Читать книгу The Choice Between Us - Edyth Bulbring - Страница 4

24 Pembroke Street,

Sydenham,

Johannesburg.

17 May 1963

My name is Margaret Beatrice Channing-Court and I am nine years old. I would like to be your pen pal. My hobbies are reading and collecting stamps, and I am a Brownie. I am trying for my sewing badge next week. Hold thumbs.

My finger rests on the page as I stop writing. “I can smell you, Benny Scumbucket. Don’t even think about creeping up on me.” I sit back, flip the page over, and twist the cap of the fountain pen. I wait for him to show himself.

Benny breaks the silence. He breathes out through his nose, making a whistling noise. “Ag, no man, Mags. How do you always do that? I don’t stink. And you must stop calling me Scumbucket.”

I turn around and give him my bored face, making one eye squiff. Benny crouches on his knees behind my chair, ready to pounce. He’s all red in the face and his lip lifts in a snarl. My mother says Benny’s got a harelip and it’s rude to stare. I’m used to it now and most times I hardly notice.

I don’t call him Hairy-lip or Fang. I also never say: “Eat with your mouth closed.” Or, “If you make that ugly face the wind will change and you’ll stay like that for ever. Ag, shame, too late, hey?”

Other children say things like this to him all the time and think it’s funny. I just call him Scumbucket. He whines about it but I know he secretly likes it.

“What you doing?” He gets up off the floor and wanders around the room, fiddling with the things on the shelves. He can never keep still, always fidgeting.

“None of your beeswax.” I’m not going to tell Benny about my new pen pal hobby. If he knew, he’d copy me and beat my stamp collection. I’ve already written seven letters. Fingers crossed, in a few weeks’ time, I’ll be getting replies from places like Sweden, Australia and England.

I’ll use the kettle to steam the stamps off the envelopes, and then stick them in my album. Benny uses special sticky tape because he says glue damages the stamps and I won’t be able to sell mine one day. I don’t care, I’ve got more stamps than him.

“Out of your daddy’s study. Out of here.”

The annoying voice belongs to Gemima. My mother says everyone has a cross to bear. The cross my mother bears is her poor health, mine is Gemima. She’s my nanny and I’ve known her since the day I was born at the Marymount Hospital nine years and three months ago. I came early. Gemima says I couldn’t wait to get out into the world and start causing trouble.

I spent the first couple of years of my life strapped tight to Gemima’s back with an old towel my mother gave her because it was too shabby for our bathrooms. As soon as Gemima put me down, I’d start crying and she couldn’t get the housework done. For twenty-four months, my face was squashed against her. Awake, I stared up at her doek.

I didn’t start walking until I was two, and never learnt to crawl. I just pulled myself across the floor on my bottom. My father says children who don’t crawl have learning difficulties at school. I’m terrible at sums. I blame Gemima.

The first word I said was “Mima”. I wish I hadn’t because it made Gemima as pleased as punch. She was forever telling the other nannies this story. But she told my mother my first word was Mama, which sounds like Mima.

If she’d told my mother the truth, it might have hurt her feelings. Mothers can be so sensitive. Mine spends a lot of time in her bedroom with the curtains closed because she suffers from ghastly headaches. When she feels better, she sews like a maniac until her head explodes. I’ve got clothes for Africa.

“Come on, outside with you! Your daddy will be home soon.”

Gemima shoos us out of the study, her fingers flapping at the back of our legs. She shuts the door behind us. “Supper will be ready just now, so don’t you dare go near that loquat tree.”

Benny and I go out into the garden and head straight for the tree. We stuff our faces until we each have a fistful of pips. I make sure we’ve got the same amount. Benny wants to go first, but it has to be fair.

With a tap on my chest, I begin: “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a …”

Benny grabs my finger. “Stop. My mom doesn’t like it when you say that word.” He bends my finger back. “Anyway, you know when you start with yourself I’m always out. So just go, okay?”

We stand apart and take turns, three goes each, spitting pips at each other. Every time I score a hit, I take one step forward. When I miss, I take one step back.

The sky is red. Red in the night is a sailor’s delight. Red in the morning, a sailor’s warning. Johannesburg is a million miles from the sea so we don’t have sailors, just mine dumps. In a few minutes, the orange sun will slip down behind the koppie and the street lights will flicker on.

By five o’ clock, some of the nannies are on their way home to the location. Not Gemima. She stays in the room outside our house in the back garden just to torment me, I know. Even though she says her home is too far away. It’s on my Uncle Frank’s farm in Natal.

“Fine, you win,” says Benny. “What do you want to play next?” He tosses his pips on the ground and spits one out of the side of his mouth.

It’s my turn to decide. Yesterday it was Benny’s. We played hide and seek. I went first, and hid above the cupboard in my bedroom. I fell asleep and only woke up when Gemima came to put the washing away. She said Benny went home and swore he wouldn’t play with me any more. He’s forever saying he’ll never, ever, ever play with me again – but then who else would play with him?

I pretend to think, but I already know what I want to play. “Tok-tokkie. You can go first.”

I make a smile as sweet as golden syrup. Benny’s a cowardy custard and he never wants to go first.

His face flushes and he kicks a pine cone across the lawn through the spray of the sprinkler. “I’m not allowed. If I get caught again my mom’s going to punish me.”

Mrs Schaumbacher doesn’t believe in beatings or sending children to bed without supper. When she punishes Benny, he isn’t allowed to read his comics or listen to his programmes on Springbok Radio. I’d take the sjambok any day.

Benny’s father goes away a lot, for months sometimes, so Benny’s mother says she has to be two parents in one. She’s being a dad when she punishes Benny. If she’s not strict with him he’ll go to the dogs. When she comforts him at night because he’s scared of the bogeyman, she’s being a mom. It must be jolly confusing trying to be two parents.

“We won’t get caught. Come on, man, don’t be a drip.”

Benny nods. “But nickies not on.”

“Scaredy-cat, catch a rat. Put it in your Sunday hat.”

His face twists. Sometimes he gets so cross with me he just goes home. It’s no fun playing tok-tokkie on my own.

“Fine, I’ll go first.” I give him a smile full of teeth to make him nice again.

Gemima comes across the lawn towards us, dodging the sprinkler. She’s tied her doek neatly, and she’s wearing a clean apron over her pink uniform. “I’m just going over the road to Sophie, I’ll be back now-now. You two play nicely here.” She tucks her church sewing bag under her arm and walks a few steps. She turns and wags her finger at me. “Quietly, hey. Your mummy’s head is worse today.”

Sophie is also a nanny, and she’s got a room at the back of the house across the road. They belong to the same church. Methodical Methodists, that’s what my father calls them. Gemima goes to church every Sunday after clearing away the breakfast plates. She wears a badge on the pocket of her red-and-black church uniform. It says IOTT, and Gemima told me this means I only take tea. I know she drinks coffee too, so it’s not quite true, but what the Methodists don’t know can’t hurt them.

We wait until she is out of sight. All clear. Benny and I wander into the street and cross the road to the house next door to where Sophie stays. I sprint through the gate up to the front door, keeping close to the edge of the path next to the bushes. I grab the brass knocker and slam it down five times and run back down to where Benny’s hiding behind a lemon tree. He’s laughing like a drain.

We crouch down, staring at the front door. I hold my breath. “Shoosh, stop it, man.” I smother his mouth with my hand. I feel the scar above his lip. I don’t mind touching it.

The front door opens and Mr Dickson peers around. He takes a few steps down the path and then turns back and slams the door. We wait. And wait. Come on, Mr Dickson, come on! Some days he doesn’t behave the way we want him to. It’s getting boring.

“Your turn.” I nudge Benny.

My knees pop as we stand up and walk away from the house. The sun has dipped, the sky is purple. Benny is a dark shape before me on the path.

“Blerrie terrorists. I’m going to blow your heads off,” says a voice.

“Chips! He’s coming. Run, for your life, Benny. Run!”

We run. I’m laughing so much I can’t breathe. Benny is snorting. I look back. Mr Dickson’s got his shotgun and he’s wobbling down the path. The gun goes off behind us and we dodge through the gate.

“I’ll get you. Blerrie baboons.”

We duck next door through the service entrance and race towards the back, to the washing line and rubbish bins. The door to the outside room is open. I dive inside.

“Hide us, hide us. Mr Dickson’s got a gun and he wants to kill us.” Mr Dickson only fires blanks. But I’m holding thumbs that one day he’ll use live ammo.

Sophie is sitting on the narrow iron bed and Gemima is on the floor, her legs stretched out on a piece of cardboard, fingers busy with her embroidery. I crawl under the bed while Benny squeezes behind the door. We wait. Sometimes Mr Dickson comes looking for us. Maybe today is one of those lucky days.

Sophie’s bed is raised off the floor. Three bricks under each leg. My mother says the natives like to sleep high off the ground so the tokoloshe can’t get them. They’re scared of the tokoloshe because they are superstitious and ignorant. I think Sophie’s right to be safe rather than sorry. Everyone knows tokoloshes eat your brains when you’re sleeping.

I peek through Sophie’s dangling legs. Her heels are cracked, her soles yellow with knobbly corns. I spot dust bunnies, and a stray hairclip in a corner of the room.

A square of yellowed newspaper covers a pane in the window. It’s high up on the opposite wall, allowing only a teeny bit of light into the room. Sophie doesn’t have a cupboard. Her blue shweshwe dress and her pink uniform are hanging from nails on the wall.

The room is a lot smaller than Gemima’s, and I can’t see any photographs. Gemima has a framed snap of my father and her when they were children on the farm in Natal. It sits on the crate by her bed, next to a jam jar with everlasting flowers. My father has the exact same photo in his study. But Sophie doesn’t have a desk or a crate, and she decorates her walls with pictures of smiling ladies from Drum magazine, which Gemima also reads.

We wait for ages. I peep at Gemima. She stares at me, her nostrils quivering. Her dark eyes tell me she’s going to get me as soon as we’re back home.

I hold her stare, my lips moving silently: Stare, stare, like a bear. Sitting on a monkey’s chair. When you lose your underwear. That will teach you not to stare. I pretend to lick my lips but Gemima and I both know I’m sticking my tongue out at her.

I hear the sound of breathing behind me. Skrikked, I look back. Not a tokoloshe. It’s an African. She’s curled up, pressed against the wall, trying to make herself small. The doek is skew on her head and her uniform is grubby. Her eyes are big and white in a black face, shiny with sweat. She touches her finger to her lips and we stare at each other until she closes her eyes. Her lashes flutter

“You can come out now, Margaret,” Gemima says.

I look back at the nanny and touch my finger to my lips before scrambling out from under the bed.

On our way home, Gemima grips Benny and me by the hands as we wait to cross the road. I try to wriggle away. I’m not a baby. I know how to cross the road. But she clutches my hand tighter. We look left, then right. As we look left again, a police van squeals around the corner and comes to a stop as its front wheel hits the side of the pavement.

Two policemen jump out, and one of them sprints towards a group of Africans walking towards the bus stop. He waves a short black stick at them and yells. They run, screaming fit to raise the dead.

The police are always chasing the Africans when they leave work to travel home to the location, or go off for their half-day on Thursdays. The nannies run and try to hide in the back rooms, but the police often catch them. If they find the African under Sophie’s bed there’ll be hell to pay.

The other policeman comes up to us, and he looks like he means business. Next to me, Benny makes a sudden move, his mouth hanging open wider than usual, as if he’s going to cry.

“It’s all right,” I say to him. “Really, it’s fine. We can’t be in trouble.” I smile but my voice cracks. Surely Mr Dickson wouldn’t have set the police on us. That’s never been part of the game.

Gemima lets go our hands and stares down at the ground as the policeman reaches us.

He stops in front of her. “Dompas.” He holds out a hand. The fingernails are black with dirt.

She reaches into her apron pocket and offers him a small dark-coloured book. He flips through the pages, drops it on the ground, turns to leave. As he walks off, Benny throws up at my feet. A yellowy-orange, sticky loquat mess.

I shift away, my takkies are splattered. “Sis, man, Benny.”

“Sorry.” Benny kneels on the ground, looking up at me, his chest still heaving. I glare at him and the mess at my feet. Gemima’s going to be mad that we stuffed ourselves before supper. I hand him my handkerchief to clean up.

We watch as the policeman shoves three Africans into the back of the van. He yells as he pushes. “I don’t care if you left your donderse pass books at home. You kaffirs must learn to wear them around your neck.” He slams the door shut and bangs on the metal grille.

Benny goes home and Gemima drags me into the kitchen. The pressure cooker is shooting steam all over the room. She reaches into a drawer and pulls out the wooden spoon. It has a name: Gemmy. This makes it sound friendly. But it’s not.

She always catches me if I try to run away, so I just show her the palms of my hands and sigh. Benny’s nanny isn’t allowed to smack him. But my father says Gemima’s mummy also had a wooden spoon on the farm and it never did him any harm.

I stare at Gemima with my hating eyes as she slams the spoon down. I don’t pull my hands away. She hits harder than usual, her face tight.

“That’s for not listening to me. That’s for playing your stupid game and teasing that poor old man. That’s for the loquats. And that’s to remind you to be good tomorrow.”

To get her back I’m going to wish the tokoloshe on her. It will eat her brains tonight when she’s asleep. I cross fingers on both my hands and make the wish as she tells me to sit down.

Gemima butters a slice of white bread, sprinkles sugar on top, and puts it on a plate in front of me. I keep my hands in my lap away from the bread until her back is turned.

I hear my father at the front door. He is putting his doctor bag next to the telephone table, his hat and jacket on the hook in the hallway next to my school blazer. He comes through to the kitchen, strokes the top of my head, and greets Gemima.

“Everything all right, Ntombi?” My father has always called her this, ever since they were children on the farm. It’s Zulu for girl. “How were things at home today?” He relies on her to give him a rundown of the day’s events. Whether my mother ate lunch, or left the bedroom to sit and sew. And whether I behaved.

“Was Margaret a good girl?”

I rub my red palms together. I know she’s going to tell on me.

Gemima smiles, her eyes steely as she glances down at me. “She was as good as gold, Doctor C-C.” Everyone calls him this. Channing-Court is a mouthful and a half.

She doesn’t tell my father about Mr Dickson and the gun. And I don’t tell him about the African I saw hiding from the police under Sophie’s bed. It’s our secret.

Some days, Gemima and I understand each other. Perfectly.