Читать книгу Heartfruit - Ingrid Wolfaardt - Страница 8

The earth is wet with rain. Below the hills in the valley, thousands of men and women pinch blossoms between their fingers and the blossoms fall to the ground, spreading out underfoot. Raatjie walks ahead, while Isak carries the box of tins, filled with water. They tramp over veld, desecrated by drought and the fires.

They pass a deserted porcupine hole. Quills litter the area around the opening.

“There’s nothing left, everything is dead.” He stands on a flat bush that disintegrates into powder. He thinks of Tannie Lettie at Ouma and Oupa’s funeral, sobbing next to the open grave.

Raatjie nips a berry off a small scraggly plant. “Taste.” Her scarf is pushed back, revealing greying hair at the temples.

The berry is sweet and sour on his tongue.

“Come and have a look.” She pulls firmly at a gnarled plant, opening it up for him to see a delicate orchid hidden in the depths of the bush. The petals are fine and wispy like the legs of an insect.

“What’s that?”

“Spinnekop.” She plucks off the stem just above the surface, placing it in one of the tins. “Fine as spider legs. It doesn’t just grow everywhere, only some special places where the wind blows and blows the sand into the bush, then it takes years and years before the seed will sprout and become this pretty thing.”

“Why the bush?”

“Ag, this old vaalbossie protects it from the bad weather. It’s nice and safe inside there.”

“I want to take it for Ouma, Mamma I mean,” he corrects himself. It is hard to think that her soft skin is no more, the flesh of her arms like kneaded dough now shrivelled away under the ground forever.

She shakes her head, pulling at other bushes. “Rather not, it won’t work, this is its place, finish and klaar, take it away and it’s gone.”

She passes a second orchid to Isak. He has not seen such a pretty flower in the veld before.

“I’m going to come and pick, after the show.”

She shrugs, resting her hands on her lower back, legs wide apart. “In a day or two they’ll vrek from the sun, you’ll have to wait for next year.”

Isak sits down on a stone. He scratches with his nail at the grey-green moss.

“I thought the fire killed everything.”

She rolls her lips knowingly. “Fire does no harm to the seed, the seed needs the fire to live.” She walks off a little way, picking here and there until she has a posy. “Katstert, pypies, viooltjies, oumakappies, take it.”

The flowering heads are fragile and their scent is pleasing to him. “Thanks.”

“Put in water when you get to the house,” she instructs him, her attention back to finding more of the orchids.

He will give the flowers to Magdaleen. Perhaps after the big boys have climbed off the bus, perhaps at the showgrounds. He turns the flowers around in his hand. There were posies at the funeral of Ouma and Oupa. Flowers were thrown on the coffins, lots and lots of them. The two coffins lay next to each other, covered with flowers, roses with the French name that Ouma loved so much. Roses flown down from the north.

Tannie Lettie had to be lead away by the man with the grey shoes who drove the hearse.

“Is Raatjie’s Koos happy?” He draws patterns with his big toe in the ash.

She stops, frowning, “A ma can’t read a child’s heart.” Her mouth pulls straight like a post box.

“Koos doesn’t like me.”

“Koos is like his outa, he wants no one to be his baas.” She glares at him fiercely, with her new eye.

“Pappa needs someone to drive the lorry to the co-op.”

“Koos wants his own lorry.”

“Volk can’t own a lorry.” Isak laughs at the ridiculous idea.

“Raatjie is finished talking.” She shoves the flowers into the tins. “Enough of this, the nooi can come and do her own work if she wants more.”

He picks up porcupine quills as they walk down towards the house. There are cracks in the plaster. Some of the windowpanes have been replaced with shatterproof glass.

* * *

A stack of old newspapers lies on the kitchen table. While Raatjie stuffs the newspaper between the tins, Isak stares at the familiar front-page photos of collapsed houses. There is also one of the old age home, flattened like a pancake. Oupa always wanted to be on the ground floor, for safety and for his legs. Oupa made a mistake.

“Now then, pass on.” Raatjie holds out her hand.

Isak crumples the photo. “Is Koos busy with nonsense?”

“Your right is my wrong.” She takes the tin out of the box with the posy. “These are going down the road, if Raatjie must guess a good guess.”

“Is not!”

His mother comes down the passage on her stilettos.

Raatjie drops her voice, “Is! This oumeid isn’t blind.”

“Ragel.” His mother stands at the door, her thin ankles wobbling on the pointed heels. “Put the flowers in the boot and remember to pack in my gloves.”

“Ja, Nooi.” Her one eye drops to the ground while the other keeps on looking up.

“Sakkie, are you and Danie coming along? I hear the Flemish horses are showing this afternoon.”

He nods. “Yes, Mamma.”

“Danie is playing somewhere in the orchards with David. Tell him to hurry up. I’ll get you at the gate.”

He takes the shortcut through the pear orchard, thinking of the black man who makes trouble and that the man has kind eyes. All around the old trees are gone but there are new trees in their place, planted closer and narrower so that the trees can begin to bear quicker.

David is irrigating the rows. The spade in his hand moves smoothly and rhythmically.

“Hello, David.”

“Good afternoon, Kleinbaas.” David tips his hat. The spade is worn through like the teeth of an old ewe.

“Where’s Danie?”

David smiles, pointing further down the row. “Playing in the furrow with the others, Kleinbaas.”

Water floods around the base of the trees, filling the trenches dug by David. Isak splashes his way up to where Danie and the barracks children are playing. They quieten at the sight of him.

“Mamma is leaving for the show, hurry up.”

“Can Pensie come too?” Danie points to a small boy slithering in the mud.

“No.”

He walks to the farm gate where his mother presses the hooter. He climbs in next to Raatjie on the back seat. Danie sits in front.

The windows of the Datsun are wide open. Isak hangs out, sticking his wet tongue into the wind. In the Datsun it always feels as though they are rushing somewhere. From the back he can see the top of her face in the rear-view mirror, the lines between her eyebrows and the black roots of her blonde hair.

Wigs are too hot to wear in summer.

Every time they hit a dip in the road, their mother accelerates and the three of them hop and fall sideways. Isak can see her smiling eyes in the mirror and her postbox mouth, pretending she is doing nothing.

At the showgrounds she slams on the brakes so that they all fall forward. She even laughs as Raatjie covers her glass eye protectively, then she leads the way on her high heels to the flower hall, Raatjie carrying the tinned orchids and the plastic gloves.

The hall is not a hall any more. There is moss and pools of water with little waterfalls that come from hidden hoses. His mother stiffens. The ropes of muscle in her neck give her away as she turns abruptly for the door. “Let’s go home.”

They all look at her. Raatjie sighs and makes for the Datsun. Someone calls and they all turn as one. Isak has never seen this woman before. As bright as a brass button, his oupa would say of her.

“Saartjie, I’m so glad that you’ve come, Johan promised you would help me.” She waves vaguely at the exhibition. “Rather a set of golf clubs than this VLV tea party for me.”

“You seem to be quite skilled in the art of exhibiting.” His mother pushes her way past. “I haven’t begun myself, so please excuse me.”

The younger woman reaches out, brushing his mother’s hair with her fingertips. “Quite professional, Saartjie darling, who is your hairdresser? I hardly recognised you, only when you turned to walk did I see it was you.”

“You know better than me what a bottle of peroxide can do.”

“Such a pity about your parents-in-law,” the woman continues smoothly, “Johan is devastated.”

“Who can fight fate?” His mother sucks her mouth in so that her lips disappear.

Without another word to the woman they find their way through the hall of farmers’ wives, surrounded by buckets of protea, suikerkan and tolbos. Even large wabome have been removed and trucked in for the exhibition. They find her open space, flanked by ostentatious displays. Isak’s heart sinks for his mother. The lone orchids suddenly appear pathetic in their singularity.

With trembling hands she pulls on the gloves.

“Our flowers are too few.” A disgruntled Raatjie surveys the scene and the abundance of flora. Buckets and buckets of arum lilies hedge them in on either side.

“The veld doesn’t look like that,” his mother cuts back at Raatjie. “Make yourself handy.” She clutches the lit cigarette with plastic fingers and her hair is not as blonde as the other woman’s.

Cigarette in one hand and a tin in the other, his mother and Raatjie as her reluctant assistant begin. The space becomes alive the way Isak knows the veld at home. Drab bush and dun-coloured sand are fetched from out of the Datsun’s boot. Some of the women walk over to look and they snigger politely but she is oblivious to the crowd, balancing on her heels in the sand. With her gloved finger she pokes holes for the orchids.

A man laughs in the hall. Isak turns to see. It is his father.

“Wife?”

The other woman holds his arm lightly.

His mother ignores him, lifting the orchid from the tin, wrapping a piece of wet newspaper around its stem. She slips it into the hole in the sand before answering. “I’ve finished.” She pats the sand around the orchid hidden inside the renosterbos.

“Is that all?” His father speaks more to those watching than to her. “That poor bulb is so hidden away that no one can see it.”

“Those who know anything of the veld will know where to look.” She gets up, pulling off her gloves. “Sakkie, it’s time for the horses, take Danie with you.”

Isak has had enough of flowers.

“Your wife is so creative, Johan, I couldn’t, even if I tried.” The other woman swirls her hair and Isak notices that along her neck the hair behind her ears is dark brown.

“Beauty is enough.” His father wears his crocodile leather shoes. There are faint spots on the leather.

She throws her head back.

Isak can see the fillings in her mouth. “Come.” He pulls crossly at Danie.

They saunter into the grounds where the stalls are being erected and he wonders why his father never said hello to them.

“Mamma is pretty,” Danie says thoughtfully.

Isak thinks of Magdaleen with her perfect half-moon fingernails.

They squeeze themselves under the pavilion.

“Class for carts drawn by two mares.” The voice booms over their heads.

Around the athletics track, black horses tripple with high hooves, pulling carts on spider wheels. They shine like new shoes.

“Why can’t Pensie come too?”

“Don’t know.” Isak digs a piece of bubblegum out of his pocket. He breaks it in two and passes Danie the smaller piece, chewing loudly. “The show is for boere, not volk,” he explains. Instinctively, his hand checks if the hairpin is in the other pocket.

The horses are heavy in body with thick necks. Their tails are plaited with ribbons and there are silver buckles on their bridals. The farmers wear dark suits and hats like the State President and they snap long whips over the horses’ heads.

“The winner is …” A farmer reigns in the snorting, stamping horses. He shouts out their names but the hornet whip has worked them into a frenzy, their hooves throwing up a dust cloud over the judges and the cart.

The judges step forward unsure of their choice, when an old man runs onto the track, wearing an overall and a feather in his hatband like Outa Floors. The boys can hear his soft words and clicking song subduing the horses. Their necks drop in submission to his strokes.

Red-faced, the farmer climbs down, sweating profusely. The judges step forward again, pinning rosettes on the bridal and the farmer’s chest. Photos are taken for the farming weekly and the old man moves out of the focus of the lens.

Danie pops a large bubble that sticks to his nose. “Pensie is my friend.”

Isak pulls at the bubblegum, winding it around his finger. “Pensie is volk. Volk work at shows, they don’t go to shows.” He jumps up as the old man leads the horses away and the farmer and the judges retire to the beer tent. “Let’s have a look.”

At the stables the old man is removing the bridals.

“How old are the horses, Outa?” Isak asks.

The old man tips his hat and his eyes are blue. “Fifteen years, Kleinbaas, Outa brought them up.”

The horses stand quite still as he brushes their sweating flanks.

“Is it Outa’s own horses?” Danie asks in awe of the large bodies.

“Stupid fart,” Isak curses under his breath.

The old man looks kindly at Danie and his eyes are as clear as sky. “Baas Frans vanner Merwe’s, Kleinbaas. Outa is just the caretaker.”

“Where does Outa sleep?” Danie looks around.

The old man points to a blanket in the corner of the stable. The horses nudge his pocket. He takes out broken pieces of carrot and they nibble gently with lips pulled back.

Blankets with the Van der Merwe crest are thrown over their backs and the old man drops his hands in the water trough, washing methodically, forgetting the boys. They lose interest and drift over the showgrounds to the beer tent where a band is playing. Through the reed screen they can see their father and he is playing the guitar. Everyone in the tent is singing along, everyone except the women behind the tables, serving potato salad and braaivleis. Behind the fires he can see Magdaleen, her legs twisted like a koeksister around the legs of Willa from the bus, and her long hair covers their faces.

Isak spits out the tasteless gum. “Mamma is waiting.”

The way his father touched the other woman was a way he touched nobody else, the way he smiled at her under his moustache was a smile of a man he didn’t know.

At the Datsun their mother stands in the shade smoking, thin streaks of black under her eyes, while Raatjie sits on the back seat chewing a plug of tobacco.

* * *

Someone switches on the light in the room. For a few seconds Isak readies himself for the earth to move again. His father leans against the doorpost, his thinning hair is in disarray and the buttons of his shirt are torn off. The room smells of the beer tent.

“Look, Sakkie. Look at what a drunk man looks like. Come to Pappa. Let Pappa show you.”

Unsteadily, he shuffles towards the bed and the boy. Holding himself up with a hand along the wall he yanks at Isak’s elbow, lifting him off the bed.

Then his father rests his whole weight on his shoulders, swivelling him around. “Walk with Pappa.”

Isak takes a step forward, buckling under the crushing weight.

“Call Danie, call Mamma’s favourite.”

Danie runs into the passage where their mother is crying. She holds Danie like a shield in front of her.

“Come.” His father takes small steps towards the bathroom. “Come inside, come, come.” Grandly his father sweeps a bow at the bathroom door. The man’s weight is unbearable for the boy.

The three of them file into the bathroom, cornered between the basin and the bath, their backs against the tiled wall. Their mother has stopped crying. Under the light her skin is covered in a web of fine red lines. The man begins to undress, slowly and clumsily, tipping back and forth, his body white and soft, with a scar running down the middle of his stomach to his navel. The scar droops tiredly from the slack skin and his legs are thinner than Isak can remember. He opens the taps. Brown water stutters into the bath, burning his hand.

“Shit.” The man pulls back, nursing the burn.

Isak studies the man’s face. He looks like Oupa, when Tannie Lettie nursed him. Tannie Lettie would bathe and dry him, then sit with him in a darkened room, feeling his pulse, while the fan blew over him.

With a splash his father slides into the bath, then sighs deeply, humming a love song.

The three of them watch him. Coquettishly, he peeps at the woman with the crumpled face. “Wife, what about a bedtime drink, just for you and me?”

Her eyes flash for a moment then drop with her voice. “You’ve had enough to drink, dammit.”

He pulls himself up, glaring at her, panting. “Woman, didn’t you hear me?”

She sweeps loose hair from her eyes, jutting out her chin. For a moment it looks as though she will defy him, then she walks out of the bathroom, down the passage to the drinks cabinet in the lounge. The two boys watch in fascination as their father sloshes from side to side, wiping himself with the soaped cloth, humming the same tune over and over.

She returns with two, neat brandies, one for him and one for her. The man in the bath tips his head back and downs it, while she sips at hers. The mirror steams up and their reflections disappear. Isak smears his hand across the glass to see better.

“Stop that!”

Without warning the tumbler smashes into the mirror, splintering it in all directions. No one moves. Isak looks down at his feet.

Glass glistens in his leg hairs.

* * *

Raatjie sweeps the bathroom floor and her lips are puffed and her breath carries the stench of spirits.

“Hurry up, the grootbaas is waiting.” His mother holds out a pair of two-tone shoes with fringes and studs on the soles.

Sullenly, Raatjie takes the shoes, lurching down the passage, hanging on to the broom like a walking stick.

“Boozer.” His mother pinches her cheeks. “Pig-headed and ignores everything I tell her to do.” With deft pats she applies the base, hiding the red veins. “Walking on thin ice, if you ask me.”

Isak waits for her to finish. “Mamma, Pappa wants his breakfast.”

“Tell your father to hold his horses.” She pouts, meticulously applying the lipstick, then smiles at herself.

In the kitchen his father is seated at the table. The forgotten posy stands on the windowsill. Isak tries to think of him naked but all he can picture is the scar on his belly. Raatjie tips the glass pieces into the bin.

“Mamma is coming.” Isak sits down opposite him. “She’s busy putting on her face.”

“Stiff-necked woman,” his father mutters. “Klimmeid, give me the eggs.”

Raatjie nods towards the porcelain hen on the dresser. There’s another canary in the cage but Danie doesn’t seem to care for it as much.

His father stands in front of the stove. “Where’s the pan?”

Raatjie nods to the cupboard as she fiddles in the soapy water. She drops a plate. It bounces before cracking in half. The studded shoes are wet. His father looks up from the pan, his one eyebrow raised, as Raatjie struggles to her knees.

“Leave it,” his father commands her. “Go home, before you destroy the whole house. Baas Kallie is ready for you to go the village, anyway.”

Cursing under her breath, Raatjie abandons the blue-rimmed plate and the shoes, struggling to undo her overall. “Fokken Minnaars,” she grouses.

His father smiles, slipping the perfectly made eggs onto his plate. “The klimmeid is lekker moody this morning,” he chuckles to himself.

Isak sits expectantly.

“Did you want?” His father is surprised. “Here take the pan, it’s still warm.” Then he hums the tune he likes so much, the tune from the beer tent.

“Where’s Ragel?” His mother’s hair is pulled back in a ponytail, the base over her cheeks blended into her hairline.

“I sent her home; you can’t do anything with her when she’s babalaas. The last of the crockery was off to the dump, the way she was this morning.”

“What about your shoes?” His mother has red nail polish on which hasn’t set yet, he can see by the way she blows over her hands. The red varnish hides the scarred nails.

“Nothing wrong with your hands, or what?” His father has noticed too, he dissects the eggs, the soft yolk dripping from the fork. “I’ll tell the men about the party myself, so there’s no need to phone and have the whole district informed.”

“Mamma, can I get eggs?” Isak interrupts them, feeling the tension mount, hoping to stop what he knows will come on a morning like this.

Distracted, she cracks eggs roughly, forgetting the varnish that smears against the eggshells, the white and yellow marbling in the pan in front of her. “The list isn’t yet final.”

“Decided and done.” He wipes neatly at the yellow on his moustache.

“Thanks, Mamma.”

She is not listening, scratching the scorched pieces into the bin.

* * *

Isak wolfs down the eggs and makes for the back door, running down the avenue to the foreman’s house where Oom Kalla is busy reversing the Prefect out of his garage. Their voices follow him down the hill to where Raatjie sits next to Oom Kalla, without her head scarf. She looks different with her head covered in curlers of all colours. He chases the car to the gate. Oom Kalla accelerates at the eucalyptus grove, leaving him coughing and covered in dust.

Resting in the fork of a tree is Danie carving a bird. “Look there.” He points in the direction of the canal. From here the house on the hill is silent. It is Danie’s favourite place. Isak climbs up and sees the wisps of smoke. It reminds him of Ouma’s hair caught in a brush.

“Must we tell Pappa?”

“No, lets check it out ourselves.”

With care they tiptoe over the dried out bark that snaps and spits under their feet.

“Do you think it’s convicts?” Danie speaks in a loud whisper.

“Shurrup.” Isak recalls the face of Koos.

The canal is obscured with thick scrub. The voëltjiekanniesitnie bush is flowering all around them. Danie sneezes. Isak pulls him down.

The smoke thins out.

“Stupid fart! Now you’ve messed it up.”

They move closer to the edge of the canal, parting the branches to see better. Isak jumps up, shouting and waving his arms, while Danie follows suit.

Behind the reeds a frightened couple huddles on a mattress, a black man and a brown woman hiding under the torn netting of the canal. Littered around them are empty tins and on the smoking fire is a pot without handles.

“What is Outa doing on our farm?” Isak plants his feet and crosses his arms.

The black man removes his hat. He wears trousers tied with twine and a twig of some sorts is tucked into the buttonhole of his shirt.

“Afternoon, Basies.” He bows his head as one in prayer.

“What’s your name, Outa?” He asks.

The old man nods towards the woman. “Oumeid and myself have no house, Kleinbasie, Baas Fransie told Outa to clean out the house and take the high road. Baas Fransie needs Outa’s house for the young klonge, Kleinbasie.”

The woman shakes her head slightly. She is fat and toffee-coloured. Tucked in front of her dress is a small dog, a terrier of mixed blood that growls at them.

“Your name, Outa?” Danie steps forward. He tries to stroke the dog’s head but it bares its teeth at him.

“Outa’s name is Jan Wanie, Kleinbasie, and Oumeid’s name is Katjie, thank you, Basie.” He speaks with a heavy accent.

“Why doesn’t Outa go and live with Outa’s children?” Danie picks up a chicken bone and offers it to the dog, which snatches it out of his hand.

Katjie removes the dog from between her bosom, from where it barks furiously at them.

“Outa’s family live other side of the world and Oumeid’s children want nothing to do with a kaffir, Kleinbasie.”

Isak is unsure what to do. “Call Pappa.”

Danie speeds off and the terrier gives chase.

“The dog?”

“Spyker, Basie.”

He notices a wire contraption lying next to the old man.

Jan Wanie picks it up. “Outa and Oumeid’s food is long gone, Kleinbasie.”

“Have you caught anything?”

“Guinea fowl, Kleinbasie.” He proudly lifts the lid off the pot to show a skinny carcass, but the old woman’s lizard eyes narrow. Contemptuously, she turns her back on Isak.

“Outa isn’t allowed to hunt here on our farm. None of the volk may set traps, they’re not even allowed to kill a snake unless it’s in their house. My pa will get mighty cross with Outa.”

Jan Wanie obediently hides the crude trap under the mattress.

There is nothing further to say. Isak inspects the torn netting. It has been cut with a knife. He tuts loudly. “Outa can be glad my Ouma isn’t alive any more, she would skin you alive if she caught you doing this, the net is for the tortoises, to stop them from drowning in the canal.”

“Is the ounooi deceased?”

“In the earthquake.” For him it is still so unreal. The hairpin is all that he has of her. “And the oubaas too.” He fiddles agitatedly with his hand in his pocket.

“Ounooi had a heart for the volk.”

They all hear the growl of the Ford’s engine. Spyker barks hysterically as Katjie buries him in her bosom again. Jan Wanie cocks his head to hear and for the first time Isak can see the hump on his back.

With perfectly creased trousers his father climbs out the car, checking the netting of the canal as though they are not there. They wait patiently, Isak wondering whether he will be angry with the old man, but his father surveys the scene with a bemused expression.

“Afternoon, Jan, thought you were buried a long time back.”

Jan bows stiffly. “Afternoon, Baas, Outa is sad and sorry to hear of the death of the ounooi and oubaas, Baas.”

His father shrugs it off. “You and Ounooi come a long road together … is Frans getting rid of the old hounds?”

“No, Baas, Baas Fransie is needing the young ones to do the work, Baas.”

“Katjie, you’re much too old to run away, that’s for children.” He jests with her like he jests with the young girls working at the co-op.

Her face shows nothing but her voice is deflated. “Oumeid’s taken the road so many times, nowhere to go, so many struggles. Oumeid can’t any more.”

“And who says I can help?”

The old couple look up unsurely but resigned.

“For sure you cannot stay here.” Their father measures the situation, the canal and the mattress, the faded clothing drying on the bushes. “It’s dangerous and the water scheme will be coming down soon, before we know it, you two gryskoppe are off to the big waters.”

Danie whispers in his father’s ear.

“Outa’s hands are still fine for fencing, Baas.”

Their father throws his hands in the air. “Oh please, Jan, the farm is beginning to look like an old age home.” He touches his silver moustache. “Here is enough of this.”

Jan Wanie laughs, encouraged by their father’s good humour, but Katjie is not.

“The klong’s plan is still the best. Move your things to Poppenshuis, there on the hill.” His father gestures to a one-roomed clay structure. “I’ll send David with the tractor to collect you; the last thing I want is a blocked water pipe in the middle of summer.”

“Thank you, Baas.” Jan Wanie bows again, repeating his thanks over and over.

Their father walks back to the idling Ford. Isak runs after him. “Who is Outa, Pappa?”

On the back seat is a golf bag and studded shoes.

“Your ouma’s helper.” His father rests his shoe on the running board of the car, wiping the dust off with a chamois, then he does it with the other. “She picked him up on the way back to the Boland from out of Bechuanaland. He was just a baby, sitting next to the road.” He pauses before climbing in. “Go back and tell Outa he must get rid of the mongrel.”

Isak walks back to the canal to where Danie is playing with the dog, Spyker.

“Pappa says you must tell Outa to get rid of the mongrel.”

How he wishes he had thought of the plan of Poppenshuis.

* * *

Coloured lights are strung through the trees. Arum lilies with droopy leaves line the windowsills of the house. Masses of trumpet-shaped heads saved from the hall, piled into his mother’s Datsun for the party.

But his mother couldn’t save the orchids. The cleaners trampled them all.

Isak watches his father instructing the men, surrounded by the lilies, and he is singing the chorus with Nana Mouskouri on the hi-fi.

The wreath that Tannie Lettie laid on Oupa’s coffin was of lilies, he thinks, everlasting lilies of plastic.

The men shift Ouma’s clawed furniture to make space for dancing and their boots leave treads all over the floor. David is at the front door making the bar counter from fruit crates, while in the kitchen Danie nibbles on fatty pieces of gammon. Isak takes a rind and it tastes of cloves.

“Out from under my feet, scoot!” Raatjie catches them both, waving the carving knife wildly.

Together they duck for the back door.

Along the stoep wall are zinc baths filled with blocks of ice and bottles. Isak takes a bottle, hiding it in the hydrangea bush.

“Mamma isn’t keen for tonight.” He digs out the torn paper with the list of party names, screws it up in a ball, then throws it across the lawn.

“Are you off to Pettie?”

“Mamma wants us at the party” He spits between his feet, “and Pettie has a girl.”

The posy still stands on the windowsill in the kitchen, wilted then dried out from the sun. He must remember to throw it away.

“Whose beer?” Danie lifts the floppy hydrangea head.

“Mine, who else’s? I’m not a child any more.”

“The nooi is calling,” Raatjie shouts at them.

She sits on her puff chair with the ostrich feather trim, wearing a satin gown and pom-pom slippers. Her cutexed toes stick out.

“Bath and get ready so you’re not late when I need you. The guests will be here anytime.”

They stand at the door staring at the back of her head covered in large curlers.

“Ja, Mamma,” they answer in unison, but they don’t turn away.

Her dress hangs from the door, red and silky with flowers embroidered around the neckline.

“Mamma’s dress is beautiful.” Danie fingers the fabric.

“Don’t touch.” She swivels on the stool with her lollipop head. “Shoo, shoo, go and bath.” Then she turns back to the mirror studying her reflection with concentration. Carefully, she unwinds the large curls. “Sakkie, tell Ragel that when she’s finished slicing the meat she can go but she must make sure she’s back by sevenish.”

“Ja, Mamma.” His fingers brush over the sequins.

“Close the door.”

“Ja, Mamma.”

The kitchen is deserted. Raatjie has left and so have the men. His father sits in the lounge with closed eyes, wearing his cream suit and red shirt. The music of earlier plays on and on.

In the bathroom he closes the plastic curtain around the bath, pressing against the metal head. He thinks of Petrus and the girl under the eucalyptus trees, the curve of her breast, and her skin the colour of bark. As the water sprays hard against the curtain he sees Magdaleen, hairless legs wrapped around those of Willa on the back seat of the bus. He imagines the useless posy gripped by perfect half-moon fingernails and she smiling at him and the tightness in his hand is embarrassing so he closes the hot water and the stream of cold brings relief.

Their navy suits are matching. Danie is dirty but dressed. Isak rubs his chin but there is nothing. Stiffly, they sit opposite each other, waiting, hands in their pockets, listening to her coming down the passage.

“How do I look?” She turns around, holding out her skirt and the sequins twinkle.

“Mamma is beautiful.” Danie whispers in awe at the sight of her in red.

“I can’t seem to get my hair to lie flat, here at the back.” She twists her head to see better. “It doesn’t want to come right.”

“Mamma’s hair is beautiful.” Danie tries again.

She opens a monogrammed case, removing a slim cigarette. Her red-tipped hand cups the flame from the lighter, then she tilts her head back, drawing deeply.

Motorcars come up the hill, a shiny cavalcade of the latest models.

“I must go.” She stubs the cigarette in the case’s lid.

The guests are in the entrance. Their father greets them in his having-a-good-time voice.

“Sakkie, call Ragel in about half an hour, I’m scared she forgets.”

“Ja, Mamma.” He wants to tell her that she looks pretty but her face is closed to him.

Down in the lounge the music’s volume has been turned up. The guests speak louder and louder, while David pours gin and tonics in frosted highballs. He wears a white cummerbund and a tailed suit that makes him look like a silent movie comedian. The boys sit under the stairs. They can see everybody from here, men in tight suits and women with bouffed hair.

“The council is having an election soon.” Oom Frans’s lips hardly move as he speaks to Oom Stoffel, unaware of the boys beneath the step.

“We’ll have to speak to the men seriously, something’s brewing.” Oom Stoffel raises his hand to another man across the room.

“The fellows will have to stand together this time to stop the Sappe.” Oom Frans leans against the banister: “Johan, is busy wooing our lot.”

“And their wives.”

The men laugh, their attention on the woman from the exhibition hall. Her hair is silky and her black dress cut low. Isak’s mother spots him and the two men make way for her, Oom Frans kissing her hand. Her lipstick has shifted to the rim of her glass.

“Sakkie,” she lisps his name ever so slightly, “Rageltjie hasn’t arrived. Be a darling for Mamma and call her for me, David says she was at the house when he left.”

“Two good-looking farm lads,” Oom Stoffel comments, and his mother smiles dreamily as Isak appears from behind the step.

“Coming?” Isak asks.

“No.” Danie’s eyes are glued on the crowd.

“Hurry,” she touches Isak’s arm with the red nails, holding out her glass to Oom Frans.

“Keep your enemy close to your chest,” Oom Frans says over his shoulder to Oom Stoffel, as he guides her up the stairs to the bar.

Outside, under fairy lights of green and red and blue, Outa and Piet Plesier share a bottle. They guard the rows of cars parked on the lawn, chatting quietly while Isak slips by unnoticed. The latest model of the Ford Capri stands out amongst the other sleek lines. Isak stops to admire its shark-faced grill.

He walks under the avenue of trees. The smiling dog is just in front. They stop at David and Raatjie’s house, locked and dark. Isak walks around to the place of the bonfire, just a black spot on the ground. The smiling dog sits close to him and he runs his hands through its hair. He likes the feeling of the dog’s skin against his own.

The rose growing over the stoep is a rose from Ouma’s garden. He cannot pronounce its name, the roses that his father put on Ouma and Oupa’s grave.

“Where the bloody hell is she?” He likes swearing in English like Oupa used to do. In thought, he presses his nose into the petals, smelling the sweet fragrance. Petrus is with the girl. That he knows for sure.

Across the orchards a single light burns from Poppenshuis. There’s a second light coming from the foreman’s house. He drops the rose, making his way in the dark to the dimly lit stoep. Music and laughter drift with the evening breeze from the house on the hill.

The moon and stars are clouded over by a heavy sky.

The foreman’s house is locked and shuttered but from within come voices strident and high. Isak pulls and pushes. The clip gives way and the shutter opens, revealing a brightly lit room. Petrus sits on the sofa singing falsetto, strumming the give-away guitar of his father.

Isak blinks his eyes to adjust. It is Oom Kalla in the middle of the room, sleekly Brylcreemed, shuffling with bowlegs to the voice of Petrus. His arms are draped around the shoulders of Raatjie. She wears her new pink overall meant for the party. Her face is hidden in his shirt. Oom Kalla licks an ice cream cone. Now and again he kisses the top of her head to the beat of the music.

Isak closes the shutter. Raatjie will not be doing the evening shift. He drags his feet up the path to the house through rows and rows of new trees with spindly branches that claw at him. The clouds part above the mountain and he can see a scattering of stars and the outline of the moon.

Ahead the house glows with light. Someone stands in the shadows of the front stoep. As he comes closer, there is not one but two and the laugh is a laugh he knows.

Light from smoking candles flits over black and raw silk.