Whitethorn

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘Ja, that makes sense, Germans, they make these? That’s also good, you hear?’ He turned to Union Jack. ‘Play it,’ he instructed.

  Union Jack’s eyes grew wide, Mr Farquarson would never have allowed him to play a Baby Grand. He looked at me hesitatingly. I nodded. ‘You heard the big Baas,’ I said.

  Union Jack sat down in front of the Steinway, I could see his hands were shaking. I had a sudden premonition that the Ship of State was about to enter half-pissed and ready for his afternoon nap. I glanced furtively towards the lift. Then Union Jack hit the Steinway keyboard with a flourish, knowing he might never get another opportunity, and a short while later ended the anthem with a glissando of sparkling notes.

  ‘Ja, definitely, that’s the one, Tom, I’ll take them.’

  ‘All three?’

  ‘Ja, of course.’

  ‘Oom Jannie, they’re very expensive, 1000 guineas each.’

  He paused, thinking. ‘That’s 1000 pounds and 1000 shillings, 3150. You right, Tom, it’s a lot of money!’

  For a moment I thought I’d blown it. ‘There’s always the others, I’m sure we can find you three pianos very similar to the one you liked, Oom Jannie,’ I said, hoping he hadn’t sensed the rising panic in my voice.

  Oom Jannie appeared to be thinking. ‘You know, Tom, forty-three years is a lot of years and a lot of loving. Hester only asked me for one thing in all that time. When we got the first big wool cheque, only last year, the one when we became all-of-a-sudden rich, she said to me, “Jannie, do you think now we can have an inside lavatory? I’m getting too old to go outside in the dark.” You can’t pay enough for that kind of loving, Tom. Now can we go have some coffee, hey? Then I’ll count it out for you.’

  To my astonishment the money, in large-denomination notes, was in the brown-paper bag. It also occurred to me that buying three Baby Grands he was probably entitled to a discount, but I had no idea what to offer him. I realised that I should be calling Mr Fisher, but I wanted to make sure that nobody could take the sale away from me. I poured coffee while Oom Jannie first emptied his pipe and then refilled it from a small leather tobacco pouch and stoked up before starting to count banknotes. Finally, with the air about us thick with the fragrant tobacco smoke, he picked the pile of banknotes up from the coffee-table and, tapping them together, handed me the large bundle.

  ‘Count it, Tom,’ he instructed.

  ‘No, they’ll do it later in Accounts, but thank you, Oom Jannie,’ I said. I thought I might excuse myself and go up to the next floor and see Mr Fisher and tell him the story and ask him about the discount. Then an idea struck me. I had never forgotten Mr Patel and the misadventures of Miss Phillips’ up-Gawie’s-bum pound note, how at one stage Mr Patel had offered us a bansella, a free gift of a penny sucker each. I was about to use influence I didn’t have again.

  ‘Oom Jannie, may I offer Tante Hester a small token of my esteem, would you accept the electric floor polisher as a gift from Polliack’s?’ Then I added hastily, ‘I know it’s not new, but we only got it last month.’

  Now it was his turn to be overwhelmed. ‘Tom, that’s very, very generous of you, you hear. Jy is in regte Boer! You are a proper Boer. All of a sudden she’s got that inside lavatory, you pull the chain and everything disappears, a grand peeano, and now also her own electric floor polisher!’ He chuckled. ‘Martha, the old house girl, now she’s going to sit in the sun and gossip all day, hey?’ He stretched out his hand and my own disappeared once again into his huge fist. ‘I’m proud to know you, son,’ he said. ‘The Marie biscuits they nice, man, but the coffee and the fruitcake, it’s the best in the Transvaal.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Learning to Love with La Pirouette

  AT FIRST MR FISHER looked at me as if I had suddenly gone stark staring crazy. ‘You what?’ he cried, springing from his chair.

  ‘Sold the three Steinway Baby Grands, Sir.’ I placed the large bundle of banknotes on his desk. ‘For cash.’

  ‘Where? How? What are you trying to tell me, Tom?’ He’d taken off his glasses, tweaking the marks the spectacles made on each side of his nose, his eyes tightly closed, as if he was trying to take it all in. ‘Sit down,’ he said finally, pointing to the chair. He flopped back into his chair and, somewhat recovered, said, ‘Tom, in the history of Polliack’s, we have never sold three Steinways in one sale, much less for cash!’

  I told him the story as quickly as possible, starting from the very beginning when Mr Farquarson had told me to get rid of the big boer. In the back of my mind I realised that the Ship of State was likely to kick up a huge fuss, the commission on the sale was going to be big and I needed to establish that the sale had been entirely my own. ‘Sir, I thought there might be a discount involved, I mean for Mr Odenaal buying all three?’

  ‘Certainly, and for cash as well,’ he replied magnanimously.

  ‘And I gave him the floor polisher for a bonsella.’

  ‘Bonsella?’ he asked.

  ‘Free gift, Sir.’

  ‘You gave him the piano department floor polisher?’ Mr Fisher started to laugh. ‘Tom, congratulations, you’re a born salesman, son.’ He stretched over and shook my hand. ‘Come.’ He rose and picked up the bundle of money. He patted me on the shoulder, flapping the bundle of banknotes. ‘Some of this belongs to you. It may well be the biggest commission paid for a single item sale in the history of Polliack’s. We took a hiding on the Steinway Grand Mr Farquarson sold to the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra.’ He chuckled gleefully. ‘The old chap is going to have a blue fit!’

  ‘Mr Fisher, I used Mr Farquarson’s personal Marie biscuits with the coffee,’ I confessed.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll buy him ten packets,’ he laughed.

  By the time we got back to the piano department Union Jack had called the company odd-job man, who was removing the legs from one of the Baby Grands. They were going to be repacked into their original packing cases ready to be loaded onto the Rio by five o’clock that evening.

  Oom Jannie was delighted to get a 10 per cent discount amounting to 360 pounds. ‘Do I still get the electric floor polisher?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘Of course, that was a personal gift to your wife from Tom,’ Mr Fisher said generously.

  The big boer looked over to where Union Jack and the coloured man were working.

  ‘Hey, kaffir!’ he called out suddenly. Union Jack turned and looked back, surprised. ‘Ja, you, come here!’ Oom Jannie ordered. Union Jack was a Zulu and a pretty proud guy and, besides, he was one of King Georgie’s men, so probably had a fairly poor opinion of the Afrikaners. He might well have ignored the big boer had not Mr Fisher been present. ‘Ja, kom!’ Oom Jannie demanded impatiently.

  Union Jack approached and it was plain to see he wasn’t happy. But Oom Jannie seemed oblivious. ‘You play a good tune, you hear?’ The Karoo sheep farmer peeled off a ten-pound note from his discount and handed it to Union Jack, who dropped his eyes and accepted it with both hands in the Bantu fashion.

  ‘Thank you, Baas,’ he said quietly, not losing his dignity.

  Oom Jannie turned to Mr Fisher. ‘You got a good kaffir there, man,’ he said as Union Jack backed away. ‘It’s funny how they so musical, hey?’ The big Zulu had just received four months’ wages as a bonsella.

  Now Oom Jannie, still looking at Mr Fisher, said, ‘Tom here did a very good job, I’m telling you, the boy will go far. When I came in I thought maybe a nice peeano for Hester my wife, now I’m going out with those three Steinways made in Germany.’ He shook his head in an exaggerated fashion. ‘Magtig, I don’t know what happened, man!’

  It was completely untrue, of course, I knew Oom Jannie was giving my career a boost in front of the general manager. He shook Mr Fisher’s hand, then turned to me. ‘You come visit us in the Karoo soon, you hear, Tom? My little daughter, she’s just right for a young kêrel like you. He threw back his head and laughed. ‘Hey, maybe we buy Skattebol a Steinway for a wedding present?’ He peeled
off five ten-pound notes. ‘Here, for you, Tom.’

  ‘No, no, Oom Jannie, I can’t take it,’ I said, holding up my hands in protest.

  ‘What’s wrong, Tom? You won’t take a Karoo sheep farmer’s money?’

  ‘Tom will receive a commission on the sale,’ Mr Fisher explained. ‘He’ll be well looked after.’

  ‘Ja, well, I only hope it’s a good one. When I came in that fat Engelsman, he told Tom here to get rid of me. What kind of a salesperson is that, hey?’

  ‘I’m sure there was a misunderstanding, Sir,’ Mr Fisher said in a conciliatory voice.

  ‘Mistake? My gat! My arse!’ Only in Afrikaans it’s an even worse expression.

  I was glad Mr Fisher didn’t understand Afrikaans. I had enjoyed talking to the big boer and even if he hadn’t bought a thing I was glad to have met a salt-of-the-earth type like him. ‘If I ever go to the Cape I’ll definitely look you up, Oom Jannie,’ I said, smiling.

  ‘Tom, already my family is going to like you, I guarantee it, you hear?’

  After Oom Jannie had been shown the loading dock and how to get the Rio to it and had once again invited me to visit, he’d departed, refusing Mr Fisher’s offer of a taxi. ‘I got a long way to drive, I must walk first a bit.’

  ‘That’s a nice man, Tom,’ Mr Fisher said to me, then clearing his throat he added, ‘I’ll leave a message with the ground floor to call me as soon as Mr Farquarson comes in. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘How do you mean, Sir?’

  ‘Well, this is your sale and you’ll get the commission, that much I can promise you, but Mr Farquarson is not going to be happy when he returns. Do you want to be present? It’s entirely up to you and I won’t blame you if you’d rather not.’

  I felt a huge urge to say I’d rather not be there when the Ship of State came sailing in from lunch. But in life you’ve got to take the bad with the good, and I’d certainly had my share of the good in the last three hours. ‘I’m supposed to look after the piano department, Mr Fisher, so I had better still be here when he returns.’ Then I suddenly thought of something. ‘Can we send a dispatch boy out to get a packet of Marie biscuits? I’ll pay for them tomorrow, I haven’t got any money on me.’ I routinely walked to work from the Hillbrow flat and I’d made a couple of peanut butter sandwiches for my lunch, which I hadn’t managed to eat yet.

  The young African in dispatch had only just returned with the packet of biscuits and I’d barely had time to replace it when Mr Fisher and Mr Farquarson arrived in the lift. It was just after four o’clock.

  I must say this for him. The Ship of State had a reputation for being able to hold his booze. When he’d had too much claret you could only tell by his increasingly rubicund complexion, his exaggerated ebullience, the fact that his left eyelid was shut and that his vowels gradually slowed in their intensity, like a gramophone record losing speed. At this final stage, if seated, he would often fall asleep mid-sentence, waking with a grunt once in a while before returning to his afternoon nap. But this, I felt sure, wasn’t going to be one of those ‘fly-buzzing-against-the-outside-windowpane’ somnolent afternoons.

  ‘Three Steinways? He sold three Steinways? Codswallop!’ Mr Farquarson shouted as the two men entered the department.

  I braced myself for what was to come.

  ‘A wonderful sale, don’t you think, Mr Farquarson? Mr Polliack will be ever so pleased,’ Mr Fisher said cheerily, cleverly bringing the founder’s name into the conversation in an attempt to defuse the explosion to come.

  ‘Bollocks! How dare that snotty-nosed young imbecile sell my pianos! You must fire him at once, Fisher!’ He pronounced it ‘Fishshaar’.

  ‘No, I don’t think we’re going to do that, Mr Farquarson,’ Mr Fisher said evenly. ‘Come now, I think you ought to congratulate Tom.’

  This served to set off the full conniption as the Ship of State suddenly observed me standing several feet away and directly in his path. ‘You nasty little turd, you effluent, purgation, piss off, you pusillanimous little fart!’ he shouted, glaring at me through one open eye.

  Pusillanimous means lacking in courage, I thought. I’d been through (if not accompanied by so eloquent a quintet of adjectives) worse abuse certainly at the hands of Mevrou and Meneer Prinsloo, but even by those two invective dab-handers, I’d never been accused of lacking courage. Fuck you! I said to myself. I earned that sale fair and square. I’m not backing off. The new Tom Fitzsaxby with the potentially acerbic tongue raced to the fore. Stay calm, Tom, an inner voice urged.

  ‘How was your luncheon at the Carlton Grill with the chief conductor of the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra, Sir?’ I began, then, not waiting for a reply, quickly added, ‘You’ll be pleased to know Union Jack and I have been quite busy in your absence.’ I was surprised at the calm tone of my voice and would dearly like to have said in addition, ‘Those few glasses of excellent libation are clearly showing in the sanguineous state of your nose, Sir.’ After all, one big pompous word deserved another of equal pomposity. But, of course, I said no such thing.

  ‘Why, you scruffy little swine!’ Mr Farquarson roared, pointing a blunt finger at me. ‘Dismiss him, dismiss him at once!’ he shouted again at Mr Fisher. Then a new thought must have entered his claret-soaked mind. ‘The commission is mine! My department! My Steinways! My entitlement! Where’s Polliack? Where is the little Jewboy? By Jesus, we’ll soon fix this!’

  Mr Fisher froze. ‘I’ll have you know I too am a Jew, Mr Farquarson. I think we’d better call a taxi to take you home,’ he said, his voice ice-cold.

  ‘Intolerable! I will not put up with this a moment longer, I shall resign! Get out of my way, boy!’ the Ship of State demanded, hands flapping and coming at me full-steam ahead, attempting to use his stomach as a prow to knock me out of the way. I stepped aside and he lumbered into his small office and practically fell into his swivel chair, immediately scrabbling around for pen and paper. He found his fountain pen and had barely managed to remove the cap when he promptly fell asleep, his forehead hitting the surface of the desk as if in a skit out of a Mack Sennett comedy.

  ‘Come, Tom, we’ll sort all this out later,’ Mr Fisher said, his voice still frosty. Then he added, ‘Perhaps what happened since Mr Farquarson’s return from lunch should go no further than the two of us?’

  ‘Of course, Sir,’ I replied, knowing full well the kind of merciless grilling I was about to receive from Bobby and Graham the moment I got back to the basement.

  Union Jack must have observed the whole thing because he was standing near the lift, and when I pressed the button he said in Zulu, ‘Usebenze kahle, Baas Fitzy,’ which means it is good, or well done! Mr Fisher looked up questioningly, not understanding what the big Zulu had said to me. Then Union Jack added hurriedly, ‘Baas Fisher, for now we are not having electric floor polish machine.’

  Mr Fisher grinned. ‘Union Jack, go down to the electrical department and tell them to give you to a new floor polisher, tell Mr Saunders to call me.’ He left me at the lift. ‘Tom, I’ll take the stairs up, I must say I have a new respect for what they taught you at . . . what was it again?’

  ‘The Born-again Christian Missionary Society, Sir.’ If only he knew, there was a lot more Boys Farm involved than there was Smelly Jelly’s influence.

  It’s amazing what a difference something like the Steinway incident makes. All of a sudden I was a bit of a hero around the place and Bobby and Graham decided that I could wear my new gear to work, but not the Brylcreem. I’d only been with Polliack’s for a year of school holidays but after the three pianos I was told I was no longer a trainee and my salary went up a pound a week. Money! I was rolling in the stuff! The commission for the sale of the pianos was 5 per cent, so I also got 157 pounds. If I was careful it was sufficient to see me through my entire university degree.

  At the Reverend Robertson’s suggestion I applied for a scholarship to Witwatersrand, Wits as it is known, and also scholarships to Natal, Cape Town and Stellenbosch. Th
e selection of Stellenbosch was of my own volition as it was an Afrikaans university, which I wouldn’t have minded as it was very prestigious among the Volk and the Nationalists looked like being in power for some time to come. Their proposed ‘apartheid’ policy was gaining tremendous support. To ever-increasing applause from the white minority, the country was beginning to run backwards into the nineteenth century at a great rate of knots.

  The end-of-year results came out in late January and I’d obtained a First Class matriculation and, to my surprise, I headed the entire country in both English and Afrikaans. The first was undoubtedly due to Miss Phillips and her early reading curriculum, the second, I suppose, because it had been my first language. In early February, the university scholarships were announced in the newspapers and I’d been granted a full scholarship at all four universities. But here’s a funny thing, Gawie Grobler’s name was on the Stellenbosch list. I’d written to him on three occasions when I was in First Form at school, but he’d not bothered to reply so I’d lost touch with him. You can’t keep writing letters into a vacuum and stamps were too precious anyway. Seeing his name as a scholarship student at Stellenbosch decided me against going there. The distance between Voetsek the Rooinek and The Boys Farm was beginning to widen, and in life you don’t go back to the past to see if it still hurts.

  But in the end, that’s exactly what happened, The Boys Farm came back to bite me on the bum. Frikkie Botha’s physical condition was deteriorating to the extent that he could no longer live the life of a derelict and still beg effectively for a living. Despite the warning from Professor Mustafa that Frikkie wouldn’t make it through another winter, he’d refused to give up his way of life and he somehow survived the steam pipes for another year. Despite my urging, Frikkie was intractable and refused to entertain the idea of the Salvation Army men’s home. No amount of persuasion could make him change his mind. If I die, I die, he’d written.