The Girl from Simon's Bay

by Barbara Mutch

  His eyes, more alive than they’d been for months, roamed over my inflamed face. He put his hand at the back of my neck, leant forward and kissed me like on the day of his arrest. Deliberately, with an undercurrent of anger. And more hungrily than when Pa and Ma were present.

  ‘I must go,’ I wrenched myself away, my mouth bruised. There was a splatter of rain on the windows. The wind was gaining strength, moaning around the side of the building and bending the few scrappy trees on the perimeter.

  ‘If you love me, you’ll do this! I know you will.’

  ‘That’s not fair!’ I leapt up, desperate for my own escape.

  Seaforth. The unblemished sand. The forgiving sea.

  Disbelief followed by despair spread across his face.

  My outrage throbbed and then faded into pity.

  ‘I won’t have a baby yet, Piet. I’m going to be a nurse.’

  He looked down at his hands, then up at me defiantly.

  ‘And when you leave here,’ I pointed at the spartan setting, ‘you’re going to finish school and get a proper job.’

  The downpour that pelted me on the long dash back to the reformatory station soon swept across False Bay and enveloped Simon’s Town. Ma tutted and made tea while I tore off my wet clothes as if they were somehow contaminated.

  ‘How’s Piet?’ she asked casually over supper. Rain hammered on the roof.

  Pa flicked her a glance.

  I straightened my back. Ma wasn’t concerned with Piet’s state of mind. She was worried about exactly the situation that had come about. On past visits, the procession of young, pregnant visitors to the reformatory had not escaped her notice.

  ‘He’s fine, Ma,’ I replied evenly. ‘But he still hates the place.’

  ‘Of course he does! He’s there to learn a lesson.’ She spooned mashed potato decisively onto my plate. ‘I was talking to Den the other day. He says Amos needs Piet back even though he’s still angry with him. Amos’s legs are playing up,’ she directed a cynical look at Pa.

  ‘Piet must finish school first,’ I put in. ‘Then he can decide what to do. Maybe not fishing.’

  ‘Quite right,’ Pa nodded at me as he forked up his carrots. ‘Give the boy a chance to make good on his own.’

  ‘He’s got a lot of making good to do before I’ll have him back at this table,’ Ma snorted and drew herself up, ‘or near my daughter!’

  ‘Sheila!’

  Ma smacked her serviette down on the table and faced up to Pa. ‘I want the best for Lou. She doesn’t have to settle for Piet!’

  ‘Ma, please!’ I leant over and grabbed her arm. ‘I’ll wait for Piet to get out. But I haven’t promised anything more.’

  ‘Just as well!’ Ma picked up the discarded napkin and thrust it back on her lap. ‘Your pa knows some respectable men—’

  ‘I’m going to be a nurse,’ I shouted, jumping up from the table. ‘Why won’t anyone listen? Not a wife! Not yet!’ I ran to my room and slammed the door.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The season turned.

  Summer’s southeasters began to build behind the Simonsberg and the sun danced across a newly enlivened bay. I thrust Piet aside and took to watching for the post as I’d done four years earlier. In the newspapers, there were stories about a German leader called Hitler who wanted to conquer land beyond his country’s border. Pa shook his head and wondered about the sea route.

  Ma said nothing more about Piet or respectable men, or my chances at the Victoria.

  ‘Leave it,’ she whispered to Pa. ‘She’ll learn the hard way.’

  Others were less discreet.

  My future was public property.

  ‘The Victoria will never take you!’ laughed Vera, as we fought along St George’s Street against a spring gale. ‘Don’t waste your time! And if you won’t give up Piet, tell him to stay out of trouble so you can start making babies when he gets out. That’s what he wants, doesn’t he?’

  Were the walls at the reformatory some sort of loudspeaker? But then Vera often surprised me with her careless insights.

  ‘I want to make more of myself—’

  ‘Why?’ she teased, hands on hips, hair flying about her face. ‘Are you better than the rest of us?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  That’s what they all thought: that I believed I was too good for them. Too good for Ricketts Terrace. Too good for Simon’s Town.

  ‘Don’t leave here!’ Mrs Hewson shouted from her step. ‘What’s wrong with working in town, among people you know?’

  ‘She wants to get ahead,’ Lola muttered to Susan, as the new baby tugged at her breast, ‘but these places only take whites. Lou’s clever, but she’s too pushy.’

  ‘You can go full time with me,’ offered Mr Bennett, from among the bolts of cloth at Sartorial House. ‘You’re a good worker despite that boyfriend. Five days a week, eight until six, and Saturdays till one. Better than nannying or cooking.’

  ‘I can’t decide yet, Mr Bennett. I’ve been interviewed for nurses’ training at the Victoria.’

  ‘The Victoria?’ The corners of his mouth curled. ‘You’re bright enough. But too brown, if you ask me.’

  I bit down a retort. Was no one in our world prepared to challenge the colour bar? Surely it wasn’t my place to fight such injustice on my own. Older, experienced people should be resisting, they should show the way. But they never came forward.

  Even so – my heart quickened – if the government of our Great War hero, General Smuts, suddenly changed its mind and swept away the bias that kept whites at the top, coloureds in the middle and blacks at the bottom, I’d have a chance!

  The Victoria would have to choose on merit. I wondered about writing a letter.

  Dear Prime Minster … why must I always be second?

  Why should you be first?

  This time, it took only twenty-eight days from the submission of my exam results to the letter arriving. I found it under the door after school and sat at the kitchen table with it in front of me, unopened, all afternoon until Ma and Pa returned home.

  Waiting kept the dream alive for a few more hours.

  ‘Be prepared,’ warned Ma, as I took up the crested envelope. ‘You tried your best.’

  ‘We’re proud of you, Lou,’ added Pa heartily, flinging an arm around my shoulders. ‘You’ve done better at school than your ma or me by far.’

  Dear Miss Ahrendts,

  We have pleasure in offering you a place to train at the Victoria Hospital, subject to a successful probation period of three months.

  ‘They want me,’ I threw the single sheet of paper in the air and burst into tears, ‘they want me!’ I’d been steeling myself so hard against rejection – and the need to hold up my head despite it – that when acceptance came there was nothing to do but cry. At last, through the tears, I could claim slippery revenge for every slur I’d shouldered or pretended not to hear, every year I’d waited to be judged good enough.

  ‘That’s my girl!’ Pa swept me up in his arms and whirled me around. ‘Of course they want you!’

  Ma grabbed the letter. Her lips made out the words in astonishment.

  Miss Ahrendts, you will be our first coloured student nurse, and we must stress the need for focus and dedication. Failure to achieve the required standards at any time during your training will result in dismissal from the programme.

  ‘Get out the Old Brown!’ Pa bellowed. ‘Invite the Terrace!’

  He put me down and bustled into the kitchen for the sherry and glasses.

  Ma knelt down in front of me, drew my hands to her and kissed them.

  ‘Well done,’ she choked, ‘brave, foolish child!’

  I dashed a hand across my face and gathered her to me, stroking her wiry hair. Comforting her. In one fleeting moment, via the words on a single page, Ma and I had changed places …

  ‘What’s this noise, Solly Ahrendts?’ Mrs Hewson poked her head around the front door. ‘Even I can hear you with my bad ears.’


  ‘It’s Louise!’ Ma wiped her eyes and scrambled up. ‘She’s been accepted for nurse’s training!’

  Mrs Hewson limped inside and wagged a finger at Pa, who was pouring generous tots. ‘Look what you’ve raised, Solly. She might even outdo you.’

  She turned to me and patted my head.

  ‘Beware, young miss,’ she declared, ‘the outside world is full of sin.’

  I began to laugh through my tears.

  ‘But an exciting place, they say.’ She accepted a glass from Pa and raised it to me. ‘Bigger fish. You won’t need to run after that good-for-nothing Piet any more.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘Nurse Ahrendts!’

  ‘Yes, Sister?’

  ‘Matron wishes to see you. Immediately.’

  I froze.

  ‘Nurse?’

  I’d served my probation and passed my exams with distinction, I’d proved myself in every way to be as good, or better, than the nurses who were paler than me, and yet … Ma’s words rang in my ears. You should have learnt that by now.

  ‘Nurse? Are you unwell?’

  ‘No, Sister. I’m on my way.’

  I breathed out, straightened my apron and walked smartly out of the ward. The polished floor clicked under my heels. Never run, Sister Tutor had drummed into us. Nurses walk – swiftly in an emergency – but they never run.

  And certainly not in bare feet!

  Never in my life had my feet been confined for such long periods.

  It was two years since I’d first paced carefully along the corridors as a nervous eighteen-year-old, my brown skin gleaming – or so it seemed to me – far more conspicuously than it ever did in Simon’s Town. Just as skipping stones across the sea is an art more than a science, so it was with nursing. You can learn the mechanics to mend broken bones, but true healing turns out to be something altogether different. In those two years I learnt the practical skills but also, thrillingly, found an instinct that went beyond the book learning Sister Tutor hammered into us. My fellow nurses wondered why my patients’ wounds mended better than theirs, or how I used my training to such effect in an emergency. Sister Tutor knew, but she didn’t say. Perhaps, like the stones, it’s something from God. And perhaps He decided I deserved a break.

  But my art wasn’t enough for those around me.

  ‘Why’s she here? Aren’t there coloured hospitals?’

  ‘It’s shocking! Taking a white place!’ Nurse Phipps tossed her blonde hair and brushed past.

  Barely muffled rebuke followed me like the mist after a southeaster, especially when it became clear I didn’t have the good sense to fail and slink back, tail between my legs, to the poor community from where I’d sprung. There were times when I imagined I was closing in on acceptance – the nod of recognition, the word of praise – only to have it snatched away from me.

  ‘Good work, Nurse. But Nurse Mullins has been selected for advanced training. Dismissed.’

  I was caught between success and ostracism. It became necessary to construct a pretence for those in Simon’s Town who saw only the success.

  ‘I’ve found my place,’ I cried cheerfully on my home leaves, as Ma sat on the end of my bed and listened to my contrived tales with astonishment. ‘They want me there! They know I’m good enough!’

  ‘Well then, don’t let up,’ she exclaimed. For all her earlier misgivings, Ma had developed a powerful determination on my behalf. ‘Don’t give them a chance to change their minds!’

  Piet, back from the reformatory and struggling to get ahead, didn’t ask about my career other than to envy the money it brought in. I told him very little about my work, it was easier that way. Not because I’d have to lie as with Ma, but because my prospects, even with the opposition I faced, were so much better than his. I told myself to give him time, not to be disappointed at his lack of progress. He, meanwhile, pressed for marriage and a firm commitment. ‘How much longer must I wait, Lou?’

  Strangely, the harder it was for me to fit in, the more respect I had for Matron. She’d been brave enough to offer me a place. I wondered if she was still taking criticism. Perhaps this summons was to say I was no longer worth the trouble.

  I put up a hand up to check that my cap was secure, and knocked.

  I must be grateful. Not bitter.

  ‘Come in.’

  Matron was the same iron-grey-haired lady who’d interviewed me for moral rectitude and a positive demeanour. She opened a Manila folder on her desk and looked up. Her gaze swept over me, from my carefully whitened shoes, past my uniform bib, and up to my cap. She nodded. In Matron’s view, a tidy uniform begat a tidy mind, and a tidy mind made for an efficient nurse.

  ‘You come from Simon’s Town, Nurse?’

  ‘Yes, Matron,’ I replied.

  If it wasn’t about work, had they found out about Piet? Was he to be the excuse? The lack of moral rectitude of my young man. I’d never breathed a word about him, even to those few who liked me well enough to see I was no different from them.

  Matron took off her glasses and laid them down on the desk.

  ‘False Bay Hospital in Simon’s Town is short-staffed, Nurse. Would you be willing to transfer there for the completion of your training?’

  My heart leapt. Seaforth! The cool water, the sand between my toes …

  ‘I’d be delighted, Matron.’ From my small room at the back of the nurses’ home in Wynberg it wasn’t possible to see the ebb and flow of the tide, or watch the first tingling brush of the southeaster on the water.

  Matron put her glasses back on, and looked at me over the top of them. ‘You will sit the same tests as your fellow nurses here, and complete the same training.’ Her voice strengthened. ‘We will expect the same level of commitment from you, Nurse, as you have shown at the Victoria.’

  ‘Yes, Matron. I will continue to work hard.’

  Was she, in effect, rescuing me from her own, unbending, staff?

  ‘Very well.’ She closed the folder. ‘You will complete your duties at the end of the week, then transfer. The nurses’ home at False Bay can accommodate you if you have no lodgings.’

  ‘Thank you, Matron, but I’ll be able to stay at home. My parents live near the hospital, and I can walk to work every day.’

  ‘Then this arrangement should suit you very well.’ She gave a thin smile. ‘Good luck, Nurse.’

  She rose from her chair.

  I waited for her to dismiss me, but she seemed to be weighing up something more.

  ‘You will be the first local nurse to serve at False Bay.’ She looked me over again. ‘Be careful to maintain appropriate behaviour with your patients. Familiarity should not compromise conduct. Under the right circumstances, you have the makings of a promising career. You may return to your ward.’

  I struggled to keep my face neutral.

  Was she implying that, provided I behaved, I’d be treated more kindly closer to home – and progress further as a result? Find true acceptance?

  Or was it simply the fact that the other hospital was so desperate for staff they’d take any nurse, even a nonwhite, and that my transfer would also save Matron the aggravation of having to constantly defend her decision to accept me in the first place.

  I’m adept, you see, at winkling out the reasons for my alienation.

  Yet for the thrill of seeing the sea each day, I could live with whichever it turned out to be.

  ‘Good afternoon, Matron.’

  I closed the door and struggled not to skip down the corridor, much less run.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Piet and his friend Abie pulled the fishing boat up the sand at Seaforth. It was nearly spring tide, and many a boat, carelessly parked, had been swept away in the past. Abie grabbed his set-aside share of the catch and trudged up the grass slope.

  Piet looked up.

  The north wind was still in charge. Already a squall was blurring the horizon over Fish Hoek and Elsie’s Peak, smudging brown earth, green mountain and blue sky int
o a single shade of grey. The Simonsberg remained clear of cloud, its slopes thick with pincushions, their tightly folded buds holding out for warmer weather.

  ‘How much fish, Piet?’ Amos Philander lumbered down the slope from the cottage. Amos no longer went out in the boat. It was his legs, he said. They couldn’t handle the hauling in of the nets, or the bracing required to keep your balance on a heaving deck. All the fishing was now done by Piet.

  It wasn’t always going to be so.

  When Piet returned from the reformatory, he went back to school to try and get his matric. But he was older than his classmates, and it soon became clear that even if he passed the exam, it would never be enough to persuade an employer to overlook his history as a thief. Solly Ahrendts put in a word for him but Piet was not invited to apply for an apprenticeship. So he left school and queued for manual labour at the Queen Vic gate in the dockyard – and was rejected.

  All the while, his father complained that Piet was only good for fishing and should be grateful to have the chance even to scrub the boat let alone take it over. Uncle Den tried to keep the peace. And Louise continued to tell him that she loved him but wouldn’t get married or have a baby until she was a proper nurse with all the badges she needed to say so.

  ‘Enough,’ Piet grunted at his father, and felt in his pocket for the money he’d received. ‘Enough to buy food.’

  So there it was.

  Back to the dreary days of making only enough to buy food, or the medicine Uncle Den needed for his weak heart, or some second-hand shoes when his only pair rotted from the salt water. Certainly nothing for booze. And that was part of the problem: Amos, retired and forced to be sober, was miserable all day, full and free with his complaints about his disappointing son. It was true that the cottage above Seaforth no longer sounded to the drunken breakages of Piet’s youth, but the replacement was a sullen silence that wrapped itself around the three men and drove Piet to spend more time on the beach. Mending nets, caulking leaks on the boat …