was the only daughter. She and I were close enough in age to spend much time with our heads together, her cropped hair falling forward over cheeks dusted with freckles, as we dressed our Barbie dolls, mostly in gowns that we fashioned ourselves. It was a gentle friendship. Marie was soft and kind and would have done well growing up in town.
Dirk was much younger than me, and we didn’t spend much time together.
But otherwise, between ourselves, we hewed a happy childhood from that open veld as we climbed trees, built makeshift treehouses, sprained limbs, and cracked chins.
We learnt to swim.
We rode our bikes.
The bikes would eventually be set aside once we were older and taller, and then we took to 125cc Suzuki scramblers and the disused quarry a few kilometres away. It was there that Jannie, the younger Bezuidenhout brother and my brother, David, would throttle it out, blasting granite deposits as they raced the grey dunes. Lapping each other, trying to be the fastest. Us girls, glittered in the gravelly dust, would scream with delight as we hung on tight on the back with our legs bandied, trying to keep clear of the exhaust and its incinerating touch.
We learnt to shoot, mostly with our pellet guns and less often with the .22 rifle and its live ammunition. Target practice usually happened at our house. We would place our targets evenly along the knee-high stone wall, just behind the flowerbeds, and pretend it was the boundary to our garden fort. We would lie low and swat the grass from our noses as we leopard-crawled into position. Then, as we nuzzled the gun in our armpits, we’d line up the scope, take aim and fire, careful to avoid the dahlias and geraniums. Our garden was the biggest so it made sense to shoot there, but what was also convenient was that there was never a shortage of targets at our house. We offered an unlimited supply of Lion Lager cans.
And my father was emptying them, drinking them … fast. As fast as he could. Faster than we could shoot a bull’s-eye through the O of Lion.
He was often at home and had begun to adopt more flexible working hours as he fell deeper and deeper into the clutches of alcoholism. The binges were now more intense and the time between them less. As he slumped down into his armchair, he had become one with our afternoons. He would sit there in the dark, with the lounge curtains drawn, casting his own shadow. It was only the ash that stirred as it grew steadily and then fell from the glowing tip of his Texan Plain, hung limp in his hand. Until the next beer. Then the brash silence of the suck as the seal was broken, as if the beer was drawing its first air, before exhaling, and burping its decay. My father, with his glazed gaze, sat there staring, completely fixated on the pull. As the afternoon continued, and as his mind dulled in its prelude to oblivion, his bald head would loll forward, until the stupor inevitably yielded and he passed out.
I was ashamed of my father, the drunk.
If he wasn’t throwing back the liquid in the lounge, then he’d be seeking comfort and consort in his cans at the golf club. With that came the uncertainty as I lay in my bed and waited for him to return. I would lie there clutching the curtain tight in my small hand. I would pull the fabric down, almost straight, forming a strained sliver, and peer into the blackness, unblinking. It seemed I was always watching and waiting. Sometimes I searched for satellites between the twinkles of light, but mostly the fear in my tummy distracted me.
Other times I prayed.
“Gentle Jesus, meek and mild
Look upon a little child;
Pity mice, and little me
Suffer me to come to Thee.
Please keep my mother safe
And us.
Amen”
When the far-off beams of his car’s lights finally cut through the milky curtain that draped the sky I would look straight ahead into the distance. I would see the flicker of his headlights break between the trees far away and I’d gauge how long he was taking. The longer he took the greater the certainty. Time left hanging was a broken promise of a silent night.
I would keep my eyes fixed on the beams of light as he weaved up the driveway. Only when he parked would I lose sight of his car and only then would I blink. I’d keep my ears sharp. I’d wait to see how long it took for him to open the car door. I’d wait to see how long it took for him to close the car door. I’d listen to hear how lazy the thud was. Then, ears pricked, I’d follow his stagger up the path. I knew exactly where he’d fall. Just past the flowerbed beneath the thorn tree. I’d hear him pick himself up.
I would keep my hand balanced tight on the edge of my bed as I held the curtain firm and steady. I would lie there, still and unseen, peeping out. He never made the stairs. They were right outside my window and I would draw back into the darkness as he lay prone. I would want to close my ears as he cursed, but I couldn’t in case he saw the curtain move. His words were distorted and muffled as he collided with the veranda. He would roll over. I would watch him as he tried to focus. He would fix his eyes, unblinking, stare straight ahead and eventually lurch forward. Often he would crawl. Sometimes he would vomit.
My chest would tighten some more when he spewed his acid. Only then would I carefully slide my curtain closed.
But somehow he always had enough in him for the fight.
The beatings usually took place at night. They seldom happened during the day.
Except one particular Saturday afternoon when he came home early from the golf club. My mother had greeted him in her usual manner, a grand smile on her face, her placatory mask of pretence, pretending he wasn’t raging drunk. But he needed no provocation. He never did.
As the thumps started, I grabbed my brother and sister and shepherded them into the TV room.
“It’s going to be okay,” I whispered as we cowered together.
“We’ll be okay.”
“I promise.”
They were only seven. I was two years older. It was my job to keep them safe.
We waited for the quiet and only when my mother lay sobbing into the pillows in her room did we sneak out. We made sure my father wouldn’t hear us. We made no noise, not a sound, as we squeezed ourselves between the wires of the boundary fence, carefully avoiding the sharpened barbs, to enter into the Badenhorsts’ property. It was only once we were on the other side, on their land, that we dared to raise our voices. We rushed around their veld, a land dense with protea bushes. All those shrubs hanging abundant with massive woolly flowers tinted in murky shades of carmine and pink, and layers of dusty cream. We picked only the finest. We stood tall and ripped at thick, stubborn woody stems to reach for the most voluptuous, most colourful and most beautiful, growing free and wild in our neighbours’ veld.
And, as we laughed and made a noise and filled our arms, we allowed ourselves to forget.
This would make my mother feel better. We knew she would be happy and smile too.
We cleared the stems of their dark green, glossy leaves and filled all the vases we could find. And when there weren’t enough of those, we found jars and pressed them full. We placed them all over the dining room and lounge, infusing the house with a strong, dusty, leathery smell.
Then we waited.
She finally appeared, eyes swollen and puffy. She saw the flowers, then she took us one by one over her knee. Each word accompanied by a slap.
“YOU – WILL – NOT – STEAL –” Four syllables. Four slaps.
“EVER!” she shouted. Five.
“Take these back to Mrs Badenhorst now!” Pause. “And you say sorry for stealing her flowers.”
Mrs Badenhorst seemed a little taken aback by our arrival, but courteously and unquestioningly accepted her flowers back.
It was two months later that my brother set off a firecracker and flicked a spark that would soon twist into a raging furnace that would take the Badenhorsts’ veld with it. All the proteas would