by Carol Gibbs
“Our dinner plates are odd colours and shapes,” says Mommy. And she’ right – our cups and saucers are mismatched and some have cracks. “I’m tired of being poor and making do … It’s time we got some decent china. Tomorrow, in my lunch hour, I’m going to march straight into Fletcher & Cartwrights in Adderley Street and put a dinner service on lay-by.”
“Please can we have pink?”
“We’ll have to wait and see. Oh yes, supper will taste so much better and we won’t be ashamed when Aunty Martha comes to dinner. We might even have to buy a bigger table.”
Aunty Martha is well off. She lives in Green Point. She married a German man, Uncle Gottfried. Mommy says she fell with her bum in the butter, because Uncle Gottfried owns his own hairdressing salon in a big building in Adderley Street. He has a dent in his head, but he never talks about it. It can’t be from the war because he left Germany a long time ago. Aunty Martha says he was innocent, but the South African government sent him to Koffiefontein with all the other German men. So the dent in his head will remain a mystery forever.
But six months seem like forever. We mark the months off on the fly-specked calendar we got from Mr Chong.
“Tell us again, Mommy.”
“It’s a sort of cream colour. It’s stamped Castle on the Lake underneath. It has a pretty wavy edge, trees, and fluffy clouds overhead. The castle is very grand, towering above everything else, and there are red and yellow roses with the odd green leaf. You’ll love it. It’s so romantic.”
“I can’t wait!”
“You just have to be patient.”
Mommy and Aunty Beryl are sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee.
“Jacob says if I give him another son, he’ll never drink again.”
“And you believe him?” Aunty Beryl lifts her eyebrows. “Two pairs of big ears.”
“Make yourselves scarce,” Mommy shoos us off.
Alice is playing at my house. We climb the tree and settle on our favourite branch.
“I have a secret,” Alice whispers.
“Tell me!”
“My mother is going to have another baby,” she blurts out.
Don’t they know thirteen is an unlucky number?
“You want a boy or a girl?”
“Boys fight and kick up a racket.”
“Where is your mommy going to have the baby?”
“At home.”
“My daddy is back with Public Works. If we have a baby, they will pay.”
When Mrs Haroldson’s tummy starts to grow no one bats an eyelid. But when my mommy’s tummy bulges, we all sit up and take notice. Mommy has bought skeins of blue wool and Desiree and I have to wind it into balls. She knits furiously every night and baby patterns lie all about the house. In the morning we stand outside the lavatory door with our legs crossed, listening to Mommy vomiting her heart out.
“I hope Mommy isn’t vomiting the baby up,” says Desiree.
Soon Mommy can’t even bend to pick up a dishcloth and big burps come out of her mouth.
“Don’t s-steal Mommy’s p-prunes. Forget about v-vomiting. Being c-constipated is f-far worse.” Gabriel rubs it in. “Constipation m-means you will have b-bunches of grapes h-hanging out of your b-bum, like Aunty Beryl. Think of the prunes as m-medicine then y-you won’t be tempted to t-touch them.”
We know about shitting bricks, so we treat the prunes with respect. Aunty Beryl had to have an operation on her bum and when she came to visit us she had to sit on a round red rubber ring that smelt of hospital. My bum is sore just at the thought of it.
When I’m lying in bed, I hear Mommy and Daddy talking.
“I can’t believe it … another white rat! Are they mad?”
So much for Alice’s secret.
Mommy is in the garden picking flowers to put in the glass basket vase because Ouma is coming to visit.
“Can we wait for Ouma at the station?”
“Okay, but only after you’ve all had a wash and tidied your hair.”
Gabriel pulls a face.
We see Ouma’s familiar bent figure as she makes her way towards us. She’s wearing her old brown coat and bits of wispy grey hair peep out on either side of her felt hat. Ouma hardly ever gets new clothes. She says there’s nothing wrong with the old ones as long as they’re clean and mended. She puts her parcels down and leans her stick against her skinny hip and then, one at a time, takes our faces in her bony hands and kisses us. In her broken English she asks us how we are, and how we are managing at home and at school. We all say fine, although it’s a lie. Gabriel picks up her parcels and Desiree and I skip along the platform beside our hobbling ouma. It’s not every day that Ouma comes to stay and Mommy warned Daddy that he had better behave himself. That means no brandy and a peaceful weekend for the rest of us.
Ouma pulls out her hatpin and takes off her blue felt hat. She eases herself onto the couch and we crowd round her knees. I can see thick ropey veins through her Lyle stockings. We call them Ouma’s very cross veins and giggle behind our hands. Ouma smells of KWV Eau de Cologne and oranges. She can peel an orange in one go and the peel uncurls like a long orange snake. She sticks a few cloves into the orange peel and hangs it next to the enamel soup ladle on the nail beside the stove. She says it will give our kitchen a spicy smell, just like our own babbie shop. Ouma has brought big Ball jars from her pantry. For Daddy there’s beetroot and piccalilli and for us there’s grape jam and a loaf of proper boer bread. Ouma never wastes and always puts leftovers to good use. She sewed her bag from the leftover material from the day bed on her stoep and it has a flour-sack lining. We know there are sugar mice in there, with black liquorice eyes and long string tails, but she keeps the bag on her lap, clutching the wooden handles to her chest. My mouth waters at the thought of biting into the fat sugary mice. At last she opens the wide mouth of the bag, peers inside and then feels around with her skinny hand.
“A-nee-a, eina. Ouch!” she cries in mock surprise. “The mice have sharp teeth today!”
One by one, she takes the mice from her handbag, doling them out in the same order as last time.
“Three green mice for Gabriel, the boy with the beautiful teeth; three pienkes for the girlie with the pretty dimples; and last, but not least, three chocolate mice for my little darling who looks just like me.”
Ouma has skinny ankles, and knobs for knees and wrists, just like me.
“Slim as a racehorse,” Oupa always says.
Gabriel makes his mouse jump from his open palm and he chases us around the kitchen table while we scream in play-play fright. Ouma looks old and small as she sinks further into the couch. Mommy and Ouma talk about family history, births and deaths, and skinner stories, so we play just outside the door to make sure we don’t miss the latest scandals. Daddy says they’ve both been injected with a gramophone needle.
“I feel sorry for you,” I hear Ouma sigh, balancing her cup of tea on her knobbly knee. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Maybe one day things will be better. Ai!” Then she changes the subject. “I love your children so much, especially Gabriel. Ek het ’n soft spot vir hom.”
It’s an open secret Gabriel is her favourite. She bought him his first school satchel and, when she can, she puts a few shillings into a post-office book in his name. Ouma doesn’t know how Gabriel and Desiree bully me when Mommy isn’t home. I wonder what she would say?
“You look so thin!” says Mommy. “When last did you see a doctor, Ma?”
“Ag, I have my Lennon Dutch Medicines and there’s always Heynes Mathew to fall back on. But how is Catherine-Jean? How’s the little girl?”
Mommy puts her finger to her lips and a look passes between them.
Ouma always does the mending and the darning when she comes to visit. So it’s not long before she and Mommy move to the kitchen. Ouma sits at the kitchen table putting a patch on Gabriel’s school shorts.
“A stitch in time saves nine.”
She approves of turning collars and
darning socks. In our family, brassieres get handed down too, but not the broeks. That’s private territory. Ouma slips a sock over the darning mushroom and her hand flies back and forth. Bessie is lying quietly under the kitchen table, snapping at flies. Ouma starts singing church songs softly and then her voice gets louder and louder.
Werk want die nag kom nader …
She says the hymn tells us to work harder because it’s almost night time. She mends all day, but never on a Sunday, because if you push a needle through cloth or make a stitch on the Sabbath, you stick the needle right through the eye of God.
“I can’t wait for the baby,” she says to Mommy. “Another boy would be nice. You’ve got two pretty girls.”
Ouma doesn’t know there’ll be no more drinking if it’s a boy.
But when she’s here things are different. Daddy shaves and is on his best behaviour. Our supper is roast leg of lamb, with little slits to hide cloves and bits of streaky bacon.
Ouma is going to sleep in our room tonight, in Gabriel’s bed. Gabriel wants to know why he can’t sleep on the floor so he doesn’t miss out on the fun, but Daddy says it’s disrespectful for a growing boy to sleep in the same room as his ageing ouma.
“Isn’t Jacob coming to church?”
“He left to check on the job at Plax Chemist.”
“I didn’t bring him up like this!”
Daddy says he’s not changing his tune just because his mother is visiting. After our porridge we pinch our noses and swallow our castor oil. We watch Ouma get dressed. She screws the top off her KWV Eau de Cologne bottle. Her slender fingers remove the small black rubber stopper, and she dabs a little on to her lace hankie, then tucks it up her sleeve. Before she pins the pink brooch at her throat, she holds it up to the light, so we can see the picture of the pretty lady with her hair swept up. She calls the brooch a cameo.
And then we’re off down Third Avenue to the Gospel Hall, reverently clutching the pennies Ouma has given us. As usual, I’m lagging behind.
“Come on, old Skinny Legs!”
“Don’t worry, my child,” says Ouma, “the last ox also ends up in the kraal.”
We join the other voices praising the Lord. Ouma holds our hands tightly between her bony fingers as we pray, her tiny birdlike eyes screwed tightly shut. She has borrowed Mommy’s Bible because her own Bible is written in Hoog Hollands and it’s no use in an English Church. She slips a silver leaf into Mommy’s Bible as a bookmark on the page that says in heaven there will be no tears. After the service, Ouma shakes the minister’s hand. Her face is glowing and she says there is nothing like going to church to make you feel part of God and part of the human race.
Trust and obey, Cashmere Bouquet, for there’s no other way …
But then after lunch Ouma has stomach cramps and palpitations.
“You have any Lennon’s? Bring bietjie behoedmiddel if you have any. Thank you, my child.”
“Here, take the bottle with you and take the teaspoon too,” says Mommy. “We can get the teaspoon back the next time we visit you.”
We walk to the station with Ouma. She puts her bag down on the platform and kisses us one by one. Just before the train leaves, Ouma thrusts three perfect silver leaves at us.
“Goodbye until next time,” she shouts as we run beside the train. “Totsiens tot weersiens.”
She waves her skinny arms back and forth until she’s just a speck. Then she’s gone and we dream of the next visit and icing sugar mice with black liquorice eyes and long string tails.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Daddy can’t wait for Ouma to leave. Her eau de cologne is still wafting on the air in the lounge when he hits the bottle. It’s a rough night with not much sleep. The school bell rings, but we lie in bed until the last minute. Our rumpled school uniforms and broeks are on the chair beside our bed, ready to be filled by little unwashed people with unbrushed teeth. As usual, we skid into the schoolyard at the last minute, out of breath, but in line with the best of them. While we wait we tidy our loose bits. We force smiles and keep a stiff upper lip, but sometimes my bottom lip quivers and tears roll down my cheeks, but I brush them away. Only brothers and sisters understand.
Today we have Gulliver travelling in the Land of Lilliput. The giant Gulliver is tied down with ropes, helpless, while the little folk swarm all over him. Mrs Findlay says it’s only a story and not to worry, but I worry anyway. I bite my nails and wriggle in my seat, unable to concentrate for longer than a minute. I’m sitting at my desk, drawing a picture of snowdrops and gabled houses, and dreaming of the school holidays, when the teacher startles me.
“Stand up, Colleen Le Seuer. You will take Thelma’s place. She’s not well.”
I can’t believe my ears.
“Th-thank you, Miss,” I stammer, with my heart hammering in my chest. I pinch myself. I’m going to be the shepherdess in the school play. Thelma lives in a big house on the right side of the railway track and she has a father who never touches a drop. I’m quite sure she has breakfast in bed, and roast chicken every day.
“Class dismissed.”
The girls cast envious sidelong glances at me as they file out of the classroom. The white satin dress has puff sleeves, lots of lace, a scoop neck and a basque, and best of all is that Thelma’s mother paid for it. It slides over my waiting body.
“You’re such a skinny child,” says Mrs Findlay after class when I’m trying on Thelma’s costume. “I’ll have to put some tucks in the sides.”
I don’t care what she does as long as I can take part in the concert. Mrs Findlay says I can wear my white boots that stabilise my skinny ankles, because they match the white satin dress and the dress will cover them anyway. I know I can do the steps, because I’ve watched Thelma de Wit like a hawk. Desiree has performed many times, but she’s never worn a white satin dress and stood opposite Ernest du Toit. I like him a lot and sometimes sit next to him in class, but now I like him even more. He wears knee-length white satin trousers with white stockings. The silver buckles on his shoes shine, and on his hat there’s an ostrich feather, white as snow. I just know I’m going to fall in love. I’ll carve his name in a heart on a tree: C.L.S. loves E.d.T. I can tell Ernest is not as excited as I am. He’s more interested in sending paper darts whizzing around the classroom. One more sleep. I hope Ernest doesn’t let me down.
The setting sun reflects in the panes of the sash windows and in the fanlight above the double doors. Butterflies are doing a jitterbug in my stomach. It’s real, because I’ve seen my name in the programme. The cloakroom is abuzz with the high-pitched voices of over-excited children. Mrs Findlay checks my hair. My curls are bouncy, because last night Mommy did my hair in rags, all twisted tight and tied off in knots. When they put the poke bonnet on my head I’ll look like Miss Muffet in the picture books. Mrs Findlay puts some rouge on my cheeks and a little lipstick on my lips. Squinting at the hand-mirror, I look like Jean Harlow in the bioscope. My heart is beating in my ears. Alice has finished performing her recitation and now it’s my turn. I stand on my pedestal holding my crook with the big satin bow. The choir sings about the shepherd and shepherdess made of stone and how they come alive and fall in love. The teacher in the wings will tell me when to come alive.
In a quaint old chateau garden …
Stands a shepherdess of carven stone.
Another hidden teacher tells Ernest to come alive and he climbs off his pedestal. I’m frozen in position.
“Get down!” hisses the teacher, but my feet won’t move. The choir repeats the chorus.
In a quaint old chateau garden …
I remember my mommy telling me there’s no such word as can’t and suddenly it makes sense. I can see the steps in my head and my wobbly legs take me to the centre of the stage. Ernest joins me and together we dance to the other side. Mrs Findlay had said be brave, keep smiling and don’t fall over the edge. So I try to keep a smile on my face but it looks more like a scowl. Just before the choir sings the last lines, Ernest
puts out his hand and helps me climb back onto my pedestal. I stand like a statue, not moving a muscle. He dances back to his pedestal, climbs up and stands still. The curtain closes and the audience claps and claps. The curtain opens again and Ernest takes off his hat and bows. The ostrich feather tickles my nose and I sneeze.
“Excuse me.”
Someone shouts Bless you! and suddenly they’re all clapping like mad. This time I smile with all my heart. I feel warm inside almost like when Aunty Dolly gives me the milk and brandy.
That night the stars are shining above my head and my name is up in lights with Jean Harlow and Shirley Temple. In my bed I relive every step of the concert. I wish I could be the shepherdess again and again, just for that warm feeling.
The Dorothy Perkins roses are coming into bud and the Christmas butterflies are flitting about. Mommy says you can depend on the seasons. Like clockwork they come round, bringing order to our disorderly lives. Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat. It’s time for a new dress for the Sunday School Anniversary. We practise weeks ahead and our anniversary stage is Daddy’s stepladder. I sit on a rung halfway up and Desiree gets to sit right at the top. We sing all the Christmas hymns and do all the actions. On the big day we’ll know all the words off by heart and we won’t miss a beat. Lying in bed we listen to the clickety-click. There’s silence while Mommy changes the bobbin and then she turns the handle at top speed until way past midnight. We finger the pink material. There are blue rosebuds nestling in the folds around the neck and the skirt and we can’t wait to wear the dresses. No one will recognise us on Christmas morning.
Mommy comes home from work with lots of rustling packets. Millions of shopkeepers are keeping secrets and surprises in dark corners. The lay-by system was designed for hardworking mothers, overworked and underpaid.
“God bless the understanding shopkeepers,” mutters Mommy.
Brown paper parcels, tied up with hairy string, are hidden out of reach on the top shelf of Mommy’s wardrobe. We wear our eyes out trying to work out what’s inside.
