Sharkey’s Son
School Edition
Gillian D’achada
Tafelberg
Before reading
| 1. | The name of the chief character is Grant. Yet the book is called Sharkey’s Son. Suggest a reason for this. |
| While reading | |
| 2. | Although Oom Daan knows Grant well, why is he not at ease in talking to him? |
| 3. | Grant refers to his father as Sharkey, not dad or pa. What does this suggest about his relationship with his father? |
1. A man who only knows fishing
By the time the sun was low enough for Grant to stare unblinkingly at it, he knew that something bad had happened to Sharkey.
For three days he’d been looking out. On the first day he’d thought, “Oh well, he had a bit of a party at the Paternoster Hotel last night. He’ll be home.”
On the second day he’d thought, “He must have gone out with the Saldanha skippers. He’ll be home.” But by the evening of the third day he had run out of thoughts that made any sense.
Down at the lagoon, boats were bobbing gently at the edge of the sandy shoreline and Tant Lisbeth would soon be locking up the Beach Café. All of Langebaan seemed just as it had always been. Except that tiny hermit crabs of fear were scrabbling around inside Grant and he knew that something was terribly wrong.
The sky was darkening rapidly, but he was loath to leave the lagoon’s edge, reluctant to return to the low, thick-walled house he’d lived in all his life. It had been strange and still without Sharkey the last two nights.
So he stayed and watched the gulls gliding high overhead on their way to Schaapen Island. They rested there, with all the other sea-birds, every night. Grant loved the gulls. They were the big, black, cold, fierce Atlantic gulls. Their cry was wild and free.
The best flyers you can get, Grant thought. Sharkey loved them too, as long as they stayed away from his fish.
Where was Sharkey? What had happened to him? An accident – while he worked after dark – or smokkeled, as some people put it.
“Naand, boytjie. Evening, son.”
Grant looked around.
“Dis ’n weer wat inkom,” Oom Daan pointed to the hedge of clouds gathered on the horizon. “Ons ga’ mis kry.”
Any Langebaner with eyes to see knew those clouds meant a thick fog was coming. Grant wondered why Oom Daan was speaking to him as though he was a visitor.
“Is dit nie al te laat om nog so langs die lagoon te sit nie?”
“No, Uncle, it’s not too late to sit here.”
“Oh.” Oom Daan smoothed his hair. “I’ve just come from your house. When I didn’t find you home, I thought I would look down here. Are you catching crabs?”
“No, Oom, just sitting.”
Oom Daan eased himself slowly onto the sand beside Grant. Grant knew then that Oom Daan had come to talk about Sharkey.
“You’re a real Weskus boytjie, aren’t you?”
“What Oom says is true,” Grant replied.
“Ja, boytjie. You know, here on the West Coast we haven’t got much, so what we do have we don’t give up easily. Now look at Sharkey. You know, Sharkey wasn’t always like he is now. Once he was a fine man.”
He’s still a fine man! Grant addressed his thoughts to the largest and most handsome of the gulls because he didn’t dare speak them out loud.
“And strong! Sjoe! He was the best kind of skipper you could get. It was hard on him when the netting was banned.”
Grant let a handful of sand trickle through his fingers. The finest, most beautiful sand in the world, he was sure. He hoped his impatience wasn’t showing. Nothing offended a Lagooner more than that.
“Sharkey used to stand leaning on the kitchen door all day,” Oom Daan continued the story that Grant had heard so many times before, “waiting for those ministers in Pretoria to make up their minds.”
He hasn’t looked at me once since he sat down, Grant thought. He knows what’s happened to Sharkey.
“Sharkey didn’t get a permit. I don’t know why,” Oom Daan continued. “We couldn’t find out. Sometimes a minister can be more slippery than a harder. They only gave twelve permits and those that didn’t get permits either joined the army or they left. But Sharkey, he refused to go. ‘The day a Boer tells me, a visserman, where I can and can’t fish is the day you bury me, Daan.’ That’s what he said. That’s all he knew, fishing. He wasn’t a learned man.” Oom Daan turned at last and looked at Grant. “So, how does a man who only knows fishing get money to bring up his son if he’s not allowed to fish?”
Grant returned his gaze. He knew the answer to that question. Hadn’t he mended the nets every week with Sharkey?
“I’ll tell you, boytjie. He fishes. But skelm-skelm,on the sly. And that’s no good for a man.”
Grant could no longer contain his anxiety. “What’s happened to my father, Oom? He’s been gone for days now. Where is he?”
Oom Daan heaved an enormous sigh and looked down at the sand before he answered Grant. “Sharkey’s gone to Lüderitz.”
That was the last thing Grant had expected to hear. “For how long?”
“He couldn’t keep on struggling, boytjie. He’s gone to work, for a year.”
“A year! But … Is he gone? Already?”
Oom Daan nodded.
“No, no, Oom. You must be wrong. Sharkey wouldn’t go away without telling me.”
“But he has gone, boytjie. He asked me to tell you.”
Grant stared down at the sand and tried to take in what Oom Daan was telling him.
“Boytjie, I have to take you through to your Uncle Roy in Cape Town tonight. And I’m to sell the house for your keep.”
“No, Oom, you must be wrong, Sharkey would never sell it. It’s his and mine. And all mine when I grow up. That’s what he’s always said. He … he …” Grant opened and closed his mouth like a baby gull looking for food. He felt helpless and, suddenly, terribly afraid.
“I’m sorry, boytjie,” Oom Daan stood up. “He didn’t want to go, but he had to.”
“He didn’t have to go without me. He didn’t have to go without even speaking to me,” Grant raised his voice. “He didn’t have to sell the house.” Grant felt a hot flush of anger spread from his neck to his face.
He’d been worried about Sharkey, so worried. And now this! “He must have drunk too much and gone mad!” he yelled.
“It’s not right for a boy to speak like that about his father.” Oom Daan cuffed Grant on the side of his head, hard. “I told you he had to go. There are some things a boytjie like you can’t understand.”
Grant hesitated. Oom Daan was having none of it.
“Go get your things. Now! And boytjie,” Oom Daan caught hold of Grant’s chin and held it firmly, “listen carefully to me now: you must find your father’s cell phone. I’ve already been there in your house but I couldn’t find it. You must find it for me. There … there are some important numbers – you remember that phone I gave Sharkey?”
Grant nodded dumbly, as best he could with his chin held in a vice-like grip and his head still thick with the after-effects of Oom Daan’s cuff.
“I’ll come fetch you later with Hasie Viljoen’s truck,” Oom Daan said, in a gentler tone.
Grant swung out from under Oom Daan’s hand and walked quickly up the beach. He could hardly see where he was going. His head was spinning – from the blow and from the news.
He