On the Brink of Tears

by Peter Rimmer

  They had both walked together to the breakfast room where another fire was burning in the grate. On the sideboard, the servants had placed a silver dish on top of two small methylated spirit burners to keep the food hot. Tinus lifted the heavy silver lid and smiled at what he saw inside.

  “Bacon, sausage, tomatoes from the greenhouse, scrambled eggs and sheep’s kidney. We make our own toast in the electric toaster a chap in Denver, Colorado sent Uncle Harry. Uncle Harry and the American were in the war together. Bloody clever thing, really. Everyone gets hot toast.”

  “You can leave out the sheep’s kidneys. Had enough of those at Venterskraal.”

  “Help yourself. Just look at all this. Orange juice, fresh fruit salad; cream from Uncle Harry’s cows, now he’s buying up the surrounding land.”

  “He was jolly lucky to get all his money back from the government. Once they have their hands on your money, it’s difficult to get it back, so my father says. Can’t live properly without a lot of money. Do you want to be rich?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “I think you had better be rich.”

  “Coffee or tea, Andre?”

  “Don’t be silly. I’ve had to drink enough tea since I’ve been in England to drown myself.”

  “You’ve only been here four months, but I know what you mean. Grandfather has started growing coffee on Elephant Walk. Just a few bushes to see if it grows. He’s always up to something.”

  “How old is your grandfather?”

  “As old as the hills.”

  “Do you know what? These English sheep kidneys taste different to ours at home. The cook’s done something with them.”

  “She calls them devilled kidneys, whatever that means… I could eat a horse. The weather outside may be lousy but it makes you hungry. I expect Uncle Harry had something sent up to their room. All those bugs he picked up in the Congo haven’t affected his appetite.”

  “How is he? Any after effects?”

  “None at all.”

  “He was lucky to come out alive.”

  “He never talks about it. His friend Iggy Bowes-Lyon was on the plane that went down. Went off for help and never seen again. I think Uncle Harry feels guilty. They flew in the war together. I want to be a fighter pilot, like Uncle Harry.”

  Andre smiled to himself. Once Tinus got on the subject of Uncle Harry, it was difficult to get him off. Andre put it all down to Tinus losing his father when he was a boy; the thought of losing his own father was too horrible to bear.

  “Your toast is burning, Tinus.”

  “I haven’t quite mastered the toaster… Look out. Here they come.”

  “Who?”

  “The monsters. My cousins.”

  “How old are they?”

  “Anthony is ten, the youngest Kim, four. Then there’s Beth, Frank and Dorian in between. No wonder the cook put so much food on the burner.”

  “Do they make their own toast?”

  “Don’t be silly. That’s my job… Or yours, if you want to help. Why do young kids have to make so much noise?”

  “It’s a way of expressing themselves. I have eleven siblings and I’m the eldest. Kind of makes me feel homesick. Sounds as if one of them fell down the stairs.”

  “Or was pushed.”

  “I’m going to have a big family of my own one day.”

  “Never even thought of it.”

  “You will, Tinus. You will. That’s what life is all about, a family. According to father and father is always right.”

  “A bit like Uncle Harry.”

  The breakfast room door burst open admitting the five children. Frank was dressed like a Red Indian and was hollering at the top of his voice.

  “No wonder their mother and father take breakfast in their room,” said Andre, getting up from the table to help the children as the dogs burst in, barking at the chaos.

  “Get those dogs out of here,” shouted Mrs Craddock bringing up the rear.

  Mrs Craddock was the cook and looked to Andre at the end of her wits. She had fat bare arms and fingers the size of sausages, and a dishcloth in her right hand which she was using to swipe at the pack of dogs. The dogs were spaniels, reddish in colour with big long ears that brushed the ground. They all went to the fireplace and sat down looking at the flames while they ignored Mrs Craddock and her dishcloth.

  Mrs Craddock gave up with the dogs and went to the sideboard to fill small dishes with fruit for the children. The children had a small wooden table of their own with short wooden chairs in the corner of the breakfast room away from the fire and the dogs. They never complained they felt the cold. On the back of the dwarf chairs were painted giant toadstools and fairies; some of the fairies were sitting on the toadstools. The tablecloth designed to soak up the spills was covered with fairy-tale pictures. Each of the children had a glass of milk waiting on the table.

  Andre Cloete smiled while making the toast in the toaster sent over from America by Glen Hamilton. With food in their mouths, the noise had abated as spoons shovelled food into gaping mouths. There was juice dribbling down every one of the chins.

  Mrs Craddock was trying to tie bibs round the necks of the two youngest, the white bibs getting in the way of the spoons feeding the mouths. To Andre’s surprise, Anthony looked up from his empty fruit dish and winked. The clatter of feet on the wooden floor started up again when the bowls were all empty. No one had touched the milk.

  “Drink your milk! Now. Back you go.” Mrs Craddock had her hand on her hips protecting the sideboard, her ample bosom heaving, her dishcloth ready for a clout.

  “Andre, now it’s you burning the toast,” said Tinus.

  “If they were speaking Afrikaans, this place could just as well be Venterskraal,” Andre said, burning his fingers.

  “What’s Afrikaans?” asked Anthony after swallowing down his milk without sitting back at the table.

  “Didn’t you live in Africa? Afrikaans is my home language.”

  “Only English on Elephant Walk. And Shona… Princess and Tembo were teaching me Shona. But you speak English like cousin Tinus… Is that burned toast for me? What we do is scrape the burned bits out of the window.”

  “Don’t you dare open the window!” screamed Mrs Craddock.

  “Do it in the fire,” said Tinus. “Just don’t wake the dogs.”

  By the time breakfast was over for the children the top of the tablecloth looked like a battleground to Andre. Outside the window the children, now warmly dressed by the children’s nurse he had only heard and not seen, were screaming at the dogs, children and dogs running all over the frozen lawn.

  A maid came into the breakfast room to clear the mess off the table.

  “I want to show you the library built up by my Manderville ancestors,” said Tinus. “It was locked when the RAF took over the house as a rehabilitation centre after the war. The family furniture was locked in the basement. It cost Uncle Harry a small fortune to restore the house. The place was falling down from old age. Why my Manderville grandfather sold it to my Brigandshaw grandfather in the first place. By then the Mandervilles were broke. They were really my great-grandfathers but grandfather Manderville says that’s too complicated when I’m on the farm in Rhodesia.”

  “Let’s go and have a look at the books. My tutor says all the knowledge of the world is locked inside books. All you have to do is open them… Have you read Plato?”

  “Of course.”

  At the ages of eighteen and going on seventeen, they had the world at their feet without a cloud in the sky. In the morning room as they passed, the newspaper shouting William Smythe’s article was still lying on the sofa. Someone had left the door open, which Tinus closed as they went by, hoping the fire in the grate would heat up the rest of the room.

  Having his friend and cricket mentor in the house was a great joy to Tinus. As the years passed, the difference in their age meant less and less. Tinus hoped they would stay friends for the rest of their lives.

  In the li
brary, two coal fires were burning at either end of the long room. Uncle Harry had been told the fires would drive the mildew out of the room. The mildew had crept in through the damp walls while the library was locked up. Uncle Harry had said there was always a price to pay for everything; but at least now the books were still on the shelves instead of being borrowed and never returned by the chaps in the air force.

  “Wow! Now this is something,” said Andre Cloete in awe.

  “I thought you would like it… Over there is every word Plato ever wrote more than two thousand years ago… Older than the New Testament… The whole meaning of government, the whole meaning of democracy.”

  “Now you’re going over my head, old chap. I’m a mathematician. I only asked you if you’d read Plato. Didn’t say I’d read it all.”

  “I’ll give you the Republic to read while you are staying at Hastings Court. It’s very rewarding.”

  “Now I know why you’ve changed your degree to PPE… I say, that fire does look inviting. How did that cat get in?”

  “They are all over the house. Why we don’t have rats and mice.”

  “Sensible. I much prefer cats to rats.”

  The next day Tinus left his friend in front of the fire in the library and went off with Uncle Harry on the motorcycle. The weather had changed for the better. The wind had dropped.

  “Perfect day for flying,” Uncle Harry had said, handing Tinus a flying coat that dropped below his knees. “Flew in that one during the war. I was thinner in those days. It’ll be cold in the air and on the back of the bike.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Redhill Aerodrome. A few miles south. Tina is staying in bed nursing her cold. Doesn’t want to give it to everyone… Borrowed one of the new dual-control Tiger Moths. My promise to teach you to fly was made years ago but I never forget a promise… We’ve been over the theory so many times we won’t do that again… Some people are naturals. Let’s go and see! The bike is more fun than the car. John Woodall knows we are coming… Hell, those children of mine make a lot of noise. Afterwards we’ll get a bite of lunch together and drink a pint of beer. Andre says he doesn’t even like the idea of flying or we would have taken the car.”

  “He’s scared of heights. Brave enough to shoot a man-eating lion, but scared of heights.”

  “Just the two of us then.”

  Tinus was swept through the English country lanes clinging to the back of his Uncle Harry, the powerful engine throbbing through his loins. He had never felt so happy. Most of the time in the short straights the bike was at full throttle, the rider confident they would not hit the leafless boughs of the trees. Both of them were wearing flying goggles, their long flying jackets cracking in the wind, the winter fields of Surrey passing them at speed.

  The small biplane, with two round open cockpits in line along the top of the fuselage, was waiting at the end of the runway. They all strolled out to it. John Woodall had flown with his Uncle Harry during the war. Tinus, despite his excitement, managed to keep quiet while the two older men reminisced. Even before he flew up into the clear blue sky, it was heaven on earth for Tinus, his dream unfolding in front of his eyes.

  John Woodall had explained the dual controls when they were both seated in the aircraft. Then the man swung the propeller three times and the aircraft came to life with Uncle Harry in control. In short time they were running down the runway and lifting into the air, the fields quickly becoming smaller.

  At two thousand feet, Uncle Harry signalled he was handing Tinus control. The stick came alive along with the rudder bar. He was flying the plane, his heart in his mouth. Then Tinus explored the rudder bar, tipping the wings. Uncle Harry tapped him on the shoulder from the rear cockpit. Up came the gloved hand with the thumbs up.

  Twenty minutes later, they were down on the ground with Uncle Harry back in control of the aircraft. When Uncle Harry took off his goggles, he was grinning. Neither of them had to say a word. By then Tinus knew instinctively he was born to be a flyer.

  There was no sign of John Woodall as they left the plane where they found it and walked back to the bike. Soon again the fields and hedgerows were rushing by them.

  When they pulled off the road, crunching the wheels of the motorcycle on loose gravel, they came to a stop outside the Running Horses at Mickleham, not far from Hastings Court. Both of them were cold and glad of the promise of the fire in the bar.

  “How are you liking England, Tinus?”

  “It’s different. Very different.”

  “Homesick for Elephant Walk? Me too. Tina won’t hear of going back and the children are happy in England… Maybe one day… I am going to tell the landlord you are eighteen and up at Oxford or he won’t give you a beer. You look eighteen. Are you hungry?”

  “Starving.”

  “Just rounds off the morning, you and I having lunch together. Two men talking without the clutter of women and kids, bless them all.”

  Uncle Harry seemed to know the landlord well, which to Tinus was not surprising; Uncle Harry knew everyone well. Tinus shook the publican’s hand and followed his uncle into the empty bar where they found the promised fire. The small room smelt of beer.

  “This is where it all began for Merlin,” said Uncle Harry.

  “King Arthur’s Merlin?”

  “No, no. My brother-in-law, Merlin. Esther was the barmaid during the war when they fell in love. Your aunt Lucinda was Merlin’s sister. Well, you know that terrible story when your father died instead of me… I'm sorry. Not the subject for a day like today.”

  Tinus found tears coming to his eyes. The same man who had killed Aunt Lucinda on Salisbury Station had killed his father years later in the same place. Tembo had shot dead Mervyn Braithwaite on the platform with Tinus’s father lying dead on the ground, changing Tinus’s life forever.

  Uncle Harry went to the bar to order the drinks. When he came back with two pints of draught beer, Tinus had gained control of himself; poor Uncle Harry had lost his pregnant wife so why should he feel sorry for himself?

  “Esther is Genevieve’s mother. Merlin St Clair her father, though she does not carry his name. She’s the actress we are going to see on Saturday. I’m making sure she is going to be a big star. When you see her onstage, you will understand. I have a present for her on Saturday when we go backstage. A man I knew in the war that now runs a film studio in Elstree… A good friend of mine… Cheers, Tinus. Glad to have you in England.”

  “Cheers, Uncle Harry.”

  They both drank, Tinus pulling a face.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s warm!”

  “My nephew’s from Africa,” Uncle Harry said to the barmaid who was giving Tinus the eye.

  “We drink it ice-cold in Rhodesia,” Tinus said to the girl. The girl looked not much older than himself.

  “Expect you do, luv… When in Rome… Where’s Rhodesia?”

  With Uncle Harry smiling, Tinus went up to the bar to explain… His day just couldn’t stop getting better.

  There were more people in the dining room when they went through to lunch. Back in the bar, Tinus had been torn between telling the barmaid all about Rhodesia and going back to Uncle Harry standing at the fire with a knowing smile on his face drinking his pint. The girl had seen his dilemma and gone off to wash glasses in the kitchen behind the bar. There was an open hatch through which she could see any new customers. She gave Tinus a last lascivious smile, which sent feelings rushing through his body he had only dreamed about in his sleep. His lifelong pursuit of women had just begun.

  “Just as I hoped,” said Uncle Harry when the landlord handed him the menu at the table. “This place is renowned for its jugged hare.”

  “How do they make it?” asked Tinus, happy to keep the conversation away from the girl in the bar.

  “Better I tell you when we’ve eaten… We’ll have a small bottle of red wine to go with the hare.”

  When the food came in large brown bowls, the smell made
his mouth water. The waiter had taken off the lids. Inside was a rich sauce covering pieces of meat with round balls of something floating in the gravy. Uncle Harry never had a starter. He had told Tinus more than once it ruined his appetite for the main treat. On a side dish came the Brussels sprouts and boiled new potatoes, the potatoes sprinkled with fresh parsley. Two glasses of wine were poured, a toast drunk to their mutual health and then they tucked in.

  The taste of the food was as good as the smell. In deference, they ate in silence, both accepting a second helping from the earthen serving bowl brought to the table by the publican. By the time Tinus finished his lunch the beer and wine had gone to his head, another feeling that was going to stay with him through his life.

  “All right. How do they make it, Uncle Harry?”

  “First they shoot themselves a wild hare somewhere out in the fields. Then they bring it back and hang it up in the larder by its back legs with a silver cup at its mouth to catch the blood. They then close the door of the larder for a week or two until they find white maggots in the hare’s dead eyes. Then they cut it down, careful not to spill the congealed blood in the silver cup. With forced meatballs they cook the meat in red wine with a mix of herbs and spices for hour after hour, just keeping the pot bubbling. Right at the end, they throw in the congealed blood and stir to make the gravy. By the time they cook the hare the meat is basically rotten. The term is gamey, the most appetising taste on earth.”

  “I’m glad you told me when I’d finished.”

  “Thought you would be.”

  The three of them drove up to London on the Saturday morning. Aunty Tina was still bunged up with her cold and stayed behind with the children. It was to be the first time Tinus had been to the theatre. The day before, Tinus had landed the Tiger Moth without Uncle Harry touching the controls. John Woodall had been on the field to watch the perfect landing. Next week, with luck, Tinus was going solo, his pilot licence now within reach.