Whitethorn

by Bryce Courtenay

  That was my first day away from The Boys Farm, except for one small further thing. Where we had our roast chicken wasn’t very far away from Johannesburg Central Station where we had to get my suitcase, and then we were going to the Bishop’s College. So we walked and as we were going into the station, on the pavement was a white beggar sitting on a box, and next to him was a little dog, a fox terrier, and my heart gave this terrible jolt. The dog wasn’t like Tinker because it had a brown spot on its chest, but it had a face almost the same as Tinker’s, and suddenly the loneliness stones began piling up in my chest and I had to fight very hard not to cry. In front of the dog was an old felt hat lying upside down and inside it were a few coins, sixpences and shillings, and the little dog looked up at me as if to say, ‘How about a sixpence, Sir?’ And if I’d had a sixpence I would have put it in the hat for sure, a person couldn’t turn a dog like that down flat. Then I looked closely at the beggar, not that there was much to see, but what you could see wasn’t very nice. He wore a dirty black hood over his head with a hole cut out for one eye and another hole for one ear, so this hood only had an eye and an ear sticking out, but his right hand was just a pink stump with no fingers, and it was on the top edge of a neatly painted wooden board hanging around his neck and resting in his lap. The sign read:

  Are you game? See my BOMBED FACE! Pay a shilling.

  Children only sixpence.

  The beggar started making grunting and snorting noises, and furiously pointing at us with his stump, getting very excited with the painted board wobbling up and down on his lap as he jerked his head to get our attention.

  ‘Come, Tom,’ Miss Phillips said, grabbing me by the elbow. ‘The poor man is harmless but not quite right in his head.’ I wish I could have asked her for sixpence. Not to look at his face, but to give to his little dog guarding the money.

  We got my suitcase and put the underpants inside and left the quilt in the locker, and Miss Phillips said she’d get it on her way back from the school. To my surprise we took a taxi and that was another first thing I’d ever done. Underpants, art gallery, roast chicken and a taxi, all first things on the same day. The taxi had a meter with a handle that looked like a little flag sticking out of the top. When we started out the driver pulled the little flag down and it began to tick and show an amount of money on a black-and-white enamel dial that kept changing by a penny. I kept looking at it because it was getting to be quite a lot by the time we got to the Bishop’s College – two shillings and sixpence – because the school was way out in a suburb next to the highway to Pretoria. Miss Phillips must have seen the worried look on my face when she paid and she said, ‘I know it’s expensive, but it’s such a business lugging a heavy suitcase on a bus and from the bus stop through the grounds to the School House.’ She was right about that, once we went through the school gates, we travelled past several rugby grounds and a cricket pitch, and along an avenue that was lined with huge old English oak trees, until we eventually got to the boarding house known as School House.

  We hopped out of the taxi, which then drove off, and Miss Phillips said she’d catch the bus back to town and she gave me a hug, but not a kiss because there were some boys standing around. She started to walk away, and then stopped and turned. ‘Oh, Tom,’ she called out. ‘I nearly forgot!’ She opened her bag. ‘It’s a book of stamps. I think you should write to Marie and Doctor Van Heerden, and perhaps you can find time to drop me a line every once in a while? I won’t see you until the end of term and I’d love to know how you’re getting along.’ I thanked her and she said, ‘The school knows how to contact me if I’m needed.’

  I didn’t know how to thank Miss Phillips for everything she’d done for me, which was only to change my whole life. How can a person find words to tell someone that? So I took a deep breath and put my arms around her neck and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Thank you for everything, Miss Phillips,’ I said. I’d received a number of kisses from Marie and Mrs Van Heerden, and even six from Miss Phillips, but this was the first kiss I’d ever given out all by myself. A boy from The Boys Farm can’t go giving kisses to people without permission, that’s because we are owned by the Government, and other people who get kisses all the time are privately owned with a proper family who kiss because you’re allowed to do it as much as you like. But I don’t suppose Miss Phillips knew that it was the first kiss I’d ever had the courage to give on my own. I mean, when you got the kisses (I’d already had thirty-two) the lips that touched your skin were soft and wonderful like something coming into you, but when you did the kissing, the feel of your lips on the soft skin of a lady’s face was even more wonderful because something that was inside you was going out into Miss Phillips. Something you couldn’t say with words.

  ‘Oh, you are such a darling, Tom,’ she whispered, and then turned quickly and walked away, and I watched as she got smaller and smaller, in her nice blue and pink floral dress with the sun catching her blonde hair as she walked down the long avenue of English oaks. I remembered I hadn’t even asked the name of her going-to-be colonel husband or what a Foreign Service was. When I’d kissed her she still smelled of roses, and I wondered if I’d be invited to the wedding, and whether I should have told her about the baby in her stomach that was a shotgun for sure.

  Let me tell you, those stamps were a godsend because without them I wouldn’t have been able to write letters. As it was, I had plenty of paper from exercise books but no envelopes. That was easily solved because all you did was find an old envelope and take it apart and then get some scissors and make one with a bit of glue and a page from your exercise book. The post office doesn’t say an envelope can’t have these blue lines across it. Guys would see me doing this and offer to give me one of their envelopes, but you shouldn’t take something if you can’t pay it back – that was my new rule for being a loner in front.

  Marie wrote to me and told me about Saxby, her new baby, and about how the new owners of the Impala Café had asked if she could come back on Sundays to cook mixed grills because the boere were complaining that they were not as good as before.

  Dear Tom,

  How are you in that posh school? I hope you are well. The sergeant and me miss you a lot and so does Mum and the doctor. Look after yourself. Ag, man, Tom, how can you go wrong with a mixed grill? It’s just meat and an egg and some chips, but they can’t get it right. I think it’s the gravy and I’m not telling them the secret, you add a little speck, but those Indians, they won’t use pork, and what’s a mixed grill without bacon or a bit of pig fat added to the gravy just before you take the pan off the stove? So on a Sunday, after church when the boere come in for lunch, it looks like I got a job for as long as I want. That’s nice because a policeman’s salary isn’t so much and we can use the extra. Doctor Van Heerden is always stitching up kaffirs on Sundays and the sergeant is writing out charges, so my mother can look after Saxby and I can work at the Impala Café.

  My husband now sends up one of the native policemen to get him a curry lunch. Can you believe it? He also wants chapati! But I must say I never thought it possible, but curry is quite nice and has all sorts of different tastes. They also building a Tandoor oven, which is for cooking chicken, but I don’t know who can afford chicken for a Sunday lunch. The Patels can’t ever say I didn’t warn them. Patel says he’s going to build a chicken farm at the back of his shop with all these chickens, hundreds and hundreds in a big shed, every one in a little wire cage without a floor, just standing and getting fed crushed mielies. When they fat enough they go straight into the Tandoor oven. In the meantime, the eggs can go to Pietersburg on the train to be sold in the market, maybe even to Pretoria. Eggs on a train and all the trucks shunting when they get to Louis Trichardt to join the proper train. The Charras don’t think like us, no commonsense. Chickens in little cages! Everyone knows a chicken has to walk around the place and scratch and bath in the dirt and they won’t lay eggs where you want, but only in places they choose themselves. You can make five nice nests all
in a row and they’ll only choose one and all of them will lay their eggs only in the one nest. Four empty nests and one full of eggs, some even breaking from their chicken feet, that’s a chicken for you. A chicken is a very stupid thing, and only a turkey is more stupid. The Dominee had a heart attack, not so serious, and Doctor Van Heerden says next time it’s maybe finish and klaar, and he mustn’t eat so much meat with fat, and butter on his bread, and he must lose some weight. But the Dominee says he’s not the worst in the congregation by far, and eating meat with fat on it and a bit of butter on his bread, how can that harm? He explained that it’s what the Boerevolk have been doing for 200 years because they were in the land of Canaan since they left the British in the Cape and went on the Great Trek. As a reward for wandering in the wilderness for longer even than Moses, God gave the Boerevolk the land of milk and honey, and it’s God’s will they can now eat well because butter is made from milk. And Doctor Van Heerden says, ‘That’s the trouble around this place, nobody listens to scientific advice.’ And the Dominee says, ‘Since when is God suddenly a scientist? Why should I believe someone who thinks Charles Darwin is right?’ I don’t know who is this Charles Darwin, but the doctor says how can you help people who think the world was created in seven days? Wasn’t it, Tom? You the clever one. So you can see, nothing has changed around the place, except that the boere are all becoming curry-munchers and buying lots of Lion lager to stop the burning in their mouth. Who would have ever thought such a thing could happen, hey? Miracles will never cease, but still, I guarantee chickens will never lay eggs in wire cages, the straw will just fall out the bottom. Saxby takes up a lot of my time, and that’s her crying now so I better end now.

  With lots of love from the sergeant, the doctor and my mum. Write soon, we dying to hear from you, you hear? We thinking of you a lot. Remember, don’t become all stuck-up at that posh school.

  Marie and Saxby van Niekerk xxxx and Tinker, Woof!

  Marie wrote every week and I wrote back, and always with the urgent plea to tell me how Tinker was getting on in her new home. But the only mention was always at the very end of her letters with a ‘woof’ added. Marie loved Tinker and so did Doctor Van Heerden, Mevrou Van Heerden and Sergeant Van Niekerk, and so it was strange that no other mention of her was ever made. Maybe they thought if they spoke about her I’d become homesick, but a person couldn’t get homesick for The Boys Farm, although I admit I was terribly homesick for Tinker. Sometimes I’d dream she was sitting on my lap down by the big library rock, and I’d wake up in the middle of the night sobbing. When you are a loner who is busy hiding at the front, to have someone like Tinker in your life, even at long distance and for the school holidays, is what keeps you going. Not getting news about her in Marie’s letters was terribly distressing, so I wrote a letter to Doctor Van Heerden begging for news of my little dog.

  Then came his reply.

  Dear Tom,

  It is with some regret that I find myself penning this letter. In my profession we come across a great deal that is a painful part of the human condition, and we must learn to cope, but sometimes we are confronted with circumstances beyond our control, and even a doctor must bow to the will of the Almighty.

  I had only read this opening paragraph and all of a sudden my heart was pounding, and the loneliness rocks were tumbling into a cavity in my chest. Tinker! Something was wrong. I didn’t want to read on because I knew Doctor Van Heerden was going to tell me something really bad had happened to her. I don’t know how I knew he was writing to me about Tinker, I just did and I needed the time to prepare myself. It was almost as if I stopped reading so that what was to come would go away. Of course, that’s stupid, but I had to find a place where nobody could see me, like the big rock. I folded up the letter and went outside and climbed up into one of the English oaks, high up into the top branches where I was completely concealed by a thick canopy of leaves.

  As you know, the plan was for Tinker to spend a few days in the small containment I erected around her kennel and then, when she’d become accustomed to her new surroundings, we’d give her the run of the place, just like old Helmut. I know she’s always been an outside dog, but my dearest wish was that she’d come into the surgery and lie down at my feet. Things never felt quite right after Helmut was gone from under my desk.

  Everything went to plan, and Tinker took her food after the password and seemed to be enjoying the love she was receiving from Mevrou Van Heerden and Marie as well as yours truly. Tinker is such a loving little dog. Then, after four days in the enclosure we let her out and within minutes she was gone. We looked everywhere and I finally phoned Sergeant Van Niekerk who immediately said, ‘She’ll be at the school looking for Tom.’ He offered to go and look, and sure enough, Tinker was waiting under a tree at the school gate, so he brought her home. But the next day it was the same, and this time Meneer Van Niekerk brought her home.

  Tinker is a clever little dog, and after the third day she would go to school and when school came out and you weren’t there she’d come back here. She was eating her food, but I noticed each day she’d eat a little less. Then she stopped altogether, drinking only water, but she still managed to go to school every day until last week, when she was too weak to walk.

  Of course I examined her, and have been doing so ever since she started to lose her appetite. I know something about animals, and dogs in particular, and I don’t trust Doctor Dyke’s judgement. Maybe he’s good with cows and chickens, who knows? But Tinker is a different kettle of fish. I took her into the hospital for X-rays but could find nothing, and her little heart seems sound enough. Then I put her on a drip in the surgery where she has been for three days.

  Tom, this is a very difficult letter to write, but if Tinker doesn’t respond she cannot last more than a week, or a little more at the very most. We had thought to wait before writing, but your letter sounded so distressed I decided it was unfair to keep you in the dark. I am supposed to heal people, but I simply don’t know what else I can do other than try to keep her alive in the event that she makes the decision to live. This is the first time I have ever witnessed an animal that is dying of a broken heart, and it is not a prognosis I fully understand.

  You can be quite sure I will do everything possible to keep her brave little heart beating. Last night we all went down on our knees, Mevrou Van Heerden, Marie, Sergeant Van Niekerk and myself, and prayed to God to save the life of this little creature we know you love so much. This is a gesture very uncharacteristic of a person like me and I also imagine Jan van Niekerk, but I want you to know that we did so with the utmost sincerity.

  I remain your friend,

  Alex van Heerden

  It was not a long letter but it took me almost an hour to read because I just couldn’t stop blubbing. When I had recovered sufficiently, I looked at the envelope to see how long it had taken to get to me and it had been three days. If Tinker could stay alive for another four or five days then I could somehow get to her. When she saw me her broken heart would start to mend, and she would recover. It had been terribly wrong to leave her, and for what? To become a loner hiding in the front? You can’t go around breaking hearts just because you want to get a nice education and get away from The Boys Farm. I loved Tinker more than anything on earth, she was my sun and my moon and all the stars in the sky, and I had woefully deserted her. I started to cry again, knowing I was a piece of shit.

  The afternoon was drawing to a close and we were all due indoors. Several guys noticed I’d been crying and said, ‘What’s the matter, Boots?’, which was what they called me because I was the only kid in school who wore boots and not shoes. Which was another thing, my boots were my pride and joy in Duiwelskrans but not at the Bishop’s College, here they all wore shoes. So I had to invent a dose of weak ankles to cover up my boots. I didn’t tell the guys why I’d been crying because a plan was beginning to hatch in my brain, and it was the kind of plan that is best not shared with anyone.

  The school was near the h
ighway to Pretoria. In fact, it ran right past the cricket ground and if I walked for an hour or so I could be more or less on the open road. The habit of getting up early had followed me to the Bishop’s College and I’d often wandered across the cricket ground to the school fence at five o’clock in the morning to watch the traffic. In a boarding school you don’t get out of the grounds and I liked to see the world going by. Especially all the cars and trucks, you’ve never seen so many makes and, of course, cars and trucks were a bit of a hobby of mine. I’d be back at the School House before the wake-up bell went and we had to take our shower. I don’t suppose it was allowed, leaving the dormitory early, but Big Porridge, the night-watchman who spoke Xhosa, a language very close to Zulu, liked me a lot and he wouldn’t say anything. Besides, as he explained to me, his job was to prevent anyone coming in and not to prevent anyone going out, and also because a native boy can’t tell a Kleinbaas where he can and can’t go early in the morning.

  That night at supper I managed to put four slices of bread in my pocket, and just before evening prep I went through to the house library with a pencil and piece of paper and looked up the map of the Transvaal in the atlas. I reckoned Duiwelskrans was approximately 300 miles from Johannesburg. I wrote down the names of the places you would pass heading back to Duiwelskrans: Pretoria, about 40 miles away, then all the bigger towns: Nylstroom, Potgieterus, Pietersburg, and then off the main highway onto the road to Tzaneen about 70 miles away, and finally Duiwelskrans. If I got lucky and got some long lifts, I could do it in two days, maybe even less. Two slices of bread was enough each day to keep me going. The trick was to get to Pretoria early enough before the big trucks left for the north. I was quite familiar with hitchhiking, though only for very short distances, as sometimes walking back to The Boys Farm from town you’d hitch a ride from a timber truck or a farmer. But I told myself it was still the same thing, whether it was a short or long ride.