Return to Corriebush

by Lynn Bedford Hall

  Author’s Acknowledgements

  Just when I thought I’d finally finished my book – dotted the i’s, crossed the t’s, checked, double-checked, made changes and proof-read – just when I thought it was all ready to go and my weary PC and I could finally shut down, Joy Clack reminded me that I had yet to submit the Author’s Acknowledgements. “But don’t panic, you can keep it short,” she soothed. Now how do I do that? I can’t simply say thank you Linda, Joy, Bev and Tony, can I? If Linda had not approved my manuscript, if Joy had not contributed her absolutely impeccable editing, enthusiasm and constant encouragement, if Bev had not used her designer talents with such energy and excellence, if Tony had not captured the characters and events with so much insight and craft, if all this team – who have become very dear to me – had not worked so tirelessly to produce the book as you now see it – there simply would be no book. So Thank You seems to me totally inadequate. But Joy says I have to keep this short. So Thank You it is – but you won’t believe how deeply I feel it. LYNN

  First published in 2005 by Struik Publishers

  (a division of New Holland Publishing (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd)

  This ebook published in 2013 by Struik Lifestyle

  www.randomstruik.co.za

  Wembley Square, First Floor, Solan Road

  Cape Town 8001, South Africa

  Copyright © in published edition:

  Struik Lifestyle 2005, 2013

  Copyright © in text: Lynn Bedford Hall 2005, 2013

  Copyright © in illustrations: Tony Grogan 2005, 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner/s.

  Publishing Manager: Linda de Villiers

  Editor: Joy Clack

  Designer: Beverley Dodd

  Illustrator: Tony Grogan

  Proofreader: Irma van Wyk

  ISBN 9781770072121 (Print)

  ISBN 9781432302344 (ePub)

  ISBN 9781432302351 (PDF)

  Contents

  Author’s introduction

  Jacoba

  Starters

  Flora

  Mains

  Sara

  Desserts

  Estrelita

  Baking

  Glossary

  Index

  Author’s Introduction

  When I wrote Fig Jam and Foxtrot – a collection of fictitious stories about women living in a small town which I named Corriebush – I concluded the introduction with these words: ‘… all the people … have gone. But perhaps their ghosts still wander about Corriebush, for it’s a place that is not easy to leave or forget.’ At the time, I thought that was it. An end to my rambling through the mists of my childhood, inventing people and circumstances that allowed me to re-enter my years of growing up in a village in the Karoo; to share it, and in so doing to put it to bed. I was wrong. Corriebush refuses to be abandoned. It demanded that I return; my six protagonists, my six whacky women, would not go away. And so here they have surfaced again: Maria and Anna, Sophia and Nellie, Amelia and Lily. Six gentle, kind-hearted but nosey women who loved nothing better than tea and gossip. They presented me with four more stories.

  I have interspersed them with a collection of my recipes – some new, some revised, and some from previous works that simply did not want to be forgotten, like Corriebush. I look back now, searching for a reason – and perhaps it lies in the fact that I seemed to grow up in a never-ending summer of content.

  I believe that many people who have grown up in the Karoo will identify with this feeling, even if it is coloured with the sentiment that comes with the passage of time. Nevertheless, I stay with my childhood dreams and the memory of waking up each morning as the sun rose over the mountain, scalding the bushes and washing the kloofs in a fury of colour. The glow was reflected into my bedroom; it bounced off the walls and painted my eiderdown – which was covered in green chintz with those old-fashioned pink roses.

  Ahead of me lay one magical hour before school started – the hour in which the town stretched and stirred into life. I would fetch my bicycle – clumsy old balloon tyres and clunking chain – and pedal through the streets that wound up to the flanks of the berg. The air was new and fresh, the oak trees thrummed with morning birds, and the town was mine alone. Down the avenue of purple jacarandas I flew, past the butcher’s house – fleshy red biltong strung out on his verandah – past the ivy-smothered cottage where the mad woman lived (they said she danced on moonlit nights, stark naked under her fig tree), and when I heard the yawn of early-morning voices and shutters being opened – doef – as they hit the walls, I would head for home and breakfast.

  This was how most days started, and usually ended with my parents and me taking an evening stroll through the slumbering streets, now relieved of heat and shadowed in the cool evening air. We would say goodnight to everyone sitting on their stoeps, drinking coffee, the men puffing on their pipes, quietly contemplating the swelter of the day and the welcome grumble of thunder behind the mountain. And when I slipped into bed I slept peacefully, knowing that my home town was special; the people eternal.

  That’s how it was. And that’s how it is with Corriebush.

  Jacoba

  The morning was cold, the mountain above Corriebush lightly iced with snow. ‘Sjoe!’ puffed Lily. ‘Just look at the steam coming out of my mouth. ‘Sjoe!’ she puffed again. ‘I’m smoking like a pipe.’ She wrapped her yellow scarf tightly round her neck; rubbed her gloved hands together. ‘My fingers have all gone to sleep.’

  ‘And the train’s blerrie late,’ complained Sophia.

  ‘Perhaps she’s not even on it,’ remarked Nellie. ‘Missed the connection. You know how these young people are, especially when they’re famous.’

  ‘I just hope she’s been sensible and remembered to dress for the Karoo in July,’ went on Amelia. ‘Corriebush isn’t Hawaii, you know.’

  ‘Isn’t that a little white puff in the sky?’ asked Maria. ‘Look, over there! Just above the koppie beyond Van Wyk’s dairy.’

  ‘Ja-nee, that’s smoke alright,’ agreed Anna.

  And together they turned their heads and stared into the middle distance.

  The Welcoming Committee had come to the station much too early, because the train from the north seldom arrived according to schedule. It all depended on how many cows were in milk. If all the neighbouring farmers were having a good season, there were several stops to be made in order to load the full cans. If there were no cans at the farm gates, the train just rattled past. So one never knew. And that was why they had come early and, for a good hour, had stood side-by-side outside the ticket office, clucking about the weather, anxiously peering this way and that, teetering a little on their high heels like birds on a telephone wire. They were not given to early rising in winter, did not enjoy standing on the station in the biting easterly wind, but as Nellie said, they had no right to complain. ‘How would we feel, after all, if we were Jacoba van Rhyn? If we were famous and coming back to visit our home town out of the kindness of our hearts, how would we feel if there was no-one to welcome us and say “Hello” and “How Are You?”’

  ‘Nellie, you’re right,’ agreed Sophia. ‘What does a bit of standing around matter, when it’s such a suspicious occasion?’

  ‘Auspicious, Sophia.’

  ‘A first for Corriebush.’

  ‘A once-off. Never to be repeated.’

  ‘What if fame has gone to her head and she walks right past us and into a taxi?’

  ‘Never. Not our Jacoba. She might be a star now, but she was always
a sweet, polite child and she won’t have changed. I can feel it in my waters, as my mother used to say. Basically, she’ll still be our own little Jacoba van Rhyn, come home to roost for a while.’

  ‘Preen her feathers a bit.’

  ‘Show Corriebush a thing or two.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘She’ll probably be dressed up, though. After all, when you’ve been to Russia and seen all those churches and museums and palaces, you don’t walk round in flat shoes anymore.’

  ‘So what will she be wearing, I wonder?’

  ‘Oh furs, that’s for sure. Furs and fine leather boots. Jewels too.’

  ‘A Brown Bear hat on her head,’ added Amelia, looking wise.

  ‘That’s right. A Brown Bear hat,’ they echoed.

  ‘And a muff right up to her elbows.’

  ‘That too.’

  ‘Now remember, she may be so dolled up that we don’t recognise her, but if we all shout “Yoo-hoo!” as she climbs down the steps, she’ll be sure to notice us.’

  ‘Get ready, then. I see the engine’s coming round the bend.’

  Like a flock of long-necked geese they peered down the line, still chattering excitedly. But when Jacoba stepped onto the platform, a silence fell as suddenly as though a blanket had been thrown over a cage of canaries.

  Soon after matriculating, Jacoba van Rhyn had left Corriebush for Port Elizabeth, as had many of her friends. But in Jacoba’s case it wasn’t the bright lights that beckoned. Music was her passion, and she had been accepted as a pianoforte student at a leading college of music in the city.

  The women had been astonished by her decision.

  ‘I really thought it was Hollywood for her.’

  ‘A Miss World in the making.’

  ‘A bride fit for a king!’

  ‘And who does she choose? Chopin.’

  If Jacoba had not been such a lovely young woman, her choice of career would not have caused such surprise. But the trouble was, Jacoba was absolutely stunning. Although her parents, Geo and Joey, were quite an ordinary-looking couple, their only child had inherited the best genes from both sides.

  ‘A flawless beauty, that one,’ the women often remarked. ‘Flawless, with a nature to match.’

  ‘Not high and mighty either.’

  ‘Nor hoity-toity, like some of the other good-lookers.’

  In spite of the fact that she had been elected Spring Queen in her final school year, and had every young man in the district asking for a date, Jacoba remained sweetly shy and seemingly unaware of the admiring looks she received wherever she went. Her hair was long, very long, blonde streaked over brown, her skin a pale ivory, her eyes startling sea-green under arched black brows. Added to this were the blessings of long shapely legs and generous breasts, which made her waist seem even smaller, her hips rounder.

  ‘There’s a model there,’ the women told Joey.

  ‘Send her to Milan and you can retire.’

  But all Jacoba wanted to do was play the piano. She was awarded honours for all her examinations, right up to the Licentiate Division, when she faultlessly played Liszt’s lyrical Consolation No. 6.

  ‘She seems to go into another world,’ Joey told them. ‘When she’s playing I can drop an empty bucket behind her and she won’t even hear it.’

  ‘Old soul,’ remarked Daniel, who knew about these things.

  Although Geo and Joey had to get a loan from the bank, they did not try to dissuade their daughter from studying further. They paid her fees and found safe lodgings for her in a boarding house in Port Elizabeth. It was close to the college, and there was a piano in the dining room. It stood next to the dessert trolley and Mrs Parks, the owner, said she was welcome to use it.

  ‘Never had a finger on it since old Mr Jingles died. His real name was Arthur, but we all called him Mr Jingles because he used to play while we had our meals. Tickled the ivories, as they say. All the old tunes. Sometimes people even got up and did a foxtrot or two. It will be good to have some music in here again.’

  Jacoba couldn’t play a foxtrot, but at the evening meals she introduced them to Beethoven and Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Schumann and the elderly boarders would sit spellbound, heads cocked to one side, forks poised, forgetting to eat, focused on the beautiful girl, mesmerised by the music.

  After just one year, Jacoba was giving solo recitals in the City Hall. And this was when the unbelievable, unforeseeable happened.

  She was scheduled to play two works by Schumann, Des Abends and Soaring, followed by Grieg’s Sonata in E minor after the interval, and posters went up all over the city. The advertising was clever: the posters featured a romantic photograph of the young pianist with the flowing hair, perfect profile, bent over the keys, wearing a long, white evening gown. Predictably, every ticket was sold within days, including one to Richard Evans.

  As a scout for the Carter Trust, Richard wasn’t particularly interested in music. His job was to fly the world in search of talent. Richard was a nephew of Edward Carter, a wealthy philanthropist who, before his death, had set up a trust fund with the young man as executor. ‘This is my aim and it will be your mission, Richard,’ he had told him, and then dictated these exact words: ‘The Carter Trust will embrace the fields of music, art and literature. It will honour young women with both beauty and intelligence, who would use the prize money not only to further their talents, but to enhance the lives of others less fortunate.’ Each year the venue for the competition was held in a different country. That year it was Russia.

  After Jacoba’s performance in Port Elizabeth, Richard went backstage, introduced himself, asked her a few details and explained his mission. Richard was glib and experienced and he knew that, however much Jacoba might waver, he held the trump card. If she won she would get a great deal of prize money, she could reimburse her parents for her fees and she could bring music to the children of Corriebush; even teach some of them how to play.

  ‘You could set up a music school, fill it with instruments, and bring much happiness into other people’s lives.’ Seeing Jacoba’s hesitation, he knew how to hit the final chord.

  ‘Perhaps this is your vocation, Jacoba. Your chance to give back some of the blessings with which you have been endowed.’

  Richard had gauged her nature correctly. He knew she would capitulate, and she did. But he couldn’t resist a barb about her name. ‘I wish, though, that you had another name.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like – like Opal, for example. Or even Rosemary, just as a stage name. But Jacoba?’

  Jacoba wouldn’t hear of it. ‘If the name was good enough for my grandmother, then it’s good enough for me.’

  The details that followed terrified her. ‘This year the competition will be in Russia – Moscow, to be exact. You will fly over next week, and this will give you just one month to practise there and meet the other contestants – there will be several pianists, a cellist, at least one violinist, as well as artists, poets and authors. There will be both scheduled and unscheduled performances for the musicians; the artists can expect workshops and exhibitions; and there will be reading and practicals for the poets and authors. All the contestants will also have several interviews with the judges. One month will give you time to acclimatise to the weather, buy some appropriate clothes and pay a few visits to a beauty parlour before your final performance. Remember, the judges will be looking not only for ability and dedication, but also for poise, intelligence and grace. You should score highly and I wish you luck.’

  Geo and Joey were not happy about allowing their nineteen-year-old daughter to travel so far away, but they were proud of her having been chosen, and realised it was an exceptional opportunity. Richard actually wrote to reassure them that ‘all the girls’, as he put it, would be well managed and taken care of, and in the end they sent her off with their blessing, a hot water bottle and sheepskin gloves tucked into her suitcase.

  ‘You say the child is going to RUSSIA?’ exclaimed
Sophia, when Joey broke the news at tea one afternoon.

  ‘Yes, to Moscow.’

  ‘Oh my glory. Well, at least it’s not Blerrievostok.’

  ‘Vladisvostok, Sophia.’

  ‘I once had a lovely boyfriend who joined a Russian ship. He was a deck-hand, you know, out to see the world on the cheap. And they sailed to Blerrievostok and when they parked in the harbour he ran away and was never heard of again.’

  ‘Ag fie.’

  Sophia dabbed at her eyes. ‘Clean gone.’

  Jacoba shivered as she unpacked in the modest hotel room in Moscow. She had met the other contestants, could not understand all the different languages, but she knew that in any case they would all be too busy to socialise much. And so it was. Every day, for most of the day, they practised their art. Jacoba spent at least eight hours at the piano, hardly taking time off to eat. She lost weight, because when she wasn’t at the piano, she would sit in her room brooding. And because she was so weary, physically, her confidence had plummeted. By day her thoughts kept turning to the heart-thumping performance that lay ahead; her nights were haunted by nightmares of what might happen. It helped a little to write these things down in her diary. ‘It’s that final, hushed moment when I sit down on the piano stool; the terrible, inevitability of it! No escape. My mind a blank. I sit staring at the keys. Then I fumble, stumble, sharps instead of flats, I’m in a minor key instead of a major, I hesitate, start again … stand before the judges, answer questions … If only it were over, finished, home again, gone … Why did I come?’ Often she cried herself to sleep. And yet, and yet … on the night of the performance, when she sat down to play, from the very first note Jacoba lost all her fears; forgot where she was; allowed the notes to float under her fingers, now soft and slow, then forte and joyous. Once again she was in the dream world that artists enter when they become one with creation. Her performance was brilliant.

  Once the news had been telegraphed to the Corriebush Daily, it spread through the town like a veld fire. ‘JACOBA TRIUMPHS!’ read the headlines. ‘OUR DAUGHTER OF THE VELD, OUR GEM OF THE KAROO, BRINGS GLORY TO CORRIEBUSH!’

  Geo and Joey were ecstatic. Joey could not stop crying. In the end the women had to forbid her to come to the station. ‘After all, this is a joyous occasion, Joey, and we know she’s your child and all, but we can’t have you sniffling there. We’re going to clap and call Yoo-hoo when she arrives. And you’d be a sorry sight, blowing your nose all the time.’