Читать книгу Dandelion Diary - Marguerite Black - Страница 7

All through my childhood, I was fascinated by birds. There was something captivating about those bright creatures, suspended in air, effortlessly soaring on the wind. My mom used to read me a book about a little bird that was orphaned when it fell from its nest. It came into contact with the horrible world out there, mistaking a bulldozer for its mother and unsuccessfully seeking warmth from the machine. The book had a light blue cover with sticky marks on it – testimony to being fingered often by toddlers. The book had quite an effect on Malcolm and me. We would rescue doves with broken wings all along Wiltshire Crescent, the street in which we lived. Our rescuing equipment consisted of stainless steel pots. We would put the feathered victims inside the pots, cover them with the lids, carry them home and put them in cardboard boxes lined with leaves and grass. They rarely survived, being pestered by prying cats and dogs, or plagued by colonies of ants, which swamped their man-made nests.

We would often tear ourselves from the allure of nature when the shelves upon shelves of books beckoned us inside. Our love of stories culminated in the publication of one of my mom’s children’s books. She dedicated the book to her children. We swelled with pride and joy. In our eyes, our mom was a literary genius. She told us stories of flying children and aliens, as well as scary ghost stories that had been passed down through the generations from my great-grandmother to my mother. They never failed to enchant us. Magical trains, animated hippopotami and nosy, big-bottomed characters unlocked undiscovered worlds for us.

More stories entered our lives through the enticing little black box in the corner of our living room. Ours wasn’t the most sophisticated I’d ever seen: Despite the bunny ears, perched on top, the picture was still mostly blurred. However, we were never encouraged to watch TV. I once overheard my mom saying laughingly to a friend: “I think they much prefer a glass of Nestlé chocolate milk and a nice book before bed!”

Nonetheless, I was obsessed with our first TV set. I would be glued to it every Tuesday at four o’clock in the afternoon when my favourite children’s show would come up. It was about a baby bird with a broken wing and there was a theme song that was sung soulfully in minor chords: “If Only Cheep Could Fly”. I would often chant it almost ritualistically. I still remember many evenings sitting in front of the hazy screen, relishing a packet of Rowntree’s Fruit Gums and listening to the enchanting theme song of The Thorn Birds and the riveting introductory line: “a love – unattainable, forbidden, forever …”

Perhaps because of the stringent rules concerning TV watching, a prominent feature of my childhood was the cinema, His Majesty’s. The town gathered in this movie house of Fifties charm. I was convinced that the Grahamstown grapevine had its roots here. The velvet curtains, dramatically draped on either side of the rows of seats, had a sort of weathered wisdom about them, as if they had absorbed the town’s melodrama and gossip. The plastic chairs failed miserably at being comfortable and throughout a movie it felt as if your sitting bones were digging through the bucket seat.

One day I went to see ET with Malcolm and some friends. When we all walked out into the glaring sunlight after the movie, everyone looked down in an attempt to hide their tear-stained cheeks. But I heard my friends exclaiming loudly and pointing at the back of my head: “What’s that in your hair, Margs!?” My hand reached up into my hair and I felt a gooey blob of chewing gum firmly rooted in my recently cut bob hairstyle. I felt a pang of intense pity for poor ET as I stood in the middle of a mob of children, pointing their fingers at me and laughing loudly. Instantly I knew ET’s feeling of otherness.

There was one other instance in which I felt this otherness: I started to get asthma and the doctor told me to swim it away. My mom promptly responded by enrolling me (and Malcolm) for swimming lessons that took place at the crack of dawn. We were left to a merciless instructor who hurled abuse at us when our heads were above water: “You miserable little drowning rats! Get your act together!” He screamed instructions at us when our heads were below: “Keep your fingers together when you do the stroke and don’t – and I repeat – don’t come up for breath only on one side!” It was a recipe for disaster that left both of us capable of mustering only a rudimentary doggy paddle.

I much preferred playing with my canary yellow hula-hoop. I could keep the hula-hoop going for four minutes flat while kneeling, clapping my hands and turning around.

Another activity that I loved was unwrapping the Chappies that I bought at Naran’s corner café, and blowing exaggerated bubbles of bright pink gum. Sometimes I would bunk Sunday school, guiltily ignoring that source of higher guidance and swapping it for the writing on the back of the wrappers. I would sit amongst the sedge flowers between the dam and the railway line on the hill while reading those erudite Did You Know’s.

Malcolm and I

I remember a blistering December afternoon with the mid-day sun beating down on us. Malcolm and I dawdled towards a yesterday-today-and-tomorrow bush at the bottom of the garden. My mom called out in a far-away tone of voice: “Peanut-butter sandwiches for you two. You need some flesh on those bones, sweeties!”

In a flurry of arms and legs, we scuttled to the kitchen and came back, trying to balance trays filled with thickly sliced sandwiches and glasses of icy orange cordial. Starving, we sat down under the shrub, where we attacked the food with a vengeance.

From the tomato box of secrets that we kept under the shrub carrying small purple and white flowers, we unearthed a book called It’s a Wonderful World. I had hidden it there and told Malcolm: “Cross your heart and hope to die. If Ma finds out, she’ll take it to the stuffy study again.”

I couldn’t find it in my heart to force it in between other dull books in a dark bookshelf. Malcolm giggled, but made a solemn promise. The spine of the book was unravelling and the pages had begun to fade, developing a yellowish tinge. In bold letters it proclaimed: “A treasury of knowledge all in colour”. I turned to page five, unable to contain my excitement, and shoved the book onto Malcolm’s lap so he would read to me. He put on a tour guide demeanour and started reading: “The Gypsies’ homes on wheels … Five hundred and fifty years ago there appeared in Europe wandering bands of a handsome, independent race, fond of music, dance and song: the Gypsies.”

Abruptly I interrupted him: “You know, we’ve got Gypsy blood. Grandma has been to all four corners of the earth. And one day I’m going to marry a real Scandinavian prince …”

As if entranced by my words, Malcolm sprang to his feet and cried: “Well, I’m going to search for enemies on the hill.” We always imagined hordes of neighbourhood children threatening our gang’s fort on the hill.

He left me gazing into the turquoise sky, imagining how different my life would be as a Gypsy: I would rub noses with an Eskimo, swing wildly on the arms of a windmill and follow the great herds of reindeer with the Lapps, all in one week.

The sun started mellowing and a lonely bateleur eagle flew over me in its quick and quiet way, crying out sharply. I got to my feet and went to look for Malcolm who was still playing on the hillside. Dusk, a charcoal cloak, was rapidly enfolding us, but despite the stillness I could feel a thunderstorm approaching.

During the day time there was always a sense of control, but at that moment we were like thistledown going on an unknown journey, being tossed around by air currents. I felt deeply unsure, as if I were blindfolded, but the air was bustling with activity. Lizards were scurrying in the undergrowth and a spotted eagle owl was frenetically flying about. It settled in a Jerusalem thorn tree, coldly peering at me. The rims of its eyes were red and the centres were intensely black, drawing me into its binocular-like vision. Then Malcolm tugged at me from behind and I quickly swirled around, looking into his relieved, but frightened eyes.

It started to rain and we scrambled towards the house, picking up speed and huddling closely together in a mutual attempt to seek a bit of warmth. Suddenly, a vacant look crossed Malcolm’s eyes and, as if besieged by an electric current, he started dancing wildly, catapulting through the veld towards home, with arms and legs flapping in all directions. I also started dancing a shamanic earth dance and joined Malcolm in his trance-like state through the shrubs.

In the east, more dark thunderclouds gathered in a furious display. Varicose veins of lightning traced the sky and mapped out hitherto undiscovered ways and routes. It was as if this celestial spectacle was nature’s way of alleviating the earth’s tension. As we passed, a bull terrier dropped its tail in submission and whimpered at a back door.

At last, we’d made our way to the garden gate, the earthy smell of the compost heap intermingling with the nocturnal scent of petunias. Miriam was standing under the loquat tree, frantically stripping clothes off the washing line. She looked up at the sight of two delicate children standing forlornly under the livid skies, and in a blind maternal rush she darted towards us. Her hips swayed from side to side while she took turns at piggybacking each of us to the porch. We threw ourselves over the threshold, drenched and bedazzled. We felt a sense of pride as if we’d just successfully completed an integral rite of passage, but my parents were beside themselves with worry. My mom dried us, dressed us warmly and tucked us into bed with hot chocolate and pancakes. I felt warm and sheltered: I wished for this bliss to last forever.

Even the thunderstorm was safely out there. Through the window I could see the lightning or the impundulu as it was known around those parts. Miriam once described it: “It is a white bird with bright red marks on it. when I was a child, men in my village sometimes tried to kill it with assegais before it could get to the earth.” As I thought of imaginary assegais protecting us from all extraneous elements I fell into a deep sleep.