The Girl from Simon's Bay

by Barbara Mutch

‘You can be a better fisherman than your father, Piet Philander!’ I called as he surfaced, churning through the water in front of me.

  ‘Race you back,’ he shouted, kicking for the shore. I plunged after him. Silver-and-yellow strepies flickered past my legs in darting, oval shoals and disappeared among the kelp.

  We flung ourselves onto the sand, panting from the struggle against the outgoing tide. Beyond the breakers, the resident flock of streamlined terns took off from their rock, circled, and landed once more.

  ‘Or,’ I levered myself up on my elbows, ‘you could try for an apprenticeship in the dockyard like my pa.’ I reached over and grabbed his arm. ‘You’ve got to stay at school, Piet, you can’t give up!’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied quickly, grabbing one of the mother-of-pearl shells and running to where the sand was harder, its glistening crystals packed smooth by the retreating tide. He bent down. I shaded my eyes to make out what he was doing. Two jet-black, red-beaked oystercatchers piped and strutted at the water’s edge.

  ‘Come and look,’ he called.

  I ran to his side.

  He had used the shell to draw an outsize heart in the wet sand.

  ‘I love you, Lou. I’m sorry I’ve been so bad. But everything’s better now.’

  I took his hand and rubbed the place where the skin had broken and then healed. I was wrong to doubt him. And maybe magic disappears for a while, and then returns when you least expect it.

  ‘I love you, too, Piet. Don’t leave me alone again.’

  He reached for me, his hands warm on my skin, his lips finding mine for the first time.

  Chapter Nine

  I turned fifteen towards the end of 1933. There was no birthday treat and no money in the tin box for Cape Town excursions. A foreign Depression, first broadcast on the radio in 1929, had flung its cold shadow across the sea, and thrown people into fear of losing their jobs. Terrace men who were less qualified than Pa found themselves out of work. Nobody wanted to buy Mr Phillips’ pipes or order new frocks from Mrs Hewson. More people responded to the muezzin’s call, or flocked to St Francis Church to hear the dockyard chaplain and pray to be spared the shame of being let go.

  ‘It’s a disgrace,’ Pa declared as we walked back from church one Sunday. ‘A disgrace! All that swindling far away – nothing whatsoever to do with us! But now the patrols are being cut back, there’s no money for new tools or even enough paint to touch up the crests on the dry dock wall. Why, do you know, HMS Acorn’s almost invisible?’

  ‘Pipe down, Solly,’ said Ma crisply. ‘Your daughter’s almost fifteen and top of her class. You and I still have jobs. Remember the sermon. Be grateful.’

  Pa sighed and gave Ma a fat kiss. His dismay, of course, was about more than tools and paint and out-of-work neighbours. He’d read the letter from Matron. Unlike Ma, he was proud of me for my brave application. But he suspected that the Depression would make it even less likely the Victoria Hospital would find me worthy. Pa knew how hard I wanted it. Pa knew, because he’d once wanted to get ahead as much as I did. And I think he felt guilty for having encouraged me too far; for having stoked too bold a dream for a brown girl.

  Surprisingly, Piet and his family hadn’t been as hard hit by the Depression. Perhaps, when you had very little to start with, there was less to lose. And fish, it seemed, were always in demand whatever happened on the other side of the ocean. Amos still drank away his profits, but somehow the boat stayed afloat and the cottage held together. He and Piet had declared a truce, Piet told me with a grimace, and fixed the leaks in both.

  ‘Piet,’ I hissed from my desk in the row behind his, for my birthday fell on a school day, ‘I’ve got something to tell you!’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Piet inclined his head but didn’t turn round.

  ‘Ma says we can go on our own to the bioscope on Friday nights!’

  My friends were already walking out alone with boys, but up to now Ma had chaperoned me, and frowned at Vera and her latest flame who sat upstairs at the Criterion and – between clinches – passed cheeky comments about the smart white folk in the reserved seats below. There’ll be trouble, Ma would mutter with a knowing glance at their entwined limbs, you mark my words. Pa was just as protective. He insisted I was home by sunset, even on summer evenings when Piet and I liked to swim under fresh stars, and hold hands in the lengthening shadows where no one could spot us. We were officially boyfriend and girlfriend, and Piet was eager for more. I could feel it in the tingle of his skin against mine, the way his eyes lingered on my body and the flush that rose in my face when he looked at me like that. Ma watched and privately warned about the perils of looseness before marriage.

  ‘He won’t respect you,’ she insisted. ‘Make him wait.’

  Piet turned and shot me a quick grin.

  Heavy boots stamped along the corridor. The steps slowed and a white policeman in a dark-blue uniform halted in the doorway, hands on hips. He began to scan the rows of desks.

  Mr Venter hurried over, muttered something and then very deliberately closed the door.

  ‘Quiet,’ he ordered, as excited talk broke out. ‘Return to your exercise.’

  The class subsided. Piet settled lower into his seat, burying his head in his book.

  The bell rang.

  ‘Finish this for homework,’ Mr Venter raised his voice over the growing hubbub, ‘and I will test you tomorrow. No shirking! Good afternoon, class.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Venter,’ we chorused.

  Piet leapt up, rammed his belongings into his rucksack and joined the rush to leave the classroom.

  ‘Wait!’ I called, loading up my books, for the demands of being top of the class meant weekends-worth of studying, especially now that I had a job most afternoons. ‘Wait for me!’

  But he was already pushing through the crush at the door.

  The policeman stood across the passageway, his head turning left and right. I craned above the crowd as I reached the door. A boy with Piet’s black hair was bobbing down the stairs, a boy far shorter than Piet, a boy perhaps crouching down to escape notice.

  There was still no sign of him as I hurried home past Runciman’s, and then past Sartorial House where I worked for a small wage, dusting the shelves, measuring lengths of cloth to save old Mr Bennett’s eyes, and sweeping out the leaves that blew in on the southeaster. I saved every penny I earned …

  ‘The police were here,’ Mrs Hewson shouted from her front step, ‘wanting Piet!’

  I stopped.

  ‘What do you mean? At our house?’

  Mrs Hewson shrugged and went back to her sewing. ‘I knew he was no good. I warned your pa!’

  I scooped my key from under the rock by the front door.

  A pair of red-winged starlings rooting in the dirt took off with a startled squeal.

  Even though it was my birthday, there was laundry soaking in the sink, expecting to be rinsed. A pile of shirts sat on the kitchen table, ready to be ironed. I flung off my clothes, raced into shorts and a blouse, didn’t bother with shoes and was off again, past Mrs Hewson’s shouted warnings, down Alfred Lane and along Grandpa Ahrendts’s wall, with the memory of another day hammering in my head: the letter sent in hope, the sprint to Seaforth to share it – then the sight of Piet taking something from a man in the bushes and thrashing out to sea.

  I hadn’t checked his shirt. I still didn’t know what he’d done. Even now. Even though he said he loved me, and I loved him back and we were set to be married one day.

  Near Tredree Steps I almost collided with a sailor walking towards me.

  ‘Careful, miss!’ he cried.

  ‘Sorry!’

  Piet didn’t want to be a fisherman, he wanted to work onshore, in the dockyard, or go to sea like that sailor. Anything but fishing, he’d finally confessed, his black eyes holding mine, his hands twisting together. Anything. I love the sea, but I don’t want to fish it.

  I stopped for a second to catch my breath, to steady my heart.

 
Seagulls hovered above the anchored ships, holding their positions against the wind with uncanny skill. It’s their air perch, Pa once said. See? They work out how strong the wind is, and then they flap just enough to keep themselves in one place instead of being blown away.

  Had Piet lost his balance and been blown away while I chose not to look?

  Was he lying to me when he said that everything was better …?

  I ran on.

  A yacht knifed across the bay, its sail swollen with the freshening breeze.

  The noise reached my ears before I reached the Philander cottage.

  ‘Piet!’ I shouted, pushing my way through a heaving mass of fishermen, neighbours, dogs and chickens crowding the front door. A large policeman barred the way, legs astride, beefy arms pressed against the door frame. I darted under his arm. ‘Piet?’

  ‘Hey,’ the policeman cried, grabbing after me, ‘you can’t go in there!’

  I strained to adjust to the gloom, but I didn’t need eyes to sense the gathering storm. Amos and Piet were squaring up in the corner. A chair had been overturned. Dishcloths lay strewn on the floor. Uncle Den peered around the door of his room, his gaze flicking nervously between the men and a pot bubbling on the stove, the lid popping up and down for the steam to escape. In front of me, a second policeman, this time with a notebook and a pair of handcuffs dangling from his pocket, watched with hands on hips as Amos shook Piet and yelled, ‘You bliksem! That’s what you’ve been doing!’

  And then Amos took a swing and hit Piet square across the face.

  The crowd shrieked and heaved towards the door. Dogs set up a volley of barking.

  ‘No,’ I screamed, flinging myself between them, ‘leave him alone!’

  The policeman leapt forward to strong-arm Amos aside and pull me away.

  ‘Young lady – this is no place for you!’

  ‘Stay out of this, Lou!’ Piet bent over and clutched his inflamed face.

  Amos, chest heaving, stumbled backwards. I could smell drink on his breath. One flailing arm caught me on the ear. Pain lanced up my temple, down my neck. I fought to keep my balance.

  ‘I won’t go,’ I gritted, ‘till you tell me what he’s done.’

  ‘Tell us what he’s done, tell us!’ Scuffles broke out amongst the onlookers as they jostled for a view. ‘Off!’ The inside officer lost his composure and turned to yell out the door. ‘All of you! Otherwise we’ll bring the dogs!’

  There was a scrambling. The crowd dispersed.

  Den crept to the stove and hauled the exhaling pot from the hotplate.

  I grabbed hold of Piet’s rough hand. He was panting in and out, noisily.

  I love you, Lou, he’d said, after drawing a heart in the sand. Everything’s better.

  ‘Now,’ the policeman turned back, ‘we’ll take this nice and slow.’

  Amos righted the overturned chair and sat down heavily.

  A chicken wandered past the feet of the policeman at the door and he kicked it away.

  ‘I can make some tea,’ Den said in a small voice, from the kitchen.

  ‘No thank you, sir. You are Amos Philander,’ he pointed at Amos, ‘and this is your son, Piet Philander?’

  Amos mumbled a yes.

  ‘It’s my duty to tell you that your son’s fingerprints have been found at several addresses where there have been break-ins—’

  ‘How do you know they’re Piet’s?’ I interrupted. His hand, clasped with mine, briefly twitched.

  ‘Miss, we’ve had our suspicions for some time.’ The policeman shifted his glance to take in Den as well. ‘We’ve seen this boy returning home very late at night. On the same night as these places were burgled.’

  Amos made to get up again, but saw the policeman’s frown, and shouted at Piet instead. ‘We thought you were in bed but you’re running around, thieving! If your mother knew this—’ he broke off.

  ‘But the fingerprints?’ I forced the words out past my aching temple.

  The policeman consulted his notes.

  ‘On Tuesday of last week, I was authorised to gather fingerprints from these premises.’

  A roaring filled my ears, like when a wave knocks you off your feet and pitches you into its depths.

  ‘You’ve been in my house?’ Amos yelled, this time lumbering to his feet. Uncle Den flapped a calming hand at him.

  I turned to Piet. He raised his eyes from the floor to meet mine. Guilt etched his face, carving it along strangely adult lines. My hand shook inside his.

  The policeman swatted Amos back into his seat.

  I pulled my hand away. Piet flinched as if my fingers were wet rope slipping out of his grasp, flaying the skin left behind.

  ‘We found prints that matched the burglar’s in your son’s room. Now,’ he looked at each of us in turn, his glance lingering on Piet the longest, ‘we can do this the easy way. Or we can do this the hard way.’

  Amos hunched into his chair. ‘I did my best,’ he whined. ‘I did all I could to bring the boy up right – you saw that, Den, you saw that?’

  ‘Ja, Amos. Let’s hear what the officer says.’

  The policeman nodded in Den’s direction.

  ‘Your son is sixteen. If,’ he leant forward and tapped Amos’s knee to make sure he was paying attention, ‘if he admits to all this thieving, then there’s a way I can keep him out of prison.’

  ‘How?’ Amos growled.

  Uncle Den shuffled across in front of his nephew. ‘Did you do this, Pietie?’ his voice was gentle.

  ‘Yes,’ Piet mumbled, ‘I wanted to make money for food, and to buy clothes for school so I could stay and pass my exams.’

  Den rested a hand on the boy’s bowed head.

  ‘Oh, Piet,’ I cried out, ‘why didn’t you say?’ I rounded on Amos. ‘You drank all your money away! Piet was forced to do this, you never gave him enough—’

  Amos opened his mouth.

  ‘Now you keep quiet, brother!’ Den cut in with surprising force. ‘The girl’s right and you know it. Officer,’ he turned to the policeman, ‘tell us what you can do for our Piet.’

  The policeman steered Piet towards a chair at the ancient kitchen table. ‘Juvenile delinquents like this boy can be helped if they go somewhere with strict discipline,’ he stated, as if Piet was simply a blunt tool needing to be sent to the workshop for sharpening. ‘When they come out, they can rebuild their lives.’

  ‘What is this place?’ I asked, with growing unease. The pain in my ear was lessening, but my heart felt swollen, as if it was trying to hold onto something that was too huge, too overwhelming to be contained.

  ‘A reformatory.’

  ‘A borstal?’ Amos shouted. ‘My boy in a borstal?’

  The policeman shrugged. ‘It’s more like a school. Where boys learn the error of their ways—’

  ‘How long?’ put in Piet, crushed. ‘When will I get out?’

  ‘Depends how you do,’ the policeman pulled out a pencil and began to write. ‘Two years at least.’

  ‘Will he have a criminal record?’ asked Den.

  ‘Not if he admits everything now and helps us with our investigations.’

  Amos moaned, his head in his hands.

  ‘But if he comes out and reoffends,’ the policeman wagged a warning finger, ‘then he’ll go to prison.’ He stowed his notebook and opened the handcuffs.

  ‘He won’t do that,’ I spoke up. ‘He’s going to come out and get a proper job. There won’t be any more thieving.’

  Piet lifted his head and stared at me.

  ‘I know why he did this,’ I cast a scornful glance at the moping Amos, ‘and it won’t happen again.’

  But could I be sure?

  I gave my heart to Piet, I thought I knew him …

  The policeman shrugged and motioned to Piet. Piet hung his head and held out his hands, damaged palms touching, as if he was about to pray. The handcuffs went round his thin wrists and engaged with a metallic click.

  ‘We’ll wait outside
while you help him pack a case and say goodbye.’

  The policemen stepped through the front door. Waves crashed in the background. One of the policemen stretched. The other lit a cigarette. The kek-kek-kek of an approaching flock of guinea fowl sounded from further up the lane.

  Den moved across to Amos. ‘Louise will help Piet. We’ll stay here.’

  Piet’s room was at the back of the cottage. There was only space for a single bed and a stack of old wooden apple boxes piled one on top of one another as makeshift drawers. I had never been there. Ma always said that unmarried girls who visited boys’ rooms were for ever tarnished.

  ‘I could run away,’ Piet jerked at his tethered wrists. ‘Climb out of the kitchen window and swim across the bay—’ He turned desperate eyes on me. The sea was his friend, he could cut through the water, fast as any fish, probably even with his hands cuffed. ‘Why not? If you distract the cops—’

  ‘You’ll drown!’ It was several miles to Fish Hoek beach and over twenty miles to the far side of False Bay. ‘Or they’d find you and put you in jail.’

  He subsided onto the bed.

  I sat down beside him, and took his hands, easing the cold metal where it bit into his wrists. Piet’s hands held the story of his life. Fishing. Robbery.

  ‘Will you wait for me, Lou?’

  I stared at him. I wanted to say yes. I wanted to tell him that I loved him despite everything, that I understood why he’d become a criminal.

  Because I did.

  But I couldn’t understand what came after. What he’d encouraged me to believe. He took a precious mother-of-pearl shell and drew a heart in the sand and told me everything was better … while living the secret life of a thief.

  It was a monstrous betrayal.

  Far worse than my early neglect in favour of my dream; far worse than my cowardice in not confronting him over his accomplice in the bushes, for that is who it must have been.

  ‘Say you’ll wait,’ he implored. ‘I want to marry you, Lou!’

  He didn’t wait for my reaction but leant forward and kissed me greedily, as if to hoard the taste of my lips, the feel of my skin, the slip of my hair against his inflamed cheek.