The Housemaid's Daughter

by Barbara Mutch

  The township was quiet that day. Quiet like after a storm has passed, or when waiting for a new one to arrive. For the first time, I am glad that Dawn is not here.

  Chapter 45

  In my mind I live with Dawn. I wake with her in the grey morning light, I see her as she searches for work among the thousands who’ve come to find their future among the gold mines, and I watch over her when night comes and the stars are hidden by smoke. Perhaps it is the same for all of us. Perhaps we all live with others, especially those we love. I once lived with Phil, I once heard the whine of bullets over his head, I once felt the sand of Sidi Rezegh beneath his fingernails, I sometimes imagine him and Dawn and me as a family.

  Since Master’s death, I’ve come to understand that this kind of imagining is also strong for Mrs Cath. When I am in the township she imagines what I am doing and puts herself in my place as a teacher. When I return home she wants to know what each day has brought. Mrs Cath grasps both sides of my divided life, especially the side that few whites see. And as the fires burn and the struggle rages, she worries for me, and she worries for Dawn whose days neither of us can truly know.

  ‘When will she come back, Ada? She’d be safer here than in Jo’burg…’ She touches a photograph of a laughing toddler Dawn that now hangs on the kitchen wall since there is no longer any need to hide such things from Master.

  I have prepared an answer for this.

  ‘She wants to be where there are more coloureds, Mrs Cath.’

  We never speak of the coming together of Master’s death and Dawn’s departure. We never voice the thought that if she’d waited one more day – if I’d waited one more day instead of rushing into the township – such a leaving might never have happened. But I know in my heart that Dawn was intent on going. If not then, then soon after. This is the answer that I cannot give to Mrs Cath. I cannot tell her that Dawn, like Miss Rose, was seduced by a Johannesburg future.

  I also can’t tell Mrs Cath that Dawn seems to change her address often, that she doesn’t appear to have found a job yet, that her letters are filled with stories of bright lights rather than steady work. I don’t tell her that Dawn appears to be following the same brittle path as Miss Rose. In another world, Miss Rose – Dawn’s sister, after all – might have helped her find a job, or a place to stay. But Miss Rose and my daughter are as far apart as Ireland is from Cradock, even though they live beneath the same arc of southern sky.

  ‘Dawn will find her way,’ Lindiwe says, encouragingly, as we drink tea together. ‘Give her time.’

  While I have no influence on Dawn’s future, I have tried to encourage Mrs Cath to reclaim hers: her white life, and the friends who are part of it. After all, the law has turned its attention elsewhere, and with Dawn gone as well, Mrs Cath’s friends have no reason to shy away. The evidence of mixed blood is gone. And it is true that they have tried. They invite her to tea parties and music evenings, they include her in bridge afternoons and farm visits, they call for her in their cars and take her for drives on to the open Karoo plains. She returns with sprays of papery everlastings and bags of purple figs. But I can tell she is unsatisfied. Their company does not fill her.

  ‘A marvellous day, Ada,’ she will say, laying aside her hat and seating herself at the piano. ‘The Colletts are delightful.’ Then it will be Mozart, but her fingers are distracted, and she will miss a couple of difficult passages and stop midway, and start on something else and that will go no better and then she’ll say that she is tired and will rather play tomorrow.

  Although there is much to be grateful for here in Cradock House, there is a curious limbo in my life.

  I thought that with Edward gone I would feel more free. And I do, in some ways, for I can visit whom I chose, I can express myself freely – within reason.

  But this country that I have come to love holds me in its vice. Because of apartheid, travel abroad has become difficult and expensive. I still dream that I might go back to Ireland for a visit. It has been more than fifty years since I saw the curl of the waves on the pebbles in Bannock cove. Fifty years since I heard the tripping melody of the stream over the cliffs. I long to embrace the families of my dear sister Ada and my brother Eamon …

  But they say one should never return to one’s birthplace after a long absence. Too much will have changed. So let me rather rejoice in my adopted country, for all its agonies. Let me celebrate the devotion of, first, Miriam, and then Ada and Dawn. They are indeed my family, as I wrote in my diary so many years ago.

  I know that I am struggling to fit all these pieces of my divided life into any sort of order, any sort of understanding: Master’s death, Dawn’s leaving, Mrs Cath’s restlessness, the forced removal of my school, the destruction of the townships – these things have come upon me too suddenly. Perhaps it is because my head still aches, even though my arm is healed and no longer bothers me when I’m at the piano. Perhaps my head is weary.

  Perhaps this is why I am struggling to follow the voice echoing in my mind, a voice telling me it is time to act. Dawn is not here to require my protection, Master is not here to trouble the law, the police have not come to arrest me. I am free – but afraid of lifting my head after years of seeking the shadows. But it is time to step forward. For if the barriers between black and white Cradock could be broken without the need for violence – then surely I must play my part.

  What would Phil say? Would he encourage me to be brave, as I once encouraged him? But this is not a war like the one he fought. There are no bombs dropping suddenly from the sky, there are no tanks crushing men into the desert sand. It is a war of hunger and casual cruelty, a war of suffocation by rules, a war of gradual, creeping death.

  In the end, all wars come down to personal survival, and in this I have a choice. Should I help others, or should I save myself ?

  * * *

  I have seen the new township and the new houses. They are indeed better, but they are also far away from the centre of Cradock. Even so, many people are willing to move; many hope for a better future even though their ancestors will have to search to find them in such a new place. Those who drive the struggle say the removals are about whites exercising power, and they’re right. But if the houses are solid and the schools better equipped – and ways found to teach youngsters the truth – then each day might be a little healthier than the one that has gone before. For most people, that may be enough.

  I have prayed to God for many years to tell me what is fair, and whether skins should be free to mix after all. If this is so – and apartheid is wrong – then is war the only answer? And does the struggle and the coming revolution have His blessing? The minister on the koppie thought so, but I’ve never heard God’s answer for myself, and I’ve never known His will.

  I’ve never known if He favours another way apart from war. Until now. It was surely His voice that I heard in my ear at the meeting at St James?

  ‘You know English, Ada. You know about negotiation. This is my plan for you. This is why I have saved you. Not to live through your child, whose path you cannot influence any longer. Not to hide yourself in Cradock House, with only the solace of your music. But to reach out and make a difference.’

  The name of the new township, Lingelihle, means ‘good effort’.

  Surely I must try.

  Chapter 46

  I have discovered that there is more money in my bank book than I expected from my wages as a teacher. I asked Mrs Cath about this and she said she had not stopped paying me even though the arrangement was that I only receive board and lodging at Cradock House.

  ‘Why, it’s for your future, Ada,’ she said, looking up from the sweet-smelling roses she was arranging on the mantelpiece. ‘For when Edward and I are no longer here. It’s your pension.’

  I have not thought about what will happen when Mrs Cath is gone, but I have heard of a pension. I’ve read about it in the newspaper. White people talk a lot about pensions. I suspect it is one of those things for a white future only – like
the gold they wish to keep for themselves.

  Mrs Cath’s generosity means I have more money than I need, yet I am careful to save as much as I can. I send money to Dawn and I buy myself a new shirt from time to time but mostly the money rests in the bank on its own.

  ‘You must keep some aside,’ my fellow teacher, Sipho, warned, wagging his pencil at me, ‘for if you get sick. Medicine is very expensive. And where will you live when you get old?’

  This I know. For all its sturdy foundations, Cradock House might not live forever, or it might pass to a new family that have no interest in me. There is nothing certain in this world. The bank must hold enough money to keep me and Dawn safe on this earth until God calls us. But even so, that still leaves some over.

  Jake once said there are many different ways to make a revolution.

  So on a day when the Groot Vis was barely a trickle, I stood outside the town hall at eight o’ clock in the morning in my shoes with heels, waiting to see the Superintendent. Even at such an early hour, cars were already baking in the sun in their parking places, and stray dogs slunk into the shade of the building. The palms across the road in the Karoo Gardens drooped motionless over where I used to sit as a young girl, warming my bare feet in the sun and watching the long-beaked birds fussing about the orange aloes. But today the benches were empty, not because of the heat – but because their ‘Whites Only’ signs had been ripped off, and red paint splashed all over the seats. The board outside the newspaper office that had once said ‘It’s War’ in big black letters, now said in slightly smaller letters ‘Gdns Shame!’

  Black women did not often try to see the Superintendent on their own. Usually they came in numbers, with placards protesting about Passes or uncollected rubbish, or with men who did the talking. The Superintendent almost always refused to see such groups, and the police hovering nearby in expectation of trouble would be quick to swoop.

  ‘You can wait,’ the girl behind the counter said carelessly, ‘but he might not be able to see you at all. If you tell me what it’s about—’

  ‘I will wait.’

  ‘Round the back,’ she said, shrugging. ‘This is whites only.’ She turned to a young man who’d appeared next to her and rolled her eyes. She reminded me of Miss Rose, although she was not as beautiful.

  There were no benches or seats round the back so I sat on the ground under a pepper tree, grateful for the shade. My head doesn’t like direct sun any more. There was no grass to cover the earth and I worried that my skirt would look dirty when I went to see the Superintendent. People came and went, complaining to each other about the heat. Most ignored me although one man stopped and said that there were no jobs available.

  ‘I don’t want a job. I’m waiting to see the Superintendent.’ He opened his mouth to say something, then changed his mind and hurried off. It was past midday when the woman came out of the back door and beckoned to me. I had practised the words I was to say until I knew them off by heart, but I wasn’t sure I could say them because my mouth was dry with thirst and also with nerves. This was not like trying for a job with Mr Dumise. I couldn’t rely on my music to speak for me.

  ‘You’ll have to be quick,’ she said over her shoulder, and pointed to a door. ‘It’s almost lunch hour.’

  The door was open but I knocked before I went in.

  ‘Yes?’ The Superintendent was sitting behind a desk, writing. He didn’t look up. A framed photograph hung on the wall, showing a dark-haired young man smiling in a black robe while holding a roll of paper tied with a tassel. The Superintendent’s head – bald now – shone under the ceiling light. His hand moved steadily across the page. I recognised him from the meeting at St James School. This time he was alone, no councillors alongside, no police standing guard. On a table in the corner a fan droned, fluttering a pile of papers in its arc. There was a map on the wall. I made out the Groot Vis, and then a series of rectangular grids that spread across the paper from the riverbank. Lingelihle.

  ‘Good morning, sir, I’ve come about compensation for people being moved.’ The words came out of my parched mouth in a rush.

  He flung down the pen that he’d been using to write on the paper in front of him and reached up to wipe his broad forehead. Even with a fan, the room seemed empty of air. It reminded me of the school hall the day I played the piano for a job.

  ‘I’ve told you people once, I’ve told you a million times, we’ll try, but I can’t guarantee – understand? Verstaan?’

  I licked my dry lips. Remember what Phil said, I told myself. Remember about silence in a negotiation …

  The Superintendent looked at me properly, running his eyes over my white shirt and my navy skirt and sighed, as if disappointed at my silence. ‘I can’t help it if you don’t understand. Just go now – weg is jy – I’ve got work to do.’ He waved a hand to dismiss me and turned back to his papers. I wonder why it is that important people don’t have anyone to take care of their clothes for them properly. The Superintendent’s collar needed starching.

  ‘I have money, sir,’ I said. ‘I will pay some of it towards the compensation.’

  His head jerked up.

  ‘But if you don’t need my money, then I will tell the Midland News that you have enough already to pay for it.’

  ‘Now, just hang on – wag.’ He rose from his chair, his face settling into half-angry yet half-amused lines. ‘You can’t come here and threaten.’ He glanced down at the telephone, then at the open door. There were policemen on duty at the front of the building. He only needed to shout …

  I felt my legs tremble. I held my hands hard at my side. There was no bicycle spoke in my pocket. Only words could save me now; only the sentences I’d prepared might stop me being arrested and thrown into jail, for that is what would happen after the shout for the policemen, or the telephone call to the security guards.

  ‘I have also written three letters,’ I said, grasping my courage, reaching for what I’d rehearsed on the hard ground outside the back door of the town hall. ‘One is to the Midland News, and one is to Mrs Cathleen Harrington of Cradock House in Dundas Street.’

  The man gaped at me from where he stood behind his desk, the amusement gone, the resemblance to the smiling young man on the wall behind him now lost. I forced myself to breathe deeply. I wanted to wipe my face. Sweat was starting to gather above my lip.

  ‘If I’m arrested then the newspaper will print my letter. If they don’t, Mrs Harrington will show it to the town council. Mrs Harrington’s late husband was a councillor—’

  My voice cracked as I ran out of breath.

  One thing I have learnt is that all white men fear exposure in the newspapers. And the Superintendent was no exception. He rocked forward slightly, steadying himself with his fists on the desk. Then he uncurled and flexed his fingers as if they had suddenly become stiff.

  ‘Your English is good,’ he said, addressing the desktop with forced care, like Master had once addressed his desk when he didn’t want to meet my eyes. ‘Skoon.’ He straightened up and looked at me and my clothes. His tone roughened. ‘What about the third letter?’

  ‘It is to a newspaper across the sea.’

  ‘Who are you?’ He almost leapt at me across the desk, the veins standing out in his neck, the hands balling into fists once more.

  I swallowed, and called up the rest of what had to be said.

  ‘If you don’t need my money then the Midland News will say that the town council has enough to pay compensation.’ I waited a moment. ‘And they will praise you in the newspaper, sir.’

  The fan whirred through the silence and he strode across the room and snapped it off.

  ‘You haven’t got money for such a scheme! Nooit!’ he shouted. A bee that had been buzzing against the flyscreen on the window fell to the floor. I reached into my pocket and laid a piece of paper on the desk. I had called in at the bank. They wrote down how much money belonged to me. Not my name, just the money.

  ‘It’s all I have,’ I said.
‘I want to use it to help people if you don’t have enough.’

  He stared down at the paper with suspicion, then up at me. His bald head was sweaty under the light. The lady had used a rubber stamp to show the bank’s name and the date. The ink had spread a little with the heat while I sat outside on the ground, but the numbers were still clear.

  The paper certainly did not show as much money as would be needed, but I think it was more money than he expected. I picked up the paper and put it back in my pocket.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ I said. ‘I will go now.’

  Chapter 47

  Ada has done a foolish thing.

  She has attempted to threaten the Township Superintendent, a man with a short temper that Edward was never particularly keen on.

  I heard about this not from Ada herself, but from our timid Mayor, who came to see me and sat in the lounge twisting his hat between his fingers and jumping when Ada appeared with tea.

  Not that he presented it as a clear threat. Instead he seemed to see it as the well-intentioned act of an earnest but untaught woman, worried about the deteriorating situation in the township and imagining she could help. Even the matter of certain letters – he was particularly vague on this – didn’t persuade him that Ada was more shrewd than the unworldly soul he imagined. I remained silent, not wishing to contradict this impression. Assumed naivety might save her.

  But I suspect that the Superintendent was in no doubt as to her sharpness.

  I asked the Mayor if he wished to speak to Ada himself, but it soon became clear that he thought it was I who ought to be doing the speaking, I who should be reining in this maid who, he said with apologetic emphasis, was ‘so close’ to my family.