by Carol Gibbs
“Say thank you to Daddy for the Nestlé.”
“Thank you, Daddy.”
“Now your daddy will show you how clever he can be on your birthday. I’m going to climb over the top of your wardrobe.”
With eyes the size of hubcaps, we wonder if he’ll make it. He can hardly put one foot in front of the other standing on the floor and now he’s going to climb the wardrobe. What if it topples over and he smashes the mirror? We’ll have seven years’ bad luck. Desiree and I clutch one another, Priscilla squashed between us, as Gabriel gets out of his bed. He sits on the windowsill for a moment, framed by the pink Dorothy Perkins roses, and then his feet hit the ground. The faded chintz curtain blows softly in the breeze. It’s not cold, but Desiree and I are shivering and our bum cheeks are pulled tightly together.
Fumbling, Daddy pulls the Globe chair to the side of the wardrobe, puts his foot on the seat and tries to haul himself up. He loses his balance, falls and lands on his back, laughing loudly. We hold our breath as he tries again, swaying. This time he manages to climb onto the top of the wardrobe. He lies quite still for a moment under the low ceiling. Then, holding onto the sides, he swivels on his stomach so that his foot dangles down the far side. Luckily the wardrobe is close to the bedroom door and he pokes around until he finds the doorknob. He slides down and hits the floor with both feet.
“There you are. You’ve got a clever daddy.”
No one is more surprised than we are. Daddy heads for the lounge.
“Aan die brand!”
Cursing the thorns tugging at his pyjamas, Gabriel climbs back through the window, as Nico Carstens’s accordion fills the lounge at top volume. We drift off to sleep with Aan die brand! ringing in our ears. We’re in dreamland when a noise wakes us. Daddy is standing next to Gabriel’s bed, leaning over him. He hasn’t switched on the light, but light from the kitchen gleams on his white collar and cuffs.
“Why do you always run away?”
Daddy lifts the Globe chair and puts it on top of Gabriel. Next is my little table, and then he balances Jackie’s high chair right on the top. He fetches my two little chairs from the kitchen and they join the teetering pile. What will Mr Selbourne think if my special chairs get smashed? His task completed, Daddy leaves the room, closing the door behind him.
“Gabriel?”
“P-please, c-come and g-get this furniture o-off me!”
We manage to lift the furniture down, one piece at a time. Desiree and I have each other, but poor Gabriel is a loner. It’s the end of my birthday and the end of being queen for the day. I hug Priscilla tight in the dark.
“Good night, sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite.”
“Where have you hidden it?”
“I swallowed it.”
“God will strike you down dead!”
“I put it in my mouth and pretended it was a sweet and it just slipped down.”
“Ag, sis! Grandma said it’s made of real gold!”
“What goes in must come out,” smiles Daddy.
He orders Desiree to use the blue enamel chamber pot until the lost locket pops out. Edna and I watch her every move.
“Is your number two coming?”
“Leave me alone!”
On the second day she squashes the number two in the potty with a stick and then smiles from ear to ear. My locket glints in the sun. Desiree’s number two sticks in all the grooves and I have to dig the bits out with a pin. When it’s squeaky clean I put it around my neck, safe and sound.
“You’ve learned a lesson,” says Daddy, “don’t swallow anything except food and medicine.”
Then, after the accident with the locket, another bad thing happens to me. I stand on a rusty nail and I get blood poisoning in my foot. This time Desiree can’t help me. I’m glad it’s my foot and not my arm because if the red line reaches your heart you die, just like that. Aunty Dolly says if I see the red line I must run to her just as fast as I can. I don’t know how long it takes for the red line to reach your heart and I worry about dying in the night. When I open my eyes in the morning the first thing I do is look for the red line, because I don’t want to die. Every evening, when I see smoke rising from the twin brick chimneys across the road, I know Aunty Dolly’s home and it’s time to have my dressing done. George lies in the passage just inside the front door and he growls at me. He shows his pink gums and pointy teeth. Spencer calls me a sissy and a cry baby. Once I’m safely inside, I go into their bathroom, where it smells of antiseptic. I love listening to the Big Ben chimes on the radio.
This is the BBC. Here is the news …
Aunty Dolly turns the radio up so loud you can hear every word in all the corners of the house. She sits me on the edge of the bath with my foot soaking in Condy’s Crystals. My foot turns brown, the colour of the children from Mossienes, but I don’t mind, so long as I don’t have to die from the red line. Plus, it’s Guy Fawkes and I don’t want to miss that.
Aunty Dolly has organised a bonfire with a dummy to burn. She calls it an effigy. She tells us it represents the body of Mr Fawkes who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in England a long time ago. I don’t understand why we have to burn his body if it all happened in England a long time ago, but I’m not about to ask in case she changes her mind. Aunty Dolly tells us to gather on the field beside our house when it gets dark.
The sun can’t set fast enough, but in the meantime we do as we have always done on Guy Fawkes. Desiree and I dress Jackie in Gracie’s clothes and tie up his hair in a big pink bow. We blacken his face with boot polish and bundle him into his pram. My face and my big white front teeth are also blacked with Nugget and Desiree wears a mask. We carry a big empty Klim tin.
With blackened hands we push the pram down Kromboom Road. Mommy always tells us to mind the cars. Desiree does fancy crisscross steps while we wait at the turnstile that leads to the railway station.
“Penny for the guy! Penny for the guy!” she shouts at the top of her voice, shaking the tin.
Jackie begins to cry and he rubs bootblack into Gracie’s dress.
“Mrs Selbourne is going to be so cross with us.”
People feel sorry for us when they see the wailing baby and they drop a few coins into our tin. We half walk, half run to Mrs Berg’s shop.
“I’m going to buy a marshmallow fish for Jackie and some bull’s-eyes,” says Desiree.
“I’m going to buy Sunrise toffees and keep one for Smuts.”
“Do you think Aunty Dolly will mind if Smuts comes tonight?”
Smuts is the night watchman two blocks from our house now, but he is still our friend. He moves his tin hokkie all around Crawford, wherever he’s needed.
“She’s English and English people don’t mind black people,” says Desiree like she knows everything. “They can even marry black people or coloured people or even Chinese people like Mr Chong. It’s like the white lady from England who married the black man from Bechuanaland.”
“Ooooh! Daddy won’t like that.”
There’s a lady heading towards us.
“Guy hettie hare nie! Guy hettie hare nie!”
“Guy has no hair! Guy has no hair!” I echo her words in English.
Desiree dances round and round the pram while Jackie wails. The lady drops a sixpence into our tin. Desiree tries to swing Jackie’s chubby hands back and forth, but he pulls away and wails again. There’s joy in our step as we reach Mrs Berg’s shop.
“Oi vey! Your baby brother looks a mess!”
“We dressed him in girls’ clothes.”
Desiree digs deep in the tin to find the sixpence and the pennies.
“I see you’ve made some money. Mazeltov!”
“Can we have some bull’s-eyes, a marshmallow fish and some Sunrise toffees, please?”
“Can we have two cones, please, so we don’t fight?”
Mrs Berg rolls a piece of newspaper around her hand and then twists the end until she has a perfect cone and then she does it again.
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“You have a ha’penny change. What would you like?”
“Two nigger balls, please.”
When we leave the shop Jackie blows a kiss at Mrs Berg.
“Isn’t he the sweetest thing?” she clucks.
He licks his marshmallow fish, quiet and content, as we head for home with our cones clutched in our dirty hands, sucking our nigger balls. Soon our tongues match our cheeks.
“You’re not going until after supper,” says Mommy when we walk into the kitchen. “And what have you done to Jackie’s face? Just look at these clothes!”
We know Mommy is not really cross, because we see a faint smile flit across her face. She and her sisters used to dress up and blacken their faces and walk all the way up Leeuwen Street to visit her grandfather at his shop. The neighbours’ children used to sing a nonsense song:
Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay, Mavis het ’n vark gery!
As we eat our supper, we can see everyone on the field next door piling wood higher and higher.
If Woodstock could stock wood …
I wonder what Monica, Gregory, Professor Sherwell and Mrs Sherwell, who looks like the wreck of the Hesperus, are doing for Guy Fawkes in Woodstock where the houses are on top of one another and there isn’t an inch to make a bonfire.
We eventually arrive on the field clutching our crackers and sparklers. Jackie has had his bath and he’s in his pyjamas, with not a sign of black on his face. He wraps his chubby arms around Mommy’s neck. He’s scared of the bangs and she takes him inside when the rockets start going off. We crane our necks to watch them whooshing into the night sky, high above our roof, past the electric wires and chimneypots, trailing sparks, like falling stars, and disappearing into the neighbours’ yards.
“This one’s a chook.”
“Take it back to the Chinaman.”
Aunty Dolly bangs on a tin cup.
“It’s time to burn Guy Fawkes,” she calls.
“Yippee!”
“Stand back. We don’t want an accident.”
She’s about to pick up Mr Guy Fawkes when she puts her finger to her lips.
“Shh, listen!”
We hear the roar of a motorbike.
“Connor, come and lift Guy Fawkes for us.”
Mr Finneran’s big figure looms in the firelight. He kisses Aunty Dolly on the mouth. Then he lifts the Guy Fawkes figure high in the air and flings it onto the fire.
“Guy hettie hare nie! Guy hettie hare nie!”
“P-please, Mr F-finneran, won’t you l-lift us up on y-your pinkies?”
“Don’t worry him now, Gabriel, he’s tired.”
“It’s all right, Dolly. Stand in line, children.”
Still wearing his leather gauntlets, Mr Finneran holds his pinkies crooked like question marks. We hang on and bend our knees so our feet clear the ground. He makes big muscles for us and lets the boys punch him in the stomach. His face gets red as he holds his breath.
“You can do better than that. Come on, punch harder!”
“That’s enough,” says Aunty Dolly, rolling her eyes.
In the shadows I see a figure.
“Smuts!”
I take his hand and lead him closer to the fire.
“Give him some crackers,” says Aunty Dolly.
I hold out some big bangs, but Smuts shakes his head. “Aikona!”
Gabriel fixes two Catherine wheels to the gatepost. They whirl round and round together. We clutch our sparklers tightly, making figure-of-eight patterns in the dark.
“Just one left. Make it last.”
Then it’s time for cocoa. Aunty Dolly fills our mugs and shares out blocks of creamy milk chocolate. She hands a mug to Smuts and he takes it in two hands, giving her a toothy grin. I slip his Sunrise toffee to him. Catherine wheels, rockets and sparklers lighting the dark like falling stars and golden rain, and now it’s time for bed.
“H-help me put the f-fire out.”
The water sizzles on the hot coals and we watch until the last sparks die in the black night. Walking across the field with the smell of ash in my nostrils, I spy glow-worms in the dark. I would like to put them in a jar and lie under my bed all night, watching them glow in the dark.
“Did you see? Aunty Dolly gave Smuts his cocoa in the same mug as ours.”
“Hallie-ha! You better not tell Daddy!”
“Get up and get dressed. We’re off to Kleinmond.”
Mommy sings a made-up song:
We’re in for a week of bliss
living beside the sun-kissed
sea and a blue lagoon.
Soon the van’s bursting at the seams. We help pack Gabriel’s kennetjie sticks, tent pegs and fresh eggs, Thermos flasks, sunbonnets, the Box Brownie camera, the Primus stove, the Tilley lamp, Mommy’s knitting bag, Daddy’s brandy, and a crate of cool drinks from Osrin’s. Desiree takes her paints and I insist on squeezing in one of my little chairs. I want to take the table too, but Mommy says, “Don’t look for trouble.” If only Mommy knew. I bundle Brookie under the blankets in the back of the van.
“How can you take your cat?” says Desiree. “There isn’t room for a mouse!”
“Y-you’ll get the h-h-hiding of y-your life when Daddy finds o-o-out.”
We sail down Kromboom Road. I can see the back of Daddy’s head and in my mind I can see his eyes out on stalks and the veins throbbing in his neck when he gives me a hiding. We stop beside the river in Firgrove and Daddy comes round the back of the van to get the Thermos flask. When he opens the back door Desiree screams. “Don’t let the cat out!”
Desiree puts her hand over her mouth. I shut my eyes. When I open my eyes again I’m facing my daddy, but he’s grinning. “Colleen, are you mad?”
He calls to Mommy, who’s sitting in the front of the van with Jackie on her lap. “Take a look at this. Colleen must take after your side of the family. Who takes a cat on a holiday?”
While we’re there, Brookie disappears a few times, but she always comes back, so we spend a blissful week, except for everyone tripping over the guy ropes and much cursing and swearing from my daddy. I love the round tent that’s left over from the war. It looks like an Indian wigwam. We are all lying on our mattresses early in the morning when I make a loud fart. Desiree and Gabriel sleepily hold their noses.
“Ag, sis!”
“Where e’er you be let your wind be free.”
Everyone gets the giggles and Mommy and Daddy smile. It’s a wonderful way to start the day.
Daddy makes friends with all the people in the camp. He tells them about the cat having a holiday and roars with laughter. Our neighbour is a kind lady who has an endless supply of sweet biscuits. Her husband takes us out on the lagoon in a canoe.
“I’m impressed with the way you can paddle,” he compliments Gabriel.
“We make canoes every winter and paddle them in the stream behind our school.”
He lets us sit on chairs on the deck of his houseboat and Desiree and I feel like the Queen of Sheba on the Nile River.
Daddy is well behaved, but his fuse is always short. We nag for what’s left of the cool drinks until Daddy gets cross. He picks up the crate and slams it down in front of us, making the bottles tinkle and jingle. “Get it over with. Fill your guts.”
We don’t know what we have done wrong and it spoils the fun.
Desiree and I go walking in the veld and disturb a swarm of wild bees. Instead of heading back to the safety of our bell tent we run right through the swarm and get stung. Daddy gives us a stern scolding not to be so stupid and to use our common sense. Our eyes are so swollen not even Grandma would recognise us. We feel sorry for ourselves, but we have to search for Brookie. She has gone missing again and we are leaving today. Everyone in the camp helps comb the bush for a black-and-white cat.
“Watch out for the wild bees!” shouts Desiree.
Finally, Gabriel finds Brookie in the fork of a tree, watching a bird. We bundle her into the back of the van and get her home safe and sound.<
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The next holidays we go camping again. This time at Voortrekker Park, just a hop and a skip from Uncle Samuel’s house in the Strand. Edna has promised to look after Brookie.
“I’m going to fetch Uncle Nick. You want to come?”
I jump at the chance and pile into the van. It’s just Daddy and me. When we get to Strand station we see the train steaming up to the platform, and Uncle Nick waving from the compartment window.
“Hello, Jacob!”
“Hello, Nick!”
There’s much slapping of backs. The soot from the steam train has settled in the seams of Uncle Nick’s white Royal Navy uniform. My fingers curl tightly around his as we walk to the van. He gets in first and then he lifts me onto his lap. At the first stop street my daddy takes a long swallow from his hip flask and then passes it to Uncle Nick who drains the last drop. Daddy slips it back into his pocket. I’m gazing at the shiny marbles in the stop sign and wishing they were mine when Daddy puts the van in gear and we sail past the Strand Pavilion beside the sea.
Suddenly Daddy pulls over and stops. Slowly I read the words White House Hotel. They tell me they won’t be long and to stay put in the van. I watch them battle the wind and the stinging sand to the front door and then spend my time admiring the round fountain with the big stone birds in the front garden. It’s even grander than the one in the Blumbergs’ garden in Rondebosch, where my daddy does the lights for their parties. I know Mommy will be wondering where we are. When they finally stumble out of the big white building every tinkling sound the fountain makes is familiar to my ears.
When we get back to our bell tent Daddy tries to light the Primus stove to cook perlemoen and rice for supper, but the nozzle is blocked. He comes into the tent asking where the hell the Primus pricker is. “The bloody thing always disappears into thin air! Who had it last? Die man is nou dood!”
No one is dead – we’re all just too scared to say anything, because we know we’ll get into trouble. But he finds it without our help and, pleased with himself, he sings. “Djy is die prikker in my Primus stove … You are the pricker in my Primus stove.”