In Pursuit of the English (4 page)

‘You have come at a bad time,’ he said. ‘I’m not happy. I have realized that in three months I shall be forty. I have only ten years to live, I have always known that I shall die at fifty. It is a terrible thing to understand suddenly – death is approaching in great silent strides.’ He smiled, slightly, sideways, his eyes narrowed, as it were listening to the footsteps of death. ‘Ya,’ he said. ‘Ya. Ten years. So much to do, so little done.’ With a great effort he prevented himself from laughing, and sighed deeply instead.

Piet is not the only man I’ve known who has sentenced
himself to death in advance. I know a doctor, for instance, a man of the highest intelligence moreover, who decided when he was thirty-six that he had ten years to live, and planned his life accordingly. It seems the Medical Association, or some such body, had announced that the average age for doctors to die was at forty-six, and from coronary thrombosis. Meeting this man after an interval, I pointed out that he now had only five years to live, and I trusted he was making good use of his time. But the BMA had meanwhile raised the statistical life of a doctor by ten years, and so things were not so urgent after all.

‘But there will be a silver lining to my personal tragedy,’ said Piet. ‘When my death is announced in the Press, for the first time in her history South Africa will be united.’

‘How is that?’

‘Surely you can imagine for yourself? Ya, think of it. Think of that morning. It will be very hot. The pigeons will be cooing in the trees. Then the news will come. The pigeons will stop cooing. In every town, in every village, in every little dorp, there will be a silence like the end of the world. Then there will rise into the still air a single cry of agony. Then from every house will come wailing and weeping. From every house will rush weeping women, old women, young women, wives, mothers, the Mayor’s daughter and the wife of the linesman. They will look at each other. By their tears they will know each other as sisters. They will run into each other’s arms. English and Afrikaans, Jewish and Greek, they will weep and cry: Piet is dead. Our Piet is dead.’

‘And the men?’

‘Ya, the men. Well, they will be united by the inconsolable grief of the women.’ He sighed again. ‘I have been thinking of that day all the way back in my car. I have had a terrible trip this time, because of my new understanding of my approaching death. But I have made a lot of money this time. I have been painting pondokkies all over the Free State. Thank God, now I can pay my debts.’

Piet was a man of talent. He had even painted in Paris and London. But he had been unable to make a living in the
Cape. Therefore, whenever short of money, he drove off into the interior, his clothing subdued and his expression mournful. He introduced himself to the Mayor or some bigwig in each city, as a sound son of the Afrikaans nation, and explained that it was a terrible thing that this great people should be so uncultured as not to support its talented child. He painted them, their houses, their children, and their wives. He also painted points of local interest, which, as he explained, always turned out to consist of pondokkies. In other words, African huts, slums, broken-down villages, shabby sheds and picturesque houses.

‘And why do you come on holiday to Cape Town when I am not even here? My poor child, with no one to look after you. But as it happens now I must rush off, because I must take this beautiful fish home to my wife. I shall cook it myself. No woman can cook as well as I do. I caught it in a pool where I caught its brother last year. That is probably the most beautiful pool in the whole world. I’ll take you there tomorrow.’

‘I can’t. My son isn’t the right age for fishing.’

‘A child? Of course. I forgot. Where is he?’

I pointed out of the window.

‘A fine child.’ He almost groaned. ‘Ya, ya, and when I am dead he will be a fine young man, enjoying life, and I will be forgotten.’

‘No, not that one, that one.’

‘They are all fine children. And all of them, they will be fishing and – painting pondokkies when I am dead. But now you have this child you will be very dull and full of responsibility. Why is it, all women have children. Sometimes I think you do it to spite me.’

‘All the same. And besides, my morale is very low due to living in this Afrikaans boarding house. I am weak from malnutrition and haven’t the heart for fishing.’

‘And why do you put me and my nation at a disadvantage by taking a holiday in such a place?’

‘I am not on holiday. I am waiting for my boat to England.’

He groaned. ‘England. So that’s it. Ya, that’s it. Well, you’ll be sorry, I am telling you. And what will you do, in a
country full of these Englishmen? They are no good for women. I know this. When I arrived in London all those poor women, they rushed out with their arms extended saying: “Piet, Piet, is that you? Thank God you’ve come at last.”’

‘We shall see,’ I said.

‘Ya, it is a terrible thing.’

‘It’s a fact that men of all nations are convinced that men of any other nation are no good for women. I’m sure a statistically significant number of women would be able to vouch for this.’

‘And listen to how you talk. You are bitter already. When I hear a woman use words like statistics, I know she is bitter. It is that English colony. It has very likely marked you for life. Ya. I shall come tomorrow and cheer you up. Now I shall take my fish. I have a very sensitive sense of smell, and I can tell it is time.’

With which he left, jerking the fish after him along the floor and saying: ‘Come, come, little fish, come with me, come and leap into the great black pot where you will die another death for me.’ Over his shoulder he said: ‘And I shall bring you a real picture I have painted, to show you that all these pondokkies have not ruined my talent.’

Mrs Barnes knocked. ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I am afraid I really must ask you not to have fish in your room. This place is bad enough without fish as well.’

‘It was caught this morning,’ I said.

‘The whole building smells.’

‘I didn’t invite the fish.’

‘Is your friend a fisherman?’ Her soft English cheeks were a clear red, and her full brown eyes, that had no whites to them, were glazed with suspicious fascination.

‘He is a painter,’ I said. ‘He has won prizes in Paris, not to mention London.’

‘How interesting,’ she said.

Next day Piet arrived in a severe black suit. He looked like a predicant. His face was a solemn yard long. He carried a very large picture of a nude girl. He lifted it past the miserable English girls on the steps with an air of critical
detachment. He put down the nude, and said: ‘There, you see I can still paint. And what is more, this afternoon I have been furthering the cause of art in this continent. I am now, you must know, a leading representative of the Council for Art. I am very respectable. There is an exhibition on. It is by a homosexual poor boy. He wrote to me and asked for my encouragement and patronage. His pictures are all of male nudes and in very great detail. The arts teacher at the school here for nice English girls wrote to me and asked for my help and encouragement. So this afternoon I met this teacher, poor woman, at the door, wearing my beautiful black suit and an expression of cultural integrity. I lowered my voice to an official note. And I entered the hall followed by the teacher and a hundred and fifty pretty girls, all in search of artistic experience. And I escorted them around for an hour, all around those pictures on one subject only, pointing out the technique and the line and the quality of the paint. With severity. He is a bad painter. And not once did I smile. Not once did that poor English teacher smile. Not once did all those little girls smile. We were in the presence of art.’ He flung himself across my bed and laughed. The whole building shook.

‘For the Lord’s sake,’ I said, ‘don’t shout.’

‘There, what did I tell you? Already you are asking me to lower my voice. The English will finish you, man. Ya.’

‘All the same, I wish you could hurry on that boat. I’ve been here six weeks, and I’m very unhappy. Apart from anything else, there’s an English couple across the passage and we have morning tea together all the time. And as soon as I say anything at all, about anything, they look very nervous and change the subject. It’s a bad augury for my life in England.’

‘Poor little one. Poor child. There, what did I tell you?’ He roared with delight. I heard a door open on to the passage.

‘
Piet.
And there’s a woman called Mrs Barnes. She’s very bad-tempered.’

‘Poor woman,’ he said. He took two large soundless strides to the door, opened it with a jerk, and there was Mrs Barnes in the passage. She frowned. He smiled. Slowly,
unwillingly, and hating every second of it, she smiled. Then, furious, she went dark plum colour, glared at us both, and went into her room, slamming the door hard.

‘It is a terrible thing,’ said Piet sentimentally, ‘A bad-tempered woman. It is all the fault of her husband. I suppose he’s English.’

‘Scottish.’

‘It is all the same thing. That reminds me …’ He told a story. By the time he had ended I was laughing too hard to ask him to lower his voice. He was rolling in an agony of laughter back and forth over the floor. The whole boarding house was hushed.

‘That reminds me,’ said Piet again. He talked, listening with delight to the silence of his invisible audience. Then he told his story about his visit to a brothel in Marseilles. Unfortunately it is too indecent to write down. It was not too indecent for him to shout at the top of his voice. The end of the story was: ‘Imagine me, in her room, in such a predicament, and the boat was leaving. It was giving out long, sad hoots of pain, to warn us all there was no time to waste. And there I was. My friends came in. They bandaged me. And I walked down to the ship through the streets of Marseilles, cheered on by the onlookers, with a bloodstained bandage a foot and a half long sticking out in front of me. I climbed up the gangway, supported on either side by my loyal friends, watched by the captain, a very fine fellow, and at least five thousand women. That was the proudest day of my life. That afternoon they gave me the gold medal for my artistic talent was nothing compared to it.’

Mrs Barnes came in. ‘I am afraid I have to tell you that I have had no alternative but to complain to the management.’ She went out.

‘Poor woman,’ said Piet. ‘It is a very sad thing, a woman like that. Don’t worry. I shall now go to Mrs Coetzee and tell her I’ll paint a picture for her.’

Half an hour later I went to the kitchen. Mrs Coetzee was wheezing out helpless, wet laughter. Jemima, her face quite straight, her eyes solemn, had her hand cupped over her mouth, to catch any laughter that might well up and press it
back again. Her narrow little body shook spasmodically. ‘I told you,’ said Piet. ‘It is all right. I have explained to her that she must have a picture of this fine boarding house. I shall paint it for her, at a medium cost. I shall also make a copy and donate it to the city’s archives, for the memory of a building such as this must not be lost to mankind. I feel it will be the finest pondokkie I have ever painted. Poor woman, she is very bitter. The war makes her unhappy.’ ‘She’s doing very nicely out of it.’

‘No, the Boer War. Those concentration camps you had. Ya, ya, the English were never anything but savages. Now, please, think no more about it. I have made everything right for you.’

He went. Almost at once Mrs Coetzee came in, with Jemima. It was a visit of goodwill. She was smiling. Then she noticed the picture, which unfortunately Piet had forgotten. Her face sagged into folds of disapproval.

She spoke to Jemima. Jemima said: ‘Says will not picture her house.’ ‘Tell her it’s not my picture.’ ‘Says take it away.’ ‘I’ll tell my friend to take it tomorrow.’ ‘Says your picture, not his picture.’ ‘But it is his.’ ‘Says he is Afrikaans. A good boy.’ ‘It is a picture of his wife. She is a very good Afrikaans girl.’ ‘Says good boy does not make bad picture like that.’ Jemima’s face was expressionless, but her body shook. I tried to catch her eye. It was blank. Only her body was amused. ‘Says you bad woman, says you go,’ said Jemima.

That evening, the shipping agents rang to say the boat would be in tomorrow. As a favour, Mrs Coetzee allowed me to stay for the one night. Mrs Barnes came in to say she was sorry there had been this unpleasantness.
If she bad known
she would not have complained to Mrs Coetzee. I have never been able to understand this. But my chief problem was to find the right way to say good-bye to the Brooke-Bensons. At last, my suppressed instinct for communication blossomed into a large bunch of flowers. I presented these, not so much to the Brooke-Bensons, as to a failed relationship. I shook hands. I noticed Myra’s eyes were wet. She said, with formality: ‘I will be so sorry when you’ve gone. I feel I have made a real friend in you.’ Her husband said: ‘And please
keep in touch. Now that we’ve got to know each other.’ I shook hands again and we said good-bye.

The boat was full of English. That is, South African British, going home. I had no time to meet them. My son was so excited by the experience of being on the boat that he woke at five every morning and did not sleep until eleven at night. In between, he rushed, hurled himself, bounded and leaped all over the boat. I arrived in England exhausted. The white cliffs of Dover depressed me. They were too small. The Isle of Dogs discouraged me. The Thames looked dirty. I had better confess at once that for the whole of the first year, London seemed to me a city of such appalling ugliness that I wanted only to leave it. Besides, I had no money, I could have got some by writing to my family, of course, hut it had to be the bootstraps or nothing.

The first place I stayed in was a flat off the Bayswater Road. I passed the house the other day, and it now seems quite unremarkable. This is how it struck me at the time:

‘A curving terrace. Decaying, unpainted, enormous, ponderous, graceless. When I stand and look up, the sheer weight of the building oppresses me. The door looks as if it could never be opened. The hall is painted a dead uniform cream, that looks damp. It has a carved chest in it that smells of mould. Everything smells damp. The stairs are wide, deep, oppressive. The carpets are thick and shabby. Walking on them is frightening – no sound at all. All the way up the centre of this immense, heavy house, the stairs climb, silent and ugly, flight after flight, and all the walls are the same dead, dark cream colour. At last another hostile and heavy door, I am in a highly varnished little hall, with wet mackintoshes and umbrellas. Another dark door. Inside, a great heavy room, full of damp shadow. The furniture is all heavy and dead, and the surfaces are damp. The flat has six rooms, all painted this heavy darkening cream, all large, with high ceilings, no sound anywhere, the walls are so thick. I feel suffocated. Out of the back windows, a vista of wet dark roofs and dingy chimneys. The sky is pale and cold and unfriendly.’