Should Be
I sit on my bum, looking at ants crawling into grass.
They are busy, like Mommy was always busy. They bump into one another, say things in ant talk, then hurry past my feet.
The cat is next to me. Looking away, looking at something under the big tree next to the dustbin. I know the dustbin lorry came today, but I missed it.
Mommy should be inside, running my bath. Busy like an ant.
Mommy should be outside, pulling in the emptied bin. Busy like an ant.
Mommy should be pouring pellets into Sneakers’ tin bowl.
Mommy should be busy.
Mommy should be.
Mommy should be an ant.
I find little Charlie sitting on the front pathway, watching ants. I sit down on the stoep step, behind him. Place my long hand on his small, thin, breakable shoulder.
You want to know where Mommy is, don’t you Charlie?
He turns his hanging, slow head, looks back at me, nods.
I wish I could tell you, my boy. I wish I knew.
There is something I do know, Charlie. I know where your Mommy was. And you know what? By looking at where your Mommy was, the things she did, you’ll know where she is now.
Look at those ants. Remember when your Mommy caught you frying ants on the braai coals? You threw them in the coals, and what did she say?
She said Come here, Charlie. Look over here. That ant told something to this ant here. And this ant here is telling something to that ant there. Now what if this ant here went into the braai, before he told that ant there what he must know? Remember, Charlie?
Your Mommy said Ants must be left to live just like you. They’ve got messages to pass on, work to do. You cook one, and the others are in a stew.
Did you keep frying ants, Charlie?
Oh, and how your Mommy loved music. What’s your favourite song? ‘Bless her Beautiful Hide’? From which musical is that? Of course! ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’. You like to play the part of the oldest brother, Adam, don’t you?
I remember your Mommy saying she would love to be pulled out a window by brother Benjamin. She thought Benjamin so handsome.
Like you, you’re handsome. Your Mommy said you’d have seven brides all to yourself one day. She thought about moving. You know, to a place where you’re allowed to have more than one wife.
I see the bin is still out. If you run around the back and open the gate, I’ll pull it in.
How about that?
And Sneakers hasn’t been fed? Okay. We’ll do that too.
Auntie Barbara, do you know how to make an ant farm? My friend, Mia, she’s got an earthworm farm. I’d like an ant farm.
I’m going to open the gate now. Please be careful when you pull the bin in. There’s a spider that lives on the bin, near the wheels, and Mommy always said Where are you, Creeper? before she pulled the bin in. So please don’t squash Creeper.
Do you have a plastic bukkie for me, Auntie Barbara? One with a lid? Mommy gave me bukkies with lids to collect things. I think there’s something in that bush.
I always let the creatures go.
Tea with Mrs Bell
For me, syringa flowers always dominated those late afternoons, their heavy perfume forming an invisible fairy ring around our garden gate. Flanking the gravel driveway were baby roses that Mommy made into dainty posies bound by silver doilies. Our thatched roof was wearing thin in places and varnish flaked from the sash window frames. 'Ludlow' belonged to Aunt Maud from Swakopmund and we struggled to pay the monthly rent of £11.
Surrounding the stone birdbath a flurry of doves were queuing for their evening shower. Drooping willows overhung them, motionless. A rabbit popped up from the flower bed its white tail, punctuating the orange and yellow nasturtiums like giant full stops. I was sitting cross-legged in the tree-house that uncle Cyril had built for my tenth birthday observing granny and Mrs Harry, a neighbour from across the road, having sundowners on the lawn below.
Granny was saying: 'I do so love coming to stay with my daughter and the children here in Somerset West – it's so quiet and clean compared to the grime and bustle of Cape Town, but I also enjoy the daily outings to town with my dear friend, Mrs Bell. I stay at the Gardens Residential Hotel and she lives a block away in a room at number 50 Orange Street. Neither of us has space for 'At Homes' and anyway no one seems to have time for them anymore.
'So, promptly at 10.15 every morning, I walk up to meet her and we stand at the bus stop waiting for the trackless tram to trundle down from Oranjezicht. The conductor, Jim, is a real gentleman. He takes us by the elbow and helps us onto the platform. From there he ushers us to our customary seat among the other regulars. Only then does he allow the driver to proceed. Invariably along the way a tram has become detached from the overhead wires. Its huge antennae dangle from the roof like broken locusts' legs while the unfortunate passengers are left stranded on the pavement.
'By 11 o'clock we are seated in the tearoom at Stuttafords. Amy, cheerful as ever, takes our order. Mrs Bell always has her cream scone with strawberry jam while I love those dainty egg mayonnaise triangles nestling on shredded lettuce. We share a large pot of well-brewed Ceylon. Mrs Bell helps herself to three lumps of sugar lumps but I decline. You see, I gave it up for Lent at boarding school all those years ago when I was eleven.'
Granny paused: 'Would you like another gin and tonic, Mrs Harry?'
'No thanks, Mrs Ferris. I really must be running along!'
The marmalade cat stretched, got up slowly and sauntered off in the direction of the bird bath. An agitated twittering and splashing ensued as the bathers hastily took flight. But Ginger, posing no threat whatsoever, was otherwise occupied, discretely covering her deposit under the pink roses!
The House of Galceti
Today I am to marry la Paola. It is over five years now since my Maria died giving birth to Gina, our youngest. A woman is necessary in a house. The children are growing wild like rabbits let loose in a field. The boys are a gang of young ruffians. The girls are coquettes, who will soon get into trouble without a mother.
My second wedding will take place at ten o’clock. Paola has asked the priest from the village to act as God’s agent and perform the rites of marriage. It will be a fiercely hot day.
Paola has opened all the shutters in my room. She is a good woman. I see the gated Villa Fiorini in the distance, and the rolling green hills of Galceti where my mother was born.
The celebrations went on till late last night. They came from far and wide to wish Enrico Luchi well on the night before his wedding. The pungent odours of bread yeast and young wine rise from the courtyard as the men scrub and hose, singing a song that sounds left over from their drunken dreams.
I am Enrico Luchi, sole surviving son of Mauro and Idonetta Luchi. I have survived two world wars, the birth of six children – all alive and healthy, Grazie a Dio – and the death of my first wife. And now I am to remarry.
La Paola and the girls are busy downstairs, laying the tables in the restaurant for the wedding guests, with the white tablecloths and the crockery and cutlery that are used for all God’s occasions. The intense heat of the midday sun is still four hours away. Here inside it is as cool and dark as a cave. My father built this house in Galceti with his farm hands to withstand storm and grief, and to provide hospitality and shelter to the travellers who passed by on the road that runs directly in front of its doors. When I was a small boy it was nothing more than a bicycle track, but I watched it widen under my father’s instructions, until as a young man I saw the German soldiers pass this way with their tanks. Now it is a main road taking heavy traffic from Prato to Pisa, the gateway to the Adriatic sea. It is certain that one day – perhaps before La Torre di Pisa can lean no further – it will be a highway to the provinces of the North. When that day comes they will bring in the bulldozers, and the house of Galceti will be brought to its knees.
Maria was the girl of my dreams. Her father has outlived her. He lives at the Villa Fiorini as a paying guest. He keeps his shutters closed so he does not have to see the house of the Luchi’s. He still blames me for her death. I stole her from him and married her.
It was not a courtship like other noble girls had. I kidnapped her and then married her. She agreed to it all, once I had explained. The old monk married us. He was terrified of her father, Il Baronetto, but he was more terrified of me, the eldest and wildest of the Luchi sons.
I rode past Villa Fiorini on my bicycle each day, on my way to the Luchi lands and back. Sometimes I would see her walking in the garden. I spent every free moment writing love poems dedicated to her, and threw them over the wall for her to find. At first she walked with her large dogs, who barked if I stopped in front of the gates. But soon she locked them away.
On Saturdays there was dancing in the town square. But Maria was not allowed to attend. I had no interest in any other woman. It was Maria or no-one. My mother grew concerned when I became feverish and lost my appetite. Finally, when I refused to eat a delicacy of fried pumpkin flowers, she sent me to a doctor. I agreed to go to put her mind at rest, although I knew he would find nothing. To be sick with love is not a disease a doctor can diagnose, any more than a man can know what is on the moon.
Matters became worse. The Luchi family was not much affected by the war except that we had to play host to the German soldiers. We were fortunate to have farmlands and the restaurant. We were not any trouble to anybody so the Germans came to eat good food and wine, and to sing and dance with the unmarried girls, and then they left.
But at the Villa Fiorini they were less fortunate. The Germans commandeered the villa to use as their headquarters. It was whispered in the piazza that Il Baronetto had sold his soul to the devil. I suffered silently, a thousand plagues burning me up, imagining my Maria surrounded by German officers.
One afternoon a week Maria was allowed out of the gates of her family home. She took sewing lessons with an old cripple woman in the village. It was on one such day that I acted. While my brother Gespardo distracted the elderly housekeeper who accompanied her, I grabbed hold of Maria, leapt on my bike and pedalled off with her in my arms, straight to the old monk. How she laughed at my foolish courage that day!
When her father came to bang at the big wooden front doors of Galceti, shouting blasphemies and raining curses down on my head, it was already too late. Maria and I lay together in my narrow bed, untouchable in our happiness. He never spoke to her from that day on. She suffered this separation from her family for me.
La Paola is a girl I have known all my life. The daughter of my father’s good friend. Maria has agreed to my plan. I have explained everything to her, that she is my only love and the bride of my dreams, but the children need a woman around, and a stepmother is better than no mother.
Paola understands. We will have separate quarters. We will live as man and wife. She is barren so there will be no children. This is a relief to me. I will honour and respect her, as a man must a woman whom he freely chooses to marry. I will overlook her peasant ways and she will take care of my family, and open and close my shutters every day. Her aunt who approached me spoke highly of the unmarried girl, saying that she could cook and clean and mend socks neatly, adding that her poor dead mother was a good honest woman who had taught her daughter well.
I brought Maria back to the house of her family, after Gina was born. It was the least I could do. The old monk (the very same who married us) commended her spirit to God. We buried her body in the stone-walled cemetery behind the gates of Villa Fiorini, all built in the eighteenth century by Il Grande, the first Baron Fiorini. I have never been back, although no locks stop me now.
After the war Il Baronetto, now penniless and alone in the dilapidated mansion, sold his family inheritance. Villa Fiorini and all its grounds went for a pittance to the new communist municipality. The communists wasted no time in turning it into a sanatorium for the people who suffered from nervous ailments; there were enough of those needing refuge after the war. In recent years, as part of Il Rinascimento, the state has provided funds and expertise to restore the old villas. So Villa Fiorini will have a new lease on life. They tell me the sanatorium is overrun with trained restorers from the cities, and that one day it will be open to the public. Occasionally I get news of Il Baronetto, from those who still visit family at the Villa Fiorini. Il Baronetto eats less than a sparrow, and insists that his shutters be kept closed at all times. He is withering away.
La Paola comes in with my necktie. I let her put it on under the white collar. Her cool fingers work with stiff exactitude. The sky outside is a flaming blue. I close my eyes for a moment.
I can feel the warm sunshine on my head, Maria leaning back in my arms, her black hair wrapping itself around my neck, the sound of bicycle wheels, turning and turning. Peals of laughter rise and fall with each breath she takes. I am nineteen years old and time has stopped. We are immortal.
My Grandfather
I am both excited and nervous as I ring the doorbell of the boarding house where my grandfather lives. Excited because I want to introduce my fiancé to him, and nervous because I know how forthright he can be.
I clutch Ervin's hand tightly as the door is opened and we are shown to grandfather's living quarters; it is naturally grossly overcrowded with possessions too precious to discard, our nostrils are assailed by the smell of memories of yesteryear enveloped in mothballs, soap and disinfectant; held together with a fine covering of dust.
'Hello Grandpa,' I stammer.
'Vell! Vot brinks you here all of a sudden?' he booms out before I can give any reason or explanation. I have an instant recall of how he used to bellow at me when I was a child. In his grocery store I would try to snatch a sweet or a biscuit but he would be on top of me in a flash 'You should esk; you can't just take vitout esking first. Now put it bek and esk first next time.' His heavy Russian accent added to his formidable physique was enough to frighten the boots off anyone.
'Grandpa,' I stammer, almost apologetically, 'I want to introduce you to my fiancé, Ervin. We are engaged and intend getting married early next year' I wait for his response.
He puffs out his chest and peers over his glasses, taking a little while before he utters a word. To me it seemed like an hour. Then smacking his clean shaven cheeks with both hands his mouth curls down at the corners and he shakes his head. In a parental, almost condescending manner he repeats my words, 'So you are engaged and you vont to marry this young boy? Vot nonsense are you talking! He should grow up a little first…get an education…earn a living…then you can come back and tell me your plans.'
I feel Ervin cringing beside me. I squeeze his hand tightly to stop him from responding.
'But Grandpa, you don't understand…'
'Vot are you saying? You are pregnant perhaps and have to get married? It is important to be respectable!'
'But Grandpa you must listen. No, I am not pregnant. Let me tell you about him. He is not such a young boy even though he looks much younger than his age. He is actually 25 years old and he has completed his university studies. He is an electrical engineer and working for a big company in town!'
'Pshah!' he splutters. 'I don't believe… hev you got proof…are you sure?'
Ervin can not contain himself any longer 'Sir,' he says'I can bring my degree to show you. On the certificate it is clearly shown what my qualifications are!'
I hear the agitation in his voice. We are all getting a bit edgy, so I end the conversation with a promise to return the next day with the necessary documents.
We did as had been promised. Grandfather glanced at the official document; grunting something about it being written in Latin. He told us to leave it with him and come back in a few days and we can then have a full discussion on the matter.
A week later we again stood on his doorstep.
'Come in and sit!' he commanded. 'I vont to vish you a heppy marriage. Dis is all in order.' Tapping the side of his nose with his finger, he winked at me and said 'You hev a very clever man, he should make a good husband for you. I took the degree to the library and sat with the Latin dictionary and translated all the vords. I am impressed; even Cum Laude – with distinction!' He stood up, an indication to us that the interview was over. He put his arms around our shoulders and ushered us out with 'and ven is dis heppy day? I vill sit at your table ven you get merried.'
Sketch I Johanna meets JCK Pollock, January 18, 1908
That day, it was Thursday January 18 (I remember, because it was a day before my twenty-fourth birthday), Pa Maree had done something he rarely did – he’d left his lunch bag on the hall table. He’d risen from the breakfast table, gone straight out through the back door to look at the pears ripening in the orchard and then he’d called, ‘Totsiens Elisabet, totsiens, julle,’ and left by the little side gate for work.
Ma said it was his longing for the farm that made him inspect the fruit trees daily like he did, but I knew it was Ma herself who really hankered after the farm. Sometimes she would sit out on our back stoep after pa had gone, sip her coffee & look longingly over the trees, northward, as if she could see right across the Witwatersrand, out across the plains and over the Magaliesberge to the Hoekberg, and then west to Koster, where the family farm had rested against the low ridge of our koppie. I, too, longed for ‘Skoonspruit’, and for the red-brown earth and the veld, tall & rustling at the edge of the grass, and the blue-gums, with their bitter bark & pungent-tasting leaves. It was my birthplace and I’d lived and grown there. But that was ten long years ago, before the war against the English sent our lives, and then the farm, splintering off in so many terrible directions, before the little Marees had even come into being. It was so different here, in Mayfair, for us all. And I sighed as I roused myself to stir the konfyt thickening in the large, black pot on the stove.
Now, from the other end of the house where she was sorting the linen, came Ma’s voice, ‘Johanna, my kind, wat van Pa se kos? And take Dolly, too. She loves a visit to the Post Office.’ Already the clock in the church tower was chiming 12 and pa’s lunch-break was at half-past. Grabbing the bag, I set off quickly with Dolly skipping alongside.
A few minutes later the two of us were hurrying through the door of the Post Office, Dolly breaking into a run and standing on tip-toe to reach up and try to pull herself onto the high wooden counter by the metal railing that separated the workspace from the public. There was no-one there, so greeting Pa I handed over the bag for him to put into one of the narrow post slots & lifted her up so she could give him our present – the first pear from the orchard, one found by Ma after he’d left that day – & be given a kiss in response. Her eyes were brown, just like Pa Maree’s own, and nothing could make him smile quite as broadly as ‘Kleinsis’. Sometimes watching them made me long for my own father. But he’d been gone since I was six, Dolly’s age now – almost eighteen years ago. And at least Pa Maree made us all, Rouxs, de Villierses and Marees, feel like one big family.
Dolly, still holding Pa’s hands over the railing, started dancing on the narrow counter’s edge and singing, and I was humming along and stepping in time, when a quick shadow fell across the entrance to the Post Office, and I felt a dark presence, smelling strongly of boot-black, move through the intervening space toward the counter. I glanced down to find just what I’d suspected: two shiny black boots standing to attention. It was still the way one knew a Boer from a Brit, they said, even after the war, by the smell of polish.
‘Af nou, gou Liefie,’ Pa was saying with some urgency, and he looked at the customer behind me and coughed twice, his official ‘on-duty’ cough, to show he wasn’t just a fond family man, Then, smiling, he said, ‘Dankie Johanna. Maar weg now, gou julle twee, Pa het werk om te doen’, at which point, Dolly let go of his hands and, in her characteristically abandoned fashion, leapt high into the air, somewhere between the darkly clad stranger to my left and me.
It was such a quick, unexpected movement and I was already so flustered that she’d have fallen hard onto the floor if the man hadn’t stepped into the gap between us and caught her adeptly, handing her down and saying kindly in what was a strong, thicker-than-English accent, ‘There you are now, wee lass, no harm done.’ Now I looked directly at the stranger for the first time. He was very thin and tall, handsome, with a neat little moustache, blue eyes and a bemused look on his face. ‘Dag Mejuffrou’, he said, inclining his head politely and looking me up & down more intently than he ought, a smile breaking out across his face, and ‘Dag, Meneer Maree. Hoe gaan dit?’
‘Dag, Mnr Pollock,’ said Pa, and then surprisingly though haltingly, in English, ‘I hope you are well. Ah Glasgow. Another parcel for your sister, I see?’
Tall, handsome, blue-eyed, so manly, and with a sister in a town so strangely named – the exotic stirred the commonplace – my heart beat so loudly I could hear it in my own two ears. I turned to hurry out of the post office, tugging the intrigued Dolly behind me and calling, in a voice not quite my own, ‘Dag Meneer and I thank you. Totsiens Pa.’
‘Glass cow, glass cow,’ Dolly chanted all the way along the main street, despite having to run to keep up with me. And only after I had hurried the two blocks down Church Street, turned the corner into our street, slowed down and said ‘Hush Dolly, hou nou op met die “glass cow”’ did I straightened my hair and look down at my own attire. Then I realised, to my horror, why Pa’s handsome customer had looked at me in what seemed such a forward way, and with such amusement. I was wearing my old kombuis voorskoot, spattered liberally with blobs of sticky green konvyt. I had quite forgotten to take it off and hang it on the peg behind the door when I had heard the clock chime and Ma had called reminding me of the errand to the Post Office – what a foolish ‘boere meisie’ I must look, and him so elegant, even with his silly at-attention feet and his strong boot-black smell.
‘Hanna, said Dolly, ‘hoekom is jou gesig so rooi? Nes Pa se ryp tamaties.’ And skipping toward the gate she took up a new chant, ‘Ryp tamatie, glas cow, ryp tamatie, glass cow.’ Onnosele kind, I thought. Why do six year-olds see everything? Now we would have to go in and tell Ma the whole story. And how would I hide my interest in the exotic young man, with his thick accent and his little moustache?
Voertsek hie(r) weg
I am about five years old and I am sitting as usual at Ouma’s kitchen table in Rylands Estate. I am vaguely aware that ‘the Group Areas’ want us to move from our house in Rylands because it is meant for Indian people. I wonder who this person ‘the Group Areas’ is. As a family we are always treated differently, sometimes unkindly, by a few people in the area but I am not exactly sure why we have to move from our house. Nor am I sure why we are different.
Ouma leans on her end of the table with her head tilted to one side, chin resting on the palm of her hand, her characteristic pose. She is deep in thought and this story pours from her lips:
‘We came to live here in Rylands Estate after moving around in the Western Cape for some time. Oupa earned enough money to buy this property. I did not come to Cape Town with him when he ran away from Pietersburg. Your father was small and Oupa had to find work first. He found a steady job at Consani’s Engineering where they taught him to do boilermaking or something and over the years he bought several properties.
‘When I was still in Pietersburg my sister Sarah, who was a nurse, looked after your father and me. Oupa only came to fetch us after ten years. When we arrived here your aunt Pauline moved in with us. She was your grandfather’s child here in the City. I raised her as my own child.
‘It was difficult for your father and I to fit in here. We could only speak Sotho. Some people would swear at us in Afrikaans and call us names like ‘kaffir’. ‘Gaan terug land toe jou gemors, voertsek hier weg’ they said. They teased us for not being able to speak Afrikaans or English properly. I did not have any education and never worked outside the home. Your grandfather took care of everything as he does to this day.
‘Life was and is not easy for me to live as a coloured. Everywhere I go people comment on my nose, short hair, and thick lips. They treat me like a dog. I prefer to stay inside the house – in my kitchen – and I only go out when it is absolutely necessary. I need your grandfather with me to help with the language. He drives me to do errands and to church. The only people I have short conversations with are those at church, my children and grandchildren, who understand what I am trying to say. I spend my days cooking, cleaning and taking care of all of you.’
Ouma pauses for a moment and offers me some tea. Of course I accept. I love the very sweet tea that she makes. We enjoy Rooibos tea mixed with Ceylon tea; a teaspoon of condensed milk and three teaspoons of sugar. She also gives me a slice of white bread dripping with fat and gravy from last night’s food. I am in heaven. I listen and try to understand what Ouma tries to explain next but it is very difficult to understand.
‘Before Oupa and I got married, my surname was Maloba. After our marriage, my surname was Malotane, like your father and Aunt Pauline. With this Group Areas thing, and to be able to buy property, your grandfather decided to change our surname to Heller. People always tell us we bought a surname to be coloured Things are very confused. I am very confused about why we need to change our surname. Your father and Aunt Pauline are still Malotane, but we are Heller. We are all classified coloured, even your father who kept Malotane as his surname. And yet we are not coloured, we are Sotho. All my grandchildren are classified Cape Coloured because your mother and Pauline’s husband are coloureds.’
I sip the sweet tea and eat the sandwich. I bask in this moment, this time with my Ouma, my special angel, who always makes me feel that I am the most important person in this world. At the same time I want to cry. I don’t understand why anybody would call her names and treat her badly and tell her to move. I don’t understand why they changed their surname. I don’t understand anything.
A woman from another time
Rosa sat at the piano in her small Camps Bay house, her fingers running over the keys with practiced ease. The chords of ‘In the Mood’ emerged, drowning out the bubbling from the tanks of Siamese fighting fish on the opposite wall. One of her cats stretched on the sofa then rolled into a ball of cream fur, tipped with dark brown.
‘We come from a long line people who broke the rules, you know, we have always been on the outside. When I was a child in Ireland, I used to play with the gypsy children – that’s where I learnt to read the cards. I could speak Romany too – of course I’m rusty at it now. But my French is still fluent, I get to practise that. It’s like the piano – you have to keep practising if you want to be any good. That’s my advice to you, Cathleen, choose what you want to do and perfect it.
‘I studied art in London. Oh, it seems so long ago now. But instead of working on serious pieces, I used to paint sets for the theatre, and mixed with the arty crowd. One of my first lovers was a sub-editor, that’s where I learnt the phrase about blue-penciling things.
‘Has your mother told you about the Curse of the Russells? No! How remiss of her. It explains why we were able to blend in yet remain apart.
‘I’m sure she’s neglected other parts of your education too. Do you play bridge? Chess? Shocking!
‘Well the piano isn’t easy but you should have a few accomplishments. Maestro was horrified when he heard me play this – I was supposed to be practising a classical piece to play at a party. When I sit down, I appear to play effortlessly, but to do it well, you have to prepare properly.
‘Yes, a woman needs some accomplishments. I know Suzie is a career woman but I have never worked for money. There has always been an admirer to take care of me. Now it’s just me and the kitties but I get by.’
The seal point Siamese stretched and shook herself with impatience. The humans made such a noise, meowing all the time. She was a superior being, almost silent, unless she required feeding. She stalked off, leaving the two humans to their caterwauling.
‘Let me tell you about the Russells. There were four daughters and a son. The girls all made disastrous marriages. One even married an American. Imagine! And one was divorced … oh, that was a huge scandal. She wasn’t allowed into the Royal Enclosure at Ascot after that. One went onto the stage. My dear, in those days one might as well have been a prostitute!
‘The son was killed in a hunting accident. Fell off his horse at a jump. His father drank himself to death out of grief. That was the end of the line. We had been landed gentry but we fell on hard times. But we have never lost our good blood. Blood will out, you know.’
The afternoon sunshine was giving up its struggle to penetrate the dim interior of the house, cluttered with oil paintings, theatrical costumes, a chess set on a small table, fish tanks and the piano. Rosa’s hands were still on the keys. She looked sightlessly into the distance, seeing some other place, some other time. Then she blinked and smiled at her niece.
‘Time to make dinner. Do you know the difference between dinner and supper? Do you know how to cook? No! Goodness you have a lot to learn. Come with me.’
The gangling teenager followed her, overawed by the tiny chic woman who could fascinate with piano playing or with her attractively low voice. They went into the chaotic cramped kitchen and Cathleen knew she’d learn about French dishes, nothing like the sausage and mash her business woman mother produced at the end of a long day.
‘Eye of newt’ was inscribed on a bottle of cloves. It was many years later that she realised that it was a quote from Shakespeare’s MacBeth, one of her aunt’s many literary jokes. And even more years before she discovered that her mother, the indifferent cook who couldn’t play the piano, had been her aunt’s financial support for years. Like her story of impoverished aristocrats, Rosa’s beauty was now something of the past. Despite many real accomplishments, she no longer had a string of admirers ready to keep her in style.
A lady artist
Close to the old creamery, a few roads away from the abattoir … I look at the directions carefully to make sure I haven't missed a twist or turn of the narrow streets. The road glimmers, streetlights bright in the gloom of a grey Irish afternoon. I turn left, then left again into Castle Street.
I am looking for number 19. The houses are tall and narrow, the white-laced windows of the houses staring down like rolled-back eyeballs. I can't believe I am here. It has taken me a long time to track her down, from the brief mention of her name in an article on woman artists of the early 1900's, to a directory search and numerous long-distance calls.
The brass-bright knocker slips from my hand with a loud thud. A tall, angular middle-aged woman opens the door, her face shadowy in the dim light. 'You found us all right then?' A firm handshake, her voice brisk. 'My mother is very excited about the interview,' she says. 'But please, don't tire her.'
She leads me into the front room. 'Ma,' she says, 'your visitor is here.'
'Thank you, Eileen.' The voice is a thin whisper.
'Now remember what I said, Mammy. Don't overdo things.' She turns to me. 'I've made some tea, if you could pour?' I place my briefcase on a small chair and take out my notebook and tape recorder. 'I'll leave you to it then.'
She closes the door behind her, and the voice breathes again. 'Come closer. Let me see you properly.'
She sits erect on the hard-backed sofa, a wisp of a woman held together by a long dress of stiff black material. Her face is white above a fine lace collar, skin stretched tight over sharp bones. I am afraid to move closer, scared that any further movement might make her disintegrate into a small pile of dust.
On the table between us is a tray set for tea. A delicately embroidered cloth, two fragile porcelain cups. 'I've been thinking about your letter,' she says. 'It took me back a long way. My one little moment of fame and glory.' She gestures to the teapot. 'Shall we have a cup of tea before we begin?'
I pour the tea. 'Just the cup, please,' she says. I lean forward and rest it carefully in her paper-thin hands.
'All set to go, then.' She takes a small sip of tea. I place my cup on the table, press the record button on my tape recorder and take up my notebook.
'No one's ever asked me for my story,' she says. 'I find myself rather nervous. But let's not let that stop us. You'll ask me questions as you need to?'
I murmur an assent, but already she has started to speak again.
'I'll start at the high point,' she says. 'Oh, my husband and my children, all happy times, good times. But nothing has ever shone for me the way that day did.
'What day, you're wondering? Is this old woman going to dither around, not get to the point? Well, that's age for you. It pulls at what I want to say, sets me rambling. My mother always told me, "Katherine,"* she'd say, "don't digress". She was very proper, very genteel. A gentlewoman who fell on hard times. Cheated by scoundrels who took advantage of a widow. She never had much in the way of financial nous. But before those hard times arrived, we were comfortable. More than comfortable. And so I had my season abroad. Setting up my easel every day, on the banks of the Seine. It was an adventure, as you can imagine. But a very decorous one. Chaperoned. Dressed properly in my firmly buttoned dress, my heavy corset, layers of underclothes. It was just before the war, before women bobbed their hair and stepped into sensible clothing. Hat, gloves, parasol, all de rigeur. I don't think a scrap of Paris sunlight ever touched my skin.' Her laugh is surprisingly robust in the quiet room. She sips again and continues.
'But the sun touched the waters of the Seine, made them glance and glint. Move in the light. Alongside me were other young women, all painting. Our aim? Why, to be taken seriously. To be chosen for the Summer Exhibition. To be hung in the Louvre.'
She stops. Her eyes close. She slumps back gently against the sofa. I sit, my pen immobile, my breath tight in my throat. Has this all been too much for her? Should I have ended the interview earlier? She opens her eyes and smiles. 'It all came to an end of course, once I married. Had children. But that day, that one day when they told me I had been selected …'
In the front room, darkness is closing in fast. Her face glows, translucent in the pool of light cast by a tall standard lamp. Behind her, hanging alone on the wall, is a watercolour. Its shades are muted, where once I imagine they shone like jewels. She sits below it, light spangling off glass and onto the nimbus of her silver hair.
***
*Katherine O'Brien, a Victorian artist lived in Limerick. She was my Great-grandmother.
The Proposal
I had just proposed to Charlotte. I had admired her and grown to love her over many months. We were sitting in the parsonage dining room, the place where all the books were written.I sat on a straight-backed chair at the table. The stumps of last night’s candles were still there. I could see the velveteen chaise longue where Emily had breathed her last struggling breath. Her dog, Keeper, mournful and odorous, still lay beneath it waiting for her to return.Charlotte, little and dainty, sat opposite me. Her large, expressive eyes were filled with misgiving.
‘Mr Nichols,’ she said, ‘People think that I have led a sheltered life, yet I have seen death and dissipation first hand. I have lost all of my sisters to grave disease and my only brother to alcohol, cocaine and laudanum. Only Papa remains.
‘You may know that my mother died when I was but four years old. Her devoted sister gave up thoughts of marriage and happiness for herself and came from the gentle clime of Cornwall to the rough and punishing Yorkshire weather and its forbidding moors, to look after my mother’s six children.
‘Lately I have been entertained by famous people like Mr Thackeray and Harriet Martineau. The truth is that instead of the praise and admiration I have received in the time since my books have been published, I would rather have been blessed with beauty.‘All my life I have been aware of how plain I am. I know that people say that I have pretty hair and fine eyes but I have little skill in tending the first and the latter are forever hidden by such thick spectacles that they can seldom be seen to advantage.
‘In my own eyes my only virtue has been a determination to make my own way in the world so that I could do whatever was needed to keep my family together. But they have all departed now and only Papa remains. I am all that he has left.
‘I don’t know what you can feel for me, a little, ugly spinster with poor eyesight. Yet I feel sincerely grateful for your proposal. Of course I cannot even consider accepting it for fear of having to forsake Papa. As he grows older he relies on me. I could never leave him in his lifetime. Here is where I need to stay.
‘I have no doubt at all that my new-found fame has pleased him beyond measure.‘I also know that his pride in me has made him see me in a light which is really far above my talents. And so I fear that your proposal is likely to send him into a rage. A rage born of fear of losing me as well as a contrary notion that you are not worthy of me.
‘Please understand, Mr. Nichols, that I have no such notion. My reason for rejecting your proposal is purely that I cannot leave Papa and I cannot ask you to stay tied to this small and backwater parish for as long as he lives.’
The dining room in which we sat was full of reminders of Charlotte’s lost family. There was Emily’s writing desk, Branwell’s paintings hung on the walls and Anne’s music book still lay, open, on the table.The published works of all three sisters were piled in a corner of the small table under the window. Through the window I could see the church where Charlotte’s mother and sisters Maria, Elizabeth and Emily, together with her brother Branwell, lay buried. It was the same church in which I held the position as curate to Charlotte’s father.
She was right. Her father did fly into a rage when she told him of my proposal. He did believe that I was not good enough for her. Yet we married in the end when I promised her that I would never ever suggest that she should leave her father and that I would stay with her – and him – until his death.
Little did I know that our time together would be so short.
My poor little Charlotte died in my arms less than a year after we were married. She looked at me and said: ‘I am not going to die am I? We have been so happy.’
I made sure that I kept my promise and I stayed to look after the Reverend Bronte until he died several years later.
Olympia Café
The brisk South-Easter churns the surface of the sea into white caps and fishing boats bounce their way back to the calm mirrored waters of the harbour where yachts and dinghies undulate together. Seaweed like bronze serpents lurks amongst the rocks. Large waves crash against the walls of the harbour, sending plumes of froth flying skyward. Seagulls soar and cry over the pier. The wind breaks the colours of the day into indistinct hazes of blue, green and grey; it pushes large banks of clouds that cast nets of shadow as they float towards the mountaintops. The briny smells of sea and shore mix with an odour of burnt metal as the train grinds its way out of the station, past the harbour and gathers speed round the corner for the incline. The main road is a cacophony of passing cars, trucks, hooters and the voices of pedestrians.
But here I sit at the window of the Olympia café at my usual table, encased in a bubble of warmth, sealed off from the outside noise, enjoying my weekly treat of coffee as I watch the world go by. My bladder almost prevented me from this luxury, it began to leak as I heard the splashing of the seawater against the walls. I clenched my sphincter so hard I almost bit my tongue as I crossed the road quickly to my seat here in the sun. Old age poses a serious threat to one’s dignity, I find. I have to watch my intake of liquid and take the extra precaution of wearing panty liners when I leave the house. Even so there is always the danger of an accident. I sit basking in the sun, looking like a disoriented dormouse because of these wretched trifocals, always tilting my head to find the right angle and distance.
Mabel knows me now, she welcomes me with her smiling patient brown eyes and brings me a cup of coffee without the menu; she knows I only have six rand in my purse. I sigh with satisfaction and sip the scalding coffee. I have the café to myself except for another elderly couple and the staff and an apparition sitting in the corner next to the bar. If I lower my head and look through the middle section of my lenses, I can see her broken veins, like map work spreading over her cheeks and nose. Her face is almost as red as her shawl. Her baggy grey skirt covers trunk- like legs in striped stockings, her feet are encased in boots tied with- goodness me, can it be? – string. Two large bedraggled black poodles lie at her feet. She slurps in an unladylike fashion at a glass of vile-looking liquid, and warbles through her loose wet lips at Charlie the barman. He’s busy polishing the glasses. I can hear her complain about her aching old bones. She should have my knees – the pain when I stand up.
I feel a little pity for this outlandish creature as I see Charlie take money out of his back pocket and put it in the till to pay for her drink. How kind he is. Ah, my heart starts its ache, its usual litany of loneliness. The empathy I feel for her is an extension of my own self-pity. Perhaps my son would be kind to me if he were here. But where is he? Thousands of miles away in Australia. Doing well, I believe. But does he care how well I am doing? Out of sight, out of mind, as my old granny used to say. Mabel comes to my table to refill my cup, it’s on the house, she says and winks one brown eye. I look down and see my reflection in the surface of the coffee. When I see myself unexpectedly, I don’t recognize my face. Who is this person? The wispy white hair, the faded eyes under those drooping lids? Does this network and crosshatchings of wrinkles, sags and bags belong to me? How did I get to be this old?
Outside the window, a car backfires with a loud explosion that makes me jump, followed by a smaller bang and the sound of shattering glass from the kitchen. Then the smell of smoke. Mabel pokes her head around the door and yells’ fire!’ My heart begins to hit the walls of my ribcage as one of the poodles sinks his sharp, pointed teeth into the leg of his mistress. She opens her cavernous mouth and lets out a piercing shriek. She kicks the dog away from her and he cowers, emitting yelps of shock. My hand begins to shake, the cup of coffee, poised on its path to my lips, tilts, and the hot liquid cascades down my chest, soaking through my bra and petticoat to burn those empty sagging pouches, my breasts.
‘Oh my, oh my, oh my,’ I moan as my bladder empties itself swiftly, silently, inexorably. I tremble with shame as the full extent of the catastrophe makes itself known to me. I pull my coat around me to hide my dripping clothes. Charlie rushes over to me and offers me his tea towel. I mop myself ineffectually, then I rise and gather shreds of dignity around me with fumbling fingers. My string bag on one arm, my walking stick clenched in my fist, I limp to the door in squelching shoes. The door swings open in my face and a loud American voice booms in my ear.’ Too late for lunch?’
Idiots, I think. Always have to be heard with those awful grating, loud voices. Damn Tourists. Damn bladder. I am uncomfortable in soaking clothes and shoes and it is still a distance to the pink mausoleum of my house. All those empty rooms. I whisper my mantra down the road.’ It will be all right, it will be all right, don’t worry.’ I remember I am still clutching Charlie’s tea towel. I must wash it and return it. But will they want it back considering the purpose for which it was last used? I can’t think about that now. I’ll think about it later.
Uncharted waters
I could never have imagined that four words could turn my life inside out.
It started as an ordinary evening – at least ordinary for the past few months.
We had met in Spring. Those gusty days when Edinburgh knows not whether she prefers to hang back in Winter, or gallop towards Summer. He caught my hand as I tripped off the hansom to go for my customary stroll in Queen’s Park – one tidy morning which had changed its mind and turned blustery. I felt the electricity of his gallant touch even then. And so it became customary for us to stroll together. What an empathetic being, a humanist to the core. But then he was studying to be a doctor. He would reassure with warmth, my own Dr. James Barry.
Our relationships progressed as expected, until last evening.
‘My dearest Liliane – you are no doubt aware of my feelings for you. You know how I hold you in the highest esteem, more than my colleagues, or aye, even my kin. You are assured of this?
‘No … hush. This is a difficult telling and can bear no interruption, no straying from the point. What I have to ask you … nay, confide in you, is a secret of such enormity that surely only death can reveal. And yet, I need your word.
‘You have indicated that my deep feelings for you are reciprocated. You have even hinted that you are adventurous and would value no company more than my own should we take on the world beyond these shores. I therefore humbly ask you “Will you marry me?”
‘No, hush dearest, there is more. And you need to consider your answer very carefully. So do not answer in haste. You know my plans to work in Africa, and I would expect – nay that word is too commanding – I would desire you beside me. Yet have I not revealed that which is most urgent.
‘We have made love together here, you and I. On this loveseat have you answered my touch most gently. Have you not looked into my eyes to find a reflection for that softness which I see in your glance? And have you not heard the passion in my whispers when I declared my love for you? This love is strong and true.
‘When you have heard me out, wait before you speak, and consider your true feelings for me. Only then, say whether you will marry me. I hope, nay know, that you can bear the truth. Yet am I dressed in garments that are not me. My love, I am a woman.’
The shock silenced me utterly, while his warm green gaze lingered anxiously over my face. My fingers, enlaced in his, as ever, burnt at the points of contact, warm, reassuring. He did nor try to hold me, but left me free to withdraw. Would I retreat from the gentlest person I had ever known? He was my best friend, confidant. I wanted to stay within the safety of that embrace for all eternity. My lips uttered: Yes, love, I will marry you.
Meeting Grand-aunt Eleni
She swept into the hotel lobby draped in fox fur. It is true, her steps were somewhat shorter than before, but the years had diminished neither her elegance, nor her air of distinction. 'Darling,' she said, 'let me see you, turn around. Lovely, darling, lovely. You have your father's eyes.'
She sat down and ordered Chivas, neat, no ice. She wore black velvet gloves and a hat. 'So tell me darling, tell me about this book you write.'
'Well, Grand-aunt,' I said, 'it is partly biography, partly novel, and as you are the oldest surviving ancestor …'
'No, no, darling, we never discuss age,' she interrupted, holding up a gloved finger.
'Well, yes, of course, but what I mean is, you know all the stories, all the secrets. And I need to know everything from the beginning.'
'Everything?' She raised an immaculate eyebrow.
'About you, and Rumania, about my father and what happened to my mother. Did she commit suicide or is she still alive? I need to know everything. You speak, as it all comes, and I will record.'
'Darling,' she said 'this will take a very long time. After all I am no spring chicken.'
'Come, Grand-aunt Eleni,' I said, 'you look fabulous. Are you really 96?'
'Sshhhh, we never discuss age, darling, never. So, I will start as I remember. Secrets you say? Yes … there are some of those.' She took a sip of her whiskey.
'Mmmm, let me see. As a young girl I wanted to be an actress. Unheard of you know, in our family. Only the working class, girls with limited future, became actresses in those days. Then the war came and changed everything. Rumania was very prosperous at that time, not like now. There was good agriculture, meat and dairy produce plentiful. Did you know we exported to the rest of Europe? Our grain, our fruit, even meat. Not like now, darling. Now my poor family has to travel for hours into the countryside hoping for a small head of cheese at ridiculous price.
'We were comfortable then, but I wanted to get away. To escape it all, I got married. Lambi was a good husband, god rest his soul.
'You ask about your father. Panagache was always special. The firstborn in a family of six. He had charm, he was good looking, he had talent. Everyone loved him. Everyone indulged him. He broke many hearts that one.
'So many memories, where do I start? She took another sip of her whiskey and looked into the distance as the minutes ticked by. I waited quietly till she smiled at me, patting my knee, and continued. 'I have had a good life. Marrying Lambi was a love match firstly, but I also admired his money. He was Greek, came from a scholarly family, he had grace. It was his money that saved us you know, when the communists came. Gold. Gold coins bought our passage on a ship from Rumania to London.
'Your father was bold, so he was the first to leave after us. He took his brother Florin with him, and they went to Greece. It was a perilous journey, and they risked their lives many times to get there. It was in Greece that he met your mother, also a Rumanian refugee. That was a love match too, but she was too young. Too young for marriage. Too young to hold your father. He was a Casanova, you know, your father.
'Oh, so many memories … It is enough for now.'
Lamps had been lit in the hotel foyer and my coffee was cold. Her skin looked like parchment in the yellowish glow. Aunt Eleni drank the last bit of her fourth whiskey and gathered her furs. 'Well, darling,' she said 'we must do this again soon. Next week, same time?'
'Yes, Grand-aunt Eleni, thank you, next week would be great. Look after yourself,' I said, kissing her on both cheeks.
'Au revoir darling, till next week.'
But I never saw her again.
Lunch with Bill
The door is slightly ajar and the smell of frying onions drifts on the hot air as I tap twice and push it open. He’s standing over the stove, cigarette between his lips, glasses misty with steam rising from the pot. It’s nearly lunchtime but he’s still dressed in his old flannel pyjamas; he feels the cold easily now that he’s in his eighties.
‘Hello my girlie, how are you today, come in, come in, I’m making a stew, you’re welcome to stay for some, it’s an old Italian recipe, the Italians are wonderful people, not like the French …’
I hug him and sit down next to his old, deaf fox terrier on a small, worn-out sofa. He takes a pinch of herbs, stirs the pot, and carries on …
‘I walked halfway across Italy during the war when we escaped. The people welcomed us with open arms, their food was delicious, they made tasty meals out of next to nothing.
‘The worst was Cairo, though, we could only eat rations there, everything else was a health hazard. I remember one day I went into the city, I had to drive the CO to a meeting. Now I hadn’t seen your uncle David, my older brother, for more than a year, he was stationed with the bombardiers in Tobruk. Anyway, I had a few hours to look around while waiting for the CO but didn’t expect to see anything much. Cairo was hot, sticky and loud with yelling people trying to sell anything from soap to dirty pictures or their sister. I didn’t mind; it was just such a relief to be out of the sand. We spent months in trenches dug into the desert with nothing to see but sand and sun, sand and sun. We lived under the sand; there was sand in the food, everywhere … ‘ The ash from the cigarette finally collapses into the stew as he continues.
‘I was walking along when I saw another military jeep approaching, jolting over the terrible road, but what really made me take notice was the burst of colour it was carrying! Yellow, red, white, green – a beautiful explosion of brightness that hurt my eyes. It made me smile and I stopped to watch the apparition, which turned out to be a big bunch of flowers, drive past. I was standing there, gawking and smiling at this sight, when I saw whom the hairy paw holding the rainbow belonged to – and I felt every hair on my body prickle right up! It was my brother David, smiling like the cat who got the cream! I yelled, he yelled, the jeep stopped and we leaped at each other … Well, I can tell you, I managed to get a few hours off that night, and did we have a party … ‘
He stirs the ash into the stew without even noticing it and shuffles over to the small table where he keeps a bottle of no brand whiskey and a jug of ice-water. He pours us each a generous tot, hands me a glass and sits down with a satisfied sigh.
‘The flowers were meant for a lass at the hospital who David had an eye for, but he gave them to me instead! I had to keep them well hidden but they brightened up our old trench and all the lads for a good few days!
‘I never saw David again.’ He shrugs, stubs out the cigarette and reaches for another.’
Reflection of Time
Through the freshly opened window I see the mist wafting off the cold river, down there, beyond the azaleas. Its cold seeps up the frosty lawn which no early bird has yet visited. They’re still snug in their nests.
Silence. No bird song, no cars. Just the gentle murmur of moving water and the drip of dew off the gutters.
Tiny diamonds of mist animate into a slow waltz of mercury trails. They accelerate as I open the window wider. The lifting gloom of a crisp spring morning promises warmth once the sun sheds its shawl of mist.
With the light on the walls where paintings once hung I’ll uncover the reflections that one man made of light and life.
–
Without light, my dear, there is no form. Just feel. What is the point of feeling if your eyes cannot see the shifting reality that light brings to our world. This is what the old farts at the Academy couldn’t understand. Pompous men in suits and hats who wanted to keep their reality in irons. They felt safer that way.
I left them alone, most times. Occasionally I threw some light their way. But they shied away from what they felt was a threat to their order of things.
You see, light ever changes our view of things. Try catching a shaft of light in a dusty room, or wipe a peephole through a gloomy window, and the view changes. Shades of colour and their shadows, etched out in a form, but for a moment. Move your feet and the picture has changed. New angles, new light, different perspective.
I tried, as you see here in this painting of the river, to tell you the time of day, the season, the breeze o n the water, the later afternoon perfumes. But it’s fleeting. The picture changed before my first brushstroke – and the day was different before the paint dried.
People of your time have it differently. Cameras, I believe, snatch and freeze a moment they’re too rushed to savour. Essence escapes such frozen moments. They flash it and promise to reflect. They seldom do – or if they do, can’t recall the inspiration of that moment. You may have caught a snatch of time, but the photograph lacks the feeling of the wind and the warmth of the sun, the smell of the sea, and the sound of a bird flying by. These are pictures – not reflections.
Eventually, just before I died, the men in suits and hats, opened their minds to what I was showing them. There’s some satisfaction in knowing that they finally saw the light. Before the shadows that defined the image bothered the backs of the minds.
While I painted and chased sunbeams we had a good life out here, where the nuances of each season perfumed the air, were felt underfoot. We felt time passing as the air passed over our skin. Only to be confirmed by the ticking of the clock.
Midday lunch was a bounty of the seasons. Jugs of wine from down the road, vegetables from our patch by the river. Monique made splendid chicken pies and, if I extended myself, poached trout caught from the river. I must tell you that the smell of baking bread is a great distraction to a painter of my appetites.
You see, my dear, in these paintings against my sunshine wall, I lived my life in search of the light other men didn’t know was there.
–
He vanished as the sun topped the willow tree. Was his voice in my head? His reflections seemed so tangible. But were they my imaginings grounded in scholarly tomes and reference guides. Had his spirit refused to leave this place, presuming heaven to be too bright and crowded and complacent compared with his space on earth.
I walk through the lightening rooms, touching rustic furniture and favourite objects of 150 years ago. Blue and white crockery. A striped jug that once held summer posies. An impression of the life he lived – composed from objects, memories, knowledge and imaginings.
He’s still here. Watching me. Willing me to absorb some of his spirit. The spirit that refuses to go to heaven where it’ll be wasted on the comfortable dead. Is he waiting to see if, by the end of my day’s wandering, I will begin to really know what he tried to show us.
There’s a whiff of pipe tobacco. And linseed oil – from his smock or the furniture warming up in the weak sunlight.
Just a fleeting imagining of a big man. Ever watchful.
The Lost Soul & The Rose
I had not realized I was lost until I came upon the magical clearing in the woods. I had been following the tiny woodland creatures that are invisible until you start to look for them. The first was a butterfly of cornflower blue, iridescent in the sunshine. To follow it was irresistible; to lose sight of it would be devastating to the day and to my sense of joy. I can't remember what came next: a dragonfly I think, gossamer wings, so fragile and so quick. Its darting path compelled me deeper into the woods.
And then I came to the clearing. It was pierced with surprising light. I stopped short, breathless, and astounded by the rose bush that occupied the centre of the circle.
'How on earth did you get to be here?' I asked.
'Well now, that's a very old story my dear' the rosebush replied. 'If you want to hear it you will have to pay attention. Can you promise to sit still and listen?'
I settled down on the soft, fragrant grass, rested my chin on my hands and nodded, not wanting to breathe another word.
'I have been here since the beginning of time' began the rosebush, 'for I am the very first rose. I travelled up from the depths of the dark mossy soil, through the damp earth full of worms and precious metals, searching for the light of the sun. I heard the call of the singing birds centuries before my first moment of life above. I came because I had a task vital to the well-being of life upon earth. It was a task that would be taken up by others who would come after me. But I was to be the Teacher. It was a sacred contract, made in the time before light, in the time before separation.'
The sunlight danced in the glade. The warmth of it touched my back and fell softly on the grass around me. Insects buzzed. Life held its breath. Go on please. The thought formed in my head, but I did not speak it, for fear of breaking the spell.
'My job was to bring two things to life: beauty and perfume. My job was to bring that moment when human beings catch their breath; when they realize they have forgotten who they are, where they come from and the directions for the way home. My job was to bring that which would remind them to stop for a moment and say to themselves 'ah yes! Now I remember: there is beauty all around me, the world is a wonderfully fragrant place, I can feel it in my bones, I can see it with my eyes, and yes, oh yes! I can smell how God loves me and that is all I need. I came to teach this simple thing of remembrance. And I came to sound the clarion call, to pierce forgetfulness with my thorn, to make the mad and hurrying world bleed lest it should forget to stop and breathe.'
I had not realized I was lost until I found my heart's longing in the words the ancient rose bush spoke. As I lay there on the sunlit grass listening to her speak I knew the truth of what she said. I knew the reason for which I had followed the blue butterfly. Since my birth I had been suffering from the breathless haste of which she spoke. I had been disoriented by the madness of anxious parents and competitive friends. I knew now that I had been longing for the remembrance of something lost to me: the memory of beauty and perfume.
My Mother's Brass Clock
My grandmother comes to the door, smelling of fresh furniture polish. 'Hello my darling!' she says. She sits me down on one of her golden chairs and puts her feet up, next to a pile of books, while the kettle boils.
Her lounge is full of interesting things that belonged to somebody great in our family, once upon a time. Like my great-grandmother's silverware and porcelain, my great-grandfather's oil paintings, a book written by my great-great uncle and various other curiosities whose previous owners I have forgotten. The latest addition to my grandmother's lounge is a brass clock. It's from the greatest of all the greats, my mother! It sits on a shiny brass table next to a picture of my dad. The time is always ten to twelve.
'My mom's clock looks just right there,' I say to my grandmother.
'It does, doesn't it?' she replies. 'I put it there so I can see it from every part of the room.'
My grandmother gets up to attend to the kettle. When she returns with our steaming cups of tea, I ask her to tell me more about her mother.
'I don't remember much about her,' she says in her crisp English accent as she puts her feet up again. 'I must have been five when my father put us in the car and drove us to my grandfather's house in Scotland. I remember my mother crying on the porch. That was the last I saw of her. We stayed with my grandfather until I was eleven. He looked after us very well. There were cooks and nannies and housekeepers. We had everything we needed. I did ballet and tap dancing and gymnastics.'
'So your grandfather loved you,' I say cheerfully, relieved that she had a happy childhood after all. My grandmother pauses as she picks up a piece of shortbread from a gilt edged plate.
'No, he didn't love us,' she says, as a matter of fact. 'He was good to us but there was never any love. The only time I ever knew love was when I married your grandfather. Even though we had nothing, after the war years, it was the best time of my life. I still remember walking through the fields to visit him in agricultural school. We stayed on a farm then. We had no furniture, only a few suitcases and our clothes. But we really had everything we needed! We had old army beds whose springs were so stretched that we had to put our suitcases under them when we wanted to go to bed! And because we didn't have any cupboards, we banged long nails into the walls to hang up our clothes. The farmer gave us vegetables and we got our meat and dairy from the agricultural school. That's why I was always making scones, because flour was cheap and our butter and cream was free! And then, once we started the poultry farm we hardly ever left it. We didn't have a car and the kids walked barefoot to school. I'd climb down to the spring every day with my bucket, to fetch water. I actually washed our clothes in the river. They were wonderful years. It seems a pity that people are always chasing, chasing, chasing these days. We don't stop to smell the coffee anymore.'
I swallow hard as my grandmother says this. And then I reach for a biscuit. 'Why are we like this?' I ask.
'Because we have forgotten that it's the simple things in life that bring happiness,' she says.
I take my last sip of tea and look across at my mother's brass clock. My grandmother's bird breaks into song.
A Different Time
The heavy front door is open at 7 Warwick Street. It leads into a long passage to the kitchen at the back of the house. Old pictures of family members line the walls. Light shines in from the rear kitchen window and open dutch door. It spills over the edge of the table. Food in various stages of preparation clutters the surface of the small table. Aroma escapes from a pot of sizzling onions and makes way down the passage and onto the stoep where a little girl is playing with her teddy and dolls.
‘Bridgett, Bridgett come here, your lunch is ready.’
‘I’m here Ma.’
‘Where have you been? You look hot. Are your hands clean? Sit down and eat. If you’re a good girl and finish all your food instead of playing with it, I’ll tell you a story about my growing up.’
‘When I was a young girl not much older than you, things were very different in Cape Town. There were almost no cars. Proper black paved roads with painted lines were also uncommon. There were no phones and few appliances. Life was simple and less complicated by things. Neighbours were such a part of everyday life they were treated like family. Everyone knew each other. There was little distinction regarding what belonged to whom, everything was shared, even raising and minding of the children.
‘In my teens government decided citizens must be grouped, classified according to their skin colour and ancestry. It meant thousands of families had to relocate without any say and move to communities far from the ones they were used to. Unfortunately many families had members with differences in skin colour and were classified differently.
‘My mother, your great grandmother, was Cape Malay. Her skin was dark brown. My father was a white skinned German. Of their six children, three had white skin and three of us brown. I have three brothers and two sisters. My two brothers have white skin, like my sister Frances – though her skin is as white as white can be. My other brother and sister have honey brown skin the same colour as yours and mine.
‘It made people uncomfortable to see us walk down the street. Eight people from the same family all with varying skin colours. People who didn’t know us called us ‘the black and white family’. It was painful, especially for my younger sisters, who withdrew and became quiet. When we were older, in high school our parents called us together. They had something sad to tell us. My father explained my brother Jacobus had to move to Plumstead and Frederick would move to Kensington. It was a terrible day. Maggie and I cried the day my brothers left not fully understanding why they had to leave. My father would only say was it was the way it had to be. It seemed so wrong. Many families were affected. We rarely saw our brothers after they moved. I think my parents thought less contact would make it easier for the boys and us to carry on. It upset us deeply and still does to this day.’
A gust of wind blew down the passage upsetting the flour sprinkled on the table. Ma, ready to roll out the piecrust, stopped to wipe her brow. Flour stuck to her forehead making her honeyed skin appear darker. The flour particles hung suspended dancing in the light coming through the windows. Some landed, others mixed with the onions and quickly vanished. Bridgett blew into the air trying to make them conform to the direction of her whims.
The Moon and the Yew Tree
‘…I believe that one should be able to control and manipulate experiences, even the most terrifying – like madness, being tortured, this sort of experience – and one should be able to manipulate these experiences with an informed and intelligent mind …’
– Sylvia Plath
– 3 months before she died.
December 15, 1962
“I am living in Yeats’ home in London – with the blue plaque and all … I am very lucky to be living at No. 23 Fitzroy Road, the home of a poet, it is a real inspiration to my writing.”
The apartment’s gloomy mouth sucks her into its silence. She tugs at the sash of her robe, breathes in the cold, damp air. It refuses to budge … to go anywhere. Her despair and loneliness are relics entombed in the soundless room. She shakes her hair free from its thick plait. Beyond the window a cruel winter shrouds the London landscape with snow. She could light the gas, make a cup of tea. Instead feverish agitation drives her to sink onto the dingy couch.
Within the fragile walls of her soul, she can hear the sleeping children’s breathing floating down the passage. Light as angels, they levitate above the soporific vapours; their little hands trying to lift her up. But she cannot rise from this cradle of pain where dark forces attend to her wounds in their blue shadows.
The clock drops minutes like pebbles into the void of her consciousness. She lies there quite still, flattening the palms of her hands on her abdomen, fingering the contours of her bones. She follows her breath in and listens as it slips out of her body. Memory traces the lines of Ted’s angular jaw, his unruly hair and brooding look. ‘A large, hulking, healthy Adam, half French, half Irish, with a voice like the thunder of God.’
She squeezes her eyes tight. Closed in.
‘I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.’
… ‘There are fumes that I cannot touch, where are your opiates, your nauseous capsules? If I could bleed, or sleep!’
The moon has slid behind the night. An eclipse of sanity casts its dark shadow over the edge of her skull.
… ‘This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.
The trees of the mind are black … I’m separated from my house by a row of headstones. I simply cannot see where there is to get to…’
August 5, 2004
Sylvia, I too am ‘separated from my house by a row of headstones …’
My veined arm, bone-thin, extends butcher-hooked to the clean tick of something saline. Green-gowned, I’m paled into cherubic innocence. A nurse has shaved me down to bristle-edge. I’m labelled and bagged; quietly dulled into submissive lethargy.
But – something still lives between the brain walls, whispers me to breathe, rally up nerve and muscle to moan away this raw pain.
The light is blue.
Through ‘fumy, spirituous mists’, you beckon me.
I follow to where ‘grasses, prickling my ankles, unload their griefs on my feet.’ Beyond the yew tree, a cold wind fingers my hair. ‘Look,’ you lift your raging gaze towards the moon, ‘white as a knuckle and terribly upset.’ Your eyes are black as onyx. Intoxicated, I dazzle through the heated flames of your metaphors. Your chilling symbols bring me to my knees. At the altar of your myth, I worship with the ‘O-gape’ of a devotee. ‘Eight bells rise like flames to startle’ my consciousness. They bong in my ears.
Sylvia, you have unhinged heaven, stalked the night sky with your piercing eye, spilling sinister stars out of your red mouth. They explode like bombs. You’ve peeled back the skin of the moon. ‘Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.’
My hungry ear is cupped to share your secrets. The inner battle of each violent impulse tirelessly arranged in its stark perfection. Such fierce honesty transfixes me to your legend.
Golden girl of Smith College, blonde, amber-skinned goddess. Snaring the attention of that gorgeous Yorkshire hunk, pressing your red-hot heart against his cheek until it bleeds. Someone like you cannot go quietly. You’ve made perfection an art-form and ransacked your destiny from the Gods.
And paid the price for such ruthless genius.
What demons rose to lure you to that final brutal act? What lethal weapon took up arms against your soul, battering down your dreams, leaving you concussed with a profound sense of loss? When did it happen, the moment your abandoned senses slipped, lost their grip … when your heart bled its first drop in silent and desperate surrender?
The ruby-lipped moon with her fickle grin took you in. … Her flickering embers of love were deadly grenades … ‘See, the darkness is leaking from the cracks. I cannot contain it. I cannot contain my life.’
They found you the next day, lying there as if in a dream … Before turning on the gas, you had taken a bowl of bread and milk to little Frieda and Nicholas asleep in their bedroom. Then quietly, you closed the door …
‘I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering blue and mystical over the face of the stars. Inside the church, the saints will be all blue, Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews, Their hands and faces stiff with holiness. The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild. And the message of the yew tree is blackness – blackness and silence.’
February, 1963
In the harshest winter of the century, the quiet snow lies bellied over by a dome of grey sky. A freshly dug grave, in the churchyard of Heptonstall, yawns from the bowels of ochre clay. Behind the stained-glass windows, mourners, faces pinched with grief, lift their voices in unison. During the service, the sun faintly penetrates the February clouds …
‘I see you there, clearer, more real
Than in any of the years in its shadow –
As if I saw you that once, then never again.’
- Ted Hughes
Bibliography:
The Moon and the Yew Tree –
– Sylvia Plath
– 22 October 1961
