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Chapter 2

Rule Brittania

If Nosizwe was born with a beaded silver spoon, Lauren was born with a wooden one. Her father, old imperial British stock, inherited a Stellenbosch vineyard and within five years of his marriage to Lauren’s mother had drunk the profits away and mismanaged the farm so spectacularly that they had to sell it to a nouveau riche Afrikaner.

Not wanting to put a white man out to pasture (and maybe to push some Boer-English buttons while doing it), the Afrikaner farmer gave Lauren’s father a managerial position on the farm which had originally belonged to him, and Lauren grew up as an Anglo plaasmeisie, without the plaas. Her mother had, apparently, never forgiven her father for pitching them into poverty and Lauren grew up with a mother who whined about how things could have been and a father who would drink too much and then beat her mother up. Ostensibly for ‘blaming him’ for their unfortunate position.

Lauren went to school with the farmer’s children and when she finished high school, she got a scholarship to Wits and never looked back.

‘You know Thandi, when I left Stellenbosch I told myself I would never go back there,’ she once confided, ‘I wouldn’t even go to my father’s funeral if he died. The man is a bastard. I don’t only hate him for the way he drinks and beats my mother; I can’t get over the fact that he drank away my trust fund and I had to apply for a scholarship to university.’

It could be a sign of her Electra Complex (thank you Dr Freud – although why she should want to possess her father is beyond me) that Lauren ended up marrying a man who also tends to drink a little too much. Fortunately for Lauren, her husband Michael is a lamb. Save for moments of possessiveness and ordering her about when he is drunk, he’s a needy child to Lauren’s big mama character.

When I first got to know her, Lauren told me that to escape the abuse drama, her mother would often reminisce about how British royal blood coursed through their veins – whatever colour that was in that inbred monarchy. Thus began Lauren’s love affair with The Royal Family and royal memorabilia. A love affair she now shares with another royalist who acts like she came from African aristocratic stock – Siz’s mother.

As if her Anglophilia were not laughable enough, Lauren has to make it more comical. Just last week she was bragging to Siz and me that she had enrolled her eldest daughter, Elizabeth (yes, named after the other more famous Liz), in a Sotho class. Siz and I were baffled.

‘Maybe this is Lauren’s attempt at White Cultural Empowerment,’ Siz suggested. ‘If the whites know what the natives are saying then they can stay ahead of the BEE boat.’

‘It’s always about black and white with you two isn’t it?’ sneered Lauren. ‘As a matter of fact, I enrolled her because Prince Harry is always going to Lesotho and, who knows . . . she is almost a teenager. If she speaks Sotho well enough, being a translator could just be her way back to our royal roots.’

Siz and I gawped. This was even better than WCE. That said, nothing is ever black and white in this country and as much as Lauren brags about her aristocratic background, she is equally touchy about her Africanness. She is constantly trying to ‘prove’ how we are all immigrants to South Africa, and so are all equally African. This normally leads to amusing run-ins between her and Siz.

Nosizwe argues that in all the forms issued at all the post-apartheid institutions she has visited, she has always seen ‘race’ followed by African, Coloured, White or Asian. If whites are Africans, as the apartheid regime liked to insist, why aren’t they making as much noise about the racial classification on institutional forms as they are about Afrikaans language usage in public institutions or Black Economic Empowerment? At this point, Lauren usually gets stumped and takes it as a cue to launch an anti-Mugabe rant. Interestingly, she has never been to Zimbabwe.

An English lecturer at Wits University, Lauren loves knowledge and children. In no particular order. Therefore it should come as no surprise when I tell you that, at thirty-two, Lauren is still studying – this time for her doctorate in English Literature. She has also been breeding since she and Michael got married immediately after she got her BA at the age of twenty-one. With four biological children and hundreds of university students, Lauren rarely dresses up and is perpetually kitted out in khakis and one of Michael’s shirts.

Although she loves children, I do not quite understand why Lauren had four of her own. When she is reading a good book (which is more often than you know), she shuns motherly responsibility entirely and gives the children to her maid, MaRosie. This may explain why the last two enunciated ‘Rosie’ before they could say Mama. ‘When they are good, they are mine,’ she likes to joke. ‘When they are noisy, they are MaRosie’s.’

Lauren and I met when my family moved in next door. Realising I had no sugar for that refreshing cup of tea one simply must have after unpacking, and noting that I was surrounded by white people in my new home, I tentatively rang her gate bell. She seemed the less intimidating and more liberal of my two neighbours. I had judged correctly. She and Mike invited us in and Mike and Mandla were soon sharing a six-pack while my son, Hintsa, had quickly become ‘just like a brother’ to Junior, Elizabeth, Charles and Diana. Lauren and I got along like a house on fire and in no time she became the third member of the Awesome Twosome that Siz and I had been.

Lauren has one major flaw, though . . . and that is her inherent racism. She does not notice it, or chooses to say she doesn’t, but Siz and I can tell from the way she treats her maid. You would think a progressive someone in a progressive institute of higher learning would not have the hang-ups of other white surburbanites, but nope. She tells Siz and me ‘I love everyone’. She always gives money to begging white alcoholics holding placards at the traffic lights reading: ‘Four children, all unemployed because of BEE; wife dead; farm taken by Mugabe’s government,’ but she treats simple, hard-working, poor, black folk with suspicion. I recall one time a pair of her shoes went missing and she was on the brink of firing Rosie when she found them on the back seat of her car. You would think, of course, that since MaRosie is so good with her children she would respect her as an equal, but sadly no . . . and this bothers me.

Because Lauren is my neighbour I, more than Siz or anyone else, see the treatment she metes out to MaRosie. It’s a source of constant annoyance to see someone older than my mother treated with so much contempt by someone who, by the grace of heavens, is neither of her race nor her child. Poor Rosie, who Lauren considers ‘part of the family’ (a poor relation maybe?) has to wake up at four-thirty to iron everybody’s clothes before they go to work or school because Lauren always insists that clothes should be ‘freshly pressed’. Rosie then has to make breakfast. Even in these days of fortified cereals, Lauren insists on Rosie making a full English every day of the week. ‘You know breakfast is the most important meal of the day,’ Lauren justifies when I question her about this interesting habit. No wonder Lauren and her babies are all a little horizontally-gifted.

Because of Lauren’s size, I enjoy going shopping with her because, for once, I can have a bigger female friend to ask: ‘Do I look fat in this?’ even when I know I look damn good. I have often thought that maybe Lauren treats MaRosie the way she does so that she can feel good about herself. ‘I am white. I have a good job. I PAY you. Get it together,’ seems to be her attitude.

But when I see the relationship that Lauren has with Ma, I wonder whether she really is a racist, or whether I am just racially sensitive. Maybe she is just ‘classist’? Lauren and Siz’s mother burn the phone lines between East London and Johannesburg, for no apparent reason other than to confide about the latest royal scandal or royal outfit. In our private conversations, Siz and I often imitate them.

Siz as Ma: ‘You won’t believe this . . . I just found out that Queen Elizabeth and I share not only the same dislike for people who act in a common way, but also the same birthday.’

Me as Lauren: ‘I know. I forgot to tell you that when I was reading the official biography I noted that she was also born on the twenty-first of April. That’s probably why you are such a strong person, Ma . . . and very colour-coordinated, just like the Queen. Although, I must say, even when you reach her age I think you will still be looking better than her. You do know we’re actually related? My mother’s cousin was married to the Queen’s second cousin twice removed.’

Siz as Ma: ‘Of course my darling, but back to me. My girl, you know God didn’t fault me in the looks department. In fact, maybe we should try to see the Queen and give her some fashion advice. I think you and I should go to the Chelsea Flower Show next month.’

Me as Lauren: ‘I was just thinking about that. There might be some Americans there who we can teach a thing or two about culture.’

Siz as Ma: ‘Truly, my child. You are right. You are always right darling. And a True Leo. Why can’t Nosizwe and Thandi be more like you?’

Siz and I have nicknamed Lauren and Mama ‘OBE’s’ – Odious Babes of the Empire.