Whitethorn

by Bryce Courtenay

  Now, you may be thinking that the day I found Tinker would be my happiest. But, of course, it wasn’t. At the time I was filled with anxiety about how to keep her and the severe punishment I would receive from Mevrou if a puppy was to be found in my possession. Mattress Malokoane had saved my bacon on that day and still, nearly ten years later, hardly a day passed when I didn’t think of the big, generous-hearted Zulu with the world-champion platform feet who had been my friend when no-one else could afford to be. How inextricably linked we’d all become. Mattress’s death continued to plague me, and Frikkie Botha, who claimed he knew the circumstances of the Zulu’s murder, was increasingly coming to depend on me as his physical condition continued to deteriorate.

  Almost my first task every school holiday was to cart him to Johannesburg General where, because of his numerous operations and terribly scarred condition, he’d become an object of medical curiosity. The senior medical staff always seemed anxious to put him on display for their interns. There was hardly a branch of the medical profession that didn’t find something of interest to them in Frikkie’s face or poor broken body, with the result that I could obtain the sort of expert medical attention for him that a run-of-the-mill down-and-out was unlikely to receive. I also used these connections with the various top doctors to get due attention for the brotherhood and, as a result, by comparison to some of the other small communities of alcoholics in Johannesburg, the Joubert Park lot were, medically speaking, reasonably well looked after.

  Frikkie’s breathing was becoming increasingly laboured and we were making frequent stops on the way to Mr Naidoo’s eatery for him to catch his breath. He was complaining of chest pains as well. Shortly after I’d moved into the Hillbrow flat I took him in for a complete medical examination. A cardiac specialist took X-rays and some soundings, and diagnosed a slightly enlarged heart. Professor Mustafa, the chief medical officer who had taken it upon himself to be the doctor in charge of Frikkie’s medical, took me aside. He told me that the drinking and life of a derelict was taking its toll on Frikkie and that his tests showed he was a diabetic, probably from the sugar contained in the dozen bottles of Pepsi-Cola that Frikkie consumed each day.

  ‘Along with his heart condition, in my opinion Mr Botha will be fortunate to make it through the next winter at the steam pipes, Tom,’ he advised, then added, ‘How he’s survived this long sleeping rough is almost a medical miracle.’ Then he invited me to sit down for what he described as ‘a bit of a serious chat’.

  ‘Tom, you’ve been bringing these alcoholics to us for three years, tell me, why do you do it, son?’ Before I could reply he said, ‘You know they all trust and love you, don’t you?’

  I shrugged. ‘Drunks don’t love or trust, Professor. I understand them, that’s all.’

  ‘You mean you don’t judge them? Was your father an alcoholic?’

  Two questions. ‘No and no, he wasn’t,’ I replied, not wanting to say any more. It wasn’t a lie because I had no way of knowing about my father. I hated people asking personal questions. When you hiding from the front, personal questions are definitely a no-no. I wanted him to stop, but you can’t just come out and say, Mind your own business, Professor.

  ‘Tom, we regard you very highly here at the General,’ Professor Mustafa said kindly. ‘We’ve made some enquiries, you see, and . . .’

  I couldn’t hold myself back any longer, he was a famous doctor and therefore a very important person, someone you’d never normally dream of contradicting or even interrupting, the most high-up of high-ups. But we were entering Voetsek territory, and I’d been around a long time and could read the silent sentences forming in people’s heads as soon as they started happening, sometimes even before they knew themselves what they were about to say. Where this conversation was heading was only going to get me into a lot of trouble.

  ‘Sir . . . er, Professor, I’m a born-again Christian and doing God’s work,’ I lied. ‘Hallelujah! Praise His precious name! Are you saved, washed in the blood of the lamb, Professor?’ I asked, laying the Smelly Jelly vernacular on thick as peanut butter in an attempt to put him on the defensive.

  Professor Mustafa was silent for a moment, and then a sort of half-smile appeared on his face. ‘Well, I’m not at all sure, Tom,’ he said, scratching the side of his head with his forefinger, and appearing to be thinking. ‘My parents were originally from Egypt and are Muslim, personally, I don’t know about being saved by the blood of the lamb.’ He grinned. ‘But Egyptians eat a lot of lamb, if that’s any help.’

  I guess he wouldn’t be a professor if he hadn’t been a lot smarter than a schoolboy of fifteen, almost sixteen years old. He had me in one, and I started to giggle. ‘Sorry, Professor, I lied, I’m not a born-again Christian.’

  Professor Mustafa threw back his head and laughed. ‘And I’m not a practising Muslim and have even been known to eat bacon,’ he said, attempting to put me at ease. We were silent for a moment, and then he cleared his throat. ‘Hear me out, Tom, I don’t want to invade your privacy. If I go too far, then stop me, is that okay?’

  ‘Ja, okay,’ I said softly, but I wasn’t, and he’d already gone too far as far as I was concerned. The God-bothering vernacular hadn’t worked and I had no more tricks left to avoid being exposed, and I felt myself defenceless.

  ‘Tom, about two months ago we were at the dinner table and I was talking to Mark, my eldest son, about his school results. They weren’t bad, just not as good as I thought they ought to be, he’s really quite a bright boy. Maybe I was being a little heavy-handed because he took exception to something I’d said about not wasting the opportunity he’d been given. “Ja, well, we can’t all be as clever as Tom Fitzsaxby, Dad!” he replied. It seems he’s in the same form as you at Bishop’s.’

  I nodded, knowing Mark Mustafa. ‘He’s no slouch, Professor.’

  ‘Thank you, but that’s not my point. Fitzsaxby is not a common name and I even took the precaution of looking it up in the phonebook. There’s no Fitzsaxby in it. Your name was, of course, familiar to me. You’ve been bringing the alcoholics to Emergency for three years and signing for them. They often enough speak about you to the medical staff, how you stay with them in the park or the steam pipes during the school holidays, but none of them seemed to know the name of your school.’

  I was pleased to hear him say this because I had gone to some trouble to make sure none of the brotherhood knew the name of the school I attended. Frikkie was the only one who knew anything about me. He’d indicated that I was okay and given the initial thumbs-up and that had been sufficient. Alcoholics are a self-preoccupied and incurious bunch anyway. Moreover, being unable to speak, Frikkie couldn’t volunteer anything that might give me away. Besides, I’d never told him the name of the school, and I’d been careful never to wear my school uniform during the holidays. Hiding from the front becomes an ingrained habit, almost an instinct.

  ‘But you concluded that I was the same Fitzsaxby that went to Bishop’s?’ I asked the professor.

  ‘Well, ja, but not quite yet. It just didn’t make sense. Exclusive private school to sleeping rough in the park and the steam pipes, it just seemed improbable. I tried to imagine my son doing so and simply couldn’t. I kept asking myself how such a thing might occur. Then by fortunate coincidence, I found myself at a dinner party in Houghton where Reverend Robertson was also a guest. To cut a long story short, I mentioned that my son attended his school and inevitably the conversation got around to academic results and whether today’s boys took their studies seriously enough. The headmaster seemed to think nothing much had changed, but then added that occasionally a student came along to gladden a headmaster’s heart. “We have a young boy in the fourth form, Tom Fitzsaxby, who is the brightest student I can ever remember attending the school, quite, quite brilliant!” he said.’

  I could feel my face starting to burn and I didn’t know where to look. ‘Nathan Feinstein and Julian Solomon are better than me, Sir,’ I stuttered, averting my eyes. So muc
h for hiding from the front, all of a sudden I was being found out all over the place.

  Professor Mustafa continued as though he hadn’t heard my response. ‘This, I immediately thought, was an opportunity to question the head-master. “What is the boy’s background, headmaster?” I asked.’

  I froze inwardly. The moment of truth had arrived. The headmaster had spilled the beans.

  ‘Your headmaster is a very circumspect man, Tom. As a doctor I expect people to give me their most intimate details, it goes with the profession and I suppose we take it for granted. But the Reverend Robertson simply said, “He’s a scholarship boy, I’m afraid we don’t divulge their backgrounds, some of them may not enjoy the wealth and privilege most of the boys who come to the Bishop’s College take for granted.” ’ The professor grinned. ‘Your headmaster put me well and truly in my place, Tom, but what he’d said was enough. I knew the Fitzsaxby he was talking about could only be you.’ He paused. ‘Tom, what we’d like to know is whether, when you matriculate next year, you would consider accepting a scholarship to Witwatersrand University Medical School?’

  ‘No!’ I cried out, my response so immediate and vehement that I had no idea where it came from.

  Professor Mustafa drew back. ‘I . . . I really don’t quite understand.’ He was clearly astonished at my reaction. ‘You’ve had a better offer, Tom?’

  ‘No, Sir, it’s . . . it’s nothing like that. Thank you, it’s a huge compliment . . . honour. It’s just . . .’ I was incapable of finishing the sentence.

  ‘This is the moment, then?’

  ‘Moment, Sir?’

  ‘Not to interfere.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Professor,’ I said, grateful to be let off the hook.

  ‘If you change your mind the offer still stands,’ he said generously. He extended his hand and I took it. ‘You’re a pretty complex young man, aren’t you, Tom?’

  ‘No, Professor, it’s just . . .’

  He raised his hand. ‘I understand, say no more.’

  Phew! When an idea grows in your mind from the age of seven, at first it doesn’t even have a shape. It is more like a shadow, not even that, a change in the light, a faint possibility. Gradually it begins to grow, fragile, unlikely, seeming impossible. But then it begins to articulate, to have clearly distinguishable parts. I sensed what it was I was going to have to do one day, but no alembic shape had yet emerged. I wasn’t prepared to talk to anyone about it. Though one thing I knew for sure, it was an idea that had nothing to do with becoming a medical doctor.

  While I had twenty pounds saved but for the two guineas stamp duty I had to pay for the title to Smelly Jelly’s flat, I still needed to get a job for the Christmas holidays. I felt quite certain that I wouldn’t be able to find another job as a tract writer, despite my rapidly growing international reputation.

  I had been rather shocked to discover that Smelly Jelly was an apostate. I confess to always having had the odd pang of guilt over the tracts, but I told myself the fact that Jellicoe Smellie was such an ardent and enthusiastic born-again Christian served to let me off the hook. They were, after all, his tracts and it was his gospel mission. God’s work was being done and I was only his amanuensis. But now, with him declaring his true beliefs, which were absolutely none, the Born-again Christian Missionary Society proved to be a cynical and exploitative exercise and I felt truly guilty and ashamed. The born-again Christians of this world definitely deserved better than two such covert blasphemers. Even if God may be said to work his wonders in mysterious ways, and despite the many testimonials we’d received saying my tracts had helped to save the souls of unknown sinners, we’d done the wrong thing.

  While I had never been born-again, the Dominee had instilled in all of us a fear of God and the need to repent our sins. If I never got around to doing so, salvation was not such a bad idea. After all, it often turned drunks into sober men, criminals into honest men, and wilful and selfish men and women into loving and caring people. Confession and redemption are a part of every religion and seem to be a necessary part of the emotional lives of humankind.

  But I’d been surrounded by God’s business all my life, even attending an Anglican school, and I thought I might like to see what the secular world had to offer, which all added up to my getting another job as far away from the born-again business as possible. I chose the music business.

  MUSIC SALESMAN

  Well-known music retailer requires young, enthusiastic

  trainee salesman. Trial position over Christmas period.

  Tel. JB 7596.

  I knew almost nothing about music, but I reckoned if I listened to all Smelly Jelly’s 78s – I counted 197, almost equally divided between classical and jazz – I might learn something. Until I did, which might take several school holidays, the advertisement did say trainee salesman and trial position. Of course, I don’t think they intended that their new trainee should be completely tone deaf. But, anyway, at the time I didn’t know I was. While quite a lot of things seemed to stay fixed in my head, tunes were not one of them. I’d have trouble singing ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ in tune.

  I went to the corner telephone box and called the number, and a Mr Lew Fisher answered. He asked my age and whether I had any previous business experience. Judging from his tone of voice, he didn’t sound too impressed.

  ‘The Born-again what?’ he asked.

  ‘Christian Missionary Society, Sir,’ I answered.

  ‘What did you do there?’

  ‘I wrote tracts.’

  ‘Tracts? What are they?’

  It was a good question and one I’d never stopped to ask myself. ‘Little stories that tell you how to repent and be saved,’ I answered, knowing the conversation over the telephone wasn’t going all that well.

  ‘Saved from what?’ he asked.

  ‘Your sins, Sir.’ The conversation was going from bad to worse.

  ‘Oh! I see, sins.’ A moment’s silence followed, and Mr Fisher then said, ‘Have you ever sold anything?’

  Now the logical Smelly Jelly answer here would be ‘Only Jesus Christ and Salvation’, but I wasn’t that stupid. ‘Yes, books.’

  ‘Where was that?’

  The conversation was becoming intolerable. ‘The “Come in and Browse for Christ” bookshop, Sir.’

  ‘How old are you, Mr Fitz . . . ?’

  ‘Saxby, fifteen, nearly sixteen, Sir.’

  ‘Hmm. I don’t think you’ll suit our requirements, we don’t sell very much religious music here at Polliack’s.’

  ‘Please, Sir, it says trial position, I mean, the ad, it says trainee, a temporary position over Christmas.’ I swallowed hard. ‘You can sack me if I’m no good,’ I pleaded. Silence followed. ‘Just give me an interview please, Sir,’ I said, filling the void.

  ‘Okay, maybe, what’s your first name?’

  ‘Tom, Sir.’

  ‘Okay, Tom, you’ve got an interview,’ he said suddenly. ‘Tuesday, three o’clock, Polliack’s.’ I heard the click at the other end as he put the phone back on the receiver. I must say the music industry didn’t sound too friendly and whoever he was, Mr Fisher was no Jellicoe Smellie. I didn’t much like my chances of being accepted for the job.

  I knew where Polliack’s was in Eloff Street, it was supposed to be the biggest music emporium in Africa, or that’s what they said when they sponsored a music program on Springbok Radio. I arrived early and stood outside on the pavement waiting so I’d be exactly on time. In one of the plate-glass windows facing the street was a white Steinway Baby Grand tied with a huge red ribbon. Or that’s what the sign said it was, because it certainly was oddly shaped, fat and squat, and didn’t look very much like any sort of piano I’d ever seen. A beautifully lettered sign with a tartan ribbon and a sprig of pretend holly pinned on the corner read: ‘The greatest pianoforte in the world! Steinway Baby Grand. One thousand guineas.’

  The ground floor turned out to be a shop selling not only musical instruments but also electrical goods.
It all looked very posh with thick grey carpet on the floor and glass showcases all over the place, filled with expensive-looking goods. I walked up to a tall, slim salesman dressed in a very neat-looking blue suit, blue-and-white striped shirt, starched white collar and blue polka-dotted bow tie with a hanky to match sticking out of the breast pocket of his suit. I told him I had an appointment with Mr Fisher. ‘Take the lift to the fifth floor,’ he instructed, then brought his forefinger up to lightly touch his bottom lip, cocked his head to one side and gave me a quizzical look. ‘Hmm!’ he said, slightly raising an eyebrow.

  A notice stand positioned near the lifts had an arrow pointing to a set of stairs leading downwards, it said: ‘The Music Basement. Recording Sound Booths Syncopation Studio.’

  I had no idea what those words meant. The lift neither clanked nor whined but was completely silent, white-walled and enclosed. I pressed the button and the lift glided upwards, and moments later the automatic doors slid open and I’d arrived on the fifth floor. Talk about posh! This was a long way from the rickety killer-stairs in the arcade or even the birdcage lift that juddered and shuddered, shook, clanked and whined on the way up to Jacobs & Tremaine, Solicitors & Attorneys at Law. I wasn’t sure I was quite ready for all this opulence and mercantile splendour.

  The neatly dressed salesman with the raised eyebrow who had hmm’d me downstairs had left me feeling somewhat disconcerted. I was wearing a brown sportsjacket from the Salvation Army that was a bit too big for me and by no means new. My school grey flannels were a bit too short, as I’d suddenly started to grow. I also had on a plain white shirt and brown shoes (highly polished) and one of Smelly Jelly’s frayed-at-the-edges maroon ties. I’d ironed the shirt and pressed my pants under a piece of brown wrapping paper to prevent them from shining, so I wasn’t exactly untidy. But I sensed that I’d entered a world a long way away from the Born-again Christian Missionary Society and the squabbling assortment of babble in the arcade beneath it.

  Stepping out of the lift I was confronted by a dozen neat offices running along a corridor, all of which had their doors closed. I could hear a solitary typewriter tapping away, almost emphasising the silence. Fortunately, a large black guy was washing the opaque glass-front of one of the offices. You can tell a Zulu anywhere.