dogs drop and stay. Their heads are drawn right back into their shoulders, and their ears twitch with waiting.
A herdsman sits on the back of a stocky brown horse in the veld nearby. A bright woollen blanket lies under his worn saddle, a whip of willow tucked under his arm. The reins are slack in his hands on the pommel in front of him, and as we watch his jaws move, he leans over his horse and spits a gleaming stream of tobacco juice onto the ground. Allan flinches. He leans forward again, and I can feel the warmth of his breath on my ear.
On the way to the farm, we stop in the village to say hello to Grandpa and Granny. Allan checks the duco for chips on the body of his Alfa Romeo.
“That’s a city car,” I say, watching him run his fingers along the sides of the doors. He looks up at me and grins. I say nothing about the state of the roads to come.
Allan flinches at the dust on the white gravel road out of town. We drive through the dip in the vlei. I can feel him tense as the bare branches of the weeping willows brush the roof of the car. We drive past the drowned trees in the lake at the reed-choked weir, and the cement hut where the generator thuds every night until it’s switched off at nine o’clock sharp. The road winds past the prickly pear koppie and the wild pears and poplars at the fountain, the red mud hut where Annie and Scott used to live, the shallow, empty dam, the thorn trees. We follow the bend in the road where the stony track branches off over the ridge to Groenvlei and Awendson, Te Huis. A long tail of dust follows us past the Grootberg until we turn onto the driveway leading down to the farmhouse on Boesmansfontein.
Happy times never change
Sitting side by side on the old wire chairs on the stoep, Uncle Leslie and Aunt Alice watch Allan nurse the Alfa across the cattle grid.
“Yes, Mrs Kallikatzke, you back again?” Uncle Leslie beams.
“Hello, Uncle Leslie!” I’m five years old, eight, ten. Happy times never change.
I glance at Allan, smile and shake my head.
Introductions are made – a final sizing-up has still to be completed when we sit down to coffee and cake set out under the wilting fly nets on the dining-room table. Through the open kitchen door, I can see my aunt’s cling peaches swimming like dark yellow suns in their syrupy bottles in the pantry. Lamb is roasting in the oven of the old coal stove. Allan yawns. It’s been a long day. My uncle leans back in his chair and studies him from under his brows.
“You’ve got a wild one here.” He nods in my direction. His magic tooth that used to fascinate me when I was young flashes in and out of his mouth. Allan blinks.
“I hope you’re up to it.” Uncle Leslie stares at him.
I lean forward. “Uncle Leslie!”
He raises a thick, freckled hand.
Allan’s undaunted. “I’ll do my best,” he says.
“Stop trying to put him off, Uncle Les!”
“Too late.” Allan grins at me. “She’s caught me hook, line and sinker.”
“See, Uncle Les?” I tilt my chin.
He snorts. “What? You think you can tame her?” he asks Allan, jerking his thumb at me.
“I wouldn’t want to try,” says Allan. “I like her the way she is.”
My uncle nods. I glow under the seal of their approval.
After dinner, I show Allan the dimly lit bathroom, the basin, dark in a corner, the mirror, fly-spotted with age and spit, the dregs of children’s toothpaste overlooked by careless maids. Still sitting in the dining room, Uncle Leslie’s deep in thought. Aunt Alice presses her spectacles back with her forefinger. She places her palms on the edge of the table, leans forward and pushes her chair away with the backs of her thighs. The heavy stinkwood ball-and-claw feet squeal on the wooden floorboards.
In the kitchen, the maids, Annie and Oulik, scrape pots and pans, clatter plates and cutlery in the sink’s greasy water. Through the open door, I watch Annie lift the boiling kettle off the stovetop. It’s heavy. She carries it across the floor in both hands and pours a steaming stream into the cooling water in the sink. Oulik clicks her tongue.
My aunt excuses herself and walks into the kitchen to issue her last instructions for the day. Her shoes squeak away down the dark passage. Annie and Oulik let themselves out into the cold night. The latch on the backdoor clicks shut.
“Ja,” my uncle sighs. He pushes his chair back from the table and turns it to face the small electric heater on the floor against the wall. He sits down again, his elbows on his knees, and stretches his hands out in front of him. Down at the weir, the old generator reverberates endlessly, powering the lights and the fridges. When it stops at nine o’clock precisely, the rooms spark with the sound and light of matches and candles. I sit at the table, watching and waiting. My uncle glances at me, puts his hands on his thighs, and pushes himself up.
“Don’t go yet,” he says. “I’ve got something for you.”
No funny business
The floorboards protest as he walks out of the dining room. I can hear him moving about in the small dark area where the farm rifles used to lie, piled haphazardly on the wooden tea trolley when we were young.
“Here,” he says, walking back into the dining room. “Give me your hand.”
I smile and close my eyes. I can hear the water running in the shower in the bathroom.
“Why?” I ask
“Just give it to me,” he says, louder this time.
I hold my hand out to him. The generator runs rough. The sound stutters up through the cold air. The lights dim and flicker. He takes my hand in his hard, freckled one. His nails are short, stained with lanolin and dust and grease. He smells of sheep. He turns my hand over so that my palm lies open in his, presses something small and round and hard into it, and folds my fingers over in a soft fist. The light wavers. The generator collects itself again and resumes its beat.
Outside, the burning of the sky is done. The sun has set, and the night settles down in the sky.
I open my fist and look up. Uncle Leslie’s eyes slide sideways, shy and embarrassed. His face is flushed. The bristles on his moustache quiver. He looks away, over my shoulder.
“You know what that’s used for?”
It’s not quite a question. His voice is brusque, oddly defiant.
I stare at the tiny, hard green rubber ring in my hand. Then I look up at him and smile.
“Yes, Uncle Les, I know what it’s used for – I’m just not sure what you want me to do with it?”
He shrugs and thrusts his hands into the pockets of his trousers. I wait for him to answer.
Outside the dining-room window, I see an owl, motionless on a fencepost. Suddenly, it flies away towards the shearing shed, the pale feathers under its wings flashing in the uncertain light. A dog barks a warning near the labourers’ huts. Uncle Leslie’s Border collie, Jenny, raises her head. Uncle Leslie calls all his bitches Jenny. I never ask him why. Taciturn, moody, generally bedonnerd, and – when my cousins and I were young – impossibly impatient and quick tempered, Uncle Leslie writes poetry, and he loves the land with all his heart. I know; he’s told me so.
I stare at the rubber ring. Roll it back and forth between my thumb and forefinger, feel its hardness, its small circumference, its aperture a tiny, tight gap of light. I raise my eyebrows and smile a little wider. He shakes his head, irritable, and mutters something under his breath.
“Sorry,” I say, “I’m sorry, Uncle Les, I didn’t catch that?”
He jerks his chin at my hand. “Use it if he tries any funny business,” he growls.
“What d’you mean, funny business, Uncle Les? If who tries any funny business?” I know what he’s trying