by Nick Earls
Here we are, on the same team. The awfulness dials itself down a bit. At the counter, cling film is being ripped off more and more plates and the food is being moved to tables. That’s what people are concentrating on.
Max tried to stop our disaster. He tried to head it off. We pushed through with our crazy wrong plate, but he did his best. Mom’s right. He’s a good guy.
The fashion parade is exceptionally boring, but we survive it. I come nowhere near disgrace the whole time, and I’m happy with that. Mom leaves straight afterwards, with her plate, but plenty of people are carrying plates by then and she looks like she fits right in.
There’s ten minutes of lunchtime left and, after a toilet stop, I plan to spend as many of those minutes as possible playing handball.
On my way out of the toilets, someone blocks me. It’s Lachlan Parkes. I step aside, figuring it’s an accident, but he moves to block that move too.
‘You’re the foreign kid, aren’t you?’ he says. His hand is in front of me, not touching me but stopping me moving. ‘Say something.’ He’s taller than I am. He has a grinning friend on either side of him, Josh and Ethan.
‘What do you mean?’ It’s out of me before I realise that the best thing to say is nothing.
‘What do you mean?’ Lachlan Parkes says, in a ridiculous version of how my accent sounds to him. ‘Is that supposed to be English? Hilarious.’ His friends laugh.
‘Hilarious,’ Josh says, this time in the accent, and Lachlan and Ethan both laugh.
And that’s it. That seems to be enough for them. They turn and walk away, but I’m stuck to the spot. I want to knock the smug look off Lachlan’s face. I want to hit him with some brilliant comeback and take him down in front of his friends. But what would I say? Whatever it was it’d sound wrong, the moment it came out. One of them would repeat it in that accent. And all three of them would laugh.
‘Hey, Herschelle,’ Max says, waving one of his hands in front of my eyes. ‘Earth to Herschelle.’
He’s holding up a tennis ball.
‘Sorry, I was in a dwaal,’ I tell him.
He bounces the ball. ‘Well, we need you over there.’ He points to the marked-out area. ‘Harry and Ben are up for doubles.’ He bounces the ball again, and turns to walk to the others before saying, ‘What’s a dwaal?’
The first thing I feel is annoyed.
‘How can you not know “dwaal”?’
It’s Max I’m talking to, but Lachlan Parkes I’m picturing. And even now all I can hear is my accent and how dumb it sounded coming from Lachlan and Josh. All I can see is them and their stupid grins, Lachlan’s big head rocking from side to side as he did his stupid version of how I speak.
And now dwaal’s a problem in this country. It’s another word I’ve never thought of as South African, another word to laugh at, another stamp on my forehead that says, ‘Alien’.
But Max isn’t laughing. He’s frowning and not saying a thing.
‘Sorry. It’s like a daze,’ I tell him. Max isn’t Lachlan Parkes. He’s done nothing wrong. He asked me a question, that’s all. ‘It’s probably Afrikaans, but everyone says it. In South Africa.’
‘Dwaal,’ Max says, and not in a mean way. He’s just trying it out. He bounces the ball my way, and I catch it. ‘Well, snap out of it, whatever it is. Less dwaal, more handball. Ben and Harry reckon they can take that shot of yours, so we need to kick some butt.’
Part of me wants to tell Max about Lachlan Parkes, but I don’t want to look weak. I’m not used to being pushed around, and I don’t want to look like someone who can be. I don’t know what happened with Lachlan in that moment, why I didn’t sort him out. Although I don’t know what I would have done at home if it had happened there.
It wouldn’t have happened there.
Max’s dad’s bakkie is parked in front of our car when we get out of school. His dad is talking to Mom. They’re standing under a tree. Hansie’s leaning up against Mom’s leg, playing a game on her phone.
Mom sees me and waves. Hansie looks up and smiles and then goes back to the phone. Max’s dad looks past me, searching for Max, but he’s back at the classroom checking something with Ms Vo about his Moreton Bay presentation. As I head towards them, Max’s dad starts checking his phone.
‘I’ve just asked Craig – Max’s dad – if they’d like to come over on Sunday for a barbie.’ Mom says the last word slowly and carefully, putting in a massive effort not to call it a braai. We talked about that one, but I didn’t think she’d remember.
‘Nice one, Mom,’ I tell her. ‘A barbie would be good.’ I give it emphasis too, to let her know I’ve noticed her good work with the language.
‘I reckon we can do that,’ Max’s dad says. ‘I’m sure Michelle’d be keen and I know Max would. Diary looks clear. Let’s book it in.’
He looks over my shoulder and waves. Max is on his way.
‘Mate, barbie at their place on Sunday,’ his dad calls out, pointing to Mom and me.
‘Excellent,’ Max says. ‘Herschelle can show me how to get that low-down handball shot right.’
‘And don’t bring a plate or anything,’ Mom says, because I haven’t yet had the chance to make it totally clear she’s never to raise that subject again in my lifetime.
Max looks at the ground. I look into the distance, wanting the conversation to move away from plates quickly.
Somehow, from the expression on his face, what she’s said is not what Max’s dad was expecting. ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘has all your stuff arrived from South Africa then?’
Eish! Same words, different meaning. What can you do?
‘No, it . . .’ Mom starts, before finally making the smart choice and deciding not to make things worse by explaining. ‘No. But we have plates.’
‘Great.’ He grins. ‘Looking forward to it.’ He puts his hand on Max’s shoulder and says, ‘Better get you home.’
As I’m doing up Hansie’s seatbelt, Mom’s watches from the driver’s seat as their bakkie drives away.
She starts the engine and we pull out from the kerb. At the far end of the school, we pass Lachlan Parkes putting his bag into the boot of a blue car. Before I can stop it, I’ve pushed myself back in my seat, so that I’m behind the side of Hansie’s booster.
I just want Lachlan Parkes out of my day, that’s all. I don’t want to see him or think about him. It’s one thing for me to feel different, it’s another to be told I am, and in a way that suggests I’m totally inferior.
I can’t even fix it, because it’s not really about me. I didn’t make this accent up and I can’t change it overnight. Then I realise why it feels so wrong – it’s like racism. Only it can’t be, can it? It can’t be racism because I’m white.
On Sunday morning we move the outdoor furniture outside, to where it will eventually stay, near the shiny steel built-in gas braai. The inside of the house now looks even more empty, but maybe it’s better than giving Max and his parents the idea that we don’t know where outdoor furniture goes.
I’m trying to imagine their house. Max told me it was out of town on the way to Dayboro, but I don’t know where Dayboro is. I think he’s lived in the same place all his life, maybe even had the same bedroom. He was probably born at the Mater. His house, I’m sure, has all the furniture it needs.
Mom is kneading dough for roosterkoek, which is by far the best way to made bread rolls for a braai. Hansie is building a train track the length of the living room, now that he has even more space. Mom bought a bucket of track at Kmart. When our furniture arrives he’ll realise the room’s for all of us and not just his play area. He won’t be happy.
‘Now, you have to call sausages “snags”,’ I explain to both of them while I’m chopping the boiled potatoes for the potato salad. ‘It’s the Australian way. I’m not sure if they use the word “sausage”.’
‘I think they do,’ Mom says, looking up from the bench. She has flour all over both hands. ‘I think I’ve seen it in shops. But snags, ya. When
I was buying the boerewors the butcher said, “Not just your regular snags.”’
At least potato salad should be safe. I know for a fact that South Africa didn’t invent potatoes or salad. It’s a good thing Mom doesn’t really like onions, or the salad might have been slaphakskeentjies. I bet that’s South African, just from the name. I’m looking for the Afrikaans in everything now.
Mom puts the dough aside to rise and I mix the condensed milk and mayonnaise in with the potatoes, eggs and green onions. As soon as I’ve put it in the fridge, the doorbell rings.
‘You go, you go,’ Mom says. ‘It’ll be your friend.’
In the end we all go, but I’m the one who opens the door. Mom stands near me and Hansie holds onto her leg.
‘G’day,’ Max’s dad says, and Mom says, ‘Howzit,’ before I can stop her.
‘Good, thanks,’ he says. Soon Mom will learn that, in Australia, ‘howzit’ has an answer. ‘How are you? Look, I should have invited you over to our place. I realised that right after I talked to you at school.’
‘Realised it?’ Max’s mother says. ‘I think you realised it when you called me and I said that’s what you should have done. I’m Michelle. Good to meet you.’ She reaches her hand out for Mom to shake. She has long blonde hair and is wearing tight white pants. There’s a box of chocolates in her left hand and, as she gives it to Mom, she says, ‘Welcome to Australia.’
‘And I thought I’d bring a few welcome beers, since it’s a barbie,’ Max’s father says, looking past us down the hall, as if something’s missing. He holds the beers up, six in each hand. ‘One lot of South African and one lot local.’
‘I’m Josie,’ Mom says as she shakes Max’s mother’s hand. ‘Piet’ll be sad to miss out on a beer tasting. He works at one of the mines in the north.’
‘Oh, righto,’ Max’s father says. ‘Well, I’m sure there’ll be a few left for him.’
Mom invites them in and tries to prepare them for the lack of furniture. ‘The motel was just too cramped,’ she says. ‘And this place became available early . . .’ She looks around at the empty picture hooks on the walls in the hall and shrugs. ‘Soon have it looking like home, eh.’
Max pulls a ball from his pocket. ‘So, are you going to teach me the skidder or what?’
It comes out as ‘skedder’ rather than ‘skidder’, and he makes a slicing motion with his other hand when he says it. It’s a South African accent on ‘skidder’. It’s my accent. But it’s nothing like Lachlan Parkes. The way Max does it, it’s as if the ‘skedder’ is some secret South African handball weapon. Which, at One Mile Creek, it most certainly is.
‘The skedder is not to be shared lightly,’ I tell him. ‘But I think you can be trusted.’
He flips the ball my way, and I bounce it on each of the pavers on the way to the carport.
‘It takes a bit of practice, this shot,’ I tell him. ‘You do the opposite of what you think you should do. You think you should take the ball early, but this is late, as late as you can make it. And then there’s the hand action.’ I swing my right hand with the slicing motion it needs. ‘Also the opposite of what you think you should do, since you’re cutting past the ball. I know you can slice, so that’s a good start. But you take this one a lot lower.’
I throw the ball at the wall at the end of the carport and it bounces back. I step to where I need to and, just before the second bounce, I crouch and flick my hand across the path of the ball. It fizzes off with the spin. I’ve overdone it a bit, but it makes the point. It skids along, making four fast low bounces before it ricochets off the wall again.
‘Unplayable,’ Max says, nodding. ‘Totally unplayable.’
‘You just need to land it in the right place. Point’s over, one way or the other. You nail it or you don’t. You need to pick one of their slower shots to do it to, a defensive one that’s dropping. That brings the risk down a bit.’
I step aside so he can take my spot. I throw the ball at the wall to set up his first shot, but he misses the ball entirely. He bent down when he needed to crouch. We work on that and he starts making contact. I tell him he should ease back on the slice at first and concentrate on the contact.
He does that, and soon gets some kind of feel for it. Then we’re ready for the slice to work its way back in.
Just as he’s getting it right and has hit a couple of almost certain winners, Mom comes out and asks me to set the table.
‘Max is just getting his skidder going,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll do it just now.’
‘Not just now,’ she says. ‘I want you to do it now now. It’s time to start cooking. You can call it a draw, or get back to it later.’
Max bounces the ball against the wall and then mishits his shot. The ball thumps into the car tyre and flies off to the corner of the carport.
As Mom goes to light the braai, he picks the ball up.
‘Herschelle!’ Mom calls out from the house. ‘I said “now now”.’
‘Better go,’ Max says. ‘Before it gets upgraded to triple now.’
It’s easy to set the table, since we only have six of everything.
Mom brings out the big coil of boerewors and Max tells me it looks like a poo.
Hansie laughs. ‘Ha! Poo! Massive poo!’
‘I bet it doesn’t taste like one,’ Max’s father says, and Hansie laughs even more.
‘Most of us aren’t in a position to make the comparison, Craig,’ Max’s mother says. ‘Moving on, boys . . .’
Mom lifts it onto the braai and pokes it into place with tongs. ‘It means farmer’s . . . snag. Boere wors.’ She lifts the cling film off a plate that’s sitting nearby and holds up a skewer with cubes of marinated lamb and peppers on it. ‘Now, what do you call this? We call it sosatie.’
‘Just skewers mostly,’ Max’s dad says. ‘Put me down for a few of those.’
Mom looks happy that, for Max’s parents, South Africa seems like it might be interesting. They want to find out new things, in a good way. As long as this doesn’t end in roller derby, everything should be okay. We don’t need Mom getting about in lycra with Joltin’ Josie written on her back.
Mom brings the roosterkoek dough balls from the kitchen on a board and sets them next to the braai. She holds her hand over the unused part of the grill to check the temperature. Max’s mom sets her beer down on the bench.
‘You’re not going to put those on the barbecue, are you?’ she asks, as if she can’t quite believe it.
‘I am.’ Mom picks up a dough ball and rolls it in her hand, checking it’s got some flour on it and won’t stick. ‘It’s roosterkoek, which means grill cake. If you’re not brave enough you can bake it in the oven, but then it’s just bread rolls, isn’t it? This is the real deal. This is what you have at a braai. Which, by the way, is what we’re having now – a barbie’s a braai.’
She sets the first dough ball on the hot bars of the grill and picks up another. Max’s mom asks her if there’s anything special about the dough, and Mom talks the whole process through.
‘I’m going to have to write this down,’ Max’s mom says. ‘Actually, maybe you could email it to me – the dough recipe and what to do. We have barbecues all the time and it’d be great to do this.’
The tennis ball slips from Max’s pocket and he bends down to pick it up as it rolls under the bench. His shoulder bumps the leg of the bench and I grab his mom’s beer before it falls over.
‘Careful,’ I say.
He looks up. ‘What?’
‘Your mom’s dumpie,’ I explain.
He looks at me strangely. So does his mom, who stands up straighter and pulls her shoulders back.
‘She’s not,’ he says slowly, as he comes out from under the bench. ‘She’s actually quite tall.’
‘Ya. But her dumpie . . .’ I point to the bottle. ‘You nearly knocked it over.’
He laughs. ‘Stubbie. That’s what we call those.’
His mom laughs too. ‘I can relax now. Unless you’re going
to tell me I’m stubbie as well, Herschelle.’
Dumpie – stubbie. I should have found that on one of the websites. But it’s all part of the joke. Everyone is smiling and, for once, I don’t mind getting it wrong.
Mom, as usual, has the braai timing exactly right. Everything’s ready when it should be and we all line up to fill our plates. When Max’s mom sits down, the first thing she does is break open a roosterkoek. Steam surges from the centre of it, and she smears some butter inside and watches it melt. She takes a bite.
‘Amazing,’ she says, like someone who is actually amazed by bread. ‘I never want to eat a regular bread roll again.’
Suck on that, Lachlan Parkes. Here’s an everyday South African thing that amazes people. It makes me proud, more proud than dough balls cooked on a braai ever should. That feeling lasts even when Mom uses the word ‘dingus’ and I have to translate it into Australian as ‘thingumajig’. This is my best day in Australia for sure.
‘How can they not have roosterkoek?’ Richard Frost says when we skype later. It’s morning in Cape Town, night in Brisbane.
‘I know.’ It’s a mystery to both of us.
‘They could learn so much from you.’ He sounds confident about it, in a way I like. He’s in his kitchen, with the clock on the wall behind him.
‘I’m teaching this guy Max that handball skidder we worked on.’
‘Ai, don’t let him get too good at it. When it’s in the Olympics, we still want to win it for South Africa, remember?’
In this conversation, with one end in One Mile Creek and the other far away, I sound like some kind of success in this country. South African knowledge counts for something. But it did with Max and his family too.
‘We went down your old street yesterday,’ Richard says. ‘Someone’s burnt the paint off the gates of the place two doors down from yours. They lit the rubbish bin.’ He looks off to the side of the screen at something I can’t see. Maybe someone’s come into the room. ‘There was melted bin plastic on the ground – you know how it goes.’
