Marabou Stork Nightmares (10 page)

At the time the security forces were advising people travelling in the area to take care. We were continually being stopped by uniformed police. Gordon explained that it was all due to terrorist activity. He used the term 'terrorist' freely. The terrorists seemed to get around, on the telly, in Gordon's scrapbooks, in the conversations he had with his friends at the
braais.
When I asked what a terrorist was, his face took on a sharp, intense bearing and he said: — A terrorist is a nasty piece of scum; a jealous, warped, evil, murdering immoral shitbag!

I was still no wiser as to what a terrorist actually was.

The Kruger was brilliant. I saw some lions stalking wildebeest and zebra, but did not see any make a kill. Some cheetahs had got hold of a baby wildebeest but got little from it before two lions chased them away. Kim gret at the baby wildebeest getting wasted, and Vet agreed that it was a shame.

— Si law ay the wild bit, Kim, Dad explained, putting his arm around her, — like ah sais, the law ay the wild.

Gordon gave me a matey wink and raised his eyebrows as if to say that lassies were daft, no like us guys.

It was a great time, really exciting, and the lodge we stayed in was luxurious.

The only thing which disturbed me was seeing a group of ugly birds waddling into a flamingo colony and scattering the beautiful pink creatures across the waters of a small lake. They just fled in sheer panic. I had never seen anything as horrible looking as those predators. They were like bent-over beggar-demons, their large beaks gave them a laughing look totally at odds with their dead eyes. I saw one of them trying to swallow a flamingo's head. It was a sick sight. The severed head of one large bird in the jaws of another.

— That's the Marabou Stork, my Dad sang triumphantly, drinking in the carnage through his binoculars, — like ah sais, the Marabou Stork. Bad bastards thaim, eh, but it's nature like.

That night I had my first Marabou Stork nightmare.

South Africa was a sort of paradise to me. Funnily enough, I felt at home there; it was as if it was the place I was really meant to be, rather than shitey Scotland. When I thought back to Edinburgh I recollected it as a dirty, cold, wet, run-down slum; a city of dull, black tenements and crass, concrete housing schemes which were populated by scruffs, but the town still somehow being run by snobs for snobs.

I was glad when we moved away from Gordon's to our own place, but I missed what I had grown to think of as my refuge. Part of Gordon's house was built on top of an old well, and in the basement of the garage there was access to the well, via a trapdoor. The well had a set of metal rungs going down into it, and although I was told to keep away, I used to climb down there and just hang from the rungs, suspended in semi-darkness. I'd hear Gordon sneaking around above, looking for me to touch me up. The things he wanted to do were getting heavier and I was getting more scared. Gordon said if I told anyone I would get the blame; John, my Dad, would believe him and not me. I instinctively knew that this was true. So whenever I went into the garage I'd hide in the well.

The well wasn't very deep, perhaps about twenty foot at the most. Gordon claimed that it was not a well, but was part of an old access point to mineworkings where the prospectors who built the city dug for their gold. At the time, I took this with a pinch of salt, but given Johannesburg's history, it was possible. The bottom of the well seemed solid and blocked with rubble, though I could never bring myself to go right to the foot of it and stand free of the rungs. I would just sit in my semi-darkened lair, enjoy the peace and fantasise. I was sorry when I had to leave the well, as glad as I was to be getting away from Uncle Gordon.

As I said, I loved South Africa. For Dad, though, the honeymoon never lasted. He was fucked off with his security job. It wasn't quite what he had envisaged. Moreover, the social life was getting to him. He was fed up with the characterless suburban roadhouses or the
braais
in gardens, parks and campsites where South Africans did their serious drinking. He was craving the traditional social vice of the lowland Scot; a good, old-fashioned pub crawl in an urban city-centre environment. Gordon had tried to get him into South African culture. My uncle had become a rugby enthusiast and he took us along to a few games at Ellis Park to try to get us interested. — Poofs game, John would snort, — but ah suppose it's something tae dae. He would leave us and spend most of his time at the stadium bars. I hated rugby even more than football. So did John and nothing less than a good piss-up would suit him.

It was a drinking session in downtown Johannesburg that led to us leaving South Africa and returning to Scotland.

At the time I had just settled into the Paul Kruger Memorial. The kids were pretty thick, seeming to me to be even farther behind than at my old school, which was according to all reports, one of the crappest in Scotland, which also meant Europe. The only drag was having to wear a school uniform. I suppose I didn't mind too much, as I could wear long flannels rather than shorts. I was self-conscious of the scars on my legs.

On my first day at the school I was introduced as a 'new boy from Scotland' and shown the map of South Africa. My first piece of homework was to memorise the provinces and their capitals:

One major difference was that the kids here, though easily as thick, were much more docile and well-behaved. Actually doing schoolwork was acceptable. The teachers were okay; my interest in nature and wildlife was positively encouraged. They were nice to me, my accent mattered less to the teachers in South Africa than it had done to those in my native city. Once I got over this culture shock, I found myself relishing the acquisition of knowledge. Schoolwork became interesting and I lost my urge to escape into the Silver Surfer and my other comic-book fantasies. I couldn't learn enough about things. I had, for the first time, ambition of a sort. Before, when people had asked me what I wanted to be, I would have just shrugged; I might have said a soldier, just because it seemed good fun shooting at people, like just a daft kid's thing. Now I was into being a zoologist. On my eleventh birthday I could see possibilities: good grades here, followed by the same at high school, a university place at Witwatesrand or Pretoria or Rand Afrikaans studying zoology or biology, then some field work, post-grad stuff, and there I'd be. I saw a career path.

The old man's piss-up blew that away. It showed me that I'd been a daft cunt to ever have had those dreams.

I recall the day it started. It was a clear Thursday afternoon and looking north-west you could see the Magaliesberg mountain range which towered over the city. I was out in the garden kicking a ball about with my mate Curtis. I was getting hot but I hadn't changed out of my school uniform. I went to do that, then I was going to Curtis's house for tea. He often came to ours, but I was less embarrassed by Mum and Dad now. They seemed happier and lighter out here, and strangely, their eccentricities were more tolerated as there was quite a mix of different white kids in our neighbourhood, likesay Greek and that, and some whose parents spoke no English. Anyway, I nipped in to get changed and I overheard my Ma and Dad talking.

The old man's restlessness was apparent. He would still circle the television pages for our viewing, only now they were the listings of
the Johannesburg Star.
— Fuckin thirty-six rand a year fir this shite, he moaned bitterly that early evening. The television licence fee had gone up. — It's no that, Vet, he implored my Ma, who had said nothing, — it's no thit ah grudge it. It's jist thit wi dinnae want tae become slaves tae the telly aw the time.

— Switch it oaf well, my Ma said.

— Naw . . . naw . . . that's no the point ah'm tryin tae make, Vet. Yir misunderstandin the point ah'm trying tae make. Like ah sais, it's no the telly thit's wrong; it's jist thit thir's nowt else. Like, ah mean tae say Vet, they fuckin braais, or whatever the fuck thir called, thir awright bit thir no ma cup ay tea, ken? Whit ah'm tryin tae say Vet, is thit ye cannae even git oot fir a fuckin pint, ken whit ah mean? Thir's no like a local; nae fuckin pub fir miles, jist that fuckin daft wee place roond at the Mall. Even Muirhoose hud a fuckin pub! Likesay in the toon though but Vet, thir's tons ay pubs doon in the city. Ah wis thinkin thit ah might just go doon thair the morn eftir work; git a couple ay pints wi Gordon, doon in the city likes. Like ah sais, a couple ay pints.

— Well, go oot fir a pint then, Vet snapped, angry at being distracted from her magazine.

— Mibbee ah'll just dae that well, mibbee jist dae that the morn. Fae work like, ken?

I saw a contented smile point his face as he sat behind the
Star.

So the next day Dad finished his shift, and instead of coming home, went downtown to meet Gordon in his office, after a visit to the boxing museum at Hanson and Kerk Street. After Gordon finished they went out drinking in bars around his office in the Main Street/Denvers Street area. Gordon had soon had enough, and took a taxi home, imploring John to do the same. By this time, though, the old man had a couple of guys from Liverpool in tow and was into a real night on the pish.

Johannesburg's city centre is a drab, functional business area; totally deserted after six o'clock in the evening. Gordon kept telling John that it wasn't safe to wander the streets after dark, presumably in case he ran into someone like himself. My Dad's brother always talked about how lawless the city centre was at night; he went on and on about the gangs of black workies from rival tribes who lived in the hostels and ran amok in the city centre after dark, mugging and beating up each other and anyone else who crossed their path. All this did was set the old man off in a belligerent, aggressive frame of mind. If any cunt wanted trouble, he'd be game. After Gordon told us that John had said to him: — Whin the Luftwaffe wir bombin London, the big brass telt Churchill tae stey safely indoors instead ay gaun fir a walk in the park. Churchill jist turns roond n goes: Aye, right. Whin ah wis a wee laddie the nurse couldnae stoap ehs fae walkin in the park, Now thit ah'm a growin man, that wee cunt sure as fuck isnae. Ah rest ma case, my father had said smugly.

Anyway, John and the scouse guys staggered up Delvers towards Joubert Park. They had a great night out and drunkenly swapped phone numbers, arranging to do it all over again. John lurched into a cab that was parked outside one of the big hotels.

What happened next was contentious. John's version of the story, which I'm inclined to believe, because for all his faults the old man wasn't a bullshitter, he didn't have the imagination for one thing, was that he fell asleep in a taxi. When he woke up, they were parked in a disused layby in Germiston, with the driver rifling through his pockets. Now Germiston is a busy railway junction district to the south-east of the city which is dominated by the largest gold refinery in the world. We lived on the road out to Kempton Park, which is north of the city centre.

John assaulted the taxi driver with such force and vigour that several of the man's teeth were produced, in a plastic bag, by the prosecution in the courtroom, as a theatrical piece of evidence. The taxi driver claimed that he was trying to get this obnoxious drunk who was giving him the run-around out of his car, when he was violently assaulted. John got sentenced to six months' imprisonment. It seems that he was made an example of by the authorities, anxious to clamp down on violence in downtown Johannesburg.

Vet was well fucked up. I remember her at that time; chainsmoking and drinking cups of tarry coffee with around eight sugars in it. We left our new home in northern Johannesburg and stayed briefly at Gordon's before making plans to return to Scotland. John would follow once he'd served out his sentence. Kim and I were devastated at the prospect of going back. We'd settled. I could see myself right back in the same life, the same school, the same scheme.

I was gloomy in my resignation, only a sick anxiety brought on by the dread of leaving occasionally alleviating my depression. Edinburgh to me represented serfdom. I realised that it was exactly the same situation as Johannesburg; the only difference was that the Kaffirs were white and called schemies or draftpaks. Back in Edinburgh, we would be Kaffirs; condemned to live out our lives in townships like Muirhouse or So-Wester-Hailes-To or Niddrie, self-contained camps with fuck all in them, miles fae the toon. Brought in tae dae the crap jobs that nae other cunt wanted tae dae, then hassled by the polis if we hung around at night in groups. Edinburgh had the same politics as Johannesburg: it had the same politics as any city. Only we were on the other side. I detested the thought of going back to all that shite.

Bernard had hated South Africa from the start and couldn't wait to get home. Tony was ambivalent. He'd been shagging a few birds, but wanted to see his old mates. Being older, though, he had a vibe, a vibe about all the political trouble which we never really knew much about.

Maybe in retrospect I could say that there was a strange mood amongst the whites my folks socialised with. It's just possible, though, that I'm inventing it with the benefit of hindsight. Did everybody really seem a wee bit edgy? Probably. The only real talk I remember was of what people (and I do remember there were some dodgy looking cunts Gordon hung around with) referred to as the selling out of Rhodesia, which was now called Zimbabwe-Rhodesia. That and the constant references to terrorists. Gordon spoke Afrikaans and preferred the Afrikaans papers like
Die Transvaler
and
Die Vaderland
to the
Rand Daily Mail
and the
Johannesburg Star.
He once took us to the Voortrekker Monument which dominates the southern approaches to Pretoria and rabbited on about the great trek. This seemed to affect him in the same way Churchill's wartime speeches did my Dad.

Once Gordon took us to the Museum of The Republick Van Suid-Afrika. It was an interesting place to visit. The information boards in the museum mirrored what I'd read in my school textbooks:

The white citizens of the Union are mostly descendants of early Dutch and British settlers, with smaller admixtures of French, German and other West-European peoples. The White man originally came to South Africa as a soldier, farmer, trader, missionary and general pioneer, and owing to his superior education and his long background of civilisation he was able to provide the necessary leadership, expertise, technical skill and finance among races who were for the most part little removed from barbarism.

South Africa is the only country in the world where a dominant community has followed a definite policy of maintaining the purity of its race in the midst of overwhelming numbers of non-European inhabitants— in most not still administered as colonies or protectorates either the non-whites have been exterminated or there has been some form of assimilation, resulting in a more or less coloured population. Indeed, far from the extermination of non-whites, the advent of the European in South Africa has meant that whole native communities have been saved from exterminating each other. It is not generally realised that scarcely a century ago Chaka, chief of the Zulus, destroyed 300 tribes and wiped out thousands upon thousands of his fellows.

Gradually, however, the remnants of the tribes which survived the internecine wars were able to settle down to a peaceful, rural way of life under the protection and with the assistance of the white man. In the traditional homelands, which cover an extent about as large as England and Wales together, nearly one-half of the Bantu live and lead a simple pastoral life as their ancestors did through the centuries before them—happy, picturesque people living the most carefree existence imaginable.

Thus we find that here on the southern tip of the African continent, amidst overwhelming numbers of non-European inhabitants, a small white population has made its home and is founding a new nation, with a way of life and an outlook of its own. It is due to the initiative of these people, to their knowledge and skill that South Africa has become the most advanced state on the African continent, and, as sure as night follows day, they will evolve a form of co-existence which will allow every race to live its full life and to contribute, in accordance with its own abilities, to the welfare of the country.