Tales from the Old Karoo

by Guy Butler

  As it was laundry day, and windy, the house looked surprisingly happy, like a large barge trimmed with flags and bunting for a regatta. Apart from his son-in-law, he explained, none of the occupants had a job; so, in order to accommodate his unemployed son, Piet, he had given up his lovely double room and come to camp in the car. This, he added, was not the disgrace it might seem. He’d retained his old soldier’s love for life in the open, close to nature.

  Nature – not only the faithful bantams on the roof – was indeed close. On frosty nights Henry would have to entice Stoffel’s dogs off their sacks on the stoep to join him under the Springbok kaross on the back seat. Dogs, being very warmblooded, are better than hot water bottles, because they don’t go cold. On the other hand, hot water bottles don’t have fleas.

  He told the Carnegie people that living in the Rolls was, in fact, better than living in the crowded house. For one thing, its roof was watertight, whereas the house leaked like a sieve. He did not tell them what a nice place it was for his real friends to visit him after dark. His children suspected he was making money to buy brandy for himself by using the licence of his white skin to buy cheap liquor from the bottle store, and then selling the stuff at a big profit to shadowy people whose skin was not a liquor licence. By whatever means, he found enough money to be independent of his ungrateful brood, who, he said, did absolutely nothing for him.

  This was not true. They fed him from their own kitchen. They washed his plates and dishes, and his clothes, when he cared to change them. They sent him fruit in season from the garden. The list of kindnesses was a long one. But he thought nothing of them, except the regular visits of Stoffel. These were the bright spots of his empty days, his one link of real affection with his family.

  Stoffel was now over six foot tall, and thin to boot. He was the secret weapon of the local school. His long legs gave him a spectacular turn for speed, his knees coming right up to his chin in rapid succession. There were also Stoffel’s arms. These were so abnormally long that his big hands dangled in the latitude of his calves. This embarrassed the poor boy so much that he walked about with his arms folded. But the social handicap of long arms could be turned to strategic advantage on the rugby field, in the lineouts. This his father Henry had perceived. During the rugby season he’d get his son to borrow a ball, and they’d practice lineouts by the hour.

  Pleasurable it might be, but throwing that ball quite exhausted Henry. Some said it brought on his first heart attack. He made light of it. He swore with a terrible oath that whatever happened to the world, the country, Ladycole or his soul, he was not going to miss the match of the year: Ladycole High versus their great rivals, a college from a place called Grahamstown.

  ‘College, my foot!’ cried the patriotic Bertie. ‘Crikey Moses, man, it is just a high school. If it was a real college, it would only play against the training colleges and the techs, not so?’

  Henry was sure that Stoffel would contribute to the routing of the pretentious foreigners.

  His heart attack, however, had been taken seriously by his children. Who was going to pay for the impending funeral? As always, they were stoney broke.

  Bertie the stoker, as the most articulate and socially polished member of the younger generation, was sent to discuss the problem with Henry, who was breathing in short gasps. Bertie didn’t have the brass to say ‘Who is going to pay for your coffin?’ Instead he started talking in a circle about the railway accident at Witmos, and the terrible deaths of both the stoker and the engine driver. He’d seen the bodies, without a word of lie, and, as true as God, the steam had peeled the skin off them, like a banana. That led naturally on to the double funeral. Bertie knew a great deal about that funeral-to-end-all-funerals. He’d been one of the stokers selected to carry the coffin of the stoker. At which point his father-in-law tried to roar with laughter, but only managed a sort of forced, though merry, splutter.

  ‘So that’s what brought you here! – my funeral. Don’t worry, man. When I die, just send a message to Kortrooi Arends. I’ve paid him already, for the coffin and for the cart. I’ve also sent him my measurements so that he can order the planks for the box.’

  ‘Kortrooi?’ cried Bertie.

  ‘Yes! Kortrooi. Any objections?’

  ‘Hells bells and buckets of blood!’ exclaimed Bertie, employing an oath he’d overheard while passing the first class compartments. Kortrooi, the happy-go-lucky odd-job man who never did anything properly! Or on time! Kortrooi, whose mainstay was non-white burials!

  The children held another debate, and decided that the money simply must be found to pay Mr Hurst for his services. When Bertie approached him, Mr Hurst was quite exceptionally helpful, going out of his way to save the Vermaaks from the shame of having their father buried in a cheap coffin from Kortrooi’s donkey cart. He would stretch his usual credit to half the total cost. He went further. He knew how hard cash was to come by in these hard times: so, if they wished, he would take that old car under the pepper tree in lieu of the balance.

  Bertie visited Henry to relay this good news. ‘Pa’, he said, ‘we’ve made a good plan with Mr Hurst. There is no need to waste good money on that rag-tag-and-bobtail Kortrooi and his flenter donkey cart. Send a message, Pa, and get your money back.’

  Henry exploded. He was going to be buried by his faithful friend, Kortrooi, or not at all. Whose funeral was it anyway? To ask for the money back was unthinkable. Where had Bertie been brought up? Give a thing, take a thing, is the devil’s plaything. On and on. Every time Bertie moved to go, Henry would shout ‘Come back! I’m not finished.’ All the other children came out to the stoep, and stood there in a long, listening line, mouths open.

  At the sight of this audience Henry got out of the Rolls for the first time in weeks. The bantams fluttered to the ground, to follow him as he staggered a few paces towards his children. He raised a fist, and cried:

  ‘No one but Kortrooi is going to bury Henry Vermaak. Understand? And if that Hurst man comes near my coffin lightning will strike him dead!’

  This imprecation had a satisfying effect on his children. It was years since he had seen them so cowed, so utterly attentive. He was master again, and he wanted the moment to last. So he proceeded to hang a father’s curse over each of them in turn, in the sequence of their positions on the stoep.

  ‘Alida, my first born, if you change my plans, may you inherit my father’s curse.’ Although he seemed to be choking on the words, he treated even Stoffel to the same terrifying formula. The ritual had the effect of crystallising a great distance between them. At last he was learning to reject absolutely, with a Hester-like purity.

  ‘Finally’, he panted, ‘I will haunt any one of you who shows his face at my funeral. I don’t want any of you – any-of-you – understand? – to throw a handful of dust on my coffin.’

  With that he collapsed, almost squashing two bantams to death. Stoffel dashed forward, but was stopped by the terrified Alida to whom it seemed that closeness to Henry’s body would invite a lightning bolt. But the boy shook free, and in the dust under the pepper tree knelt by his father. Henry had stopped breathing; his heart was still.

  What now? The ensuing conclave took a good five minutes and reached easy unanimity. It was dominated by Bertie. Their father’s wishes had been spelt out to each and all in the presence of each and all, not so? And been reinforced with terrible curses and threats, not so? They had no option in the matter: they must respect Henry’s dying wishes, not so? Kortrooi must take over, and no one must go near the funeral. Finished and klaar. The strain was telling on Bertie. His choice of phrases was becoming less select.

  As the dusk was thickening, Kortrooi and his donkey cart arrived and removed the body of Henry Vermaak to his funeral parlour in the location. How long would it take for the box to be made? The weekend was at hand, and jirre man, where was Kortrooi’s tame carpenter? But Bertie shut his mind to such practical speculations. The dead man’s wishes must be religiously respected. They were not wi
thout advantages: no mourning, for instance, no boring long service. And no need for anyone to miss the great rugby game.

  Before blowing out the candles, Alida said – ‘It is almost like old days, isn’t it? As if Pa’s gone off to sell cod-liver oil and cornplasters in Steytlerville or some funny place like that.’

  By midday the whole village had heard of Henry’s last hour. And, as most of them believed in curses, they endorsed the children’s decision: to behave as if Henry had died in a far country and been buried there.

  In those days the Ladycole rugby field was unfenced. Only at one side was there a clear demarcation, where four rows of rough-sawn planks rose in tiers to the height of five feet, constituting the grandstand. Cars drew up at either end of the field. The passengers stayed in them, their padded seats being kinder to their behinds than the planks of the grandstand. Also, one need not go home with a sore throat from shouting. One just had to press the hooter for applause. But the fourth side of the field was ill-defined by an old unmade wagon track. It was sometimes used as a shortcut between the smallholdings and the graveyard. For some of its length it was lined with mimosas and bloubos, from which it could take a little time to retrieve a ball kicked into touch. There was one stretch of ten yards where a driver had to encroach ever so slightly on to the rugby field itself to save his vehicle from slipping into a donga.

  I started this enquiry knowing nothing about Stoffel’s miraculous try. Now I knew too much. If Danie Craven wants to know everything about it, let him send one of his Ph.D (Rugby) candidates with a tape recorder, and I’ll tell the full story: each player’s name, his form for the season, the name of the ref, the linesmen, and who scored the points, and how. It would put Stoffel’s try into the grand historic perspective it deserves. But his is only a story for ordinary people, not rugby specialists. And this is, roughly, what happened.

  Five minutes to go. Score: Ladycole High, 15: Grahamstown College, 17. The crowd is tense. Local supporters have been disappointed by the lineout performance of Stoffel, but they are making excuses for him. After all, his father has just died and is lying in the location funeral parlour, waiting for the carpenter to make a coffin. Jirre, it’s enough to upset any young man’s concentration, particularly as his father had never missed a match since rugby was invented.

  And now it looks like Grahamstown College is going to score again. They’re pressing hard on the twenty-five-yard line.

  Ladycole get the ball in the loose, feed it back nicely to the fullback. He keeps his head, sidesteps a stampede of forwards, and he kicks high and hard for touch. Gonna piep, what a lovely kick! Following the flight of the ball, a thousand eyes see something that chills the spine of all who know Ladycole. There, in line with the slowly descending ball, is Kortrooi’s cart. Two wheels are over the white line, right on the field, and Henry Vermaak’s coffin is on the cart.

  Stoffel Vermaak has started to run, to get right under the ball. He sees Kortrooi, tugging the donkeys. Something is wrong with them, they won’t move. Stoffel slows down. The rival team are falling back quickly. Their ignorance of the coffin saves them from the near paralysis that has fallen on Ladycole High. It is quite clear now that the ball is going to drop right close to Kortrooi’s cart, either on the donkey’s ears or on the coffin itself.

  Suddenly, look, Stoffel’s hesitant pace accelerates, he’s making straight for the descending ball. His speed takes the breath away! People on the grandstand rise in excitement.

  Where exactly does that ball fall? On the hub of the front wheel? On the ground near the back wheel? Or right on the shoulder of Henry’s coffin? Wherever it falls, it is quite clear it has not gone into touch, among the mimosas and bloubos. Everything depends now on the way it bounces.

  It bounces back, high, and exactly like a ball thrown in for the lineout by someone who knows exactly where his tallest lineout man will be.

  Stoffel Vermaak, at full speed, swoops up, his long arms out, and catches the ball. With two amazing hand-offs he weaves through the defence, gathers more speed, outstrips the fullback, and plants the ball under the posts. He has run almost the whole length of the field gathering speed all the way. At one point he has been airborne, it seems, for about ten yards. The crowd roars with delight and admiration, the cars hoot like living hippos.

  Of course there were the usual spoilsports who said it shouldn’t have counted as a try. Kortrooi, his wagon and Henry Vermaak’s coffin should not have been there. Kortrooi did, in fact, behave in a very suspicious manner. While everybody was still cheering, he quickly outspanned his donkeys and disappeared. He left the cart just like that, coffin and all, in the hot sun, too.

  Later he swore that Henry’s ghost was responsible for the whole thing. Kortrooi had never intended to take the old road to the graveyard. It was as if someone had taken the donkeys by the lead, and was pulling them along that way. As for stopping right on the field, and breaking the front wheel, old Henry did that too.

  It took me a long time to get Stoffel’s version of the story. I eventually found him in a pub in Wolmaransstad. Modestly, in a matter-of-fact voice, he described how the ghost of his dear father had appeared to him at a crucial point in the game. Henry was standing on the top of his own coffin, which was on the top of Kortrooi’s wagon; his cupped arms were about to catch the falling ball. Stoffel then knew that he just had to be in position to catch that ball, thrown for the last time by his father.

  That Henry had something to do with his coffin’s presence at the match no one doubted. The family, except Stoffel, were more terrified than ever. That night they swore they heard goings on in and around the old Rolls under the pepper tree.

  That night no courting couples visited Ladycole rugby field where Henry Vermaak, fittingly enough, lay in state. What now? Bertie was non-plussed. As he said, you could have knocked him over with a feather. It was Stoffel who went to Mr Hurst. He convinced Mr Hurst that his father, Henry Vermaak, would not strike him dead if he buried him. As for payment: well, as there was no coffin needed, it was only the cost of transport for half a mile. Would he take the old car in payment?

  Mr Hurst could have driven a harder bargain than he did. But Kortrooi’s shocking abandonment of Henry’s remains was going to bring clients, who he was in danger of losing, back to his practice. On balance, he felt grateful for the life and particularly the death of Henry Vermaak. Also his own image would gain a little lustre from a kindness done to the hero of the hour, Stoffel, the son of Henry and Hester Vermaak.

  After the burial he came with his hearse to tow the old Rolls away.Bertie the stoker said, ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish.’

  Only the bantams, Stoffel and the dogs watched the two vehicles leaving.

  14

  Twins

  It was my first visit to Riversbend, which my old friend, James Scott, had recently acquired. As I unpacked in the high-ceilinged Victorian room whose French doors opened on to a deep verandah and a view of far mountains, I wondered whether the change of locale would in any way alter the easy rituals which had given shape to our friendship. Would we, for instance, take our customary walk at sunset before we settled down to drinks and family talk and supper?

  Having changed into corduroys and veldskoens, I stood staring across the orchard towards a long, grey, curving cliff which defined the bend in the stream – the bend after which the farm had been named, or rather renamed. On all the old maps it took its name from the cliff, Vaalkrantz.

  I heard James’s voice from the doorway: ‘Ready?’

  Our late afternoon stroll took the form of a guided tour of his new domain. He’d pause at intervals to discuss the problems it presented, thus giving me a chance to consider where I might put up my easel and paint.

  There are three homesteads on Riversbend.

  The first is a substantial piece of frontier Dutch, built when the place was known as Vaalkrantz. Six hundred miles and three generations of trekking across a semi-desert have stripped off the lovely baroque curves and moulding
s of Cape Dutch, so that the gable ends show up as simple, equilateral triangles, white against the purple ironstone of the outcrops. ‘No longer lived in’, James said. ‘Used as a store. And those solid outbuildings are inhabited by the coloured farm labourers, most of whom have been here for generations. I think they can be restored to look neat and functional.’

  The same could not be said of the wattle and daub huts of the Xhosa labourers straggling across a piece of brak veld into the mimosa scrub that fringed the stream’s edge.

  ‘I don’t know what to do about them. Demolish and rebuild? If so, where? And in what style?’ We moved on.

  The piercing whistle of a steam engine made me stop and turn my eyes back to the old homestead. Sporting fine feathers of white steam and black smoke, the loco seemed to be headed for a crash with the gable end of Vaalkrantz. It missed it by a hair’s breadth.

  ‘Well I’ll be damned!’ I exclaimed.

  James laughed. ‘The old Cape Government railway surveyors were told to survey the shortest route, and the engineers laid the track like that – slap through the backyard between the kitchen door and the outhouses. In the name of progress. But the owner, old Benjamin Patrick, took them to court, and, after a ten year lawsuit, got enough compensation to build a mile away, on higher ground. Money no object. As you can see, our house has marble fireplaces with tile surrounds depicting scenes from Scott and Shakespeare’s plays: and that broad stoep, with the elaborate broekielace woodwork all round.’

  And I looked once more at James’s new residence; as fine an Ostrich Boom Palace as I had seen. These two establishments were connected by a long row of immensely tall toddy palms ‘planted by old Heyns, a previous owner, who’d been in the Middle East during the first World War.’ The avenue was still impressive, but in a disturbing way. All the trees in half the avenue had lost their heads. Their stems still stood erect and black, like thin sticks of charcoal.