Twenty Chickens for a Saddle

by Robyn Scott

  As a grandfather, however, he was perfect: for as long as you didn’t stand to be disappointed by Grandpa Ivor, his mix of the brilliant, impossible, generous, and irresponsible made him only more attractive and fascinating, in life and in stories – told by his sons with a mixture of resentment and adoration.

  He was as good a teller as he was a subject, and when he was present, it was always Grandpa Ivor who monopolised the storytelling, mimicking, hysterically, the expressions and voices of the strange characters he had come across over the years in Botswana. On these occasions, after a few attempts to interrupt with their own favourite stories, which were usually about him, Dad, Henry, and Jonathan, smile-creased faces bizarre in the firelight, would give up, throwing back their heads and laughing until they wheezed and wiped their eyes.

  Whether Grandpa was present depended on whether he and Dad ‘were speaking. They often didn’t, sometimes for days – days when Mum, Lulu, Damien, and I had to deliver messages between them. Dad said Grandpa Ivor was irrational, didn’t appreciate Granny Betty, and gave all his money away to crooks. Mum said not speaking to him was irrational and that such destructive bloody-mindedness could only be genetic, after which Dad hardly spoke to Mum for several days either.

  Then one day Grandpa Ivor decided to make furniture instead of coffins. “Gonna supply furniture to the nation,” he announced. “In this economy, that’s the market you gotta be in.”

  It was the early 1990s, and the economy was booming, still mostly on the back of the immense diamond wealth, which since the discovery of diamonds in the 1970s had helped make Botswana one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. Hoping to reduce dependence on one industry and increase employment, the government had introduced the Financial Assistance Programme, known as FAP. For five years, tax write-offs and salary and equipment subsidies were lavished upon start-up companies. Foreigner owners were eligible too, and Phikwe was full of South African and Zimbabwean businessmen on the ‘FAP gravy train’. These ‘FAP skellums’ established companies, pocketed as much as possible, and complained about the lazy blacks in Botswana. After five years, when companies were meant to be running independently and FAP subsidies dried up, they simply folded the business and returned home.

  FAP subsidies had enabled Grandpa to keep his business going, even though, after several years, he still hadn’t made any money out of his coffins. After another year he hadn’t made any money out of furniture either. He fired his employees, closed the business, and went into petrol stations instead. Dad said only Grandpa Ivor could rip off the government and still manage to not make a profit.

  Later, Dad would also say that only Grandpa Ivor could manage to close a coffin business just as everyone started to die.

  ∨ Twenty Chickens for a Saddle ∧

  Eleven

  Whispers About Lions

  Dad held up his hand to the light, studying it with the same squinty look Mum got when she examined her chin in the mirror lor stray whiskers. He unwrapped another plaster and stuck it over a tiny red scratch, adding to the five or six pink waterproof rings he’d begun putting on after he had finished his bowl of Pronutro.

  “Why do you need so many?”

  “To cover all the cuts.”

  “But they’re all so small.”

  Every weekend, Dad worked in the ancient shed, building furniture for the cottage and his clinics and fixing engines and motors. He often cut himself and put plasters on the big, blood-oozing cuts – but never before on the tiny thorn scratches that covered all of our legs, arms, and hands. Dad said, “Don’t be such a hypochondriac,” when we complained about bigger scratches than these.

  “Don’t be such a hypochondriac, man,” I said. Lulu and Damien giggled. I smirked.

  “Not guilty, Robbie.”

  Mum and Dad had talked before about acquired immune deficiency syndrome and the human immunodeficiency virus. But they had never before stood out amongst all the other exotic-sounding STDs that Dad saw at his clinics: syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes, chancroid, trichomoniasis, genital warts – diseases with fascinatingly gruesome symptoms, curiosities from a different world that hadn’t ever threatened to interfere with mine.

  I felt my legs going weak as I listened to his explanation for the plasters.

  “You might catch it?”

  “I won’t, as long as I’m careful.” Dad explained that the plasters were a precaution for external examinations, in case his hands came into contact with any wounds. For internal examinations he always used gloves.

  “What if you miss a scratch?”

  “I won’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’m careful. And the chances are minuscule. The virus dies very quickly on contact with air.”

  “But you could die,” I gasped.

  “How do you know you haven’t got it already?” asked Damien.

  “Because I test myself regularly.”

  “Can I have a test?”

  “Me too.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. None of you have it.” Dad pushed his chair back and stood up. “Now I’m going to work. Stop worrying.”

  Mum showed us a diagram of the progression of HIV infection to AIDS: starting with a mild fever immediately after infection, followed by about five years of no symptoms, after which people start to get increasingly sick, before finally developing AIDS, a range of horrible diseases resulting from the near collapse of the victim’s immune system.

  Apart from the fact that there was no cure and it killed you, this was the scariest part: that people with HIV walked around for five years – sometimes ten, longer than I had lived – looking healthy and infecting other people.

  “So anyone could have it, and we wouldn’t know?”

  “Yes,” said Mum. “But the incidence is still low.”

  “Do you think Ruth has it? She’s had lots of boyfriends.” All of Ruth’s three children had different fathers, none of whom she’d ever married.

  “I’m sure not.”

  “Can I ask her?”

  “No, you certainly can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s none of your business.”

  ♦

  I watched the shiny knife blade slide back and forth, millimetres away from Ruth’s fingertips. She was preparing the vegetables for supper, slicing hundreds of pieces of carrots, zucchini, leeks, and potatoes for vegetable pie, and lettuce, tomatoes, and celery for salad. I had squeezed in beside her at the tiny kitchen counter and was pretending to search for something in the cupboard, casting surreptitious glances at her fingers. Her dark skin made it harder than I had expected to spot cuts.

  “Ah.” Ruth looked from my face to her hands with a bemused expression. “What is the matter, Robbie?”

  “Nothing.” I smiled stupidly. “Nothing.” I grabbed a carrot and slunk away, guilty and no more at ease.

  ♦

  Supper, which we ate around the big wooden table on the veranda, was one of the best times of the day. It was the time when Dad told stories about his day at the clinic, and we told him about our days, and he and Mum discussed politics and books and argued furiously about the meanings of words until Lulu, Damien, or I was ordered to fetch the giant Concise Oxford Dictionary and proclaim the victor. In the dim light of the gas lamp, with the bush and its smells and noises just a layer of shade cloth away, it was almost as exciting as camping. The only downside was chomping into the occasional stink bug overlooked in the bad light, for we’d all long since given up trying to scrutinise each mouthful.

  “Robbie, what on earth are you doing?” Dad put down his knife and fork and stared at me.

  “Nothing.” I lowered the lettuce leaf I had been holding up to the light.

  “Then what was that all about?”

  “Nothing…well, what if Ruth cut herself and there’s blood on the salad?”

  “So?”

  “AIDS,” I muttered.

  Dad coughed and looked at his plate.
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  “It’s not funny!” I couldn’t believe he didn’t take a matter of life and death more seriously.

  “Of course it’s not,” said Mum. She ‘was also smiling. “But you mustn’t worry. It’s not going to happen.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  Even if Ruth was carrying HIV, explained Dad – “which I’m sure she isn’t” – she would not only have to bleed onto the salad, but one of us would have to immediately eat a bloody vegetable before the virus died. Even then, we’d have to have a sore on the inside of our mouth for the virus to get into our bloodstream.

  “It’s a weak virus,” added Dad. “You can’t get it from toilet seats. Or sneezing, like with colds. Sex, sharing hypodermic needles, and blood transfusions are the big risks.”

  “Oh.” I still didn’t feel like eating my salad.

  “And we should all just thank our lucky stars that mosquitoes don’t pass it on.”

  “How come?”

  “When they bite you, they inject saliva, not blood. For mozzies to spread HIV, the virus would have to evolve to be transmitted in the saliva. Like malaria.”

  “Could it evolve?”

  ♦

  “In theory, I suppose,” said Dad.

  “It would be an evolutionary advantage to the virus,” Mum said thoughtfully. “Would help it spread.” She looked at me. “But highly unlikely,” she added, quickly. “Highly, highly unlikely.”

  But it wtu possible, and suddenly a whole new terror loomed. I treated every mosquito as a suspect – potentially the first carrier of the one-in-many-millions-chance mutant virus. But it was too exhausting to sustain this fear. In Botswana, if you tried to avoid or swat every mosquito you saw, there was no time left to do anything else.

  Mum said, “I can’t understand why you worry about AIDS and then happily ride that ratbag pony.”

  For the first ten minutes of our rides into the bush, Feste was cooperative, trotting along placidly as Quartz charged backwards and forwards across the bush, shying at donkey carts, birds, butterflies, mostly nothing. But then, always at exactly the same unmarked, unremarkable spot on the dirt track, Feste would stop.

  “Give her a good kick, Robbie,” Dad yelled from the other side of the imaginary line. “Show her who’s boss.”

  I flapped my legs against Feste’s now very large middle. Nothing happened. “Argh! Come on.”

  More kicks. Still nothing.

  “I’ll get you a stick.” Dad steered Quartz towards a mopane tree and leaned over to pull off a thin branch. Hundreds of bright green leaves shimmered and rustled, and Quartz sprung forwards and sideways, almost unseating Dad. “Damn it. Hang on, Robbie.” Dad slid off Quartz and dragged him back to the tree. This time he succeeded in detaching a thin stick, which he handed to me after stripping off all the leaves except for a clump at the very end.

  “Just give her a firm slap.”

  I flicked the stick against her side. Nothing happened. Again. Nothing. “Ahh, Dad. She won’t budge.”

  “Keep going. Don’t be afraid.”

  “I’m not afraid.” I raised the spindly branch high in the air.

  “Come on, girl!” I bellowed, kicking and simultaneously whacking her bottom with the stick. This time Feste did move, very quickly. But instead of going forwards, she reared up into the air, and I slid backwards, landing with a thud on my back, choking on the cloud of dust kicked up as Feste spun round and took off home at a gallop.

  “You okay?” said Dad, peering down at me.

  “I’m fine,” I snapped. I started to sit up, and flopped back on the dirt. “Ow.”

  Quartz was tossing his head and jogging on the spot, yanking at the reins. “Bugger,” muttered Dad. “Catch your breath for a moment. I’ll have to let him go to help you.”

  I took off my hat and lay squinting up at the blinding blue sky while Dad knotted his reins on the top of Quartz’s neck. As soon as he let go, Quartz vanished in another cloud of dust and thundering hooves.

  “Can you walk, or do you want to wait for Mum to come find us?”

  “Course I can walk.”

  “Look on the bright side,” said Dad, as I hobbled home beside him. “At least they’re not running back to Kobus’s place any more.”

  “I still keep falling off.”

  “True. But at least we know that strategy definitely doesn’t work.”

  The next strategy was to trick Feste by cantering towards the line so fast that by the time she realised, she would have already crossed it.

  She didn’t. I did, tumbling over her head as she skidded to a halt at exactly the same place.

  We tried every tactic: I rode her, Dad rode her, Mum, who didn’t really ride, even rode her. Dad pulled her while I chased from behind, we bribed her with carrots, I steered her far off into the bush to avoid the spot on the road. Once we even brought Beauty, the foal, along. Nothing changed, except that Dad and I got better at hanging on and, when we didn’t manage, at rolling as we landed on the sand, which made our frequent falls much less painful.

  Then one day, about a month after the trouble began, we approached Feste’s line armed with sugar cubes, a long rope to hook behind her bottom, a blindfold, and a whip. I dropped my reins as we neared the line, ready to slide off and begin trying different permutations of the equipment. But Feste just kept on walking, the dainty pitter-patter of her hooves on the dirt unbroken by the slightest hesitation. It was as if nothing had ever happened: the imaginary line had simply vanished from her imagination.

  ♦

  Except on Dad’s two busiest clinic days, we rode every morning, often rushing out of the cottage at dawn, stopping only to write a note explaining our route to Mum.

  The world we rode through was magnificent: in the low mopane scrub, being a little further from the ground made a great difference, and even on tiny Feste, I could see for miles over the glowing green-gold early-morning bush.

  “Let’s go watch the planes,” I suggested, as we trotted along a track not far from the airport.

  “Okay. But don’t blame me if there’re shenanigans. They won’t like it.”

  A five-metre-wide band of cleared bush surrounded the runway fence. It was covered with thin, dry grass and spindly shrubs. “Watch out for holes,” shouted Dad as he drew ahead of me. We trotted on for a few minutes, squinting into the already fierce sun.

  “It’s going be a real scorcher today,” said Dad.

  “A cracker,” I yelled back.

  Nothing stirred on the runway, and the windsocks hung limp beside their poles. On the far side of the tarmac, a row of small aeroplanes gleamed in the sun. To the left of them, the glass control tower reflected blinding gold light. Nothing interrupted the huge expanse of blue above us.

  “Looks like no flights, I’m afraid,” Dad called over his shoulder.

  “Ah.”

  “Probably a good thing with these ratbags.” Quartz broke into a canter, and Feste accelerated after him. “Yee-hah.” Dad threw one hand into the air and lifted his reins up, cowboy style.

  Suddenly, Dad and Quartz parted: Quartz plunging to the left, towards the fence, Dad hurtling towards the bush on the right. I was momentarily aware of the guilty francolin, squawking as it flapped up from its hiding place. Then awful tearing pain, crunching sounds, and all I could see was finger-long white spikes and small hook thorns. I was in the middle of a haak-’n-steek bush, the worst thornbush in Botswana. I tried to move and screamed as the hooks dug deeper.

  “Dad!” I started to cry. “Help. I’m stuck.”

  “Be there in a sec, Robbie.”

  After what seemed like ages, Dad appeared in front of me. “Jeej,” he said. “I think I was the lucky one.” His lace and arms were scratched, and his shirt was torn. “My thornbush was still green – a bit more forgiving than yours.”

  Even pulling slowly, Dad couldn’t stop the dry, brittle thorn tips breaking off under my skin. When Mum eventually found us – she regularly and efficiently mounted rescue
expeditions on mornings when the horses returned home riderless – I had to stand on the back of the bakkie, balancing: my hands too raw to grip the bars behind the hood and my bottom too sore to sit down, tears of pain and self-pity wiped gently away by the breeze.

  I cried again as Mum peeled off my jodhpurs and knickers, which were stuck with dry blood to my skin. “Right, lie on your tummy,” instructed Dad, when I was completely naked. I lay facedown on Mum and Dad’s double bed, feeling sore and ridiculous. Armed with a pair of surgical tweezers and a hypodermic needle each, Mum and Dad set about picking hundreds of thorns out of my back and bottom. Lulu and Damien came to watch.

  “Shuddup,” I moaned as they giggled at me. “Ow. Ow.”

  “Yes, quiet, you two,” said Mum. “It’s not funny.”

  “Yes it is,” giggled Damien. “Rob’s got a thorny bum. Ha. Ha.”

  “Well it’s not funny for Rob,” said Mum. But Mum and Dad were laughing too.

  “Riding can be a real pain in the butt, Rob,” said Dad. “What a cheek, Keith.”

  Damien stood at the opposite end of the huge, shallow pit. He held up a long blue wire. “Rob. Lu. These are the best,” he shouted. “But if you see any reds or greens, get them too.”

  Since we had discovered the mine dump, Damien had already made several trips, and to find good fuses we now had to dig beneath the top layer – a dirty jumble of pipes, twisted metal, and dead leaves, blown inside over the decade since the dump had been abandoned. Sand too had found its way in, and small thorn-bushes fought for space with the rusting metal. But once you dug, there were plenty, and we set off on the path back home with about twenty between us.

  “Where you gonna test them, Didge?”

  “Dunno. Maybe in the pool.”

  “Dad 11 freak out. You’ll burn the plastic lining.”

  “The bath,” Damien suggested.

  “Even sillier idea.”