by Robyn Scott
The cloud of dust, deep red in the rich light, hung still above the sand, glowing. Dad’s face glowed too: with the sun, and with pleasure as he inhaled loudly and gazed towards the light.
Once, on an evening walk, frustrated that I didn’t smell it too, I’d crouched down and stuck my nose right inside the dust cloud. “Just smells like dust,” I’d coughed, sneezing out a thousand tiny particles.
“When you leave Africa, Robbie – then you’ll understand about the dust.”
“There’s dust everywhere else.”
“Not like this.”
“Anyway, I’ll never leave.”
Even if I couldn’t smell the difference in the dust, as I watched the spectacular changing light – the polite thanks to the continent for tolerating the heat, sweat, and discomfort of the day – I was certain there wasn’t anywhere else I’d rather be.
“I’m sure you’ll leave,” Dad said. “But you’ll keep coming back. Can’t shake it off,” he added, sighing with contentment.
But Dad wanted his own dust. The more his once exciting clinics became routine, the more he sought solace in the prospect of his ultimate project: having his own land, in Africa, where other people’s cows could be kept out and the pillaged bush rehabilitated; where you picked up a littered plastic bag one day and none was there to replace it the next. And most of the time, except for sunsets, when no one could feel anything but perfectly content, Dad wasn’t.
After our walks, we’d often sit outside in the last light, swatting mosquitoes and counting the first stars, or watching the huge yellow hunter’s moon, masking the stars, rise slowly above the trees. And often, then, as the stars became countless or the moon drifted up above the scrub, Dad would talk about how he’d one day take us to a farm deep in the bush proper, in real Africa: where the moon would shine up above lush bushveld grazed by big antelope, stalked by big cats, with a full, tall-tree-lined river full of crocodiles.
The dream ‘was good enough, and Dad certain enough, to keep us all optimistic – even though, after several years, and although he now had enough money, Dad’s ongoing farm search had failed to produce any land that met his requirements: on a river, accessible by road, well positioned for his clinics. And, the most difficult of all, our land.
Which, for all the money in the world, most of Botswana could never be.
Around 80 percent of the country is tribal trust land, an ownership system that helps keep Botswana free of the land disputes that trouble so many parts of previously colonised Africa. On unallocated tribal trust land – like the bush around Selebi – anyone can wander freely and graze their animals. It is no-man’s-land, any-man’s-land, every-man’s-land, depending on your perspective. No one can own the land, but by applying through the Land Board you could be granted, for free, a ninety-nine-year lease on a patch of dirt to call your own.
Dad wanted it to be our own. But freehold farms were far and few between. And so, for the moment, our African sun would continue to rise and set over big dreams, and a small, wilting field of abandoned jojoba seedlings.
What did I tell you, Keith? Told you your plants wouldn’t grow.
And if Dad was growing restless, Lulu, Damien, and I hadn’t yet come close to exhausting the amusements offered by the no-man’s-bush around us, the two small houses, and their four profoundly fringy adult occupants.
At seven o’clock, the sun already streaming through the windows, I slid out from my sheets and crept through the house into the schoolroom. Lulu was awake in bed, watching the dogs who wrestled on top of the covers, breaking one of Dad’s firmest edicts.
She joined me beside the vivarium and fished out the second of the two slender, sleepy brown house snakes. After tucking our pyjama shirts securely into our shorts, we each slipped a cool, silky body through the neck of our tops.
Lulu let out a squeal of laughter as the snake squirmed against her belly.
“Shhh, man,” I hissed.
“Sorry,” Lulu hissed back, smiling and blowing out her cheeks.
Damien, head under his pillow, was fast asleep in the next room. It took several shakes before he clambered out of bed and followed us sleepily to the front door. Careful not to disturb Mum and Dad’s non-negotiable Sunday lie-in, we eased the swing door shut behind us and set off barefoot across the dirt, watching out for thorns and trying to spot snake tracks and jackal prints – laid during the night across yesterday’s chaotic mix of car tracks, footprints, horse hooves, and dog paws.
Outside Grandpa’s front door, we paused, holding Keller and Smiley by their scruffs to stop them scratching at the grey mesh spring door. A volley of extraordinarily loud and irregular snores confirmed we were in luck. Quietly opening the door, we stopped again for a moment beside the Ping-Pong table. Clutching the dogs, trying not to laugh, we took careful note of must-be-avoided bulges beneath the thin brown bedcover. The sleeping cat and each of Granny Betty’s fragile limbs located, we silently mouthed a count of three and sprang, yelling good mornings, onto the end of the bed.
Grandpa hauled himself into a sitting position. “What the bloody hell is this?” he bellowed. Granny Betty blinked and gave us a sleepy smile. Her soft ‘Good morning’ was drowned by the deafening tirade from beside her. “No bloody manners. On Sunday bloody morning. Unbelievable! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Wakingyou up, Grandpa.”
“You’re in Africa! Have you not learned any respect for your elders?”
“It’s seven o’clock, Grandpa. Late for Africa.”
Lulu and I helped the dogs up onto the bed, and they sprang towards Granny and Grandpa’s faces, howling with excitement.
“Fucking circus in here,” yelled Grandpa, fending off Keller as she stuck a slobbery, dead-animal-smelling jowl in his face.
“Please, Ivor,” murmured Granny. “Come here, darling,” she cooed at Keller, holding out a bony hand that Keller immediately coated in slobber.
“Bloody dogs,” said Grandpa. “Shouldn’t be on the bed. Off! Off! All of you. Children too!”
None of us moved. “Granny let the calf on the bed.”
“Not while we were bloody in it,” yelled Grandpa, flinging his hands in the air. “Andyou know Betty and animals. Besotted! Can’t do anything about it. Hey, Betty?”
Granny Betty smiled, distantly, transported by the memory of her now grown and gone brown-and-white pet call that had once made regular visits into the house and onto the bed.
“Ya live in the middle of the bush,” spluttered Grandpa, “and still you get no bloody peace. Not even trom your own bloody grandchildren.”
The tradition of Sunday breakfast with Grandpa Ivor and Granny Betty had begun as soon as we moved into the cowshed. Every week, for nearly three years, we’d provoked a similar, satisfying outburst, which always ended in the same way.
“Suppose you want some grub? Betty! How about some breakfast for these little scavengers?”
“Just what I was thinking,” murmured Granny. “If you’re hungry?” She grinned mischievously. “Okay. Okay,” she said, beginning the slow process of easing herself out from the covers. “I heard you. No need to shout.”
Grandpa arranged a pillow between his head and the bump-ily plastered wall. “Come on,” he snapped, easing himself back against it. “Give your Granny Betty a hand…and open those curtains. Do a bit of bloody work for your breakfast.”
By the time Granny had rotated herself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed, we’d brought her a glass of water for her pills, checked her old pink slippers for scorpions, and fetched her turquoise quilted dressing gown from the hook on the door to the lounge.
“Thank you,” murmured Granny. “Very kind of you. Bit rusty in the morning. Pills will kick in soon.”
“Grape juice fasts, Betty!” said Grandpa. “That’s what you need. Not bloody painkillers. Give up smoking and eat more fruit. Look at me. Nearly seventy. Never felt better.”
“Now,” said Granny, slowly tying the go
wn around her billowing floral nightie. “Fried, or scrambled?”
Having taken our orders, she shuffled off in the direction of the kitchen. “No, no, I can manage,” she said. She stooped down to pat a drooling dog. “Besides, these guys will keep me company. You three look after your Grandpa.”
“No peace,” muttered Grandpa. “Well, suppose there’s enough room here for you all. Hurry up, then. Whaddaya waiting for?”
The morning air was still just cool enough for the thin covers to be inviting, and we slipped quickly into the trough of the sagging bed. As pre-agreed, Lulu and I slid in on either side of Grandpa, snuggling beside him and taking care not to lie on top of the snakes.
“So,” said Grandpa, as we settled in between the bulging springs and gazed up at the spiderwebs on the aeroplane wing, “what trouble have you lot been causing this week? Read anything? Had any brainwaves? Discovered anything? Invented anything?” He eyed us accusingly. “Never too young to start inventing. Never too old either.”
Big or small, significant or not, Grandpa met every tale of revelation and creation with the same bright-eyed, delighted attention. It was impossible not to want to talk to him, and as the sound of clanging pots and the smell of frying bacon drifted through the house, we excitedly recounted our week’s adventures; soon transfixed by our own stories, elevated in his presence to great raconteurs. Grandpa, as always, had something to say about everything, and each of our stories drifted inevitably into a lecture by him on his own ideas for how things could next time be done better, bigger, and more spectacularly.
Careful not to draw his attention, I looked at Lulu. Very slowly, the covers pulled up to our necks, we untucked our shirts and each fished out a silky snake. Energetic from the warmth, the slim muscled body ‘writhed in my hand as I slipped it, headfirst, into the sleeve of Grandpa’s big cotton nightshirt.
Midsentence, Grandpa paused. He narrowed his eyes for a second, and then continued, voice and expression unchanged.
Lulu, Damien, and I waited, chatting as nonchalantly as we could manage.
Nothing.
Damien gave Grandpa a progress update on the mud brick hut he was building in the bush; Lulu and I talked about the horses.
Grandpa nodded and commented as attentively as usual. After a few minutes, he said, “So I heard a rumour you found some snakes.”
“Maybe.”
“Now,” he continued, frowning up at the wing, “I wonder what they are…Non-poisonous, I hope. Can’t be a rare species if you’ve got two…mole snakes perhaps…No, too small for mole snakes. Don’t tell me. Ah, I know. Of course.” He paused dramatically, rolling his eyes to the top of his head. “Brown house snakes!”
We gaped.
“Ya think you can scare me?” he yelled, fumbling under his shirt and retrieving a bewildered snake in each hand. “Ya should know better by now. Ya want scary. I’ll give ya scary! Did I ever tell ya the story about Ronnie? Now that’s what I call scary!”
♦
Back at the cowshed, Dad said, “Good joke, chaps. Brace yourselves.”
A few months before, Dad would have snuck across the road to discuss retaliation strategy. He’d inherited and amplified Grandpa’s particular sense of humour – teasing relentlessly, searching for puns in every conversation, and prizing, above all, a good practical joke. Through humour they’d always got on best.
But now, after the fight, there was only silence.
It wasn’t even a worthy thing to fight about. Mr. Motswagole, despite having his own bakkie, regularly borrowed Grandpa’s bakkie, leaving Grandpa stranded. On one such occasion, Grandpa came across the road and asked to borrow our bakkie. Dad refused, saying he needed it for after-hours call-outs. Grandpa yelled that Dad was being selfish; Dad shouted at Grandpa for letting Mr. Motswagole take advantage of him and – in turn – of us; Grandpa yelled that Dad didn’t know what he was talking about; Dad shouted that Grandpa was being unreasonable; Grandpa yelled that the same applied to Dad, and the two men parted furiously in the middle of the red dirt between the two houses.
A day of not speaking became a week, and a week became two. Suddenly they were really not speaking, and the longer the silence lasted – and the sillier the fight began to seem – the harder it became for either of the two deeply proud and stubborn men to take the first step out across the growing void.
So they didn’t.
Mostly, bizarrely, life carried on almost as normal. The occasional family dinners – regularly suspended during Grandpa and Dad’s small fights – stopped altogether. But Dad still visited Granny, when Grandpa was out. And Grandpa came over when Dad was at his clinics. They passed each other in the driveway without flinching, nodded, and walked on silently. They spoke of each other normally. They both, unbelievably, seemed normal.
When I didn’t speak to Dad for a few hours, the energy and agony of not speaking defined my every second. But it was as if Dad and Grandpa had both just left their relationship behind them, on the dirt between the two houses, where the pain of not having one couldn’t affect them.
Dad said, “I do miss MacGyver.”
Before, every Friday night, just after dark, all five of us had crossed the road and squeezed together on the lounge sofa to watch the gripping TV show with Grandpa and Granny. Now it was just Mum, Lulu, Damien, and I.
When MacGyver pulled off a particularly ingenious escape, Grandpa would say, “Your father would love that one. Don’t forget to tell him.”
His encouragement was unnecessary. Damien, who idolised the brilliant daredevil, repeated the episodes verbatim, and where possible generally re-created MacGyver’s tricks for Dad.
Damien thrived on audiences. If everyone else had tired of listening to him, he’d sit down under Ruth’s ironing board with his gigantic Technic Lego set. As he worked, he’d explain his creations and the principles of hydraulics. From time to time, Ruth would say, “Eh-he,” or “Ee, Damien, you are so clever,” and Damien, talking about pressure and pistons, slipping into a Setswana accent when he remembered, could happily sit there for hours.
In the presence of friends his own age from Phikwe, Damien became almost demented with excitement.
Never had he been worse than on the Friday night when John, Hal’s son, and Peter, an old friend from Kopano, were staying and we all went across the road to watch MacGyver. By the end of the episode, the three boys were in a fever of bravado – scuffling with each other and bragging loudly about their plans to sleep outside and fearlessly brave the danger-filled night.
As the credits rolled, barely pausing to say good night to Granny and Grandpa, they rushed out of the door, excited war cries ringing across the bush.
I said good night soon afterwards and left Lulu and her friend Nicky Ball singing along to Grandpa, who, with little persuasion, had got out his harmonica and launched into a squeaky rendition of ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’.
A few metres from our front door, as I picked my way carefully across the patchy, shadow-streaked sand, smothered laughter erupted from a dense clump of bushes.
“I know you’re there, stupid. Don’t try and scare me.”
More guffaws and then, “Where’re Lulu and Nicky?”
“Dunno. Why should I tell you anyway?” I yelled behind me. “Stop being so childish.”
Mum had stayed behind with Dad. They were sitting together on the sofa, heads bent over their books.
“How was it?” asked Dad.
“Good one.”
“What did he do?”
I began to relay the plot. Mum stared at Dad, frowning and occasionally muttering things like she couldn’t believe two grown men had let it come to this.
A high scream rang through the night. Another followed, and then cackling, yelling, more screaming – now angry – and excited dog barks.
Lulu and Nicky burst through the door, white-faced and tearful. A moment later, bellowing war cries, the three boys sprinted past the lounge window towards Damien’s mud hut in the bush behind th
e house.
Dad leapt up from the sofa. “Right. Time those little ratbags got a taste of their own medicine.” He disappeared to his bedroom. A minute later, the safe clanged shut, and he emerged, clasping his shotgun.
Mum quickly got up to phone Granny Betty, to tell her not to worry if she heard shots. Dad said, “Follow me. And keep quiet.”
As we passed through the schoolroom, Dad flicked off the light, and the back of the house sank into darkness.
Outside, standing on the doorstep between the flowerbeds, we were at once invisible in the shadow of the house. “Wait here,” whispered Dad. “Hold on to the dogs.”
Gun in hand, Dad left the shadows and crept out across the moonlit dirt. He’d gone only a few paces before he dived behind a tree as a disgruntled nightjar flapped noisily up above the scrub. But the bush ahead of him remained still and dark, and after a moment’s pause, Dad continued on, zigzagging from tree to tree towards the dark blob of the hut, which lay about fifty metres from the house.
For the last few months, Damien had spent long stretches of every day building and admiring the growing hut. Mum, who decided the construction project was a useful contribution to life skills, left him unhindered and suspended most of her scant demands for normal schoolwork. It Damien was alone. Lulu and I were encouraged to come inside and inspect, but on weekends when Peter and John joined Damien, we were strictly prohibited.
Then, under Matthews’s direction, the three boys would spend hours mixing dirt, cow dung, ash, and water into the thick red paste that was used to build most of Botswana’s huts. Rapidly drying in the sun, this leaden mixture formed rock-solid walls, which had, as of a few weeks ago, finally reached roof height and been topped off with a shaggy, ominously sagging thatched roof.
The hut had no windows, and the open doorway faced away from the house. From our vantage point at the back door, the only signs of occupation were the distant flicker of flashlight through the gap beneath the roof, and the occasional snatch of laughter, muffled by the thick walls. But for these, and the persistent hum of the bush, everything was quiet.
