Isak watches his father instructing the men, surrounded by the lilies, and he is singing the chorus with Nana Mouskouri on the hi-fi.
The wreath that Tannie Lettie laid on Oupa’s coffin was of lilies, he thinks, everlasting lilies of plastic.
The men shift Ouma’s clawed furniture to make space for dancing and their boots leave treads all over the floor. David is at the front door making the bar counter from fruit crates, while in the kitchen Danie nibbles on fatty pieces of gammon. Isak takes a rind and it tastes of cloves.
“Out from under my feet, scoot!” Raatjie catches them both, waving the carving knife wildly.
Together they duck for the back door.
Along the stoep wall are zinc baths filled with blocks of ice and bottles. Isak takes a bottle, hiding it in the hydrangea bush.
“Mamma isn’t keen for tonight.” He digs out the torn paper with the list of party names, screws it up in a ball, then throws it across the lawn.
“Are you off to Pettie?”
“Mamma wants us at the party” He spits between his feet, “and Pettie has a girl.”
The posy still stands on the windowsill in the kitchen, wilted then dried out from the sun. He must remember to throw it away.
“Whose beer?” Danie lifts the floppy hydrangea head.
“Mine, who else’s? I’m not a child any more.”
“The nooi is calling,” Raatjie shouts at them.
She sits on her puff chair with the ostrich feather trim, wearing a satin gown and pom-pom slippers. Her cutexed toes stick out.
“Bath and get ready so you’re not late when I need you. The guests will be here anytime.”
They stand at the door staring at the back of her head covered in large curlers.
“Ja, Mamma,” they answer in unison, but they don’t turn away.
Her dress hangs from the door, red and silky with flowers embroidered around the neckline.
“Mamma’s dress is beautiful.” Danie fingers the fabric.
“Don’t touch.” She swivels on the stool with her lollipop head. “Shoo, shoo, go and bath.” Then she turns back to the mirror studying her reflection with concentration. Carefully, she unwinds the large curls. “Sakkie, tell Ragel that when she’s finished slicing the meat she can go but she must make sure she’s back by sevenish.”
“Ja, Mamma.” His fingers brush over the sequins.
“Close the door.”
“Ja, Mamma.”
The kitchen is deserted. Raatjie has left and so have the men. His father sits in the lounge with closed eyes, wearing his cream suit and red shirt. The music of earlier plays on and on.
In the bathroom he closes the plastic curtain around the bath, pressing against the metal head. He thinks of Petrus and the girl under the eucalyptus trees, the curve of her breast, and her skin the colour of bark. As the water sprays hard against the curtain he sees Magdaleen, hairless legs wrapped around those of Willa on the back seat of the bus. He imagines the useless posy gripped by perfect half-moon fingernails and she smiling at him and the tightness in his hand is embarrassing so he closes the hot water and the stream of cold brings relief.
Their navy suits are matching. Danie is dirty but dressed. Isak rubs his chin but there is nothing. Stiffly, they sit opposite each other, waiting, hands in their pockets, listening to her coming down the passage.
“How do I look?” She turns around, holding out her skirt and the sequins twinkle.
“Mamma is beautiful.” Danie whispers in awe at the sight of her in red.
“I can’t seem to get my hair to lie flat, here at the back.” She twists her head to see better. “It doesn’t want to come right.”
“Mamma’s hair is beautiful.” Danie tries again.
She opens a monogrammed case, removing a slim cigarette. Her red-tipped hand cups the flame from the lighter, then she tilts her head back, drawing deeply.
Motorcars come up the hill, a shiny cavalcade of the latest models.
“I must go.” She stubs the cigarette in the case’s lid.
The guests are in the entrance. Their father greets them in his having-a-good-time voice.
“Sakkie, call Ragel in about half an hour, I’m scared she forgets.”
“Ja, Mamma.” He wants to tell her that she looks pretty but her face is closed to him.
Down in the lounge the music’s volume has been turned up. The guests speak louder and louder, while David pours gin and tonics in frosted highballs. He wears a white cummerbund and a tailed suit that makes him look like a silent movie comedian. The boys sit under the stairs. They can see everybody from here, men in tight suits and women with bouffed hair.
“The council is having an election soon.” Oom Frans’s lips hardly move as he speaks to Oom Stoffel, unaware of the boys beneath the step.
“We’ll have to speak to the men seriously, something’s brewing.” Oom Stoffel raises his hand to another man across the room.
“The fellows will have to stand together this time to stop the Sappe.” Oom Frans leans against the banister: “Johan, is busy wooing our lot.”
“And their wives.”
The men laugh, their attention on the woman from the exhibition hall. Her hair is silky and her black dress cut low. Isak’s mother spots him and the two men make way for her, Oom Frans kissing her hand. Her lipstick has shifted to the rim of her glass.
“Sakkie,” she lisps his name ever so slightly, “Rageltjie hasn’t arrived. Be a darling for Mamma and call her for me, David says she was at the house when he left.”
“Two good-looking farm lads,” Oom Stoffel comments, and his mother smiles dreamily as Isak appears from behind the step.
“Coming?” Isak asks.
“No.” Danie’s eyes are glued on the crowd.
“Hurry,” she touches Isak’s arm with the red nails, holding out her glass to Oom Frans.
“Keep your enemy close to your chest,” Oom Frans says over his shoulder to Oom Stoffel, as he guides her up the stairs to the bar.
Outside, under fairy lights of green and red and blue, Outa and Piet Plesier share a bottle. They guard the rows of cars parked on the lawn, chatting quietly while Isak slips by unnoticed. The latest model of the Ford Capri stands out amongst the other sleek lines. Isak stops to admire its shark-faced grill.
He walks under the avenue of trees. The smiling dog is just in front. They stop at David and Raatjie’s house, locked and dark. Isak walks around to the place of the bonfire, just a black spot on the ground. The smiling dog sits close to him and he runs his hands through its hair. He likes the feeling of the dog’s skin against his own.
The rose growing over the stoep is a rose from Ouma’s garden. He cannot pronounce its name, the roses that his father put on Ouma and Oupa’s grave.
“Where the bloody hell is she?” He likes swearing in English like Oupa used to do. In thought, he presses his nose into the petals, smelling the sweet fragrance. Petrus is with the girl. That he knows for sure.
Across the orchards a single light burns from Poppenshuis. There’s a second light coming from the foreman’s house. He drops the rose, making his way in the dark to the dimly lit stoep. Music and laughter drift with the evening breeze from the house on the hill.
The moon and stars are clouded over by a heavy sky.
The foreman’s