Girl on the Edge: A Memoir

...

Me, aged nine, with Dad and a friend. Table Mountain, Cape Town

PART ONE

South Africa 1953–1967

1

I’m a brave, brave mouse

I was in a hurry to arrive on that hot January morning in the middle of summer. My mother said that if the traffic lights had changed to red on the way to the hospital I would have been born on the back seat of the taxi. At five o’clock, just as the sun was coming up, I arrived feet first and upside down, a breach baby.

My first clear memory in words and pictures is a dream of Johnny and myself. Johnny is driving Dad’s car. I sit beside him in the passenger seat wearing my nappies, Johnny’s head barely reaches the steering wheel as he drives the car to the edge of a cliff. We are two babies on our own looking down into an empty void, a gaping dangerous chasm.

Johnny and I share a bedroom. We have a record player that we wind up with a speaker shaped like a giant bellflower. We take it in turns to wind up the record player and then we watch the records spinning round and round on the turntable. We have to be careful not to scratch them with the sharp needle.

We march around the house singing songs from our favourite record. We are brave, brave mice and we are never, never scared. BOO! We jump out at each other from wherever we have been hiding. I love my brother, Johnny. We walk everywhere together holding hands. He is eighteen months older than me. When we fight, I measure my strength against him. When we climb trees, I like to climb higher. I have to run faster, I have to eat more than him.

Mum and Dad, Lynn, Johnny and I live in a house in Protea Road in Claremont. We have a three-legged dog called Brindy, and a cat. In the garden we have fruit trees, loquats and plums, and along the fence grape vines grow.

I sit at the dining room table drawing pictures. Giant fish and sea creatures are painted on the walls. Our bathroom wall is painted black like a giant chalkboard, so that we can draw on it.

I have a new colouring book and crayons. Johnny grabs my crayons and runs away with them shouting:

Run, run, as fast as you can.

You can’t catch me, I’m the ginger bread man.

He runs around and around the table. Every time I get near him he runs in the opposite direction.

I’m telling Mum. I run into the kitchen.

Mum is cooking tomato bredie. She stirs the pot before she puts the lid on and tightens the pressure cooker valve.

Stop fighting, you two, go and play outside.

The pot hisses and steams, bubbles and boils. The smell of meat and potatoes makes me hungry. I stand in the kitchen doorway and watch as the pressure cooker explodes with a mighty hiss. The metal valve flies up and the stew hits the ceiling. Mum jumps out of the way as the food splashes to the floor. She laughs out loud before she cleans the food off the floor. After that I am always scared of pressure building up and exploding.

Johnny and I jump, jump, jump on our beds and try to touch the ceiling. I jump higher and higher and stretch my arms up to touch the ceiling. Mum shouts, You will break the bed springs.

Quietly, quietly, I close the bedroom door and we jump more until Mum calls us for supper. Supper is at six o’clock and then it’s bath time. Bed time is at eight.

Mum laughs a lot, I hear her wherever I am in the house, her laugh travels from one end of the house to the other.

When Mum goes out for the night, I sleep with her dress under my head so I can breathe in her smell. I can’t get to sleep until I hear Mum’s footsteps in the hall.

My nanny fetches me from nursery school at lunchtime and I sit and wait for Mum to come home.

When will Mum be home?

She will be back in a minute, my nanny says.

How long is a minute? Has it already been a minute? Is she coming now?

She is coming in five minutes, my nanny says.

How many are five minutes? I can count five on my fingers. One two, three, four, five.

I cannot settle until Mum gets back.

* * *

In the evenings, when I hear Dad’s car pulling up, I run to the driveway. Dad picks me up and throws me into the air.

At night Dad goes to meetings. Before he goes out he reads us a story. He is reading us a story about Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. He reads us a different chapter every night. In the last chapter Peter Pan’s Mum closes the bedroom window and Peter Pan can never go home again. That night I cry myself to sleep thinking about Peter Pan.

Dad smokes cigarettes, I like the cigarette smell of his fingers when he has been smoking. Dad is bald, we call him Mouldy Baldy. When we are naughty, he threatens to fetch his belt.

I will beat the living daylights out of you, he shouts. But he never does. When Dad is cross he only shouts and swears, but one day Mum says something at breakfast time that makes him cross, very cross, and he picks up his plate of food and throws it at the wall. We watch the plate break in two and then the fried egg slides slowly down the wall as Dad storms out of the house.

At the weekend Dad says he will take us to the circus. The circus has come to town with lions and tigers and elephants. Dad says he will take us there. The circus is in a big tent that smells of sawdust and animals and Dad buys us popcorn and bright fizzy drinks. Enchanted, I watch as the trapeze artists and acrobats fly through the air. I leap, I jump, I twirl and grow in leaps and bounds. I am doing magic in my glittering leotards, doing somersaults in mid-air before hooking my legs over the swinging bar.

I swing upside down and then leap to the next bar in a death-defying feat high above the ground. The ground is far, far below with no safety net and below me are the jaws of hungry, roaring lions. The audience gasp and hold their breath before they get to their feet and applaud my incredible stunts. They love me the most out of all the other circus performers.

Every year New Age, Dad’s paper, has a fund raising Bazaar in a big hall. Dad takes me to the Bazaar. The hall is busy, with lots of stalls. There is a stall selling old clothes, I don’t like the stale smells of people’s bodies on the clothes laid out on the trestle tables.

On another table are homemade cakes, chocolate cakes, ginger bread, coffee and walnut cakes. If you guess the weight of the cake with pink icing you can win a prize. I want to win the raffle for the beautiful doll in a frilly dress, I want some sweet candy floss that melts in my mouth and I want a sweet sticky toffee apple and I want coconut ice and fudge. Dad says I can choose one thing.

I hold on tightly to Dad’s hand. He stops to talk to someone. I am bored so I let go of his hand and wander off. When I turn around Dad has disappeared, all I see are legs and I am scared I will never find him again. At last I see Dad’s legs, I run up to him and I take hold of his hand. He looks down at me and when I see his face I realise it’s the wrong Daddy. My heart sinks, how will I find my own Daddy? I start crying. I will never find my way home amongst the sea of legs crowding around me. When Dad finds me I hold onto his hand tightly until we get home again.

* * *

At home I run to the bottom of our garden where we have made a hole in the fence. I climb through the hole and go and play next door. Jeremy lives next door with his big sister, Jill, and his baby sister, Hilary. His dad is a doctor.

Jeremy has a swing. I push myself higher and higher, so high that the swing flips over the top of the bar. I hang upside down with my legs hooking the top of the bar, swinging backwards and forwards high off the ground.

Here comes the bride, big fat and wide

Break down the door way

She can’t get inside.

Jeremy and I play at weddings, we dress up and pick flowers and throw the petals for confetti. For the wedding feast we have biscuits and bright orange cooldrinks and sweets. We hold hands. Then we play doctor-doctor. I lie down and Jeremy delivers a doll from between my legs.

Jeremy wears his father’s waist-coat and I put on his mother’s shoes and hat. We find cigarettes and matches and light up the cigarettes and smoke like grown-ups do.

Jeremy’s sister’s nappies are draped over the sides of the wooden play pen drying by the heater. The bars of the heater glow. Jeremy and I discover that if we poke toys through the bars of the heater, we can make sparks. We take it in turns to light up the toys. All of a sudden a toy catches fire and the nappies go up in flames. The grownups come running to put out the fire with buckets of water. I run home to hide.

Mum asks me what’s the matter but I don’t want to talk about what has happened.

Jeremy’s big sister doesn’t like us to bother her and doesn’t let us inside her room. She is having a birthday party. At the party her friends tease me. I dare the big girls to hit me.

Hit me harder, I say. That’s not hard enough, it doesn’t hurt me.

I won’t show them that they can hurt me, I won’t cry in front of them and show them I’m a cry baby. When the big girls get bored of hitting me and no one can see me, then I run home and cry.

* * *

We get in the car and go to the beach for the day, a long isolated beach with no other people on it. Johnny and I change into our bathing costumes while Mum unpacks our picnic. Dad puts up the umbrella. Be careful of the sinking sand, Mum shouts but we miss the last part of her sentence as we run down to the water.

Slipping, sliding, sinking – Help! I shout to Johnny who comes running and holds out his hand for me to grasp and hold onto tightly. Johnny starts to sink too. The more I struggle, the more I sink. The sand shifts and sucks me in. Johnny is up to his waist.

Mum, Dad, we scream over the sound of the waves and the wind.

Mum and Dad wave to us from under the umbrella.

Mum, Dad, our panic stricken voices become more urgent. I am up to my shoulders.

Mum and Dad come running.

We told you not to play here, Dad says.

We told you it’s not safe, Mum says, but you never listen.

Mum is cross, but Dad laughs as he pulls us out of the sand.

2

Adenoids

When I am four I go into the Red Cross Children’s Hospital to have my adenoids out. I am in a hospital for the first time. I lie on the hospital bed with metal cot sides to stop me falling out on to the floor. Even though it is daytime, I wear my pyjamas. Mum brings me toys and crayons and a colouring book so I can have something to do. I try very hard to colour inside the lines of the pictures.

After visiting hours, Mum leaves. Don’t go, don’t go, Mummy, Mummy, I want my Mum, I sob. Where’s Mummy, I scream, trapped in my bed with the iron railings. Mummmeeeeee. But Mum has gone, she has disappeared.

The doctor stands by the side of my bed and looks at me coldly, he is very, very cross. If you don’t stop this horrible noise right now I will spank you and really give you something to cry about, he tells me sternly.

The doctor in his white coat means business. I am frightened by his angry voice so I shut up, I close my mouth, I close my eyes and hide under my pillow. I am scared to make a sound in case the doctor hears me and comes back to spank me.

Mummmeeeeee, I whisper quietly under my pillow, but Mummy doesn’t come back even though I wait the whole night long. The time drags by forever.

In the bed opposite me is an older girl of six, the big girl sucks her thumb. I would also like to learn to suck my thumb, the big girl shows me how to, it is easy to do. Cry baby, cry baby, I won’t be such a cry baby again. It feels comforting to put my thumb in my mouth.

In the morning the nurse puts me on a trolley and wheels me away to another room. In this room everyone wears masks over their mouths and noses and white plastic gloves and white caps on their heads. Only their eyes show above their masks. The room smells strange. The nurse cranks the trolley up and puts a mask over my nose and mouth and tells me to breathe deeply and I feel like I am fading away as the light in the room turns green and everything looks far away. I float away into another world. The people around me have become green shadows.

After the operation, the nurse brings me jelly and ice cream to eat and dresses me in clothes that don’t belong to me. I wait in a room with other children until Mum comes to fetch me to take me home.

* * *

The doctor says I am better and I can go back to school. Mum walks me to school, Arden Garden Nursery School. At school I like to copy what the big boys do and fight with them. The teachers say I am too wild and noisy for the school.

At nursery school I want what the other children have. I take their things and pretend their things are mine. A girl comes to school with a beautiful baby doll, I want a baby doll more the anything else in the whole world. I steal her doll and pretend it is my doll and take a packet of biscuits and eat them all up with one of the boys in the toilet where no one can see us. Mum promises me a baby doll for my birthday if I am good. I will be five next birthday.

After we get back from school Mum asks me to carry Johnny’s blazer inside from the car. I don’t want to carry his blazer, it’s not fair, I always have to carry his things, so I drop his blazer on the pavement and run inside.

Somebody walks by and takes the blazer from the pavement. Mum is very angry, she says she won’t buy me a baby doll for my birthday. I lie on my bed and cry, my heart breaks and I sob until supper time for my lost baby doll.

3

High treason

On the night that the Special Branch raid our house Johnny and I have mumps, our faces are swollen up like little fat hamsters.

That night Mum kisses us goodnight and switches off the light. She leaves the door open and the hallway light on so it is not too dark. I have put all my dolls to bed and said my prayers for Jesus to keep us safe. We sleep soundly in our beds.

In the middle of the night the house is quiet and Brindy, our dog, lies curled up at the foot of Lynn’s bed. I am dreaming of a loud banging sound, I am dreaming of a loud knock, knock on the door. I hear voices and the lights go on, bright lights and men in suits wearing hats are in the house ransacking and searching all the rooms. They are looking for secret documents. They turn the house upside down.

I lie very still in bed. The men come into our bedroom, Mum follows them in wearing her dressing gown. The children are sick, they have mumps, she tells them.

I try not to move or to breathe, perhaps the men will not notice me. If you catch mumps it can make you sterile, Mum tells the men. The men look worried and leave our room immediately.

They take Dad away with them. Mum comes back into our bedroom. Dad will be back soon. Don’t worry. Go back to sleep, she tells us.

I hear her in the passageway on the phone talking to Hymie, Dad’s lawyer. Sorry to wake you up at this time of night. Fred has been arrested.

Dad has been charged with High Treason along with 136 other people. They let Dad out on bail but he has to go to Jo’burg for the trial.

* * *

Mum packs our suitcases and a big basket of food for us to take on the train. She packs in chicken and rolls and fruit. We are all going to Jo’burg to stay with Aunty Ida, Mum’s youngest sister.

The train station is busy and noisy. Johnny and I run up and down the platform – we are very excited. Mum shouts at us not to go near the edge of the platform.

On the train the conductor shows us to our carriage. In the carriage are bunk beds. Johnny and I want to sleep on the top bunk. The guard blows his whistle and the train gathers speed. I close my eyes and am soothed by the clickety-clack of the wheels on the track and the gentle swaying of the carriage. The train travels all through the day and the night and into the next day. We pass houses painted in bright colours and flat, dusty, yellow brown fields with small hills that Mum says are called kopjies. In the night I look out of the window and all I see is a black sky. I listen to the clickety-clack, clickety-clack. At night the guard makes up the beds with starched white sheets and fluffy blankets.

We stop at small towns in the middle of nowhere and thin, dusty children wearing old clothes and broken shoes run alongside the train close to the windows waving and laughing, holding out their hungry hands. Mum gives them our clothes and bread and fruit and chicken. She gives the dusty children all the food we have packed for our journey.

That night we go to the restaurant car for our supper and eat a three-course meal served by waiters wearing smart uniforms with white cloths over their arms.

When we reach Jo’burg Aunty Ida’s driver comes to fetch us from the station and takes us to her house. The house is at the bottom of a long driveway. Aunty Ida is married to Leo. They have four children, William, Zoe, Jasper and Roland. Leo is grumpy and has a long beard. Their house is huge with a swimming pool and a tennis court. Leo owns a factory. Everyone says I take after my Aunty Ida. She is the beauty of the family.

Aunty Bess lives near Aunty Ida, she is Leo’s sister. Her house is even bigger and grander than Aunty Ida’s and you can eat whatever you want there. Aunty Bess asks me if I would like a milkshake or a Coke to drink.

Mum doesn’t let me drink fizzy drinks. A Coke, please. The maid brings me a Coke on a silver tray. The table is laden with Aunty Bess’s freshly baked cakes and scones and biscuits. I pile my plate high and Aunty Bess asks me if I want some ice cream. When I have finished eating my ice cream I sit under the big wooden table covered in a white embroidered cloth. Under the table is my secret hiding place. I sit quietly and look at the high-heeled shoes and smooth stockings my aunts are wearing.

Mum laughs loudly, she is enjoying herself. Aunty Bess is telling a joke. I listen carefully even when I don’t understand the words, I listen to the way the words are said. Some words are whispered and some words are said in a tone of disgust. If they knew I was listening they would be more careful about what they said. They are talking about Aunty Molly, Granny’s youngest sister, the one who was mad.

She was meshugana, she was a morphine addict, Aunty Bess is saying.

She wasn’t right in the head, that’s why they had to lock her up in the hospital, Aunty Ida says.

Then Mum says, It was very sad that she died in the hospital when she was so young.

* * *

Every morning Dad has to go to court for the trial. At breakfast time I butter him a piece of toast. I make sure the butter is spread evenly from corner to corner and spread salty Marmite on top. I tell Dad he must eat it for his lunch. I worry that he will be hungry in court and that they won’t feed him. Or even worse, that they will lock him up and he won’t come back home ever again.

Dad tells us that when he is in the court room he has to sit in a special cage to keep the accused separate from each other – black people must not sit with white people and white people mustn’t sit with black or coloured or Indian people.

The trial is adjourned so after a month we go back to Cape Town. Mum says that Leo has scratched our name out of his phone book. He is scared that the Special Branch will think he is a communist.

On the train we stop at the same dusty stations with hungry children barefoot running alongside the train begging for food.

Dad tells us that we are very lucky we have food to eat and a house to live in.

Most children are not as privileged as you are, he says.

At the next station I give all my sweets to the barefoot children holding out their hands.

Uncle Alec, Mum’s cousin, collects money from the family to send to Mum so she can buy groceries and pay the rent when Dad can’t work because of the Treason Trial.

* * *

Woolfie Kodish has always been in our life. I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t there. I call him my other Daddy. During the Treason Trial when Dad is away, he comes to take us out for a drive. I sit on his lap. I have learnt a new word. The Special Branch are Bastards, I say with relish.

Woolfie laughs. Where did a five-year-old learn to say this? he asks my mum and they both laugh.

The Treason Trial drags on for five years and carries the death penalty. In the end Dad is found not guilty along with the other defendants.

4

Kwela music

The sound of kwela music fills every room in the house and wakes us up. Dad must be playing his records. Mum and Dad are jiving in the living room before breakfast. Johnny and me are still in our pyjamas when we go into the living room and Lynn comes in looking sleepy, rubbing her eyes.

Meet Spokes Mashiyane, Dad says proudly, He is staying with us for the week.

Spokes Mashiyane plays the penny whistle while his friend plays the guitar. Spokes dances while he plays, moving his body down to the floor and up again, jiving and doing the twist. Johnny and I dance, turning around and around and up and down, twisting our bodies in time to the music.

Later that day we take our guests sightseeing. Spokes has never seen the sea before, not ever, in his whole life.

Where does all this water come from? he asks and we laugh at his surprise.

Mum and Dad have lots of friends who come to visit us and our house is always busy. Mum cooks big pots of food to feed everyone. Looksmart comes to visit with his friend Greenwood. They are comrades and sell Dad’s paper, New Age.

Johnny and I jump all over Looksmart, we are so excited when he comes to visit us. He is tall and has a smiling face.

Greenwood has a beard, I sit on his lap and pull his beard. Looksmart and Greenwood sleep over for the night. If the police stop them in a Whites-Only area at night they could get arrested.

We wake them up early in the morning by jumping on Looksmart’s bed. He pretends to be cross