by Carol Gibbs
“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!”