Fig Jam and Foxtrot

by Lynn Bedford Hall

  They all went to the funeral. The whole of Corriebush was there, standing in shocked and horrified huddles, the women in sombre black, the men in ties and suits, waiting for the hearse and the dominee. And then suddenly, from behind a tree, Jolly appeared.

  The people froze, pale as ghosts, in a terrible silence. ‘It was just like an eclipse,’ Sam Smith’s wife said later. ‘You know, that sudden dark feeling that the world has come to an end. Not even a bird singing.’

  Jolly smiled his lop-sided smile, gave a sort of wave, and then scrambled into the tree, dragging one leg slightly as he always did. Halfway up, he lay down flat on a branch and grinned at the gathering below him.

  Nobody said a word. They simply stared up at him, open-mouthed. And then somebody started to sob and old Mrs Bruwer fainted outright, falling with a thump right where she stood. Men removed their hats. Mothers felt for their children, drew them into their skirts and covered their faces. It was only when Jolly slithered down into their midst that the dreadful thing happened.

  The two boys who had pinned the notice on the tree shouted cruelly.

  ‘Jolly! It’s Jolly!’

  ‘Ai no! Jolly’s dead, man!’

  ‘You’re dead, Jolly! Go away Jolly!’

  This sent the children running. They scattered in all directions, screaming ‘Jolly! Jolly! It’s a spook! A spook!’

  And in utter confusion, their parents went after them. Only the dominee stayed and saw the shock, puzzlement and waves of despair that washed over Jolly’s face. He had always known only love and acceptance. He had never encountered rejection. And he just stood there, devastated.

  The next day, Jolly was found hanging from the same tree on which his death notice had been nailed, his braces caught up in a fork, twisted several times, his feet dangling way above the branch on which he must have stood before he slipped. He was still breathing shallowly, but his eyes were shut and he didn’t move at all when they carried him down and to the hospital. Jolly was not expected to live, the doctor said, and the whole event became a total, hideous nightmare. The women wept, the men spoke of it in solemn whispers, and a hush fell on the town as though a grey blanket had dropped from the sky and stifled the life out of the place.

  After one week, Jolly was still in a coma, and the doctor did not think he would ever come out of it.

  ‘We can’t send him home,’ he told Big Joe. ‘He needs round-the-clock nursing. We’ll inform you if there’s any change in his condition, but I don’t hold out any hope, I’m afraid. None at all.’

  The people took Big Joe cakes, and bunches of flowers from their gardens, and baskets of fruit and jugs of soup, and at night he walked the streets as usual, holding his paraffin lamp, shining it this way and that, down the main street, past the Corner Shop and round the park just as he always had done. Until the night he just kept on walking.

  It was Harry the postman who raised the alarm early the next morning. At last he had a white envelope to deliver, and he was so excited that he sat smiling and tinkling his bicycle bell for a good few minutes before he realised that Big Joe was not at home. Harry peered through the windows and then opened the front door and called, to make sure, but Big Joe was definitely not there. So he put the envelope on the kitchen table, and raced off.

  The news spread quickly and soon most of the men were out searching. They walked down every street and then out into the country, some even got into their cars and drove to a few farms and up one or two mountain tracks, and even a little way along the main road to Port Elizabeth, but he could not be found. ‘It’s as though the night just swallowed him up,’ they said. ‘The shock of it all has been too much.’

  Worried and mystified, they talked of little else for days, and when Harry eventually went back and opened the letter, they were even more dismayed. It read: ‘Sorry. Coming home. Love Sylvia.’

  And she arrived exactly a week after Big Joe had disappeared. She looked much the same, a little thinner perhaps, and didn’t explain her absence even though Maria from next door bustled over immediately the taxi drew up. Sylvia simply smiled at her, dumped her suitcase, and started to clean up the kitchen. And that’s where Big Joe found her the day he came walking back. He just walked down the main street as though he had never been away, and round the corner to Number Two. The windows were open, the path was swept, the flowers blooming, and Sylvia was busy baking.

  ‘You’re back,’ he said, tears running down his cheeks.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, turning to put her arms round his neck. ‘Oh Joseph, my sweet, dear Joseph, I am so, so sorry.’

  It did not take long for the women to pay a call.

  ‘We owe it to Big Joe,’ Lily said. ‘Find out what’s going on with the young lady, then perhaps a person can help. I see he’s walking at night again.’

  ‘We’ll visit her tomorrow afternoon,’ they decided. ‘No point in delaying tactics, as they say.’

  And so they arrived: Anna, Sophia, Nellie, Maria, Amelia and Lily. It was a formidable gathering to find on one’s doorstep, but Sylvia smilingly waved them in and offered tea.

  Balancing her cup on the broad wooden arm of the chair, Nellie pursed her lips and fell to. ‘As my friends know, I’m not one for beating about the bush, and so I’m going to ask you straight. What have you done with that insurance man? What was his name again?’

  ‘Chrisjan. Chrisjan Terblanche.’

  ‘That’s the one. Terblanche. Good-looker with fair hair.’

  ‘Chris. He’s my first cousin from my mother’s side. He picked me up.’

  Six pairs of eyebrows shot up.

  Sylvia helped herself to two spoons of sugar, and slowly stirred it into her tea, watching the spoon go round and round. Then she put her cup down without taking a sip, and looked at them squarely, each in turn, her blue eyes wide and steady.

  ‘It was my cold,’ she said. ‘It all started with my cold.’

  Encouraged now, they nodded. ‘Your cold.’

  ‘Perhaps that time of the month, too? We know how it is,’ they went on, afraid she might stop. Sylvia ignored them and continued.

  ‘I had a bad cold, so I went to see what I could find in the little medicine box in the bathroom. There were no cold pills there, but there was a small bottle of brandy, and I remembered my mother sometimes used to take brandy with lemon and honey and hot water when she felt poorly.’

  ‘A fine old remedy,’ Sophia agreed.

  ‘So I drank some and I felt much better and very happy, but the next day I felt bad again, so I took a little more, but without the water this time. Again I felt better and very happy, and so I started having little sips all day because then I never felt lonely and I could dress up and go shopping and greet everyone, and I felt quite grand and not at all shy. And when the happy feeling stopped, I just took another dose. Anytime. Breakfast, lunch, supper, anytime. In the end I was using the grocery money to buy brandy from the bottle-store. I said I wanted it for bottling peaches.’

  ‘“You’re bottling a lot of peaches, Mrs Joe,” Mr Daniels said to me.’

  ‘“Yes, our trees are full,” I lied to him. “Plums too, and apricots. You know how it goes, Mr Daniels, once the fruit starts one can hardly keep up and everything keeps so well if you put a little brandy in the syrup.”

  Anna held up her hands. ‘For goodness’ sake child! Stop! You say you were lonely? How can anyone in Corriebush feel lonely? Everybody knows everybody here, we’re all good friends, everyone’s welcome, our hearts are big.’

  ‘That’s what you think, Auntie Anna. But when you’re a new bride, married to a man whom everyone adores, and you’re nineteen years old and have no idea how to entertain or dress for socials or lay on a really good tea party, then it becomes very lonely. The young people, those my age, have all gone to work in the cities. Oh yes, Auntie Anna, in Corriebush one can feel very lonely.’

  The women were utterly shocked. ‘We never thought …’ but Sylvia was not to be stopped.

  �
�It was like a torrent,’ Anna remarked later. ‘Poor girl, she must have suffered a lot to get it out like that.’

  Sylvia rested her elbows on her knees, leaned forward slightly, and looked from one to the other as she spoke. ‘You forget I went from boarding school straight to college. All I wanted, really, was to make a trousseau and get married and have children. I was never very clever at anything. But I really loved Joseph,’ (she always called him Joseph now) ‘and I tried my best to be happy in Corriebush. But you, Aunt Nellie, you and the other ladies, you made me feel really stupid and hopeless. I knew you were watching to see how I managed. I knew it was because of your fondness for Joseph, you wanted to make sure that he was happy and cared for. But what you didn’t know is that you made me feel like an unloved, no-good child, who somehow managed to marry the most wonderful man in town. Like a fish in a bowl, like a monkey in a cage, I was being watched, and without saying a word, you were asking me to prove myself. I did not know how.’

  Anna picked up her cup to take a sip and then forgot and put it down again.

  ‘So I painted the house.’

  They nodded, they had seen her with the blue paint and the yellow paint and the green paint and thought it all a bit wild, but had said nothing.

  ‘That hurt. You said nothing. Then I made curtains.’

  They nodded. They had noticed the little lacy things that hung skew and did not even cover the panes, and had said nothing.

  ‘That hurt too. Then I planted flowers. And all you said, Aunt Nellie, was “Paraffin tins?” I had no money that month for pots. I spent it at Mr Daniels’, as you now know.’

  Thoughtfully and with great care, Nellie eased her skirt over her knees, over and over, until the hem hung to her ankles.

  ‘On days when I felt especially hopeless, the tots grew stronger. By the time Joseph came home, my spirits had lifted, I was ready to sing and dance all over the place, I felt happy and light-hearted – and he never knew it was the brandy.’

  ‘Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness! Sophia, your cake is on the floor.’

  Sophia did not bother to pick it up, she just sat there, staring.

  ‘Chris popped by regularly on his visits to Corriebush. He had always been my favourite cousin and we used to have lots of fun when he visited the farm. Here in town I never knew when he was coming, and so it did not take him long to catch me out.’

  ‘“Sylvie,” he said one day, “you’ve got one hell of a problem, girl.’”

  ‘“Problem? What problem?”’

  ‘“You’re drinking. I can see it – all the signs are there – your hands are shaking, and I can smell it, and it’s only ten in the morning.”’

  ‘Well, I started to cry, and that was when it all came out. All of it – the way you all made me feel like a dunce and everything else. Chris promised not to tell Joseph, I was so ashamed, but he made me promise to return to Port Elizabeth with him.’

  ‘“My parents will take care of you,” he said. “They’ll take you to doctors and meetings and do whatever is necessary to make you better. Pack your bags, Sylvie. You have to do this. For your sake, for Big Joe’s sake, and for Jolly.”’

  ‘Because I loved them both, because I hated what I had done, and because I wanted to be strong, not weak, I went with him. And I could not tell Joseph why, because I was too ashamed.

  ‘In the beginning, it was very hard for me, although my aunt and uncle were very kind, and Chris gave me money to send back to Joseph to make up for all the grocery money I had used on brandy. But then Chris lost his job and the money stopped.’

  The sun was dipping behind the mountain that held Corriebush in its folds, and Sylvia said she should hurry up because she would soon have to wake Joseph for his night shift, and she had to visit Jolly in the hospital.

  ‘Chris’ parents kept me there until they knew, and I knew, that I was whole again. Now it is past.’

  The teapot was cold and the slices of cake lay untouched. The women rose silently, full of thought. At the front door they shook Sylvia by the hand. When they got to the front gate they all turned back and enveloped her.

  ‘We’re so sorry, child,’ they said. ‘Seems we were all blind as bats, so concerned for Big Joe we clean forgot you needed caring too.’

  They held her close, all six of them, and promised that from that day, that very minute, everything would be different. And they were true to their word.

  The women of Corriebush adopted Sylvia. Not a day passed when one or the other didn’t drop in for a chat. They invited her aged, hard-up parents to visit. They showed her off, introducing her to any newcomers as ‘The prettiest, most capable young wife in Corriebush’. On her birthday they gave her two big urns for the garden, already planted with ivy. Aunt Nellie gave her free sewing lessons. And Sylvia blossomed into the beautiful, contented and loving person she was always meant to be.

  The story of Number Two and Big Joe and Sylvia, with all its earlier sadnesses, ended happily. Big Joe was able to give up his job as nightwatchman when Sam Smith started a marketing and delivery service, and put him in charge of sales. Sylvia took up dressmaking and the orders simply flooded in.

  The following year she gave birth to a baby boy, and they christened him Jo-Jo, because he was born on exactly the day Jolly was able to leave hospital and come home. Taller now, a lot stronger and steadier, he walked up the front path, smiled his crooked smile, and everything was right and just as it should be.

  SYLVIA’S RECIPES

  Sylvia was not an accomplished cook, and in the beginning she served some rather extraordinary meals to Big Joe and Jolly. Because these were based on her experience of boarding school food, she tended to make much use of sago, pumpkin and canned pears. Big Joe never complained, he and Jolly ate everything she concocted, but Sylvie knew it was awful. So she started writing letters to her old schoolfriends, asking them for recipes and advice, and slowly she was able to put together a personal cookbook, and to work on her lack of skills. She was a determined young woman, and after her return to Corriebush and many, many months of ups and downs, flops and tears, she finally triumphed.

  For Big Joe, every meal became a treat, for what Sylvia now served was comfort food at its best – totally unpretentious, pure and simple. He was so proud of her that he started inviting the women and their husbands round to supper. It was Servaas who eventually found the right words, and expressed what they all felt after having had a meal with Sylvie and Big Joe. Standing up, he proposed a carefully rehearsed toast. ‘To Sylvia,’ he beamed. ‘A lady who, in her unassuming way, has polished the art of culinary simplicity to homespun perfection.’

  ‘Ag, Servaas,’ put in a bemused Maria. ‘Why don’t you just say it straight, man?’ She raised her glass. ‘To Sylvia, our clever young Cordon Blew. Cordon Blah. Bler. Ag, never mind. To Sylvie.’

  Spicy Pumpkin Soup with Rooibos and Cream

  Curried Stampkoring Salad

  Saucy, Crumb-topped Baked Fish Fillets

  Simply Super Fish Dish

  Big Joe’s Chicken Casserole

  Spicy Lamb, Butter Bean and Cauli Curry

  Mushroom and Spinach Noodle Bake

  Custard Tart

  Green Fig and Ginger Cheesecake

  Baked Saucy Choc-nut Pudding

  Honeyed Ginger Biscuits

  Jumbo Oat Crisps

  Butter Pecan Snaps

  Ouma’s Aniseed Buttermilk Rusks

  Easy Wholewheat Bread with Seeds and Raisins

  SPICY PUMPKIN SOUP WITH ROOIBOS AND CREAM

  A softly scented, softly golden, elusively flavoured soup with a flutter of spices and a little of South Africa’s famous brew to add something special to the otherwise basic ingredients.

  600 g firm-fleshed, bright orange pumpkin, peeled and diced (prepared weight)

  2 medium carrots, sliced

  1 medium sweet apple, peeled and chopped

  1 medium potato, peeled and cubed

  1 jumbo onion, chopped

 
2 ml (½ tsp) each paprika and ground ginger

  1 whole clove*

  1 fat stick cinnamon

  500 ml (2 cups) chicken stock

  sea salt and a little white pepper

  500 ml (2 cups) hot rooibos tea made with 2 teabags

  125 ml (½ cup) each cream and milk

  croûtons for serving

  Mix all the ingredients, except the tea, cream and milk, in a large, deep saucepan. Pour in the tea. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat, cover and simmer slowly until the vegetables are cooked and soft – about 30 minutes. Cool. Remove the clove and cinnamon stick only when the soup is cold, so that their flavours can develop fully while they’re cooling down. Whizz in a blender, in batches, until smooth. Return to the saucepan, and add the cream and milk. Check the seasoning, and heat through without boiling. Ladle into warmed soup bowls and sprinkle a few croûtons onto each serving. Serves 6.

  * Using only 1 clove might sound like a mistake, but it isn’t – I find that 2 cloves just edge out the delicate flavours in this soup.

  CURRIED STAMPKORING SALAD

  Stampkoring (or pearled whole wheat) is a nutty grain with a truly homespun appeal. It takes longer to cook than rice, but the following method cuts down on time, and in any case it’s worth a little extra care to turn out this wholesome salad. Serve as a bright item at any cold buffet, or at a braai, or for a summer lunch with things on the side, like green leaves and avocado, yoghurt, hard-boiled eggs and chutney.

  250 ml (1 cup) stampkoring

  700 ml (24/5 cups) water

  2 ml (½ tsp) turmeric

  5 ml (1 tsp) sea salt and a dash of oil

  60 ml (¼ cup) oil

  1 large onion, sliced into thin rings

  ½ red pepper, seeded and diced

  2 cloves garlic, crushed

  3 courgettes (baby marrows) (150 g), pared and very finely diced

  15 ml (1 Tbsp) curry powder

  5 ml (1 tsp) ground cumin