In My Shoes

It is an amazing feeling, standing out under the trees at night.  Stand still, very still, for long enough, you start to feel invisible. As if you’ve melted into the dark. When you breathe, it breathes with you.. and you are careful to breathe very, softly, very slowly, mouth slightly open.. that way your breathing doesn’t mess with your hearing..

You are just ears and eyes and shadow, waiting. You see things as never before. An Agapanthus that you passed several times today and never noticed, looms magical and luminous before you, its blossoms glowing like crystals on a chandelier. You stare in wonder, trying to figure out what is causing this transformation. Is it filtered moonlight? Is it dew? Did it perhaps rain earlier..?

The birds start. Gently ease the safety off and point the barrel at the noise.. Ready – steady – the chatter dies down. You wait. It feels as if the whole night is waiting. The silence is oppressive. Lightening in the distance, a bit of thunder… The hush before the storm. The odd cricket starts, and is quickly silenced, like a child in church. You bless your ugly old shoes, the ones that are completely soundless outdoors and only just whisper indoors..

Will they come tonight? 

You know they are coming back to fetch the looted copper pipes they stole last week, and dropped about 40 paces from where you are standing now, when you fired  at a noise more sensed than heard... You never saw them. You only found the flattened grass, where they had lain,  hidden. Your shot must have sounded terrifying at such a close range. The man who came to look, reckoned there were three or four of them…

Ten minutes, fifteen. There is no wind and the mosquitoes are eating you alive. Apparently, you’re off the hook this time. Click the safety on. Careful to stay in the shadows, you pad silently back to the house, where the dogs lie trembling, every bit as tense as you are. They hate it when you go out at night like this…

It may be over, but the feeling that something is off, not quite right, persists. You remember that single shot you heard two years ago, that you called in. That shot, that had come from the house of a woman in the next road, had been the sound of her dying.. Shot through her window as she lay sleeping. You didn't know her. They said it was an accident, that the thief tripped, hadn't meant to kill her. You don’t want to think about it, but you can’t forget it either. That night your dogs had been restless too, and you had been listening in the dark, just as you were tonight…

You won’t be taking that joyous silvery moonlit swim tonight.. nor will you be getting much sleep… Not tonight.

This is the story of how my father came to live in the Valley. It was originally written for another blog under the title "Prudence & the Pill". Because of this, there is a lot of Afrikaans in it..

As I've already said, it takes a special kind of person to live on a plot. We came to the life totally unprepared. It has been a long and exciting learning curve!

We ended up here in this valley because my father was a Romantic.  He’d  been told tireless tales about his father's older brother, who at thirteen had watched in helpless rage as his farm near Brits was burnt to the ground and his mother and younger siblings were taken by the British to rot in Kitchener’s infamous camps. Alone in the dark, this young boy had waited for the soldiers to leave and then searched for his father in the Kommandos and joined them, running beside his father’s horse until one was found for him. He had fought with them until the end, and survived.

 As if this story was not enough, his imagination had been further inflamed by fireside tales his mother told her eager children of far-off lands and deeds of derring-do and knights in shining armour.

So it is not really surprising that at seventeen he ran off to fight in WW2 - much to the disgust of his father, who, as a survivor of the camps, felt he was on the wrong side. It wasn’t so much that my grandfather was pro-German as just bitterly anti-British. But my father wanted the glory of battle, and he wanted to fly a plane, and he was terrified that the war would end before he got a chance to be in it.

He survived that war as his grandfather and father had survived theirs before him, and his father (grateful to have his his eldest son back in one piece) forgave him, but that was not enough for him. Exposure to foreign countries and ancient civilisations just whetted his appetite and made him yearn for more adventure. He cast about for a ticket to adventure and finally hit on an unlikely source: the Civil Service. So he became a Civil Servant, packed up my mother and me in 1954, and travelled the world.

When we returned in 1972, he surveyed his office in Pretoria with distaste. He didn’t like being given orders, and he didn’t much care for the petty bureaucracy of Head Office. He much preferred dealing with them from several thousand kilometres away.  He had certainly had a lot of adventure; he had lived in London, Hamburg and Buenos Aires, and travelled the length and breadth of Europe and South America. But now he yearned for a closer relationship with the land of his birth, specifically the farming life of our Afrikaner forebears. He wanted to stare out at vastness, emptiness, and to feel the hot African earth between his toes.

So he sold our beautiful, shady old house in Irene, and acquired a small shoe-box  on 22 acres of treeless, windswept savannah in this sunlit valley, along with one extremely bad-tempered Jersey cow, and a huge shiny Shangaan of indeterminate age with muscles like ships’ hawsers. This giant’s name was Samson Baloyi. Well, we didn’t actually buy Samson, of course. Samson just stayed, along with his family.

Samson didn’t think much of people in general, and especially not white people; and as far as white people went, he particularly did not like English speaking white people. True, my father was Afrikaans, but as a city slicker, he didn’t count. Real Afrikaners worked the land and sweated and slaved along with their workers. Samson had no time for lazy soft-bellied fools who sat on their flabby white bottoms at desks doing nothing all day and getting paid handsomely for it. Any idiot could do a job like that, even a woman (the lowest form of life in Samson's opinion). If you couldn’t go out and kill your own dinner with your bare hands and pee standing up, you were worthless in Samson’s eyes. And he was not shy about letting you know it.

In fact, the only reason he tolerated my parents was their beautiful cars.    My father had an enormous metallic gold Caprice and my mother drove a nifty little Volkswagen-Porsche 914. They had been bought purely for their overseas resale value, the only money-making perk of an overseas posting, but we had not completed the two years of our second tour of duty in Argentina, so they could not be sold. Samson adored these cars, and kept them showroom-shiny. But nothing else about us impressed him.

We were keenly aware of our ignorance on everything to do with farming and relied heavily on Samson for guidance. One evening we arrived home to find our cow, Prudence, mooooooing plaintively and wandering around restlessly. She didn’t want her evening treat and was off her feed. No-one slept that night. Prudence made sure of that. She mooed without rest. We were worried.

The next morning the three of us gathered gloomily outside her paddock. She was still mooing disconsolately and pawing the ground every now and again as she paced her paddock restlessly.

“Merciful heavens! Just listen to her!” exclaimed my mother irritably. “Hennie, DO something! We can NOT go on like this! I haven’t slept a wink!”
“She’s certainly not happy”, observed my father, sucking deeply on his pipe.
“Well whatever is wrong, please fix it” snapped my mother, who regarded sleep as sacred. “D’you think the Vet is awake at this ungodly hour? If he is, he doesn’t deserve to be. After all, he is only 10 kms away. He must  have heard her. It is quite bad enough living in the middle of nowhere without having to spend the entire night listening to a cow carrying on like a dying diva in an amateur Opera.  She sounds as if she’s wailing for every cow that’s ever lived!!”
“Or died”, I suggested.
“She does rather,” conceded my father, sighing deeply.
I was standing well back. I was terrified of cows, especially this one.
At that moment, Samson ambled up.
“Samson!” my mother brightened, sensing relief at last. “What is the matter with Prudence? An ideas? Anything at all..?”
Samson gazed pityingly at the three of us.
“Sy soek die Pil” he said. (Translation:She wants the pill)
“Pill? She wants a Pill? Good heavens, man, what sort of pill does she want? Hennie, find out at once! We must get this pill!”

Now of course, one must remember that pills were BIG in the sixties. Everyone lived on the knife-edge knowledge that they could be blown to smithereens at any moment that the Presidents of either Russia or the USA absent-mindedly tapped a bony finger on The Button and launched us all into Atomic oblivion.  Global neurosis was at an unprecedented level and wealthy psychiatrists, psychologists, and of course, the big chemical companies, bloomed as prolifically as bright red poppies had on the battle-bloodied fields of the great wars.

 By the seventies, there was a pill for every occasion.  Your fate was in your (and your Doctor’s) hands. You could control whether you speeded up, speeded down, fell asleep, stayed awake, got fat, got thin, got happy, got pregnant, got Septicaemia, Dyspepsia, Acne, Arthritis or  Tuberculosis. There were even pills to make you tell the truth.. (though of course, those were never really available in pill form - too many marriages would have been ruined) Rock and Pop groups extolled their virtues in song. The Rolling Stones sang about them:  “Mother’s Little Helper” foreshadowed the hordes of grey-haired pill-popping prescription-addict grannies of the eighties and nineties - and even movies were dedicated to them. If the world could be blown up in an instant, at least we could all go calmly. Even Prudence, with any luck.

 Clearly my mother was also hoping for some such calmative effect for Prudence – and failing that, for us. She had embraced the pill-popping culture with the devotion of an early Christian for a piece of the True Cross.

Samson cleared his throat.
“Nee, Mies – nie daardie soort pil nie. Sy soek die BILL.” (No Ma'am - not that sort of pill - the Bill)
“She wants Bill? Bill who?”
Samson rolled his eyes.
“Hennie!” demanded my mother impatiently, “We must find out who this Bill is and get him here at once! Ask, him, Hennie, ask him!” she pleaded.
Before my father could get a word in, Samson interrupted. With an air of martyred pain, he gazed heavenward. One sensed that he was asking the Almighty what he had done to deserve such suffering.
“Dis nie die mens wat sy soek, Mies. Dis die BUL” he said carefully –  as one does to not very bright children - “die man-koei”…(It is not a person she seeks. It is the man cow)
What my mother said next doesn’t bear repeating. My father and I were laughing too much to remember much of it anyway.

Christmas Dinings, Whinings and Woes (Part One)

When things go wrong on a plot, they tend to go very, very wrong. There are no happy mediums on plots - unless they are the sort lucratively employed in communicating with the dead.

So, when my borehole pump started tripping at the main board, I knew I was in trouble. Not even I, accustomed as I am to the vagaries of country life, could have guessed just how much trouble it was going to turn into.

The first time it tripped, I thought my pump had been stolen. This happens a lot out here. As I waded through the shoulder high grass to the site of the borehole, my spirits lifted. Not even a water-diviner could have found it in this wilderness of weed, grass and bramble - and so it proved; the borehole and its pump were intact. So what could it be?

I checked at the board in the house – nothing. There was power, yet there was no water. So I called my local knight-in-shining-armour, Papa Delta, for help. Shortly after, he called back to say a bakkie bearing water was on its way to me, could I open the gate? On my way there, I checked the main board at the water tower. It had tripped. I switched it on again, and the storage tank started filling…

I grovelled suitably and blushed and apologised for my incredible stupidity and the kindly, long-suffering man drove off with his water-laden bakkie, no doubt privately cursing all women, particularly those who did not immediately check their main boards for tripped switches.

But the switch kept tripping. And not the psychedelic kind either.

Every time I used a lot of water, it tripped. Luckily the rainy season had come early and the garden did not need watering. So the problem went undetected, growing bigger like a hidden snake, biding its time to strike at just the right moment..

And suddenly Christmas was upon us.  Frantic polishing and cleaning.  Days before, I started washing sheets for my Christmas houseguests. Sheets and blankets always smell nasty after a stint in the cupboard, and I love the delicious anticipation of getting into a really cleanly fragrant bed. All the sofa covers needed to be washed too, because otherwise they smell of their default odour, which is damp dog. I have seven dogs, five of which are devoted sofa-snugglers. Two of them are also pond-waders, so I always keep a pile of clean throws to toss over suspect sofas for unexpected visitors, but this had to be thorough. My ex-husband was coming over for Christmas.

I am not a keen fan of my ex-husband. But I read that according to Karma, lessons not learned in this life will be repeated in the next, and if I do not make peace with him, I might well be married to him again in my next life.. That is not a risk I am willing to take, no matter how small the chance.

And that was not all. My gay ex-brother-in-law was coming along too, with his boyfriend, Bunny, who was the only one I looked forward to seeing. Bunny is vivacious and full of fun, a real sweetie. What he sees in Yawn, my ex-brother-in-law, is a mystery to me, but there it is. Besides, who am I to criticize? After all, I married into that family. The only shining light that lay over the whole event would be the presence of my daughter Morgana, who can turn a funeral into a party.

And so I was slaving away, trying to make my crumbling old house look its best. As old houses do, it resisted. It summoned the forces of nature to help it. As spiders grumbled at having their comfy old cobwebs disturbed, the skies rumbled, thundered, and smacked fat sulky clouds until they retaliated by dropping their heavy load directly overhead.

As always happens with such storms, the power failed, leaving the polisher stranded in mid-floor. Muddy paw-prints planted by ozone-charged dogs  gathered around it; clean washing blew away and settled damply in branches like cartoon ghosts abandoned on impact. The old house sighed contentedly as it settled into its thick, churned-chocolate mud bed. So did I, although rather less contentedly, and turned to polishing the brass and silver instead. That always cheers me up. I love the warped reflections in shiny objects, and the way the light bounces off them.

In the cold-hearted manner of things mechanical and electrical, the gate also started giving me trouble. When the rain stopped, the gate wouldn’t open to the remote control, and there is n other way to open it that does not involve wallowing in the mud. It just stood there, shivering and straining as if it was about to give birth. Closer inspection revealed that during the week of rain, it had silted up. Water from the Magaliesberg had rolled unencumbered down the road, bringing a rich collection of topsoil and debris with it, until it had come to the gate, where it nested. I cleared it. It still wasn’t happy. It rumbled and grumbled and shivered until a hearty shove sent it creaking on its way. But at least I could get out. It never did manage to open all by itself again.

The day before Christmas, the switch kept on tripping. I had done a lot of washing. My daughter, Morgana, arrived with her friend Mondrian and his relatives, some of whom I had never met, and I unexpectedly found myself swigging Brandy and Coca-Cola. We all became extremely happy to have met one another, and found ourselves and everyone else to be amazingly charming and witty. The switch tripped, but no-one noticed. When they left two hours later, a nap was necessary.

Having fallen behind schedule due to these unforeseen circumstances, we laboured late into the night. It was only the next day, when Morgana was sluicing down the enormous verandah, that the switch became a problem. I kept having to run up and flip it. It was proving to be more stubborn each time. I had to turn the mains off first, then flip it before it would take.

Our guests arrived, minus Bunny, due to a last minute lovers’ tiff. Much effusive and largely insincere greeting took place. Drinks were poured, and everyone settled in. Shark (my ex-husband) had taken the precaution, at Morgana’s urging, of  slightly pre-roasting the lamb and potatoes and other vegetables, because the power levels have been known to drop radically on Christmas Day in the past resulting in lunch being served in the evening and everyone being sozzled from drinking on an empty stomach. 

Lunch was a splendid affair, in spite of the entire table, an ancient oak refectory table, having to be carried indoors twice due to rain. There was mint jelly as well as mint sauce made with freshly picked mint, glorious wine served in the finest cut crystal glasses, and a salad colourful enough to shame a hula-girl. Malva Pudding with Liqueur Brandy  followed, along with grapes, cheeses and plums. The table looked lovely with a fifty-five year old hand-embroidered Irish linen centre-piece and napkins. Everyone was on their best behaviour, and in a truly festive mood. Not so the plumbing.

It was just after lunch that I noticed that one of the toilets, newly fixed, had started leaking again, and that the other had come out in sympathy. We rallied, and spread towels to absorb the flow, which was luckily clean water. Eventually we all drifted off to bed, Morgana and I totally exhausted but replete, and congratulating ourselves on the day having gone unexpectedly well.

 The following morning, the only water to be found in the house was that on the bathroom floors. The switch had tripped for the very last time. Even the most ingenious coaxing resulted in a baleful flash of sparks that boded ill. Luckily, I always keep some bottled water for these little emergencies, so we could at least make coffee. Yawn was mildly perturbed because he couldn’t get hold of Bunny. He wondered whether he might have committed suicide as he thoughtfully sipped his coffee.

We called the Drain Scurmudgeon. They offer an excellent 24 hour service, and I’ve used them before. Their man was nearly here when we had a power failure. Without power, he wouldn’t be able to find the source of our woes.  Sadly I phoned and he turned back. Not twenty minutes later, the power was back on. More phone calls, desperate pleas and some sharp words later, José was on his way back to us. In retrospect, it is a pity we were so convincing.

José arrived in a flash of mud and white teeth, a very personable young man. He looked efficient enough. I’m not an electrician, what do I know? Shark kindly escorted him to the board up at the pump-house and confided man-to-man that the only problem with the board was that I had let it get wet. Then he returned to the comfort of one of my saggier sofas, where he and Yawn quaffed more wine and muttered mutinously about toilets having to be flushed with buckets full of pond-weed and lunch being delayed while I flitted about the in the undergrowth with electricians.

 José bustled busily about. Morgana and I followed him like devoted magician’s assistants as he flourished his screw driver like a wizard waving his wand. I instantly trusted him. He bypassed the troublesome switch, which turned out to be the transformer, and the tank filled with happy gurgles and splashes.

“It cannot trip now!” he proclaimed triumphantly.

There was a loud bang.

The water tank was nearly full, but not quite. The pump had stopped. He asked us to open all the taps so the water could run out. With some misgiving, I did as instructed. But I was worried. How would we fill it again?

I asked him why we were emptying the tank. He explained patiently that he wanted to see what would happen. I demurred, on the grounds that I knew what would happen. The tank would drain, and there would be no more water. Firmly, I closed the taps. He looked disappointed. He said that in that case, there was nothing more to be done, and that he would return early in January, when the shops were open and he could get spare parts, to replace our tripswitch.

“Why do you not have municipal water?” he enquired accusingly.

“I don’t know, José. We pay rates and taxes. But apparently our Government has more pressing needs, such as the refurbishing of our beloved President Zuma’s private home in KwaZulu”

“Ah!” he exclaimed, sympathetically “This Zuma has too many wives. Me I do not even have a paved road to my house! And he is spending millions! I am never voting again. It is useless.”

“Well, José, we are in the same boat in that respect. Do you see any paved roads here? See you next year!”

 Then he was gone with another splat of mud and flash of teeth.

By then the enormous Pizza I had made for lunch was stony cold, but still very tasty. We made short work of it, washed down with a lovely Cabernet Sauvignon, and life looked less bleak. We laughed uproariously at feeble Marie Antoinette type “Let them drink wine” jokes before retiring for a much needed siesta.

We awoke at about five to the rumble of thunder. Morgana rushed off to wake her father.

“Dad, it’s about to rain. Aren’t you working tomorrow?”

Shark surfaced reluctantly.

“What...?? I am! Rain..? Oh God no!” and he was off like a shot to wake Yawn. Amazing the effect news of rain has on visitors who know our road. Moments later they were on their way. And not a moment too soon. We had barely returned from the gate when the heavens roared their discontent and let fly with a storm that would have left Wagner speechless with envy. We lit candles, sank exhaustedly onto the sofa, comforted dogs, and drank hot cocoa. With Brandy. We had survived. We had no water, but we had each other, the dogs, and lots of Brandy…And relative peace, if not of mind.