Back to Villa Park

by Jenny Robson

  Back toVilla Park

  Jenny Robson

  Tafelberg

  Dedicated to Rhondda Strugnell

  of Maun, Botswana.

  When I needed a neighbour,

  you were there.

  It is not what you call me but what I answer to

  that matters most.

  African proverb

  I used to think that we white Africans were hard to

  sympathise with because we were that least defensible of all

  constituencies, the Unwronged.

  Peter Godwin,

  When a Crocodile Eats the Sun

  1

  Mr Nkum-whatever-whatever

  All I want from life is a little fairness, okay? Just for the world to give me a bit of justice. Is that so much to ask? To hope for? I don’t reckon so.

  But did I get any? Hell no!

  That Mr Nkum-whatever-his-name-is, he just came up be­hind me. He grabbed my shirt collar and yanked me out of my chair like I was a dog or something. Then he grabbed my ­answer sheet off the desk so he could read my name.

  “Mr Dirk Karel Strydom!” he said in this posh voice. “We have no place for your kind here at Kagiso Holdings. No, thank you very much! We at Kagiso Holdings must protect our reputa­tion for integrity and high standards. We are not prepared to employ people of your calibre, not even in our training schemes.”

  He started shoving me in front of him between the rows of desks, all the way from the back of the conference room right up to the door.

  And did he even give me a chance to explain things? Because I could have. I could have told him all about Janie September. I could have told the whole story about Janie and her mother Dorcas and what they did. But did he think to ask me what was going on? Hell no!

  He just kept shoving me, this black man in his expensive fancy suit and with his expensive fancy gold watch. Well, this Double A.

  *

  That’s what Bethany says I’m supposed to call them: Double As.

  “You have to, like, call a spade a spade!” she says. “You gotta use words that, like, reflect reality. They are Double As. They are the Affirmative Action brigade, right? The whole system is set up for their benefit, so they’re always going to end up the winners. You have to face it head on. Then you can, like, find ways to deal with it.”

  Bethany mocked me so much when I said I was going to Kagiso Holdings. She said it was a waste of time. I showed her the letter they sent me.

  Dear Mr Strydom

  Thank you for your interest in our Youth Training Scheme. We invite you to attend a preliminary interview at 8am on 13 September …

  It was typed on fancy paper with a proper logo at the top: three men’s heads in a row all facing upwards. A black one, a grey one, a white one.

  “Get real, Karel!” Bethany said. She always calls me Karel, even though my proper name is Dirk. “Do you really think they’ll give you a place? You poor delusional! You’re a pale male, idiot. You’re a Zed. You don’t stand a hope in hell.”

  But I didn’t want to hear negative stuff like that. I was excited. Very hopeful.

  “So why did they send me a letter then? They could see my surname; they could see what I am.”

  “Who knows? Maybe they want to check if you’re Single A? Lots of coloureds have, like, Afrikaans surnames.”

  “Okay, so then why have they got a white head in their logo? Look!”

  “Oh, come on! That’s just for show, just for PC purposes. Political correctness, right? Just to fool suckers like you.” Bethany often talks to me like I am a child. Or an idiot.

  But I ignored that. Already planning in my head what answers I could give to their interview questions to show I was enthusiastic and willing to learn, like their advert said. And after all, 13 September was my birthday. That was a sign that things would go well for me, surely?

  *

  “Preliminary interview” – hah!

  When I walked into that conference room this morning, it was a shock. It was full of other applicants all sitting at rows and rows of desks. It was like a huge classroom all over again. I couldn’t even see an empty desk for those first few minutes. What kind of interview gets held like this? I mean, is it fair to call it an interview when fifty other people are there at 8am as well?

  Then this great big Double A in his fancy grey-striped suit came striding in like he owned the place. With a small white woman following him with a pile of papers and a bundle of pens.

  And he said, “Good morning, young people. I am Mr Nkum …” Well, I can’t remember the rest of his name. It was one of those names that goes on and on. “I am Mr Nkum-whatever-whatever. I am the Director of Human Resources here at Kagiso Holdings. So, welcome all. As you can see, we have many of you keen to join us. We will have to whittle you down with a test or two. Just to check your basic numeracy skills. That will make my job easier.” He laughed like he’d made some huge joke.

  But I was already panicking. Test!? The letter never said anything about a test! And is that fair, I ask you, not to give any warning? To say it is a preliminary interview and then to shove papers in front of us full of maths questions? Is that justice? Hell no!

  So, actually, Bethany was right. It was a waste of time and I didn’t stand a chance.

  I wasn’t even halfway through the test before I got chucked out like a bag of rubbish. Pushed out past all the rows of other job-seekers.

  Most of them were Double As too. And most of them were laughing.

  I hate it when people laugh at me. It makes me want to go crazy. I want to smash my fist into their smirking lips and loosen their teeth till the blood flows.

  They used to laugh at me, back at that school in Port Alfred too. Back when I lived there on the pineapple farm with my sister, Fat Sonya. They used to call me dom-ass. I think because my surname was Strydom. Big joke! Ha ha! And because the teachers were always shaking their heads at me and telling me to do stuff over again and giving me Fs for my essays.

  They said I must do grade eleven over again. Can you imag­ine! That’s why I came back here to Johannesburg – there was no ways I was staying in that school for another two years. So I stole money out my sister Sonya’s purse and I caught the bus all the way up to Joburg. I wanted to get far away from the smell of rotten pineapples and the sound of people laughing at me.

  So much for that idea! Here I was after all those kilometres through the night in the bus. And still people were laughing at me!

  Before Mr Nkum-whatever slammed the door, I got the chance to take one last look at Janie September. She wasn’t laughing. She sat there at the back next to the empty desk that I’d just got dragged from. And like always, her eyebrows were high and curved on her forehead as if she was surprised. Surprised, but not much interested.

  Did she remember me? Did she recognise me at all?

  Mr Nkum-something gave one last shove so I was over the threshold and out in the passage. In his hand he still had my crumpled-up test. He didn’t even bother to look at my date of birth that I’d printed right there under my name in extra-big digits.

  If he had, he would have seen that today is my birthday. And not just any birthday. My eighteenth! What kind of a way is that to treat someone on their eighteenth?

  The conference room doors banged shut on me.

  I was so angry, I smashed my fists against the fancy egg-shell-painted wall. Right underneath the photo of the chairman or whatever. Three times, four times. I smashed until there was blood and pain.

  It’s strange. Because I haven’t smashed stuff for a long time.

  Down the passage, the Double A receptionist looked at me with big eyes. Like I was frightening her.

  That made me feel a bit better.

 
*

  Mrs Mogwera remembered my birthday.

  Early this morning when I was there in the bathroom of the maid’s quarters washing and shaving with cold water, she came walking across the backyard from her kitchen.

  Carrying a present.

  Just a small one, but properly wrapped up. With a ribbon round it, even.

  See, that’s where I live: in the maid’s quarters of 5 Groenewald Street, Villa Park. Mrs Mogwera’s husband owns the property now.

  She said, “Happy, happy, happy birthday, Dirkie!”

  She has this soft voice and this soft smile. When I’m near her, I always get this calm feeling coming over me. And, you see, that is why I get confused with all that stuff Bethany says about Double As. I mean, I know I’m not so good at understanding things. But how can Mrs Mogwera be a Double A? She would never oppress anyone. But when I ask Bethany, she just says, “Oh, grow up, Karel!”

  Mrs Mogwera’s present for me was a blue tie. Silky and shiny new.

  She said, “In my culture, blue is the colour of hope. I hope today will be good for you. I hope Kagiso Holdings will give you a place in their training scheme. I will be here at home hoping and hoping for you.”

  It was Mrs Mogwera who found the advert in the newspaper and brought it to me.

  Earn while you learn. No matric required. As part of our commitment to social upliftment amongst the Youth of South Africa, we offer a Youth Training Scheme …

  She brought me some writing paper and an envelope and stamps so I could apply.

  “This will be good, Dirkie. You mustn’t spend all your life being a gardener. You have more promise than that.”

  Bethany says it’s disgusting. “How can you stoop so low, Karel? Squatting in the servant’s room behind a black family’s house! Digging their garden like some labourer! Where’s your pride?”

  But if I didn’t stay behind Mrs Mogwera’s house, I would be out on the streets. I would still be sleeping by the fountain at Northfields Play Park with Aggies and Rosie. Or under Victoria Bridge when it rained.

  And it’s not so bad in the maid’s room. Except there’s no hot water.

  “So, Dirkie, you will wear your blue tie for your interview? Then you will look smart and handsome. You are a very handsome young man. They will give you a place for sure.” Mrs Mogwera smiled at me again and walked back across the yard, back to that kitchen door.

  I struggled to remember how to knot the tie. I tried quite a few times, checking in the dressing table mirror with its huge crack on one side. In the end I got it right. And I did look smart. Like a man with somewhere to go. Especially since Mrs Mogwera had ironed my white shirt.

  That’s what your eighteenth birthday is for, isn’t it? To mark that you’ve become a man. That you can drive and go to a bar and vote and earn a proper living. You’re not a boy any more and so things will never, ever be the same for you.

  I should have realised. Hope was hanging round my neck like a blue noose.

  *

  Strange. In my culture, blue is not the colour of hope. Blue is about being sad. There is the Monday blues. There is feeling blue. My dad used to sing a song: When I’m feeling blue, all I have to do is take a look at you and then I’m not so blue …

  He sang it to my ma sometimes when he was in a good mood and she was well. He said it was called “Groovy Kinder Love” or something. But the point is that blue is not the way you want to feel.

  Back when I was ten-almost-turning-eleven, the doctor came. My ma was sick again. And the doctor said to my dad, “Look, Pieter, I’m no psychiatrist. But maybe you must get Leila out of that blue dressing gown. I’m sure that’s not helping her depression. If she’s refusing to get dressed, at least get her something in a bright, cheerful colour.”

  “Cheerful?”

  “Yes. Like yellow, Pieter. Yellow is a good, happy colour. I’m sure that will lift her spirits. And of course, I’ll prescribe more sleeping pills. She really needs a good night’s rest.”

  So Dad took me with him to the shops and we found this lovely, soft, thick gown. It was so yellow, it was almost golden. Like the colour of Mrs Mogwera’s Barberton Daisies.

  “This is the one, Dirkie! This will do the trick!” my dad said. And there was so much hope in his voice that I wanted to cry. “Yes, my boy, we’ll make your ma smile again. You’ll see!”

  But in the end, the yellow gown didn’t help. The sleeping pills neither. My ma still went wandering around the house at night, checking and re-checking the doors and the burglar bars. Often I woke up and there she was at my bedroom window. Whispering.

  “Got to be careful. Got to keep us safe. They want to break in and murder us all, you see? They’re outside right now, watching, just waiting for their chance.”

  Sometimes I managed to get back to sleep. But not always.

  *

  So, anyway! There I was standing in the passage of Kagiso Holdings with blood dripping down my knuckles a bit. The receptionist stopped looking frightened and started phoning Security. So I walked past her and out into the morning sunshine.

  People were rushing past me, all grown-ups, all looking smart and on their way to work. And what was I supposed to do now with my eighteenth birthday?

  I’ll go see Aggies, I decided. I like to be with Aggies.

  Aggies spends the mornings at his begging post outside the Pick n Pay mall in Villa Park. Sitting against the third pillar with his safari-guide hat upside down in front of him. Right opposite where Nick the Greek used to have his butchery. But Nick the Greek is long gone now. His butchery is just an empty shop with white paint smeared across the windows and a sign that says: To Let.

  That was where I met Aggies the very first time, back in January when I just arrived from Port Alfred. With his placard that just says, Ag Pleeze! Nothing more than that. And with his bare feet like two grey-brown animals.

  So, okay. I pushed my way through the crowds of employed people and I went to stand at the taxi stop. I held up my hand, making the sign for Villa Park.

  There were some blood smears on my blue tie. What does red stand for in Mrs Mogwera’s culture? In my culture it means anger, I think. Or love. Maybe both?

  I took the tie off and slipped it in my pocket.

  2

  Nick the Greek

  After Ma came back from the clinic, around when I was eleven-and-a-few-months, I used to go to Nick the Greek’s butchery often. Ma couldn’t do the shopping. Well, most of the time she couldn’t get out of bed. So I went to buy the food instead. Just about every second day, soon as I’d changed out of my school clothes.

  Nick the Greek was a nice man. I don’t think he really was Greek. I don’t even think his name was Nick. That’s just what Ma called him.

  Let me tell you, it was a bad day, that day Ma ended up getting taken to the clinic. I was just home from school, taking off my blazer in my bedroom. Then I heard her screaming and the sound of glass smashing.

  She was there at her dressing table. It was a very old dressing table that came from Ouma’s farm. Ma always polished it with special oil and I wasn’t allowed to fiddle with the fancy brass drawer handles.

  “It’s antique, Dirkie. Real red Rhodesian teak. Your ouma got it for a wedding gift. It’s worth a lot of money, see? We must take special care of it.”

  But now there she was, in her yellow dressing gown, smashing at the mirror with her hairbrush. There was already a huge crack down the one side.

  “Don’t you come near me,” she screamed. “Voetsek, voetsek! Don’t you dare touch me!” Like she was seeing someone in the mirror. She screamed the K word too. Over and over. That was quite a shock for me. She never used that word, even when she was checking the burglar bars at midnight. Nor my dad. They were always making sure I knew not to say it.

  “It’s not a nice word, Dirkie. It makes black people very upset if you say it,” Dad told me. “It’s a kind of swear word. You know, like the F word or the C word. You’ll get into trouble if you use it.”
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  I knew about the F word, of course. Some grade seven guys said it a lot in the playground. I didn’t know about any C word, but I thought it was better if I didn’t ask. But here was my ma, yelling the K word, and I was so worried she would get into trouble. But I didn’t know how to stop her.

  I suppose it was neighbours that called my dad home from work. And then maybe my dad phoned for the ambulance. I don’t remember too well. Except for the two big black men in their white jackets.

  They half carried her down the driveway of 5 Groenewald Street, and she was screaming the K word at them, telling them to voetsek. But they just laughed. One of them said, “It’s alright, Mrs Strydom. We’ll take care of you. Don’t worry about a thing.”

  Then she started yelling, “A-N-C! A-N-C!” over and over. But in an Afrikaans accent so it sounded like: “Aah. En. See-ya!”

  And of course there were neighbours standing on their stoeps and out in their front gardens or even in the road to watch. All the way up and down Groenewald Street.

  I mostly remember Jimmy Big-Deal Cameron from number 12. He was two years ahead of me at Villa Park Primary. Rugby captain. Deputy head boy. And there he stood staring, next to his mother, who was dressed up like she was on her way to church or something. Around them were all the fancy flowers she grew, even outside their fence.

  I wanted to shout the F word at them. But then maybe the two black men would lift me into the ambulance too. So I just stood quiet beside my dad there at our front gate. Dad had his arm around my shoulder. I could feel how it was shaking. I suppose because even buying Ma a bright-yellow dressing gown hadn’t made her feel better.

  *

  When Ma came back from the clinic months later, she mostly lay in her bedroom with the curtains closed. And she had to take lots of pills.

  That’s why Dad found Dorcas to come and work for us.

  Dorcas September.

  “You must be polite to her, okay, Dirkie?” my dad said. “We really need her now. She can cook.”

  But I hated Dorcas right from the start. Just the way she looked at us and walked around our house like she was laughing at us. I caught her out too. I got back from school and the vacuum cleaner was going in the lounge, making that horrible sound vacuum cleaners make. But when I looked into the room, Dorcas wasn’t cleaning. Hell no!