In her favourite house dress, she sat waiting for Solomon, for the creak at the gate as he came into the back garden and got changed into his work clothes in Alice’s toilet, the tiny room beside her bathroom which, in turn, was beside her bedroom. He would hang his smart clothes on a nail behind the door and change into his overalls. He would remove his polished shoes and put on his dilapidated takkies. Solomon the man about town would transform into Solomon the garden boy. Old Jock used to bark and snarl at the black man who arrived with the dawn, and then wag his stump of a tail and shadow his fine friend who mowed the lawn, cut the edges and trimmed the plants and picked up his poo.
To keep from becoming too distracted, Janet tried to make her lines for bonnie Jean run through her head. Instead, there resounded Charlie’s song with its insistent rhythm, the urgent panegyric about being a roving lad, about the wandering life he had had. The song shifted to reflect more selfishly how he prized his freedom, how he would not be tied down by any silly lass. But then one day he saw her: bonnie Jean. And he knew with such sweet certainty that he would have to go home with bonnie Jean.
And then, as Janet sat there in her quiet kitchen with the back door open and waiting expectantly for Alice to appear to do their tea and to make breakfast for Solomon, his great pot of steaming white pap, there came the call of the townsfolk of Brigadoon, urging on the delightful Charlie to do just that, to go home with bonnie Jean. Go home with her. The gentle euphemism, the innocent enthusiasm tumbled into the kitchen. They all chorused and celebrated Charlie’s going home with bonnie Jean. Home, they sang, home, home, home and the wonderful sentiments all hinged on the domestic joy promised by bonnie Jean.
And Janet smiled and shifted in her seat. She was home. She was bonnie Jean. She was the maid who had held out her hand and he now stayed to be with her. Forever together in Brigadoon. The beauty and simplicity of the notion, the feeling of the beckoning song and the comfort of true love almost brought tears to her eyes. And she sat in the kitchen alone in the morning light, her children and her husband asleep, whilst outside Alice and Solomon made ready to service this Brigadoon of theirs and yes, there they came, the pair of Hadedas en route to the Bunny Park, the morning fly-past of the two big ibises with the shimmering emerald-brown feathers and sharp curved bills which cut the sky with their insistent cries. Were their calls, which clattered through the morning blue, soulful or mocking, tragic or menacing. Janet could never make up her mind as the echoes faded across the road and came to rest in the heart of the park opposite the house. Charlie’s song to bonnie Jean was gone from her head and she sat in the silence, the aftershock of the Ha-Ha-Hadedas. How she dreaded those first Hadedas so.
And then there was Alice’s beaming face, the clarity of her white teeth in her beautiful shining black face and the cup of tea on its silly little saucer appeared before her. Janet had no idea how long Alice had glided about the kitchen whilst she, Janet, bonnie Jean, had sat stunned by a pair of birds.
Thank you, Alice, said Janet.
The tea was lovely and hot. A nice cup of tea. The warmth of it coursed down her throat and welled up around her heart.
I can’t tell you how glad we are to have you back, Janet said between sips.
Alice smiled and said how good it was to be back.
And how is old Lettie, asked Janet. Lettie, Alice’s mother. Lettie who had helped to raise Janet, probably more than Janet’s own mother had – and probably more than Lettie had actually raised her own Alice. In asking the question, in asking with such fondness, Janet could not know the depth of feeling, the longing in Alice’s reply.
My mother, she said. The funeral – the singing, the crying, the singing – the funeral – my mother.
I miss old Lettie, Janet now trod even deeper down that overgrown path fringed by black-jacks, those weeds that sent their spiked seeds stabbing into your socks and clothes, which pricked and bit you like guilt and regret and longing and loss made flesh. Seeds with claws that tried to burrow into that flesh.
Alice brushed her arm and smiled.
The pap was starting to bubble and flop about in the pot. It needed constant stirring now and Alice turned to beat it back, to make sure that the lumps that threatened never materialised. Solomon was not afraid to make sarcastic comments about women who could not even cook his pap properly.
And then the pap was ready and poured into the big enamel bowl like the one they used for Jock’s food except Jock’s was blue and Solomon’s was green and pocked with black scars. And there was the big enamel mug with its pint of tea and countless sugars. For Solomon had a sweet tooth and so it took a long time to stir his tea and to stir his porridge.
And Janet realised that, despite sitting and waiting, she had somehow missed the call of the metal door which announced Solomon’s arrival. Maybe he came with the Hadedas or perhaps Charlie’s song had poured into her head and drowned him out. But he was here!
Alice disappeared with the food and the tea. When she returned she had a question.
Solomon, he is wanting to know what is happening to old Jock.
Janet’s eyes turned to the fridge. The magnets still formed GOD instead of DOG in chaotic technicolour. The sadness of Jock’s death seemed oddly to seep from their bright shapes and drip down the white surface of the fridge. Janet tried to expunge the image of their old friend, splayed out in the middle of the lawn, his tongue swollen, his dead eyes bulging and his neck well and truly broken. Killed by the night; strangled by the stars. Who knows, they had no clue. Even her policeman husband was shaken by the sight. Old Jock, as strong as an ox, a Rottweiler robust and true, felled by the soft night. A mystery. Shrouded by the dew-soaked lawn and not a sound. Jock the guard dog had made not a peep. Whatever it was that came in the night had killed him quickly and silently. It was not rabies or distemper. No other disease was to blame, it appeared. Jock did indeed seem to have been strangled by the overwhelming darkness. For a moment, Janet wondered about the crack. Could it have slid like a snake across the lawn and wound itself around Jock’s throat as he kept guard. Could it have swallowed his anguished barks and yelps, engulfed his distress like a chasm, broken his neck. Janet ran a soft hand around the back of her own neck and around the memory like a collar that was too tight. The poor children. And poor Hektor-Jan, who had dug the great hole behind the pampas grass, but away from the compost heap. Shelley had helped him. Janet could not forget how her elder daughter had silently taken one of the children’s spades brought back from a beach holiday and had helped to dig the hole without a word. Just soil heaped to one side, preparing to make Jock part of the garden itself, the garden he had patrolled with such care, the territory which he had marked with stiff-legged enterprise in his old age and which, trembling on frail haunches, he had fertilised with the food that had passed through his body. And the hole had had to be a big hole, Hektor-Jan had whispered to her. Old Jock was already stiff and Hektor-Jan could not bend his legs or break them just to fit them inside a smaller grave. The deed was done as Janet kept Pieter and Sylvia inside so that they would not wail as their father and their older sister dragged Jock and let him slip with a dusty thud into the earth. Shelley did not seem to notice her blistered hands that took an age to heal. She and her father had covered their old friend with soil and stones and had patted it flat as gently as they could, but it was a lot of soil. Janet and the little ones had made the slightly wonky cross in the dining room which had JOCK our DOG in sincere and babyish letters in black Khoki pen thanks to Pieter – and his mother who had rescued JOCK our DOG from the initial JOK ow DOG. The cross still stood, as did the fresh flowers placed there by little hands throughout the Christmas holidays. Janet had had to ask them not to pick the biggest and best roses and agapanthus. She had had to suggest that Jock would be more than happy with bright but small verbena blooms – technically a weed – which grew in profusion behind the compost heap and against the back wall. The morning glory blossoms were also encouraged as fair game. And all the while the ki
kuyu grass sent energetic tendrils across the bare patch at the foot of the little cross like a spider’s web of shooting green. The cross seemed slowly to be sinking into the sea of green. Janet would have to have a word with Solomon. Let him know not to mow over the memorial to faithful Jock.
Janet made her tea last a little longer. Soon there would be the quiet knock on the kitchen door and Solomon would deliver his scraped-clean bowl, his rinsed mug and his quiet thanks.
The knock came and there was Solomon. If he was surprised to hand the tin bowl and mug to the Madam, he did not show it.
Hello, Solomon, Janet said receiving the breakfast things.
Madam, said Solomon his eyes respectfully fixed to the kitchen floor that Alice was about to sweep.
Have you had a good holiday, Janet said.
Thank you, my Madam, said Solomon without looking up. His powerful arms hung by his sides and he shifted on his feet. He seemed to be straining against an invisible leash. Or perhaps he heard the call of the garden, the wild grass, the busy beds in the hot sun. Or possibly, he, too, was disquieted by the line that lurked so urgently in the pool.
With a deep breath, and the metal utensils still incongruously in her hands, Janet stepped towards Solomon. He moved backwards out of the door, making space, and Janet slid past. Come, she said simply.
For a second, her eyes had to be shielded against the stabbing light. She made the mistake of squinting up at the sun and that sent harsh lines dancing across her vision. For a second, what was dark was bright and what was light became dark. Momentarily, Solomon shone like an angel and her shadow glowed. Janet stumbled across the lawn.
Glancing back at the house beyond the expanse of grass across which they had just trekked, Janet turned to Solomon. He stood just behind her, now dark and serious. He watched her. She turned to the pool. With an aching heart, as though confronting grief and loss and a lifetime of quiet desperation, Janet beheld the crack.
See, she pointed, but no word came from her mouth, her throat, her heart. Look, Solomon. Look, there. There it is. Can you believe it. In our pool. In the very pool that has been in this garden for years. Suddenly it has sprung a crack. It has split. There. The smooth blue surface now scarred by a jagged line as thick as my wrist. An artery of ugliness now pulses in the pool.
And Solomon stood there looking at the Madam and looking at her free hand that pointed tremulously at the pool. Her other hand clutched the metal mug and bowl and spoon. They rattled with emotion.
Solomon, Janet said. Look.
And he squatted down beside the edge of the pool, his loose arms now wrapped around his knees, and Solomon watched the pool. The water wobbled with a life of its own. The sun throbbed and the leaves and every blade of grass seemed to strain towards it, seemed to crane upwards in juicy green lines. In this fecund Eden, Janet pointed to the black serpent in the pool of knowledge. At the bottom of the garden was oblivion, chaos, despair.
Solomon slowly shook his head.
Now Janet turned to look down at him as he shook his shaved head and let out a low whistle. He sent a hand towards the edge of the pool. He paused and Janet held her breath. Then he touched the surface of the water, stroked the face of the pool, ran his fingers through its clear blue hair. The water shimmered under his searching caress, eddied and yielded so that the crack was dispelled into a moment of whirling doubt. Still Solomon stroked the pool and eased the nightmare vision. Then he raised his hand to his nose and sniffed.
What do we do, Janet said urgently. What do we do.
And Solomon looked at her from where he was squatting beside the pool. Then he got up. With his long certain stride he fetched the hosepipe and turned the tap so that he brought its gushing length to her feet and the pool. Then he went to the hook on the back wall, just above the pump where the long net was lodged and the brush. With expert hands he pulled the long silver pole with its brush crown from its hiding place and brought it to the pool. Janet held her breath. Solomon never even hesitated. As though spearing a fish like some tribal fisherman, Solomon plunged the long pole into the pool. Down the sides it slid. Solomon frowned with concentration and effort as he slid the pole up and down, up and down. Janet could hear the bristles scraping the sides of the white concrete with a rasping cry. She opened her mouth and there came the synchronous gasp of the scraping bristles, as though she too rasped with busy strokes of the brush.
Solomon, she choked on the scraping sibilance of his name. S-S-Shhhhhhh.
The gleaming bristles of the brush were now about to touch the crack. Janet did not know what to do. She could not stand there clutching at metal desperation and wincing her anxiety. She could not remain there shifting from one foot to the other as she felt the brush scrape her very insides like she was the pool and nightmare was about to spring loose, triggered by the brush and the crack. As though the brush was levering out all the pain from every crack in the world. Through the surging water and the splashing and the pumping silver brush, Janet’s cry was lost and the tin utensils, all Solomon’s breakfast things, fell from her grasp and clattered to the paving. With a ping, a stinging sound, Solomon’s bowl bounded into the pool and leapt like a fish through the water towards the crack. Janet fell back in fright and then she was scrabbling, all left feet and numb arms as she tried to scramble back to the house. But she never made it. Again she was compelled to behold the brush as it surged closer and closer to the crack. It seemed that Solomon was testing the water. Janet was drawn to return to the edge of the pool, but she had to do more. Before Solomon could jab the crack, before the brush and the pole and maybe even Solomon himself could be electrified by the shocking chasm, Janet reached out a trembling hand and touched Solomon’s arm.
The brush and pole were suddenly still. Solomon’s eyes remained fixed on the pool, as though he had been touched by the water itself – or by the crack which had insinuated its supple length right out of the pool.
There was a long pause.
We cannot tell the Master, Janet’s voice came urgently. I do not know what the Baas will do. We must make sure that we fix it and that he does not know. He must not know.
And even as Janet was telling Solomon and even as Solomon stepped away from her touch on his arm and moved uncomfortably closer and closer to the edge of the water, Janet knew that the bark she could hear on the brink of thought was indeed Nesbitt and that Desperate Doug was watching them from his tiresome haven of leaves. For a moment, Janet wondered whether she could confront him with the crack – tell him what was in their pool. But she knew that he had enough on his plate what with Noreen and no Emily. And she knew that he might just spill the beans to Hektor-Jan and then where would they be with Hektor-Jan on night ships and on edge and having to cope with such bad news. No, far better that they try to solve it themselves. They could do it, surely. Ban the children from the pool, drain it while Hektor-Jan was asleep and get some cement to close the crack.
Whilst Hektor-Jan bravely worked at his new job, Janet would keep the home together. She would fix the pool.
You see, Solomon, Janet said, that is what we shall do. The children go back to school tomorrow, all of them, and we can drain the pool and close the crack.
Janet was strangely grateful to Doug. Her annoyance with him had saved her. Pulled her back from the brink. She could instruct Solomon like a more sensible Madam.
And Solomon nodded wisely and began again to move the brush and Janet turned with real defiance and stared long and hard at the patch of rustling rhododendrons. She felt her eyes go out on a hard line that hit through the morning air and struck the trembling bush. She wondered momentarily what bonnie Jean would do and then whether Eve had felt as persecuted by the tempting snake – and it was not even that Doug was tempting in any shape or form. Strange man. She would have to have a more direct word. Soon, when Noreen was better and they had a new maid she would say something to Doug.
She left Solomon fishing out his bowl and striving to brush away the crack. It would not wor
k. You did not simply erase a crack from concrete, not one as wide as that.
Janet tried to think of the children, and Hektor-Jan and the first rehearsal the following evening when the children had been to school and life returned to its usual rhythms. Maybe the crack would close. Maybe it would disappear as mysteriously as it had appeared in the pool. As she thought that, in idle hope, she knew she was being a fool.
Janet did spend the rest of the day in hope though. New uniforms and new shoes were purchased in the chaos of the shops. Why did she always leave it so late. She should do all this before Christmas, not afterwards and she bought the children an ice-cream cone to cool them down and to soothe her too as the creamy coils dissolved into thoughts of the crack. She licked it like a determined child. Her mother used to treat the children to such things. Ice creams and waffles. Little treats that made the shopping bearable. Janet felt as though she should have a permanent ice-cream cone fixed in her hand, ready to lick and to soothe every moment of the day. That would be very nice, agreed Sylvia, having already demolished her ice cream, setting a new record. Did she even taste the thing. How did her brain not freeze from the cold. No, she could not ask Pieter for a lick of his.
Then they returned home. Hektor-Jan ate the meal prepared by Alice and set off to work. Solomon did not break the replacement lawnmower and the grass looked infinitely better – neat and trim, like a park. Solomon said not a word about the crack, and the pool was full again and Janet managed to persuade the children to play in the kempt garden not the sparkling water on this, their last day of the holidays.
Janet wandered aimlessly about, learning her words, her script held to her face, trying not to bump into things. It was a relief in many ways to spend a pleasant hour or two in Brigadoon. There were no cracks in Brigadoon. Just enthusiastic men in kilts and scrumptious Scottish accents.
They all slept well that night. Everything was returning to normal.
The Crack Page 11