s no good leaving a cake in a tin.”
“It’s Mrs De Gouveia’s own fault – she’s snoep.”
“What about Jesus feeding the people?”
I start singing, loudly.
I will make you fishers of men, fishers of men …
“Shush, you’ll wake Antonio.”
“Just one slice. We’ll share.”
“Mmm! Marzipan icing!”
“Das schmeckt sehr gut,” I giggle, copying Aunty Beryl.
“Would they miss another bit?”
“No, they won’t notice …”
The bride and groom’s island collapses fast. We chisel away at the cake until they have nothing left to stand on. We leave them lying flat on their backs, their blank eyes staring at the lid above them, with only the two white doves for company.
Mrs De Gouveia never asks us to look after Antonio again.
We’re gathered around the kitchen table waiting. Mommy isn’t home from work.
“Maybe Rosie kept Mommy late.”
“Y-you’re not allowed to c-call him R-rosie.”
“Mommy calls him Rosie.”
“Y-yes, but not to his f-face. He’s the b-boss. Y-you have to show him r-respect … especially if y-you want his t-tickey.”
“What a funny name!”
“He’s Jewish, like the p-people in S-Sea Point and the place Aunty Beryl calls Jewsenberg.”
“What does Jewish mean?”
“J-Jews wander all o-over the world. I c-can show y-you a plant called a W-wandering Jew.”
If we hang around the office long enough waiting for Mommy, Mr Rosenberg gives us a tickey to get rid of us. It’s cheap at the price, but he’s stingy. He makes a big show of finding the tickey and his watch chain stretches tight across his tummy before he lets go.
“You are lucky chiltren. Say tank you for de tickey.”
One day I was on my own visiting Mommy’s office. Mr Rosenberg dug deep in his pocket, but all he could find was a sixpence. I tapped it against my teeth to make sure it was real. The paper bag was crammed with sweets when I left the corner café opposite Green Market Square. I forced the last one into my mouth. Feeling sick, I watched the art students making copies of paintings in the museum on the square. My tummy churned as I dodged round the easels and raced up the steps to the balcony to get some fresh air, but I couldn’t hold back my vomit. It slid down the drainpipe and into the street. When I found the courage, I walked down the steps and looked at my vomit lying in the street. We had Irish stew the night before, but I couldn’t see any bits of carrot or potato lying there, just a mess of brightly coloured sweets. It was like a part of me left on the pavement in Cape Town, for the whole world to see.
The streetlight shines brightly, but there’s still no sign of Mommy. Or Daddy. I’m nervous and I’ve bitten my nails to the quick because if Daddy isn’t home that means we could be in for it later.
At last there’s the clickety-click of Mommy’s high heels on the path. She takes off her coat and gloves and flings them on a chair, kicking her shoes aside and rubbing her feet.
“With the Jewish holidays coming up, Rosie kept me late.”
She sits down heavily, pulls the tasselled zipper on her leather bag and removes a wad of notes. It’s a wondrous sight and our eyes grow big. Suddenly, Mommy gives a high-pitched shriek and throws the money in the air. “We’re rich! We’re rich!”
We clap our hands and squeal with delight.
“We’re rich! We’re rich!”
Crisp one-pound and five-pound notes flutter down in slow motion, rocking gently from side to side, landing soft as feathers on every available surface.
“God bless Rosie!”
“G-God b-bless Mr R-Rosenberg.”
We scamper around the kitchen gathering up the money, under the dresser, in the kitchen sink and on the wooden draining board, careful not to miss a pound note or, worse still, a five-pound note.
“Look, Bessie has a pound on her a head!”
Mommy lets us count the money and we lay it in rows, like playing cards, one row for each of us.
The Queen was in the counting house counting all the money … Desiree skips to the last line … Now wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the King?
“I’m hungry,” complains Gabriel.
We have pig fat and apricot jam on homemade bread. Then Desiree puts the kettle on for coffee. But the best is yet to come. We fill our cheeks with crispy kaaings. Aunty Dolly calls them pork scratchings, but what’s the diff? They still taste good. Even though Christmas is still ages away, Mommy promises us a Christmas to beat all Christmases. We go to bed with visions, not of sugarplum fairies dancing around our heads, but one-pound and five-pound notes, landing soft as feathers on our beat-up kitchen table.
Here come the Malays! We watch the sea of red fezzes from the safety of our garden. The men are carrying a body, shifting the weight of the scary white-shrouded figure from shoulder to shoulder. Two-Coffee-One-Milk is trying to get through with her cart. Daddy is hot on her heels, coming home from work.
“Why do those people have to parade the body for the whole world to see, blocking the streets? Death is a private matter!”
Desiree and I sprawl on our tummies on the lounge carpet, doing our homework. He sits down and pats the seat. Mommy sits beside him.
“Well … spill the beans.”
“I’ve resigned from the Public Works Department.”
“What? Jacob, have you lost your mind?”
“You still have your job to keep us going.”
“What d’you mean?”
“I’m opening my own business.”
Mommy’s dead quiet for a moment, then she says softly, “Be it on your own head!”
“Don’t you start with your sharp tongue!”
“I’m only expressing my opinion.”
We can hear Daddy
is excited. “I’ll have cards printed: Jacob Le Seuer’s Electrical Services. No job too big or too small.”
“It takes discipline, Jacob.”
Now we’re sitting up straight and watching their faces, but they don’t even notice.
“I promise I won’t drink on the job.” Mommy just shakes her head.
“What about materials? You think we have a money tree growing in our back yard?”
“There you go again with your sarcasm. I’ve taken a loan from the bank.”
“Are you mad?”
Desiree and I are so excited. To have your own business means to be rich like Mr Chong, like Mr Rosenberg. Maybe I will get my own bicycle after all. Desiree will have ballet lessons and tap shoes and Gabriel can have penknives by the dozen and whatever else his heart desires.
So it is that Daddy buys a ton of pipes and switchboxes, rise-and-fall light-fittings and miles and miles of purple flex, all in the hopes of getting hundreds of jobs. Two months later our lives haven’t changed at all.
“Why are you at home again?”
“Jobs don’t grow on trees, you know …”
“That’s not what you led me to believe. The children tell me you’ve been entertaining again. I don’t suppose it was a tea party either.”
The miles and miles of pipe stand up straight in the corner of the hokkie like soldiers on duty. Every time Daddy drives round a bend we have to dodge the boxes of rise-and-falls, switchboxes and electrical fittings that slide around in the van. The pipes start to rust, the rise-and-falls gather dust and the flex lies in the corner like a coiled-up snake. Our dream of being rich kids fades with every drunken party. For weeks and weeks we eat nothing but soup. We almost scrape the pattern off the bottom of our plates. Pig fat and apricot jam on bread fills the gaps. We survive, but only just. It’s going to take years to pay for the rusty pipes and the rise-and-falls, not to mention the snake of purple flex.
“So much for starting your own business,” says Mommy, her lips pursed, jaw clenched tight.
And, almost like she wants to get back at Daddy for wasting our money, she makes a decision then and there that makes Gabriel and Desiree and me sit up straight, eyes wide.