Edge of the Rain

by Beverley Harper

  ‘Wow!’ Paulie breathed. ‘I wish I could do that.’

  ‘You will,’ Alex said kindly. ‘You just have to wait for your hand to grow up.’ He threw another despairing look at his father.

  ‘Come back to the verandah, Peta,’ his father finally called.

  But she stayed where she was, hands raised to her God, begging for rain.

  The storm blew away to the north, its rain-laden centre a taunting black curtain in the distance. The few drops which had fallen had not even settled the dust. Peta Theron lowered her arms and rose to her feet. Her shoulders dropped. She went up the steps of the verandah and flung herself into a wicker chair beside her husband. ‘It’s always the same. We always miss out.’ She turned on him angrily. ‘Why did we have to buy this stupid farm? No wonder it was cheap. It’s right on the edge of the rain.’

  ‘It’s the hills.’

  ‘I know it’s the hills.’

  ‘We get rain sometimes.’ He was placating her, imploring her not to be angry.

  ‘Never enough. It stops just out there.’

  Alex collected up the jacks. ‘Come on, Paulie, let’s play with the cars.’ The cars were out back, away from his parents, away from his angry mother and sad father. As they left he heard her say, ‘God is punishing us.’

  Paulie heard it too. ‘Why would God punish us?’ he asked when they were out of earshot.

  Alex had no idea.

  Later that night, tucked up in bed and waiting for sleep, he heard his parents outside on the verandah. Paulie, as usual, had fallen asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Alex always took a little longer. He heard his father tap out his pipe against his shoe. ‘I meant what I said at dinner, Pets. Paulie will be lonely when Alex goes away. He should have a companion.’

  Alex felt the fear in his stomach. He was going away to school, far away from his family and the thought of it scared him.

  His mother sighed and was silent.

  ‘Pets?’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what?’ She was angry again. ‘That’s all you think about. It’s wrong.’

  ‘That’s not fair, Pets.’ Pa’s voice was quiet but Alex sensed his sadness. ‘I’ve been patient but Paulie’s three now. A man has needs.’

  ‘It’s wrong,’ she repeated.

  Pa sighed. ‘How can it be wrong? We’re married.’

  ‘It just is.’ He said nothing so she added, ‘It’s against the law.’

  Alex’s ears pricked. He had heard his mother say that before. He knew what the law was. Was this why God was punishing them all?

  Pa kept his voice low. Alex had to strain to hear. ‘South African law perhaps. But we live in Bechuanaland.’

  ‘All the same . . .’

  Scrape. His father’s chair moved on the wooden verandah. ‘Peta, for Heaven’s sake! Just because my family is about to be classified coloured by some idiotic selection process. Christ! Half the South African parliament wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny.’

  ‘Don’t blaspheme.’

  ‘Peta, this is getting me down. Where did you go? We used to be so happy.’

  His mother was crying again. Alex could hear her sniffing. ‘We’re being punished. God is punishing us.’

  ‘That’s bullshit and you know it.’

  Wow! Pa rarely swore. Alex listened intently.

  ‘You’re ashamed of me aren’t you? You’re just like the others. It was okay for a while but now you’re ashamed because I’ve got a smidgen of black blood. Jesus, Pets, I’m the same man you sneaked out to be with all those years ago. I’m more white than some of the others we went to school with. And what is more, it doesn’t matter a damn in this country.’

  ‘I hate Bechuanaland.’ She was really crying now.

  ‘Pets, honey. Would you like to go home for a visit?’

  ‘You know I can’t. My parents have disowned me. I can’t take the boys.’

  Why can’t she take us?

  ‘No-one would know. They don’t look black. Anyway, Pets, it’s not a law yet.’

  Black! I’m black! Whoopee! I’m black. Alex, who—apart from his parents and more recently Paulie—had spent most of his time in the company of the farm workers’ children was not encumbered with prejudice of any kind. He had always thought of himself as being different from them. Now it seemed, he wasn’t. He hopped out of bed and shook Paulie. ‘Paulie, wake up, wake up.’

  ‘Wha . . .’

  ‘Sshh. Listen.’

  ‘Well that’s what they’d be called in South Africa. Black. Officially, our boys will be black.’

  ‘Officially I’ll be black,’ Pa shouted, frustrated.

  Wow! Pa’s black too. This is good stuff.

  ‘Paulie, did you hear that—we’re black!’ Alex whispered.

  Confused and frightened, Paulie started to cry.

  ‘Sshh.’

  But it was too late. Their parents had heard and came into the room. ‘Am I black, Mum?’ Alex asked.

  Their mother fled crying. Pa sat on Paulie’s bed. ‘No, son, you’re not black. But in South Africa that is what you would be called.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they have different laws there. Because you live in a black country, they’d call you black.’

  ‘What’s a black country?’

  ‘It means that one day this country will be ruled by its own people, the black people. South Africa is ruled by white people. They’ll call you black because of it.’

  Paulie settled down in his bed. ‘Will I turn black, Pa?’

  ‘No, son, you’ll stay the same colour you’ve always been.’ Pa had a smile in his voice. He got off Paulie’s bed and looked over at Alex. ‘Okay, son? Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Pa.’

  ‘Remember this, you two. It’s what’s inside your heart that’s important.’ He left their room, gently closing the door behind him.

  Alex did not believe him. He had heard too much.

  In the morning he tried to talk to his mother about being black but she was reading her Bible and frowned at the interruption before he could say a word. Bursting to tell someone, he went to their servant. ‘Denao, guess what?’

  She looked down at him and shrugged. He did not like her very much. Servants didn’t stay long in their house, unlike the farm workers, and this one was sulky and silent and made no attempt to be nice to him. She wore those funny long dresses the Herero women always wore and was always talking about going home to South West Africa, or, as she called it, the old country. Pa said she never would because it was run by South Africa. Still, she was all he had.

  ‘I’m black.’

  Long skirts and a multitude of petticoats rustled as she moved around the kitchen. ‘Tch! Don’t be silly. Of course you’re not black.’ She brushed past him and he had to skip backwards to make way for the voluminous folds of her skirts.

  Well, she should know. After all, she was very black. Maybe Pa was right. Perhaps it was because they lived in Bechuanaland. Deflated, for the thought of being black meant that he was just like his friends, he went outside to play with Paulie.

  FOUR

  The question of his colour remained a mystery to Alex for three years. Whenever he tried to talk to his mother about it she would either get angry, or more often, cry. So he stopped asking her. His father would tell him, ‘One day when you’re older, son.’ By the time he was nine Alex was wondering just how old he had to be. Most of the time he forgot about it because, now he was at school and mixing with whites and Indians, as well as blacks, his own colour was no longer of much interest to him.

  He had settled well into school. He was homesick for the first term but, once he had been home for the school holidays and realised he would get to see his family regularly, he started to enjoy himself. By the time Paulie joined him three years later he was a veteran. Both boys liked their aunt Dorie with whom they stayed in Francistown, although Uncle Hugh was someone they avoided if they could; he was a
bit too fond of a drink.

  Alex was on the under eleven rugby team, not bad going considering he was only just nine. His size got him on the team. That, and his excellent physical coordination. Alex was taller than most boys of ten and Paulie was shaping up the same way. Both boys had quick minds and revelled in the learning process. Compared to Shakawe, Francistown was a big city and they loved it.

  Getting from Shakawe to Francistown and back was not normally a problem. The village of Shakawe evolved because the mine labour recruiting organisation, Wenela, had set up a major depot there. Men from the area, and as far afield as Angola and South West Africa, signed up for work in the South African mines. Wenela flew these men in and out of Shakawe in DC3s. The same planes were used to ferry the children of Wenela’s management staff backwards and forwards to Francistown where they then caught connecting flights to either Southern Rhodesia or South Africa to attend boarding school. Alex was able to hitch a lift.

  Not this time, though. Somehow, his mother had learned that Shakawe was to get a resident preacher. She was so excited by the news that she offered him the services of her two young sons from Francistown to Shakawe. ‘It’s such a long journey,’ she had written to the Southern African Mission Office. ‘The boys can tell him about the area and keep him company.’

  Paulie leaned towards the front seat of the Land Rover. ‘How much longer?’

  Alex sympathised. It was Paulie’s first return journey and he had the misfortune to have to make it by road. Two-and-a-half days of boring, bone jarring, hot and dusty driving, with cramped six hours of sleep snatched along the way at night.

  The Reverend Frith looked briefly into the rear vision mirror and smiled. ‘Another couple of hours.’

  Paulie groaned and sat back.

  The Reverend went back to his concentration of the road. It was a constant battle. The route was mainly traversed by larger vehicles. The narrow wheelbase of the Land Rover could not quite settle comfortably on their wider tracks—one wheel was always on the sandy, sloping edge. In places, the bush grew right up to the edge of the road, drooping dust-laden leaves, the sharp thorns of acacias ready to cut an unsuspecting arm to the bone. The Reverend’s right arm had been lacerated twice yesterday before he realised it would be prudent to keep it off the open window. Alex had never heard a man of the cloth say ‘shit’ before.

  He’d never heard one say ‘Holy fucking Jesus!’ before either. Three elephants had just crossed in front of them, ears flapping wildly. They appeared from nowhere and disappeared into the trees and were quickly gone from sight. The Reverend was visibly shaken by their size and the swiftness with which they came and went. ‘Sorry, boys. I didn’t expect that.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ Alex was trying hard not to laugh.

  The Reverend was embarrassed. ‘Do you have elephants on your farm?’

  ‘Not elephants. Sometimes we get lions.’

  ‘Don’t they eat the cattle?’ The Reverend was fresh out from England and anxious to learn as much as possible about the savage land which was his first posting.

  ‘Not often. Sometimes they do.’ Well it was true. A mangy old lion, desperate for a meal, had once brought down one of their calves. His teeth had been so rotten he roared with pain every time he tried to take a bite. Pa had watched him with sympathy for a while and then shot him to end his misery.

  Paulie leaned forward again. ‘Wonder if Michael-John has grown much.’

  ‘Who’s Michael-John?’

  ‘He’s our brother,’ Paulie said from the back seat.

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Two,’ Alex said.

  ‘I guess he’ll be going to school with you chaps in a few years.’

  ‘I dunno. Maybe.’ Alex didn’t think so. Michael-John had been born sickly and stayed sickly. He was a thin boy who had something wrong with his legs and spine. Paget’s disease he thought it was. Well, that’s what Pa once said. His mother refused to discuss it although he had heard her say more than once it was another sign of their being punished.

  ‘What’s Shakawe like?’ The Reverend swerved to avoid a pothole. ‘How big is it?’

  ‘Well . . .’ Alex had no idea. ‘There’s Wright’s Trading Store and the Wenela depot. There’s a really big African village that kind of wanders all over the place. There’s a police station too.’ He stopped, trying to remember. ‘There’s the school of course.’

  ‘Why don’t you go to school in Shakawe?’

  ‘It’s for black kids.’

  ‘Oh.’ The Reverend grinned at his bluntness.

  Alex tried to be helpful. ‘I’ve seen your house. It’s nice.’

  ‘No it isn’t, it’s a dump.’ Nothing if not honest was Paulie.

  The Reverend laughed. ‘Maybe it’s a nice dump.’

  Alex laughed too. He liked the new Reverend.

  They were getting into familiar country. The road followed the Panhandle, a narrow arm of the Okavango Delta which stretched to the South West African border. Small villages every twenty miles or so sprawled out along the southwestern side of the life-giving waters. They caught their first sight of Shakawe at four in the afternoon. ‘Here we are, we’re home,’ Paulie said, excited.

  ‘This is it?’ The Reverend looked astonished. A couple of huts appeared beside the deep sandy bush track. In the distance he could see more huts. The track wound randomly in front of them. It was no different from the country they had been driving through for the past six hours, nothing to indicate they had reached a village.

  ‘There’s Wenela,’ Alex pointed.

  The recruiting depot was basic but at least it was European. The Reverend looked relieved.

  On their right, the river offered tantalising glimpses through the dense stands of trees which grew on the banks. They were the only substantial vegetation around, the rest was mainly barren sand.

  Mum and Pa were waiting outside Wright’s Trading Store. Built mainly of corrugated iron, it was the only establishment in Shakawe where provisions could be bought. Even then, being able to buy what you wanted was not a foregone conclusion since most of its stock came in by air, as and when the DC3s had the carrying capacity. Still, the sight of its sagging roof and crooked verandah was the most welcome thing Alex had seen in three days.

  As usual it was Pa who hugged the boys and welcomed them home. Mum was too busy thanking and blessing the Reverend and inviting him to lunch. Alex had once heard one of the Wenela pilots telling Aunty Dorie why he did not like giving Alex a lift. ‘It’s not the kid, he’s a nice enough boy. It’s his bloody mother. She drives you crazy. Half the time you don’t know if she’s talking to you or praying.’

  Alex, listening to the hippo gargling and grunting in the river, watching Mum fall all over the Reverend, seeing old Ndete, the butcher, under his tree selling meat, felt a great sense of having come home, even though they still had more than two hours over some of the roughest road imaginable to go before they reached the farm.

  There was a surprise waiting for them at home. ‘Go and see your room,’ Pa said.

  The house had evolved with no planning. A single room initially with a curtained area at one end for sleeping, it had been haphazardly enlarged over the years, as and when money permitted. First a wide verandah at the front. Then a kitchen and dining room at the other end. Then two bedrooms and a bathroom.

  Alex ran to open the bedroom door, Paulie just behind him. They stopped in surprise. Where the door had opened into their room before, now it opened into a hallway with three doors leading from it.

  ‘Yours is the last one, Alex, you’re in the middle, Paulie.’ Pa had followed them into the hall.

  ‘Wowee!’ Paulie rushed into his room.

  ‘Gee, Pa, when did you do this?’ Alex wanted to run to his room too but Pa looked so pleased he knew he should ask some questions.

  ‘Just after Christmas. We wanted to surprise you.’ Pa guessed at Alex’s impatience. ‘Go and see.’

  Paulie raced back into the hall. ‘
Wait’ll you see, Alex, it’s the best thing. Oh boy!’

  Alex opened his door and, with Paulie jumping up and down behind him trying to see, took in his new domain. There was a window looking over the back garden, a built-in wardrobe, his bed against one wall, a chest of drawers and a bookcase. A round cotton mat was in the middle of the floor, red and brown and white.

  ‘Like it?’ Pa was smiling at Paulie’s enthusiasm.

  ‘I love it.’ Alex had enjoyed having his own room at Aunty Dorie’s but now Paulie shared it with him. As fond as he was of his younger brother, sometimes he wanted privacy.

  ‘Oh boy, I can’t wait to go to bed.’ Paulie was running from his room to Alex’s and back again.

  ‘Hey, man!’ Pa caught him by the seat of his pants. ‘Slow down, you’ll wear yourself out.’

  But Paulie, having been cooped up in the Land Rover for three days, could not be contained. He went running outside to play with the dog.

  The Reverend Frith had been invited for lunch on Wednesday as a way of thanking him for giving the boys a lift home. He arrived wearing khaki shorts and shirt and long, lace-up snake boots. He shook hands with Pa and clapped him on the arm. ‘Nice to see you again, Mr Theron.’

  ‘Danie, please.’

  ‘Fine with me. My name’s Harry.’

  Pa scratched the cowlick at the front of his head. ‘Is that okay? I mean, to call a cleric by his first name?’ The clergy made Pa uneasy. He was never sure how to speak to them.

  Harry Frith laughed. ‘Why not? I’ve got one, might as well use it.’

  Pa’s face lost its hunted look. ‘Well then, Harry it is. Mind you, the wife won’t like it. Come up onto the verandah. Do you drink beer?’

  Mum, alerted by Paulie, came out onto the verandah untying her apron. ‘My this is nice. Welcome, Father, welcome to our humble home. The Good Lord has seen fit to send us another beautiful day. Mind you, we could do with some rain. Still, one mustn’t complain. We’re all healthy, praise the Lord.’

  Uh oh. She’s not being normal.

  ‘Please.’ The Reverend Frith smiled at her. ‘Call me Harry.’