He was silent for a few moments before answering thoughtfully, ‘I would really have liked to own a Mercedes Sports.’
He was probably serious, Griet realised in dismay.
‘I’ll pour us some wine,’ he said, getting up. So that she couldn’t pry any more, thought Griet. ‘Red or white?’
‘White, please, Pappa.’
‘It’ll be better next Christmas,’ he mumbled almost inaudibly as he left the room.
‘Next Christmas everything will be different,’ she said to herself once she was alone.
17
The Five Fellow Travellers
Once upon a time, long long ago, there lived a wicked stepmother, Griet wrote as she lay in her bed, her heart longing for George and her hormones lusting after Adam. Once upon a time there was a stepmother who was thrown out of the castle by the king. No, no, no, she thought. This is no good. I’m going to seek my brother and my sisters and together we’ll teach the king a lesson.
The stepmother didn’t have many talents, but there was one thing she could do better than anyone else. She could blow: there was a superhuman power in her cheeks and her mouth; her lungs were like hot-air balloons. (She didn’t smoke, obviously.) She could blow because since childhood she’d had to blow life into stories, day after day, month after month, year after year. By the time she was thirty she could blow the Cape Doctor’s tablecloth of cloud right off Table Mountain, blow the smoke from the Devil’s Pipe into the sea, blow away the mist that hung around Lion’s Head. All the better to see you, my child. She could blow the Twelve Apostles’ hair awry.
Enough is enough, Griet decided in her bed. She could blow, she added for good measure, inscribed a triumphant exclamation mark and turned the page.
The blowing stepmother rushed furiously through the world, searching for her sisters and brother. In a city between the devil and the deep blue sea, she found her youngest sister with a hat perched over one ear. ‘You look like a clown!’ she said. ‘Why don’t you put your hat on properly?’
‘If I put it on properly,’ answered the clown, ‘it immediately gets so cold that the angels in heaven freeze and fall to earth like statues.’
‘Come with me,’ said the blower. ‘Together we’re going to teach the king a lesson.’
‘Where’s the new man in your life?’ asked Nella the moment she stepped into the flat. ‘I’m eaten up with curiosity.’
‘He’s not the new man in my life,’ said Griet, leading her sister to the kitchen.
‘The new man in your bed?’ Nella stopped short and put her nose in the air. ‘Isn’t this a bit over the top, Griet? Only old hippies still burn incense.’
‘Well, I had to find something that smelt stronger than insecticide.’
Maybe she’d overdone it a bit, she realised, with joss sticks wherever you looked. Even one in the oven.
‘I gather you’re still battling with the cockroaches.’
‘A luta continua. But it’s not only cockroaches now. The past week millions of ants have also signed up with the Struggle. I swear they’re going to carry me off in my sleep.’
Nella examined the kitchen critically while Griet examined her sister’s outfit just as critically. Nella was wearing a satin waistcoat over a transparent chiffon blouse – nothing under the blouse – and very short shorts on her long brown legs. The sort of outfit that would count against you in a rape case, Griet thought worriedly. But it was probably only mothers and older sisters who were haunted by these fears. She poured Nella a glass of almost frozen white wine.
‘Sorry, the fridge is a bit dicey. I should have taken the wine out earlier.’
‘At least you still have a fridge.’ Nella shrugged.
‘Not that it’s worth much. Every second day it doesn’t work at all. The rest of the time it freezes everything from wine to tomatoes as hard as rock. It’s one of the reasons I’ve never invited anyone to come and visit me.’
‘I’m beginning to understand why you’re so relieved to have found another place to stay at last.’ Nella laughed, following Griet out of the kitchen. ‘How did you stick it out here so long?’
‘I didn’t really have any choice.’ Griet had over-decorated the living room with flowers to disguise the lack of furniture, but now, as she stood in the middle of the room viewing the place through her stylish sister’s eyes, she knew that her diversionary tactic hadn’t worked. ‘It’s beyond me how Louise could choose to live here.’
I want to move out [Louise wrote from London], but there are so few places here that I could even sort of afford that it’s maybe less trouble to stay married. I know you’ll think I’m copping out, but what the fuck, you’re the one who wants to believe in fairy tales. Maybe most marriages are as unsatisfactory as ours, maybe most people prefer to stay unhappily married rather than being single. The therapist looks bored to tears with everything I say. As though he hears exactly the same story every day. That’s what makes me wonder.
I wish I could find an Afrikaans therapist. It’s hell having to worry about your tenses while you’re trying to pour your heart out.
Meanwhile my husband is drinking more and more and saying less and less. I’ve heard this one before somewhere. One evening after our therapy session he suggested we get some fish and chips and have sex for a change. Not in exactly the same sentence, but in the same tone of voice. There are very few things in our relationship that still amuse me, but that struck me as so ridiculous I laughed until I cried.
‘So, where’s the mystery man?’ Nella persisted.
‘He’s gone to his family for Christmas,’ Griet explained, trying to wash away her impatience with a swig of wine. ‘He’s on his way back now – hopefully he’ll pitch up in time to come to a New Year’s Eve party with me.’
‘But I’ll be gone by then.’
‘I don’t know why you’re so keen to meet him. It’s not as though he’s going to be your brother-in-law or anything. I mean, I’ve slept with the man a couple of times, that’s all. And he’s going back to London in a week’s time.’
‘We’re all worried about you,’ said Nella, disappointed. ‘It’s time you met a solid man.’
‘I don’t think “solid” is the first word that’ll come to Pa’s mind if he sees Adam’s ponytail,’ Griet said with a smile.
‘What do you think of him?’ Nella asked Tienie when she arrived a few minutes later.
‘He’s terribly good-looking,’ said Tienie, sitting down on the floor. ‘And that’s an objective assessment, if you take my sexual preferences into account.’
‘I never thought I’d ever sleep with such a beautiful man again.’ As Griet went to the kitchen to fetch a beer for Tienie, she added, more to herself than her sisters, ‘I was beginning to wonder whether I’d ever sleep with any man again.’
‘I was also beginning to wonder,’ Nella called out after her. ‘You waited long enough before you made a move.’
The clown and the blower journeyed on together, Griet fantasised before the open fridge, until they reached a city where everything was made of gold. Streets, buildings, mountains, even people. There they found the third sister who was so strong that she could carry off all the stunted trees in hell with one hand behind her back.
‘Come with us,’ said the blower. ‘Together the three of us will teach the king a lesson.’
The three journeyed through the world and over the water until they reached a city where dreams come true, and there the fourth sister awaited them, her bag already packed. ‘I knew you were coming to fetch me.’ She had such good eyesight she knew the colour of the man in the moon’s eyes. ‘I saw you before you came over the water. Together, the four of us will teach the king a lesson.’
And together the four journeyed back over the water until they reached a deep dark forest, where they found their brother who was standing on one leg with his other leg lying on the ground beside him.
‘What’s happened to you?’ they asked in surprise.
‘If I use
both legs,’ answered the brother, ‘I run faster than a witch can fly.’
‘Come with us,’ said the blowing stepmother. ‘Together, the five of us will teach the king a lesson.’
‘My self-image is in tatters,’ said Griet, back in the living room. ‘I look in the mirror and all I see is that I am seven years older, that I have seven times as many wrinkles and flabby muscles. I can’t believe any man will ever find me attractive again.’
‘That’s fucking sad.’ Tienie’s eyebrows formed a thick black line under her words. ‘And just because one man doesn’t want you any more.’
‘It isn’t necessary to emphasise “man”, Tienie. Don’t you feel the same when a relationship fails?’
‘My self-image has never been attached to smooth skin and taut muscles.’ Tienie tipped her glass slightly and poured the beer with a deft movement of her wrist. ‘That’s what’s sad, Griet: that someone like you suddenly sounds like an ageing beauty queen.’
‘I know my life isn’t dependent on my appearance.’ Griet took a quick sip of wine. ‘But it’s important to men, whether we want to admit it or not. It’s a fact, like the sun rising in the west.’
‘The east.’
‘Wherever,’ sighed Griet. ‘Sure, there are other ways to attract a man’s attention. I mean, I could fling myself off my balcony and hope that a guy with strong arms catches me. Or I can take the lead from Lady Godiva and ride naked down Adderley Street. Somewhere along the way I’m sure to find a chap who’s kinky about cellulite and broken veins.’
‘I agree with Griet,’ said Nella. ‘Good looks are still the easiest insurance policy against sleeping alone.’
‘Easy?’ asked Tienie, her eyebrows expressing pure indignation.
‘Well, you’re obviously not completely over the hill yet, Griet,’ Nella consoled her. ‘You seduced Adam, didn’t you?’
‘And if I remember correctly,’ murmured Tienie into her beer, ‘even Eve couldn’t do that without the help of a snake.’
Giggling uncontrollably, Griet jumped up to let Petra in.
Petra wore a black and white outfit that sang ‘New York, New York’, gold earrings that seemed to hang down to her hips, and had her hair cut dead straight at her neck. She kissed her sisters European-style. She smelt of Marlboros and French perfume, thought Griet, still giggling as their cheeks touched.
‘And how are you adapting?’ asked Tienie. ‘After a few days back in the Third World?’
‘It’s like riding a bike,’ said Petra. ‘Once you’ve lived here, you don’t fall off.’
Griet escaped to the kitchen to laugh some more in front of the fridge.
The five journeyed on together, back to the castle from which the blowing stepmother had been driven. There they heard the king was offering half his fortune to anyone who could beat him in a race, and the fleet-footed brother immediately offered to compete against him.
The brother ran so much faster than the king that he was able to stop halfway for a snooze. Resting his head on a tree stump, he fell fast asleep and the king overtook him. When the king was no more than a few paces from the winning post, the sharp-eyed sister saw where her brother was sleeping. She took up a gun and shot the tree stump out from under his head. The brother woke in a fright and managed to beat the king to the finishing post in the nick of time.
The king was highly incensed at having to hand over half his fortune – and to the brother of a woman he’d driven from his castle. Just wait, he decided. I’ll teach this wretched gang a lesson. He laid on a feast for them in a room with a steel floor and walls. When they sat down at table, he locked the iron door and ordered the cook to make a fire under the floor so that the whole room would get red hot.
‘And what kind fairy should I thank for this invitation?’ asked Marko in the kitchen door, grimacing as the incense hit him. ‘You’ve lived like a hermit for months. I was beginning to suspect that you were growing cannabis, forging money or running an escort agency.’
‘Sorry to disappoint you.’ Griet passed him a beer from the fridge. ‘The place depresses me so much I haven’t wanted to expose anyone else to it.’
‘What made you change your mind?’
‘Father Time.’ Griet smiled and gave him a bag of Niknaks to take to the living room. ‘If you’re patient, you can even get used to hell. But I must say I’ve been feeling much better since the day before yesterday when I signed for my own flat – like a prisoner who knows her sentence is almost over.’
‘So, it’s actually a farewell party?’ asked Nella when Griet and Marko joined them again.
‘Farewell to the flat and farewell to the year,’ Griet nodded, sitting down on the floor beside Tienie. ‘Both equally depressing.’
She’d decided yesterday to invite them for a sundowner. They’d all already made other plans for the rest of the evening. Like most people do on New Year’s Eve, she thought self-pityingly. The past seven years she and her husband had always spent New Year’s Eve with friends. This year her friends had obviously all forgotten her existence.
In no time at all, the five round the table grew so warm that one of them got up to open the door. Then they realised that the door was locked and the room was getting hotter and hotter. ‘The king won’t get rid of us this easily,’ cried the clown, straightening her hat on her head. Immediately the temperature dropped so low that the drinks froze in their glasses.
When the king unlocked the door a few hours later to find the five still full of life, he was thunderstruck. The fire still blazed under the floor, but the room was ice cold. Right, decided the king, if I can’t kill them, I must get them out of my kingdom some other way. Look, he said, instead of half of my fortune, I’ll give you my greatest treasure. The fast brother, he said, could marry his only daughter within a fortnight, and as a dowry they’d get as many treasures as one of the five could carry.
The blowing stepmother agreed immediately and summoned all the seamstresses in the kingdom. They had fourteen days to make the biggest sack in the world, she told them. When the wedding day dawned, the strong sister took the sack and went off to the king’s treasure vaults where she gathered all the king’s treasures. When all the vaults were empty, the sack wasn’t even half full, and, laughing, she threw it over her shoulder and waved to the king as she left.
‘Your daughter can decide for herself who she wants to marry,’ the brother told the king. ‘But meanwhile she can come along with us and see the world.’
She’d almost wept with gratitude when Adam phoned yesterday from his parents’ place to say he’d be back tonight. And then she’d popped in on Gwen and landed an invitation for New Year’s Eve.
‘I should have invited you ages ago.’ Gwen was clearly embarrassed. ‘But I was sure you’d have something else on the go.’
It all went to show, thought Griet, and asked if she could bring Adam along.
‘Of course. I’m dying to meet him.’
‘I’m dying to meet him,’ Petra told Marko.
‘I don’t know what you all expect of the poor chap,’ snapped Griet. ‘We’re like chalk and cheese.’
‘Opposites attract,’ said Nella.
‘Tell that to my husband.’
‘Your ex-husband,’ Tienie corrected her.
‘He’s not my ex-husband yet.’
‘But you may as well start practising saying it,’ suggested the always practical Petra.
‘Anyway, you’re the only one who wants to talk about your ex-husband,’ said Nella. ‘We’re more interested in your new lover.’
‘I don’t think he’s ever read a book in his life,’ Griet said carefully.
‘Don’t you think that’s part of your problem?’ asked Nella. ‘Do you really think a man has to read books to be a good lover?’
‘Give Griet a break,’ said Marko through a mouthful of Niknaks. ‘She’s always had a thing about intellectuals.’
‘The gods punish people by making their wishes come true,’ murmured Tienie.
> Griet took a quick swig of wine and got up to go to the balcony.
‘Look who’s talking!’ laughed Marko. ‘You’re just as big a snob about university degrees, Tienie.’
‘No, now you’re being unfair.’
‘You’re just as bad as each other, you and Griet, and all your intellectual friends. You use words you’d never hear in normal people’s conversations. “Sycophant” and “pertinent” and “categorical”.’
‘And “deconstruct”,’ Griet chipped in from the balcony.
‘Et tu, Brute?’
‘It’s true, Tienie,’ said Griet with a shrug. ‘I get just as irritated –’
‘You hide behind words,’ Marko interrupted her. ‘Nothing that’s happening in this country really affects you. You philosophise about it.’
‘What’s up with you?’ asked Nella. ‘Why are you so bloody-minded?’
‘Is the army after you again?’ asked Petra.
‘Not to mention you two.’ Marko was standing in the middle of the living room floor like a boxer in a ring. ‘Nella dresses up like a clown while everything’s burning around her. And Petra simply retreated when things got too hot, hopping on the first plane to New York. There are lots of ways of hiding.’
His sisters stared after him as he walked out. Even Tienie was at a loss for words.
‘Behind clothes, behind money, behind your husband’s career.’
‘Behind a camera?’ asked Griet when he came to lean on the balcony railing beside her.
‘Sure. I protect myself from the reality of a township. I take pictures of it. But you don’t even know what reality is, Griet. You sit at a PC and write fairy tales.’
Griet looked past her brother’s distressed eyes to the mountain that seemed much closer than usual this evening.
‘Just you wait,’ she said, holding out a hand to stop the mountain from climbing over the railings. ‘One day I’m still going to write a story about reality.’
‘And it’ll probably also sound like a fairy tale,’ said her brother.
As the five fellow travellers left his kingdom with all his treasure, the king flew into a terrible rage. He called up all the soldiers in the realm and commanded them to set off in pursuit and recover his fortune (and his only daughter). But the sister with the sight saw the soldiers from far off and warned the others.
Entertaining Angels Page 12