An itchy-ball hit my head, disintegrating into a shower of brown seeds that clung to my hair and clothes. I turned to see Steven scouring the ground under a plane tree for another missile, but I was in luck: the balls had mostly dried out, seeds blown away by the summer wind. In winter, the balls of seed hung hard and green on the trees, and bullies loved the pain they could inflict with them. By spring the now-brown and dry seed balls were a favorite of bullies, who like to shove them down shirt-fronts or into undies, where the extremely fine, hairy seeds created a terrible itch. My interactions with Steven were mostly like this. He relished being a bully, and had no other way to interact with me other than shunning me, which, thankfully, happened more often than not.
With his attention on me now, I broke out in a sweat, hemmed in by fear. I’d lost all sense of control over my circumstances by not abiding by the rules of counting. Steven shouted, ‘Afrikaner lover, rock-spider!’ My body refused to come to my aid. Frozen to the spot, I was staring at Steven, infuriating him, forcing him to do the inevitable ‘whatever’ to punish me. But he just shoved me aside to enter our yard first, and commanded, ‘Use the back door—you stink, rock-spider.’ To Evelyn, who was sweeping the porch, he threw out an order, ‘I’m hungry; get me something to eat,’ slamming the front door behind himself.
Evelyn threw me a ‘look’, which usually meant trouble for me, so while she followed Steven into the house with a cluck and an ‘Eish’, I figured it was best to keep a low profile by hiding out around the back of the house in my usual wait-for-it spot in the vegetable garden. I used a piece of guttering that ran along the wall as a seat, listening and anxiously anticipating ‘whatever’.
That afternoon Simon found me, an ice-cream cone dripping chocolate all down his fingers and hand.
‘Kate, what are you doing? Mommy has ice-cream cones; she says you can come and get one.’
‘Ice-cream? Really?’ I could hardly believe it! Why had Evelyn flashed me a ‘look’, I wondered?
I followed Simon to the back door, through the scullery and into the kitchen, where Mom was dishing up a large cone for Steven.
‘Hello, Mommy,’ I said, as softly as I could.
‘Where have you been, Kate? You should have been in ages ago!’ Not angry, just inquiring.
‘Um, I just went to see your pretty strawberry plants, Mommy.’ I prided myself on being quick-thinking and knowing how to say the kinds of things Mom liked to hear.
‘Aren’t they lovely?’
‘Yes, Mommy.’ She passed me a cone, not as drippingly full as the boys’ ones, but I was still thrilled. She was wearing a floral sundress and white heels. With her perfect makeup and her hair braided around her head like a girl, she looked young, fresh and happy. ‘I have a visitor in the lounge. We’re not to be disturbed. You may all play in your rooms for an hour, not in the garden, mind—we want our peace and quiet.’
Steven moaned that he didn’t want to stay in his room, that he wanted to join her in the lounge, that it ‘wasn’t fair’, but Mom was adamant. She promised to take us all to see the movie Jaws one Saturday, if Steven did as she asked without complaining. A trip to the cinema was about the best ever reward for anything, so I guessed that her visitor had to be very ‘important’! I was so relieved by my turn of fortune that it felt as though I’d survived a trip to the guillotine, and so I reckoned that the Afrikaans boy was a good luck omen, after all.
Strains of Barbara Streisand wafted from the formal lounge room. The boys didn’t seem to notice anything unusual about the doors being closed, but my curiosity was piqued, and I felt I had to know what was going on inside. Sometime later, the sound of adult voices traveled down the hallway as the lounge doors were opened—muted voices, male and female. The front door groaned, and I tiptoed to the bathroom and stood on the loo seat to get a look out at the front path.
A tall man with thick grey hair, wearing a suit of similar color, had one hand casually placed on Mom’s backside. He was leaning in to kiss her on the neck, apparently whispering in her ear, then he drew her hand up to his lips, backed away and turned down the path through our front gate. I recognized him as someone who used to work with my Dad; he and his wife had even come over for dinner at our old house, before we’d moved. It was amazing—gob-smacking, even—to see Mom in this romantic position with another man; she always seemed to rebuff affection from Dad, and I’d only seen them kissing once. The flower that was Mom in her best moment wilted before my eyes as the man drove off in his BMW.
She bent to remove her shoes, and as she stood, her braids fell loosely to her shoulders, which seem hunched now. Hairpins clung higgledy-piggledy here and there; she’d gone from beautiful to broken in a moment. I ducked down and dashed back to my room, my mind abuzz from what I’d seen, trying to work out what it meant. Pulling Ken and Barbie from my toy box, I tried to recreate the scene, combing down Barbie’s hair and dressing her up in her best clothes, with Ken in his jeans and cowboy jacket.
‘You look so beautiful, Barbie. Want to go on a date? I can’t, Ken; I’m married. I sure would like to go on a date, though. Being married is so boring; my husband doesn’t appreciate me at all. You shouldn’t be bored, Barbie! You should have fun, you’re so beautiful. Okay, let’s listen to Barbara Streisand, drink wine and smoke cigarettes. Would you like to dance with me, Barbie, before I have to go back to work? You can’t go back to work and leave me all alone again, Ken! I have to go, Barbie, but I’ll see you soon. Oh! Ken, don’t go!’ I shoved Ken and Barbie back in the box; they irritated me so much with their always-beautiful looks and demanding ways.
I’d seen a secret; I knew I had. The romantic moment involving Mom became fodder for the fantasies I had of her going away forever. I seriously hoped that, left to her own devices, Mom would eventually run away, never to be seen again.
One night, we were watching the news with Dad, stuff about South Africa being banned from the Olympic Games and a terrible earthquake in Honduras that had killed over 20,000 people. I couldn’t comprehend that number of dead people, but the news presenter had moved on anyway. ‘Andries Treurnicht has been appointed Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education.’
Dad growled, ‘That’s going to add fuel to the flames! What’s wrong with this government? Can’t they see that every move they make to squeeze and contain the blacks is going to cause a reaction? That Treurnicht would have been a concentration camp guard if he’d been born at the right time.’ He kicked his legs out in front, as he was wont to do when irritated, folding his hands across his middle as if to contain himself that way.
Mom sat like a block of stone, sending shivers through me. She was in a dangerous mood, and it made my skin crawl with apprehension. The babel of the TV was interrupted by Evelyn with a small green bush with purple and white flowers on it, delivered by a ‘boy’ for ‘The Missus’. The label read: ‘Yesterday, today and tomorrow.’
‘What the hell is that about, then?’ Dad asked as Mom leapt up, suddenly all flustered, to take hold of the plant.
‘Oh, it’s just something I asked Joy about; she has one in her garden, and she must have sent it over—how sweet.’ I didn’t believe her; she looked as though a light had gone on inside of her, suddenly all bright eyes and shiny skin.
She was like that; she could change from one frame of mind to another, from one expression to another, in a flash, in a moment. I reckoned the plant was from Mr Grey Hair. I sent up a silent prayer to Mary Mother of Jesus, or to anyone else who was listening: ‘Please make her go away with him, please! Not just for me, but for Dad too. Please, please, please!’
It