In Pursuit of the English (3 page)

Mrs Coetzee and she carried on warfare in shrill Afrikaans which I did not understand. But like all wars that have been going on for a long time, it sounded more like a matter of form than of feeling.

I got all the information I needed as soon as I approached the loaded staircase. A dozen resigned voices told me the facts. These were all brides of South African soldiers. They were all waiting for some place to live in. They had all arrived on recent ships. Mrs Coetzee was a disgusting war
profiteer. For horrible food and conditions she charged the same as that charged by respectable boarding houses on the beach. If one could get into them. And if they would take children without making a fuss – which Mrs Coetzee did. But the fact that she was easy about the children did not outweigh her hatred of the English, about which she made no secret.

I rang up the shipping offices who said there was no sign of the ship, which was well known for taking its time at ports around the coast. It might be next week or the week after, but of course they would let me know. I was sitting on one of the beds, waving the flies off my cheerfully sleeping child, when a crisp white envelope slid under the door. It said: ‘I and my husband would be very happy if you would care to join us for a drink after dinner. Yours sincerely, Myra Brooke-Benson. (Room 7.)’ Room 7 was opposite mine, and I could hear English voices male and female, from behind the closed door. A high voice, clearly at the end of its tether: ‘But, my dear, I really do think that this DDT must have lost its strength.’ And a low voice, firm and in command. ‘Nonsense, my dear, I bought it this morning.’

Towards five in the evening I went again in search of the landlady, Mrs Coetzee was now awake, seated at the kitchen table, slicing pale yellowish slices off an enormous golden pumpkin. Her arms stuck out at her sides like wings, supported by wads of shaking fat. Great drops of sweat scattered off her in all directions. Jemima stood beside her, rapidly squeezing pale pink ground meat into flat cakes between her palms, I coughed, Mrs Coetzee nodded. She returned to her work. She had no English.

The supper was served in a room into which refinement had been injected in the shape of a dozen small tables that were covered with red tissue paper, and set with a knife, fork and spoon at each place, A coloured paper lantern was lied with string to the naked light bulb. We ate roast pumpkin, fried meat cakes, and fried potato hash. Afterwards, there were fried pumpkin fritters. Everyone was eating avidly from starvation. The portions were no larger than necessary to maintain life. I immediately pinpointed
my hosts for after dinner. They were a small, fair pretty woman, looking incredibly clean and neat; and a bald, fierce-looking man with a well-brushed moustache. I smiled at them, but as they stiffened and merely nodded back, I imagined I must be mistaken. When I presented myself at the door of No. 7, however, they were smiling and full of welcome. They had been here for three weeks, and were waiting for a flat to fall vacant in Ndola, where he was to work on the copper mines. ‘I will not. I simply will not stay here, Timothy,’ she kept saying, with crisp plaintiveness. And he kept saying, with bluff reassurance: ‘But, my dear, of course we are not going to stay here.’ We drank brandy, and made small talk, We offered each other many commiserations. We said goodnight, smiling. As far as I was concerned the evening had passed without any of that vital communication essential to real human relationships. I imagined it had been a failure.

Next morning, when I woke, the double bed opposite had two elderly women in it. They were asleep. I shushed my son and we waited. They woke, good-natured, smiling and unembarrassed when Jemima came in, without knocking, and slopped down four cups of tea on the floor just inside the door. They smiled and nodded. I smiled and nodded. Conversing in smiles and nods, we all dressed, and they departed in an ancient dust-covered car in a direction away from Cape Town.

I went into the kitchen, Mrs Coetzee was slicing pumpkin. Jemima was slicing beef into pale strips. I said: ‘Mrs Coetzee, I would like to ask what those two strange women were doing in my room last night.’ Jemima spoke to Mrs Coetzee. Mrs Coetzee spoke to Jemima, Jemima said: ‘Says they are cousins from Constantia.’ ‘But why in my room?’ ‘Says boarding house is full.’ ‘Yes, but it was my room.’ ‘Says you can go.’

I retired. Myra Brooke-Benson was just going into No. 7. She gave me a pretty but measured smile, appropriate to our having bumped into each other, with apologies, on the pavement a week ago. Nevertheless, I told her what had happened. ‘My dear, anything is possible here,’ she said. ‘As
for me, I simply will not have it. I have been trying to get her to give me a carafe for drinking water for a week, and if I don’t get it, I shall report her to the city authorities.’

I gave the question of my correct relations with the Brooke-Bensons some thought, and at last hit upon the right mode, or method. I found a piece of writing paper, and a clean envelope, and wrote: ‘Dear Mrs Brooke-Benson. I would be so happy if you and your husband would join me tonight after dinner for a drink. Yours sincerely.’ This I pushed under her door. I was sitting on my bed waiting for her reply, in another envelope, to insinuate itself under my door, when she knocked, and said: ‘Timothy and I would be delighted to accept your kind invitation for this evening. It is so very kind of you.’

Meanwhile, it was observable from my windows that a great deal of human energy was being misapplied. The deeply lush garden was teeming with small children, and about two dozen young mothers were perched on the outside stairs, on the front steps, or on the grass, each anxiously watching her own offspring. I knew that they were all waiting for that blessed moment when these children would be sleepy, so they could put them to bed and rush off down into the city in order to interview housing agents and employment agents. For my part. I wanted to look up friends. I therefore approached a woman sitting rather apart from the rest, a small, plump, dark, fiery-cheeked person, who was guarding a small girl, and said it would be a good idea if we all look turns to look after the children, thus freeing the others, ‘You’ve just come,’ she said. ‘Yesterday,’ I said, ‘This is not a place I would leave my child alone in,’ she said. ‘But surely, they wouldn’t be alone,’ I said. She said: ‘Some of these girls here I wouldn’t trust a dog with, let alone a child.’ I went to my room and considered this. It was only afterwards I realized she was middle-class and most of the other women were not. Believing that Myra Brooke-Benson’s knock on my door entitled me to the same intimacy, I knocked on hers. She opened it with annoyance. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I was trying to get the baby to sleep.’ I apologized and withdrew.

After dinner, at what was the right time. I put my plan to her. She thought it was admirable. ‘The trouble is, there’s only one other woman here I’d trust with my poor little boy. She has a delightful little girl. Some of these women here are quite appallingly careless with their children.’ I realized she meant Mrs Barnes, the red-cheeked woman in the garden. I still did not know what was the matter with the others, but suggested that in that case we three might take turns with the children. ‘I should be quite delighted to keep an eye on your charming little boy,’ she said, ‘but I’m afraid that mine doesn’t take easily to strangers.’

We spent the evening discussing the carafe. It turned out that Mrs Coetzee didn’t have a carafe. Through Jemima, Mrs Brooke-Benson had insisted she should buy one. Mrs Coetzee had said, through Jemima, that if Mr Brooke-Benson wanted a carafe so badly he could buy one for himself.

We all went to bed early. The boarding house resounded until late every night with people coming in, going out, shouting good-bye and singing. Noises in the passage sounded as if they were in my room. I did hear furtive sounds in the night, but imagined they were made by some lucky reveller creeping in so as not to disturb the rest of us. As if this were likely. When I woke in the morning there was a young man asleep in the double bed opposite. My son was watching him with much interest. I got up, shook him, and demanded what he was doing in my room. He started awake, let out a furious exclamation in Afrikaans, shook his fist, exclaimed some more, and strode out to the bathroom. Luckily, the taxi-driver dropped in to see his aunt after breakfast, so I stopped him and explained what was happening. He sat on the edge of my unmade bed, picked up my son, set him on his knee and said: ‘You have the best room in the house. It is too big for you and your child.’ ‘But I’d be quite happy to have a smaller one.’ ‘But there is no smaller one.’ ‘Weil, that isn’t my fault.’ ‘But my Aunt Marie has a kind heart and is not happy to turn away a man who has no place to sleep.’ ‘But you must see I can’t go to bed every night not knowing who I’m going to find when I wake in the morning. Besides, it’s not good for my son.’ ‘Ach, he is a
very fine child, your son.’ ‘You must talk to your aunt.’ ‘Ya, man, but this terrible war we have had, the English started it, and now we are all suffering.’ ‘But please talk to your aunt.’ ‘Ach, Gott, she has had a hard life. Her husband – you’ve seen him by this time-he is no good for any woman.’ I had seen a furtive little man around the back of the premises but not connected him with Mrs Coetzee. ‘Ya, ya, God is unkind to many women sometimes. He could not even give her a child. Now your husband gave you a child. You should thank God for it.’ ‘Please will you speak to your aunt.’ ‘A poor woman, without a man to help her and without children. She is a brave woman and she works hard.’ By this time my son was clambering all over him, and Mr Coetzee was chuckling and smiling with pleasure. ‘I will tell her what you said. But it is a hard world for a woman without a man. If you are uncomfortable, I have a cousin who keeps a boarding house in Oranjezicht.’ ‘No, no. I’m very happy here, if you could just explain to your aunt.’ ‘This is a very good child you have here, and when he grows up he will be a good strong man.’ With which we went into the passage, my son on his shoulder. There stood Mr brooke-Benson, scarlet with anger, scarlet even over his bald pate. ‘That bloody woman,’ he said, ‘she will not give me a carafe.’ ‘And what is this?’ enquired Mr Coetzee. I explained. He nodded. ‘Ach. Ya. I will speak to her.’ That afternoon he came in with a carafe which he presented to the Brooke-Bensons. They were furious, and kept saying it was a question of principle. He suggested, with courtesy, that to buy a carafe was a small thing to do for a woman who had no man to look after her, and it was a pleasure for him to do things for his auntie. He gave me a great bag of peaches, and my son a pound of sweets. Then he took my son for a drive in his taxi to visit his cousin Stella.

That night, the envelope slipped under my door contained an invitation to morning tea next day. Myra Brooke-Benson was equipped with every kind of instinct for domesticity. She had a spirit lamp, a silver teapot, and some fine china teacups. Her room, every bit as unpromising as mine, had flowers, clean linen, even cushions. She said there was a
most unfortunate misunderstanding which she felt bad about even having to mention. It appeared that Mrs Barnes said she was going to complain to Mrs Coetzee that I had been observed to have a man, not my husband, in my bedroom. She, Myra Brooke-Benson, had explained the situation to Mrs Barnes, but Mrs Barnes had said that if a strange man entered her room in the night she wouldn’t have been able to sleep at all. Her sixth sense would have warned her. But the point was, any plan for guarding each other’s children was now out of the question.

I now resigned myself. The days, and then the weeks passed. I wrote notes of invitation for after-dinner drinks and morning tea with the Brooke-Bensons, and they wrote them to me. We ate pumpkin and fried meat for every meal. Mr Coetzee came to see me and my son often, and we talked about his children and his grandchildren. I rang up the shipping agents daily. Only once was my room invaded again, and that was when a man and a wife and five children arrived, apologetically, at three one morning, explaining they were maternal relatives of Mrs Coetzee. Mrs Barnes coloured and stiffened whenever she saw me. She spoke only to the Brooke-Bensons. My son had a nice time playing in the garden. I found one of the English girls who was prepared to let her children out of her sight occasionally, and we took turns to relieve each other. The English girls continued to sit on the stairs and to talk, with bitter homesickness, about England. I was bored to death, but consoled myself by dreaming about England which I knew by now would not actually begin until the moment I set foot on its golden soil.

Suddenly I got a letter from an old friend, an Afrikaans painter, who had been out of Cape Town on a painting trip. While I was reading the letter he arrived in my room with flowers, fruit and an enormous fish, which he had just caught.

‘Ya,’ he said, looking at me severely, ‘you must get the management to cook it for you. I can tell you, you need feeding up. I can see it. The English can’t cook. They can’t eat. You look very bad.’

‘The management,’ I said, ‘is Afrikaans.’

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I will go and make enquiries.’ I heard him stride over the bare boards of the passage. A silence. He came back, still swinging the fish by a loop of string through his forefinger. ‘I can’t give her this fish,’ he said. ‘She would not cook it as it should be cooked. And what are you doing here? This place is going to be pulled down, and instead we shall have a fine modern hotel with all conveniences for the tourists.’ He laid the fish on the floor. The room was pervaded with a loud smell of salt, sea and fish. It was an extremely hot afternoon.

‘Piet, I wish you’d take that fish away. People are very sensitive in this place. You’d be surprised.’

He nodded, with solemnity. ‘I thought so,’ he said, ‘it’s that English colony you’ve been living in. It makes people suspicious and conventional. In a minute you will be telling me not to speak so loudly.’

Piet did not look himself at all. Or rather, he was wearing his smug look, which went with his public personality. He was a tall man, rangy, with a high bounding stride. He had a long, pale portentous face. He wore his hair rather long. He also wore, for the benefit of his trade, flapping and colourful clothes. He had the ability to appear, by slightly tightening the muscles of his face, like a pale and enduring Christ. This is not at all what his character was. In fact I have never known a man who enjoyed himself more wholeheartedly than he did. He had a smile that spread, wicked and sly, from cheekbone to cheekbone, and eyes that crinkled amusement. Not, however, at the moment.