But none of this was important and in those early days she had just been pleased to be taken around the town, wined and dined, and even if she had to fight off his advances in the car, it had all helped to take her mind off Tom and her family.
One day he had said, ‘I’ve been talking to my mother about you. She’s getting on. She needs a secretary to help with the accounts and the farm correspondence. Are you interested?’
She had thought about it for a few moments. Such a job would take her away from her family and also from an environment where she could hardly avoid Tom if he tried to see her. ‘Yes, I’m interested,’ she said.
In the meantime, she had seen a great deal of Cape Town with him. He had been to school with the sons of many wealthy businessmen who lived in mansions in the suburbs of Kenilworth and Wynberg. She went to several parties in homes more luxurious than she could ever have imagined: large double and treble-storeyed houses set in grounds of several acres, with gardeners and majordomos and maids and cooks, all Cape coloureds, except for the majordomos who were often coal black and said to come from the North. Some of the houses had swimming-pools and most had tennis courts. At the parties there were private orchestras that played the Black Bottom and the Charleston. The guests danced and drank until dawn and then they would climb into their Pierce Arrows and their Napiers and drive to the beach for breakfast.
Kate was swept along on this tide. She could not play tennis and she did not know the latest dance steps, but no one seemed to mind. The talk was all of London. She found that the parents of the young set spoke of ‘home’, meaning England. On tables in their drawing-rooms she saw copies of the Illustrated London News and the Tatler that arrived every week on the mail-boat. She herself had arrived on one of the mail-boats with her family. The voyage was the single greatest adventure of her life, and would have been even if Tom had not been aboard, but Charles’s friends and their parents seemed to take the liners for granted and made the journey to and from England with a regularity that amazed her. Some even kept apartments in London or houses in the Home Counties. Many had made their money on the Stock Exchange, but others owned wine farms thirty miles from Cape Town, some were lawyers, some doctors, some factory owners. All lived in a style far beyond anything she had ever envisaged.
They all knew a great deal more about London, about Ascot and Henley and Goodwood than she did. They knew who had won or lost the Test Match at Lord’s; some had just come back from Wimbledon, others would be going over in time for the Grand National at Aintree. The fact that Kate could not contribute to their discussions might have counted against her had she not come from Edinburgh. They could not quite place her in their scheme of things, but they recognised that Scotland was acceptable. There was salmon-fishing and stalking and grouse-shooting in Scotland. And they could not identify her social class from her accent, for they did not know Scottish accents as they did English. The fact was that she came from ‘home’, and that was sufficient to give her cachet.
Charles’s closest friends were a recently-married couple, Jerry and Freda Alexander. Jerry was short, thickset and powerful. Freda was slightly taller than her husband, an ash blonde with grey eyes. Kate thought she was one of the most beautiful young women she had ever seen. Jerry was in the construction business – his father’s business, as Kate later discovered – and for a few weeks the four of them went everywhere together.
It was a strange time in Kate’s life. She herself was living in a working-class suburb in a working-class house and came from a working-class background. The young social set into which she had been drawn hardly knew the words ‘working-class’, nor what they implied. She would be picked up by Charles in her run-down street and taken to houses whose interiors and gardens seemed even more grand than they were by comparison with her own, then, like Cinderella, she would be returned to her house when the party was over. The small semi-detached villa became more hateful than ever.
There was always something on. She and Charles went with the Alexanders to the bioscope, the races – she looked for Tom, but did not see him. She would walk around the Royal Cape Golf Club course with the men; sometimes she and Freda would swing at a ball and Kate found that they expected her, as a Scot, to be a natural player.
‘Not everyone in Edinburgh plays golf,’ she told them.
Jerry was a fanatic who often played three or four days a week.
‘When does he work?’ she said.
‘When he’s not playing golf,’ Charles replied.
Sometimes Jerry and Charles would disappear for an evening ‘with the boys’, and once or twice Kate found herself alone with Freda at her expensive new home in Newlands. It was then she realised that, although Freda was beautiful, it was only skin deep. She had little knowledge of anything that went on in the outside world. She was obsessed with herself, with her reactions to people and their reactions to her; especially her husband’s. After knowing Kate for only a few days, she talked to her with an intimacy in which even friends of long-standing might rarely indulge. She came from a family of wealthy sheep farmers about two hundred miles from Cape Town, but had been to school in the city. At seventeen, she’d had an affair with a married man, at eighteen an abortion performed by a doctor friend of her father’s. At nineteen she had met Jerry and soon she was pregnant by him. But she had lost the baby, and most of her womb; now she could not have babies, but she did not mind, because she didn’t like children anyway.
‘Jerry doesn’t want them either,’ she said. ‘He’s going to take me to Ascot next year. We might even buy a flat in London. It’s easier without children.’
On another occasion, as they sat in the big club rooms of the Royal Cape waiting for Jerry and Charles to finish eighteen holes, she said, ‘He doesn’t like me to wear anything under my dress.’
‘Jerry?’
The beautiful grey eyes were unfocussed, the short hair curled over her forehead, giving her a gamine look. ‘He always wants me. He likes to put his hand up when we’re in restaurants. Sometimes he wants me in other people’s houses.’
Kate realised that she was simply putting each thought into words without any check or filter; a stream of consciousness.
At first she had thought Freda the height of sophistication, but as she came to know her, she realised that she was both selfish and stupid.
And Kate soon learned that Freda wasn’t the only one that Jerry wanted. One Saturday night they had been to a dinner-dance at a country club in the suburbs. She had never been to a place like it before. At one time it had been a great house and, with its ornate mahogany staircase and wood-panelled walls, it gave the impression of what she imagined a Scottish hunting lodge must be. Jerry and Freda had had an argument before they arrived and Jerry spent the evening dancing with Kate, or sitting out. It was not a pleasant party. They left about two o’clock to drive down to a roadhouse near the coast for bacon sandwiches and coffee and Jerry threw the keys to Charles. ‘You drive,’ he said.
Kate found herself in the back with Jerry. It was a cold night and he spread a rug over their knees. Almost immediately she felt his hand between her thighs. She closed her legs and drew away, but his strong fingers held her. She felt the coldness of his hand above her stockings which, in an attempt to be up to date, she wore rolled down just above her knees. She put her own hands down on his wrist and they began a tug-of-war under the rug. Freda, perhaps sensing what might be happening, said from the front seat: ‘Do you want to sit next to Charles?’
It was impossible to say yes without insulting Jerry in front of his wife so she said, ‘No, this is fine.’
Jerry was smiling at Freda. ‘We’re keeping each other warm.’
Even as he spoke, he forced his hand up. She dug her nails into his arm, but he twisted his fingers in her hair and pulled. Tears sprang to her eyes.
Abruptly, she said, ‘Stop please, Charles. I’m going to be sick.’
He pulled up and she got out and stood by the car. ‘I think I drank too much.
Cars make me sick.’
‘Sit in front then,’ Freda said. ‘You won’t feel sick in front.’
‘I’d like to go home.’
The two women changed seats and Charles drove back to Observatory.
‘Feeling all right now?’ Jerry said as she left the car.
‘Yes, thank you.’
He was smiling, but his eyes were hostile and she realised that she was frightened of him.
They did not only go to country clubs and smart parties. Charles and Jerry also knew the seamier side of the city. Once the four of them went to District Six. Jerry was driving and Freda was in front. Kate sat at the back with Charles. ‘Don’t ever walk up here by yourself,’ Charles had said as Jerry turned into Hanover Street, the ghetto’s main thoroughfare. ‘Not even in daylight, or the skollys will get you.’
‘Skollys?’
Jerry pulled over to the pavement and said, ‘Coons. Coloureds. Street gangs.’
‘Aren’t you afraid?’ she said, with heavy sarcasm.
He had opened the glove compartment and pulled out a pistol. He held it as though waiting for someone to come up and make trouble.
‘See that place over there?’ Charles pointed to a large white building with a shop beneath it. ‘That’s a shebeen where you can buy liquor after hours.’
‘And that’s a brothel over there,’ Jerry said. ‘Full of coloured girls. The white men come about midnight. And over there is where the moffies are.’ He laughed. ‘Have you ever seen a moffie – a man dressed as a woman?’
‘No,’ Kate said.
‘That’s one.’ He indicated a coloured ‘woman’ who was leaning against a lamp-post. She was a grotesque figure in a short, tight, pink satin dress which revealed muscular legs and clung over her tiny breasts. On her head was a ginger wig, with kiss-curls plastered on her cheeks.
One evening, when she had gone home for the week-end after some weeks with Mrs. Preller, Charles had taken her to the Crescent Curry House in District Six. Its interior was decorated in the style of an Indian temple and smelled strongly of joss-sticks and cardamom.
‘Good evening, Mr. Charles,’ the Malay owner said. ‘How is Mr. Charles tonight?’
‘I’m okay. Have you got my table?’
He had put them in a corner. Charles ordered a curry and rice with roti for them both. After a while Kate had become aware of a good-looking coloured girl, very light-skinned, who was staring at them. Charles turned and the girl smiled and nodded, but he seemed to look through her as though she was not there.
They had been the only two white people in the place. Some of the women, whose mouths were covered by thin veils, looked as though they might be beautiful, with large, liquid brown eyes and oiled hair. Many of those who were unveiled shared a common characteristic she had noticed in some of the women in Helmsdale: the front teeth of their upper jaws were missing.
They had finished eating by eight o’clock.
‘You haven’t seen my flat,’ Charles said. She had made excuses twice before not to go to his flat, now she had none.
It was on the top floor of an old town house overlooking the city and Table Bay. The view of the lights was spectacular. He had taken her through french windows onto a large balcony.
‘It’s marvellous!’ she said.
He was standing a few paces away, looking not at the lights, but at her. She had felt her heartbeat increase. She was on his territory now.
Then the doorbell had rung. He frowned. It rang again, then a knock came.
‘I’ll get it. You stay here,’ he said.
She heard him open the door, then a woman’s voice. She could not make out words, but the tone was angry. Charles’ voice, answering, was a low rumble at first, growing louder.
‘You have!’ she heard the woman say, then ‘. . . waiting and waiting . . .’ Her voice was heavily accented.
Charles: ‘Stop that shouting!’
‘. . . car. I saw you. You’re lying!’
Suddenly, he had appeared in the doorway of the sitting-room, blocking it. Over his shoulder, Kate could see dark hair. She had found herself crouching in the shadows like a criminal.
‘Not now, for Christ’s sake!’ His voice was like a whip.
‘You think I don’t know why she doesn’t want me? You think I don’t know why she won’t let me come to the house?’
She heard sounds of a scuffle, a piece of furniture was knocked over, then a scream, partly of anger, partly of hurt. And silence. The front door slammed and feet ran down the stairs, and stopped outside.
Kate could see the woman standing in the shadows, looking up, trying to penetrate the dark verandah, and then she had turned and gone away.
Humiliated and angered, Kate had gone into the sitting-room.
Charles was standing, lighting a cigarette. She took one from his silver case and he lit it for her.
‘Sorry about that,’ he said. She could feel his rage; his eyes had gone blank.
‘Take me home,’ she said.
He did not seem to hear her.
She had picked up her bag and gone towards the door. ‘If you won’t take me, I’ll order a taxi.’
‘What?’ The light came back, life moved into the eyes.
‘I said I want you to take me home.’
‘Ja. Okay. Fine.’
Chapter Seven
‘Bloody ostrich feathers,’ Smuts said to Kate one morning. ‘Who’d have thought that ostrich feathers would make people rich. You women are bloody funny.’
But it wasn’t only ostrich feathers that had captured the fashionable imagination. There was a new interest in every kind of decorative feather, from louries and birds of paradise, to exotic pheasant. Ostrich feathers were in such demand that Saxenburg could not produce them quickly enough. Helmsdale was agog with the prospect of real wealth again and Miriam Sachs’ death was hardly discussed any longer.
Smuts took on a few extra hands and soon the small dwellings on the far side of the sheds were filled with brown-skinned families. As the price of feathers rose, the pace increased and Kate found herself having to pitch in and help.
The first plucking was something she would never forget. The adult birds were rounded up in their camps and taken to a walled enclosure. Each of the labourers carried a long pole with a shepherd’s crook tied on the end with wire. This was used to hook a bird by the neck. The head was bent low, throwing the ostrich off-balance so that it could not attack with its large, clawed feet. Each bird was led to a small, triangular pen into which it fitted closely and to the sides of which it was securely tied. Then a sock was pulled over its head to calm it.
When she heard Smuts talk of plucking, she had envisioned feathers being pulled from the living bird and had felt uneasy about the pain it would cause.
‘You bloody townees always get things wrong,’ he said. ‘Of course we don’t hurt the birds. I told you, they’re too valuable.’ He took a body feather in his fingers and pulled. It came away easily in his hand. ‘Body feathers are plucked, but only when they’re ripe.’ He touched the place from which he had pulled it. ‘The nerves have died. The bird would have moulted the feather anyway. Doesn’t feel a thing. The wing feathers are different.’ He ran his fingers through the long white plumes. ‘If we left these to ripen they would grow so long the birds would damage them. But we can’t pull them or we would hurt the birds. So we cut them.’ He cut the feather from the underside of the wing with shears and showed her the two inches or so that remained of the quill. ‘In a few months that will ripen and the nerves will die and then we’ll take it out. If we didn’t a new feather would be damaged trying to push it out.’
Kate’s days began to be dominated by the birds as hundreds were rounded up and driven into the plucking ‘kraals.’ She learned to live in a world of hysterical birds, shouting labourers, snipping shears – and dust. The birds kicked up dust as they were driven from one place to the next; sometimes they would thrash about in the plucking box and for several moments would
disappear behind a screen of fine yellow dust; it got into her hair and eyes and up her nose and between her teeth.
Soon her problem was not the ostriches, but the feathers themselves. Smuts left Jonas to deal with the plucking while he organised Kate and Betty and Lena into a team to deal with them. They came first in a trickle of bundles and then in a flood. The dirty white feathers had to be washed, dipped into starch and dried in the hot sun by beating them together in bundles. This made them light and fluffy.
One problem was where to put them while they were waiting to be sorted, and where to store them afterwards. There was so much dirt and dust in the air near the plucking kraal that eventually the clean feathers were taken into the house. For the six or seven days of the plucking, Saxenburg became inundated by them. Whole rooms were given over to their storage: on chairs, the dining-table, the big drawing-room, the hall, the breakfast room. Everywhere there was a flat area out of the wind and dust, Smuts used it for feathers.
But the feathers held dust, too, dust so fine that the interior of the house began to look as though a sea mist had entered it. Dust and fluff penetrated everywhere, including Kate’s sinuses, causing her to sneeze most of the day. It was only when she retreated to her room at night and sat by the open window, breathing the ozone-laden air, that she found some relief. It was the same for everyone. Smuts, Betty and Lena went about looking as though they had hay-fever.
Smuts taught Kate how to sort the feathers by length, colour and quality into prime whites, blacks, tails, feminas and chicken feathers.
Other farmers began to restock and refurbish as the new boom held, and Helmsdale shook itself out of a sleep that had lasted for more than ten years. People began to paint their houses; a few shops reopened; two new cars appeared for sale in the show-rooms of Preller Motors; there were more cars in the streets; more diners at the hotel. When she remarked on this, Mrs. Preller said, ‘At the moment there is more confidence than new money. But confidence is money. You will find that out for yourself one day.’ In the months that followed, the trickle of money became a stream that became a river.
The Sea Cave Page 9