by Carol Gibbs
“Where did you get that?”
“From an American sailor.”
“You lie!”
“It’s true. Have some, but if you swallow the gum it will stick in your insides and even Doctor West won’t be able to get it out.”
Soon we hear Pottie’s voice above the chatter and laughter.
“Take your seats. No cool drink bottles in the auditorium.”
“What does auditorium mean?”
“Bughouse.”
The main feature is Roy Rogers with his clever horse named Trigger. We all want to own a horse like Trigger and ride down Third Avenue with Stetsons on our heads, chaps on our legs and revolvers by our sides. Then one night it really happens. A horse comes down the street like a ghost in the pale moonlight. We are so happy, sure the horse came straight from Roy Rogers himself.
“Finders, keepers!”
Spencer keeps the horse on his field and we feed it sweet grass from our outstretched open palms. This clever horse, with lots of ribs, can count like Trigger in the bioscope. The horse stamps its hoof once, twice, thrice.
“That’s three!” we shriek with glee. “Come, Gabriel, come and see!”
“Don’t be daft! It’s shooing away flies!”
It turns out that Trigger is only a poor old thin horse from Mossienes. Aunty Dolly lets us keep Trigger for a day or two before she phones the SPCA and they take our Trigger away.
“Don’t worry,” she says, “Trigger will be grazing in greener pastures.”
Back at the Kritz, Roy Rogers rides off into the sunset on his clever horse, and we tumble out of the bioscope with our heads full of pictures.
“My bladder is bursting and I’m wetting my broeks.”
“You’re going to smell again and Grandma will get cross.”
Sometimes I pee in my broeks and then they lie in the drawer for days where they can’t worry anyone. I don’t tell because Mommy has worries of her own. I can’t throw them away because they cost money. When I have pee broeks on, I can’t stand close to the teacher or Aunty Martha when she helps mommy take measurements for our new dresses because I smell. When I go back to Grandma’s house I push my smelly broeks into the corner of my suitcase, but Grandma always finds them.
“Whose broeks are these?” Her grey eyes look right into mine and her jaw hangs open while she waits for the answer. I never know what to say, so I just keep quiet, but she knows those broeks are mine and I’m ashamed. I’m scared of her. What if she never lets me stay with her again? I will never be able to visit the hothouse and the museum.
And now, desperate to pee, we know it’s a long walk home. Desiree holds her hands between her legs, jiggling up and down.
“Let’s pee standing up, like boys.”
We pull the gussets of our broeks aside and we stand with our legs wide and our skinny hips thrust forward like boys. It’s a glorious sight to see the dark yellow pee shooting out from between our legs, landing at our feet and making a puddle in the white Cape Flats sand.
“Boys are lucky,” says Desiree.
By now my gum tastes of nothing, but I’m not ready to throw it away. I’ve kept the paper from Leonore’s chocolate. When I get home, I will smooth the silver paper with my thumbnail and keep it in a book until I see my cousins from Tiervlei. They will pass it on to the man who makes the pictures to hang in your lounge. He sticks the silver paper behind roses painted on glass and the words ask Wat is ’n huis sonder ’n vader? What is a house without a father? It makes me wonder.
Finally, after what feels like the long walk of Moses and his people out of Egypt, we round the last corner. My face falls. Mommy is standing in the yard beside the back door. Her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. Daddy is flinging pots and pans over the stable door. Everything that is dear to my mommy is flying through the air. Plates and dishes are crashing to the ground. The knives and forks ting-ting as they bounce off the steps. Next is the table with only two legs. Then he throws the other two like Red Indian tomahawks in the bioscope. We duck to keep from being hit. Here comes the sewing machine. Please, not the Singer! If the Singer is out of action, we won’t have new dresses for the Sunday School Anniversary. Once a year we look grander than all the other children. Mommy has had the whirr of the sewing machine in her ears since birth. She lets us turn the handle when she winds the cotton onto the bobbin. When we walk into the Gospel Hall heads turn and Mommy sits in the front row, proud of us in our newly stitched finery.
But now Daddy’s standing in the kitchen with a Globe chair held above his head and his eyes are wild. He smashes the chair to the floor, and then his mad eyes light on the kettle. He flings it through the door. Mommy shouts at him, “Jacob, please … please stop!” But he just carries on because the brandy makes him strong, just like Popeye in the cartoons. He drags the gram radio from the lounge, the gram radio Mommy bought as a big surprise, so we could give up the wind-up one. What about our favourite records inside the cabinet and what about the ornaments? There are Dutch windmills, Delft shoes, and sugar ornaments from weddings. There’s a miniature Bible and a Toby jug that looks like Mr Punch. Our best ornament is a blue teapot in the shape of a lady with a long dress and curls on either side of her head. But the gram radio is too heavy for Daddy and he gives up. We’re already standing outside, so he doesn’t shout uit and loop. He grinds his teeth and slams the door. Mommy’s body is shaking and there are tears in her eyes.
I don’t know how long we stand there, but it’s a long time. Gabriel is the first to move.
“Look, the h-h-handle still turns!”
Mommy sighs.
Gabriel carries the sewing machine into the hokkie in case it rains.
Aunty Dolly takes us in. She makes Mommy a cup of sweet tea and force feeds me hot milk and brandy and I stop shaking and my teeth stop chattering. I feel the hot-water bottle at my feet and drift off to sleep knowing we are all safe and snuggled up warm. When the sun comes up we’ll face a new day. What will tomorrow bring? We’re tired of never knowing, of no one ever telling us what is going on with anything.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It’s Sunday. We’re back home and walking on eggshells. There’s silence in their bedroom. Daddy has mended the table legs and put a new knob on the pot. The bottom of the pan isn’t level any more and it does a little dance on the stove when the plate gets hot. The grown-ups whisper secret plans and we just have to fit in. If my daddy died from alcoholic poisoning we would be free, free to just be and to get on with our lives like other children, ordinary children.
Today is Gabriel’s birthday and Desiree and I offer to put on a concert especially for him, but he says concerts are for sissies. He’s sitting on the back step whittling a boat. He skulks off, scuffing his bare feet in the dirt. His shoulders are hunched over and we think he’s crying softly to himself.
It’s the weekend so Mommy puts aside her knitting – my pink bunny-wool bolero with dancing ballerinas – and ties on her apron. She has time to make us a nice breakfast. Sunny-side up, broken yolk, we don’t care, because when it’s in your tummy with bread and coffee it doesn’t really matter. Gabriel and Daddy work hard pulling electrical cable through pipes to make extra money, so they get all the double yokes. We understand the strain of being men. After breakfast we can do what we like. We can fuss the cat, play hopscotch, or dream of tomorrow’s tupenny cakes and yeasty ginger beer.
I’m in another world, so I jump when Mommy calls.
“Colleen, I want you to go over the line to Aunty Ruby and fetch my knitting pattern.”
It’s a hot day on the Cape Flats and there are heat patterns coming off the tar. I’m barefoot and wearing my cool blue-and-white gingham frock with the square neck. As I make my way through the station turnstile, a man in a long black car calls me. I race over the burning tar and jump onto the wide running board. He’s holding his thing, pointing it at the ceiling. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. He pats the seat beside him.
“Get in. I want you to
touch me here,” he says in a deep voice.
He wiggles his thing around, but I’m not budging. Then I run for my life.
Heart thumping, I race down First Avenue as fast as my skinny legs can carry me, my feet barely touching the hot tarmac. He drives slowly beside me. As I round the bend into Kromboom Road I ignore the sign that tells you to Stop, Look and Listen. I scoot across the line as fast as I can as the ting-ting-ting sounds a warning. I turn to look at him before the train comes between us. He’s wearing a blue shirt and a maroon tie and he has a moustache. He looks so ordinary. He could have been my daddy.
Out of breath and wide-eyed, I race through Mr Chong’s doors.
“Can I help you?” Mr Chong asks kindly.
“I’m waiting for my mother.” Sometimes you have to tell a fib to save your skin.
I stay inside his shop for a long time, sifting through all the things from China. There are satin slippers and handbags, silk pyjamas, school bags, and paper lanterns in a row. We never buy them, but other people do. We only buy the things we need, like bread and milk, and coffee and tea, and beans and cheese. I watch Mr Chong unhook a pair of shoes from the ceiling with a long forked stick. He presents the shoes laid on his open palms. Mrs Uys doesn’t look convinced.
“Very durable, waterproof,” his gold tooth sparkles. “Can withstand the Cape Flats winters.”
Mr Chong finds me hiding behind one of the mirrored pillars, pulling funny faces and wondering what to do. “Where’s your mother?”
I run home like the wind, taking every secret short cut I’ve ever known.
Desiree is in the front yard. “Where have you been?
“There was a man in a big black car with his thing. It was big like Leonore’s gardener’s thing.”
How do men’s things grow so big? I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. It must be like Pinocchio’s nose.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I line up outside the big double doors. Above the door it says Aim High with an arrow pointing at the sky.
“I’m so glad you’re back!” Alice peers at me through her goggles.
Grandma can’t have us any more. Mommy said it’s all too much for her weak heart. So it’s back to the Gospel Hall and back to ‘Hou jou bek, stuk spanspek’ and ‘Screm, screm, blikkie jam’. Worse than that, it’s back to the angry words and threats and all that goes with it.
Spencer wants to cut all his hair off because the children at school call him Carrot Top.
“Your red hair is part of you,” says Aunty Dolly. “You’re half Irish.’”
I know how Spencer feels, because the children at school call me Skinny Legs all the time. His hands and feet are big like his daddy’s, but they look funny on him because he hasn’t grown into them yet.
He and I are sitting at the Finnerans’ kitchen table, clutching doorstops of white bread smeared with Aunty Dolly’s lemon curd. I brag about my ouma’s delicious boer bread.
“I helped to make this bread,” he brags with a full mouth.
He’s lying, I know it. All he did was help turn the handle on the sieve. The sieve has crossed wooden legs and looks like the crib of baby Jesus with fine gauze nailed to the inside. When you turn the handle the wooden paddles go round and round and the fine snow-white flour floats through the gauze, leaving the coarse brown meal behind. At school we are not allowed to tell and we have to eat our white sandwiches on the other side of the playground. My daddy complains and calls white bread spookasem, ghost’s breath. We finish eating our bread and lemon curd.
“Can I watch you do your number two?” Spencer asks me.
Before we start to play Cowboys and Crooks, Spencer reminds me. “Tell me when you want to go.”
Spencer has a toy guitar strung around his neck and when he gallops it jiggles back and forth. He tries to sing like Gene Autrey, his hero, but only strangled sounds come out of his mouth. And when he yodels I block my ears. I fart a rich, round, loud lemon-curd fart.
“Farting is a sign that your number two is coming,” says Spencer.
He walks round to the back of the lavatory and removes the little door the men use to take away the bucket. I sit on the seat warmed by the sun and my broeks dangle around my skinny ankles. While he waits, Spencer plays his comb. It’s covered with the special lavatory paper Aunty Dolly gets from the clinic in Muizenberg. I do my number two to the theme song from The Lone Ranger. He stops playing his mouth organ and calls out to say he can see everything. When I’m finished I wipe my bum on a piece of the slippery clinic paper.
“What does it look like?”
“It’s nice to see it coming out.”
I think he’s daft.
The next day Spencer appears at our gate with his bike.
“Can I come and play? Do you like boys’ ones or girls’ ones?”
“I don’t know.”
“I like girls’ ones. Can I see yours?”
“Only if you let me ride your bike around the house.”
The next day we are all in our room – Gabriel, Desiree, Spencer, Maureen and me – when Alice’s sister, Jennifer, knocks on the door. She has also come to play. The boys are playing submarines and the girls are playing with paper dolls.
“I’m bored,” says Spencer. “Let’s play doctor-doctor! Take your broeks off, Jennifer, and lie on the bed!”
Jennifer’s easy to boss. Spencer looks for something to examine her with.
“I know,” he says, “I’ll make a paper dart.”
We crowd around to get a better look.
“Knyp! Pinch.”
It only stays in for a moment and then it flops out. We’re soon bored and we go back to submarines and paper dolls.
A horse clip-clops past our Doll’s House.
“First luck for the white horse!”
Desiree licks her middle finger and touches the heel of her shoe. I do too, but I’m second again, second luck. Desiree has the edge over old Skinny Legs, but one day I’ll get her back. I’ll claim the luck first. She’d better watch out for me. I’ll be older, sharper and wiser.
It’s early Sunday morning. Daddy and Desiree are passing a sweet backwards and forwards from mouth to mouth. Desiree basks in the moment, enjoying Daddy’s good mood and smiles a slow, dimpled smile. It’s not fair. I’m going to the kitchen to find out where the sweets are coming from.
“Come, Bessie.”
Bessie wags her stump and dashes down the path, pink tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth. We walk past the school, all shuttered, barred and silent. The pine trees sway softly in the morning breeze and there’s a spider web caught in the diamond of the fence.
“Good morning, Mr Bells.”
“Top o’ the mornin’ t’ye.”
Mr Bells doffs his hat and makes me feel important. He stops to look at the spider’s web. “Just look at how the dewdrops cling to the delicate threads!”
“Come on, Bessie, walkies over.”
As I step into the steamy kitchen, Mommy is jiggling the pan, wearing her big white apron. There are onions frying, porridge is bubbling and there’s the smell of scalded milk. “It’s getting late. Come and eat.”
Sundays are serious days, pious days – and castor-oil days. There’s the lazy sound of aeroplanes flying over our yard from Youngsfield air-force base. We feel the drone of the engines in our tummies. They sometimes dip a wing and we fling our arms up and wave.
“Come for your castor oil. Open wide.”
I hate the smell and the spoon is too big for my mouth. My vomit wants to come long before the castor oil has slid down my throat and settled inside, but I have to swallow because it gives me open bowels. Gabriel says if you don’t swallow the stuff, your shit comes out of your bum like bricks.
“Where do y-you think sh-shitting bricks c-comes from? Y-you only have a round h-hole down there. You don’t h-have to be a genius to w-work it out.”
I bet it hurts, but I don’t say anything because I see Mommy give him the evil eye as she unties her apron. It�
�s time for church, so she pats her hair reflected in the glass of the back door and puts on her lipstick.
Mommy says that even though our Doll’s House is small, we are the envy of lots of people because it is between the church and the school.
In minutes we hear the hymns.
Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before!
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe;
Forward into battle, see his banners go …
Why would Christians have anything to do with war?
The Gospel Hall is full.
“And now something for the children,” says the minister.
Desiree and I sway slightly to the rhythm as we sing:
Jesus wants us for a sunbeam
to shine for him all day …
We love to sing together, holding the hymnbook between us. Mostly we get on well, me and Desiree, but every now and then something goes wrong, and we fight like cat and dog. Mommy locks us in our room. “Go on, scratch each other’s eyes out. When you’re done you can come out.”
Sitting in church, I burp castor oil. As Mr Anderson drones on about Absolom, I think of the round hole and the shit shaped like bricks. The shit must make a big splash in the bucket. Spencer would like to watch, but he better watch out because he will get pee in his eyes. My mind wanders until the benediction.
“Amen.”
The minister beams at his flock. The grown-ups shake hands and head for home and their lunch. They all look happy in their Sunday best, carrying their Bibles under their arms. We have to stay behind because we are practising for the Sunday School Anniversary. Fourteen children have been chosen to hold hearts for Jesus. Our hearts spell JESUS LOVES ME.
Two of the children are spaces. They have to stand between the words and hold their hands together in prayer with their eyes closed. We all hold our hearts for Jesus, but I hold mine upside down and the children laugh at me and carry on like it’s the biggest sin. Mommy takes a picture of me with my upside-down heart. I start crying and Mrs Uys, the Sunday-school teacher, comforts me. “Don’t cry, Jesus still loves you and He understands.”
