Whitethorn (51 page)

We hopped out of the taxi, which then drove off, and Miss Phillips said she'd catch the bus back to town and she gave me a hug, but not a kiss because there were some boys standing around. She started to walk away, and then stopped and turned. ‘Oh, Tom,' she called out. ‘I nearly forgot!' She opened her bag. ‘It's a book of stamps. I think you should write to Marie and Doctor Van Heerden, and perhaps you can find time to drop me a line every once in a while? I won't see you until the end of term and I'd love to know how you're getting along.' I thanked her and she said, ‘The school knows how to contact me if I'm needed.'

I didn't know how to thank Miss Phillips for everything she'd done for me, which was only to change my whole life. How can a person find words to tell someone that? So I took a deep breath and put my arms around her neck and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Thank you for everything, Miss Phillips,' I said. I'd received a number of kisses from Marie and Mrs Van Heerden, and even six from Miss Phillips, but this was the first kiss I'd ever given out all by myself. A boy from The Boys Farm can't go giving kisses to people without permission, that's because we are owned by the Government, and other people who get kisses all the time are privately owned with a proper family who kiss because you're allowed to do it as much as you like. But I don't suppose Miss Phillips knew that it was the first kiss I'd ever had the courage to give on my own. I mean, when you got the kisses (I'd already had thirty-two) the lips that touched your skin were soft and wonderful like something coming into you, but when
you
did the kissing, the feel of your lips on the soft skin of a lady's face was even more wonderful because something that was inside you was going out into Miss Phillips. Something you couldn't say with words.

‘Oh, you are such a darling, Tom,' she whispered, and then turned quickly and walked away, and I watched as she got smaller and smaller, in her nice blue and pink floral dress with the sun catching her blonde hair as she walked down the long avenue of English oaks. I remembered I hadn't even asked the name of her going-to-be colonel husband or what a Foreign Service was. When I'd kissed her she still smelled of roses, and I wondered if I'd be invited to the wedding, and whether I should have told her about the baby in her stomach that was a shotgun for sure.

Let me tell you, those stamps were a godsend because without them I wouldn't have been able to write letters. As it was, I had plenty of paper from exercise books but no envelopes. That was easily solved because all you did was find an old envelope and take it apart and then get some scissors and make one with a bit of glue and a page from your exercise book. The post office doesn't say an envelope can't have these blue lines across it. Guys would see me doing this and offer to give me one of their envelopes, but you shouldn't take something if you can't pay it back – that was my new rule for being a loner in front.

Marie wrote to me and told me about Saxby, her new baby, and about how the new owners of the Impala Café had asked if she could come back on Sundays to cook mixed grills because the
boere
were complaining that they were not as good as before.

Dear Tom,

How are you in that posh school? I hope you are well. The
sergeant and me miss you a lot and so does Mum and the doctor. Look
after yourself.
Ag
, man, Tom, how can you go wrong with a mixed
grill? It's just meat and an egg and some chips, but they can't get it
right. I think it's the gravy and I'm not telling them the secret, you
add a little speck, but those Indians, they won't use pork, and what's a mixed grill without bacon or a bit of pig fat added to the gravy just
before you take the pan off the stove? So on a Sunday, after church
when the
boere
come in for lunch, it looks like I got a job for as long
as I want. That's nice because a policeman's salary isn't so much
and we can use the extra. Doctor Van Heerden is always stitching
up
kaffirs
on Sundays and the sergeant is writing out charges, so my
mother can look after Saxby and I can work at the Impala Café.

My husband now sends up one of the native policemen to get
him a curry lunch. Can you believe it? He also wants chapati! But
I must say I never thought it possible, but curry is quite nice and has
all sorts of different tastes. They also building a Tandoor oven, which
is for cooking chicken, but I don't know who can afford chicken for
a Sunday lunch. The Patels can't ever say I didn't warn them. Patel
says he's going to build a chicken farm at the back of his shop with all
these chickens, hundreds and hundreds in a big shed, every one in a
little wire cage without a floor, just standing and getting fed crushed
mielies
. When they fat enough they go straight into the Tandoor oven.
In the meantime, the eggs can go to Pietersburg on the train to be sold
in the market, maybe even to Pretoria. Eggs on a train and all the
trucks shunting when they get to Louis Trichardt to join the proper
train. The Charras don't think like us, no commonsense. Chickens in
little cages! Everyone knows a chicken has to walk around the place
and scratch and bath in the dirt and they won't lay eggs where you
want, but only in places they choose themselves. You can make five
nice nests all in a row and they'll only choose one and all of them will
lay their eggs only in the one nest. Four empty nests and one full of
eggs, some even breaking from their chicken feet, that's a chicken for
you. A chicken is a very stupid thing, and only a turkey is more stupid.
The
Dominee
had a heart attack, not so serious, and Doctor Van
Heerden says next time it's maybe finish and
klaar
, and he mustn't eat
so much meat with fat, and butter on his bread, and he must lose some
weight. But the
Dominee
says he's not the worst in the congregation
by far, and eating meat with fat on it and a bit of butter on his bread,
how can that harm? He explained that it's what the
Boerevolk
have
been doing for 200 years because they were in the land of Canaan
since they left the British in the Cape and went on the Great Trek.
As a reward for wandering in the wilderness for longer even than
Moses, God gave the
Boerevolk
the land of milk and honey, and it's
God's will they can now eat well because butter is made from milk.
And Doctor Van Heerden says, ‘That's the trouble around this place,
nobody listens to scientific advice.' And the
Dominee
says, ‘Since
when is God suddenly a scientist? Why should I believe someone who
thinks Charles Darwin is right?' I don't know who is this Charles
Darwin, but the doctor says how can you help people who think the
world was created in seven days? Wasn't it, Tom? You the clever one.
So you can see, nothing has changed around the place, except that
the
boere
are all becoming curry-munchers and buying lots of Lion
lager to stop the burning in their mouth. Who would have ever thought
such a thing could happen, hey? Miracles will never cease, but still, I
guarantee chickens will never lay eggs in wire cages, the straw will just
fall out the bottom. Saxby takes up a lot of my time, and that's her
crying now so I better end now.

With lots of love from the sergeant, the doctor and my mum.
Write soon, we dying to hear from you, you hear? We thinking of you
a lot. Remember, don't become all stuck-up at that posh school.

Marie and Saxby van Niekerk
xxxx
and Tinker, Woof!
Marie wrote every week and I wrote back, and always with the urgent plea to tell me how Tinker was getting on in her new home. But the only mention was always at the very end of her letters with a ‘woof' added. Marie loved Tinker and so did Doctor Van Heerden, Mevrou Van Heerden and Sergeant Van Niekerk, and so it was strange that no other mention of her was ever made. Maybe they thought if they spoke about her I'd become homesick, but a person couldn't get homesick for The Boys Farm, although I admit I was terribly homesick for Tinker. Sometimes I'd dream she was sitting on my lap down by the big library rock, and I'd wake up in the middle of the night sobbing. When you are a loner who is busy hiding at the front, to have someone like Tinker in your life, even at long distance and for the school holidays, is what keeps you going. Not getting news about her in Marie's letters was terribly distressing, so I wrote a letter to Doctor Van Heerden begging for news of my little dog.

Then came his reply.

Dear Tom,

It is with some regret that I find myself penning this letter. In
my profession we come across a great deal that is a painful part of
the human condition, and we must learn to cope, but sometimes we
are confronted with circumstances beyond our control, and even a
doctor must bow to the will of the Almighty.

I had only read this opening paragraph and all of a sudden my heart was pounding, and the loneliness rocks were tumbling into a cavity in my chest. Tinker! Something was wrong. I didn't want to read on because I knew Doctor Van Heerden was going to tell me something really bad had happened to her. I don't know how I knew he was writing to me about Tinker, I just did and I needed the time to prepare myself. It was almost as if I stopped reading so that what was to come would go away. Of course, that's stupid, but I had to find a place where nobody could see me, like the big rock. I folded up the letter and went outside and climbed up into one of the English oaks, high up into the top branches where I was completely concealed by a thick canopy of leaves.

As you know, the plan was for Tinker to spend a few days in
the small containment I erected around her kennel and then, when
she'd become accustomed to her new surroundings, we'd give her the
run of the place, just like old Helmut. I know she's always been an
outside dog, but my dearest wish was that she'd come into the surgery
and lie down at my feet. Things never felt quite right after Helmut
was gone from under my desk.

Everything went to plan, and Tinker took her food after the
password and seemed to be enjoying the love she was receiving from
Mevrou Van Heerden and Marie as well as yours truly. Tinker is
such a loving little dog. Then, after four days in the enclosure we let
her out and within minutes she was gone. We looked everywhere and
I finally phoned Sergeant Van Niekerk who immediately said, ‘She'll
be at the school looking for Tom.' He offered to go and look, and sure
enough, Tinker was waiting under a tree at the school gate, so he
brought her home. But the next day it was the same, and this time
Meneer Van Niekerk brought her home.

Tinker is a clever little dog, and after the third day she would
go to school and when school came out and you weren't there she'd
come back here. She was eating her food, but I noticed each day she'd
eat a little less. Then she stopped altogether, drinking only water, but
she still managed to go to school every day until last week, when she
was too weak to walk.

Of course I examined her, and have been doing so ever since
she started to lose her appetite. I know something about animals,
and dogs in particular, and I don't trust Doctor Dyke's judgement.
Maybe he's good with cows and chickens, who knows? But Tinker is
a different kettle of fish. I took her into the hospital for X-rays but
could find nothing, and her little heart seems sound enough. Then I
put her on a drip in the surgery where she has been for three days.

Tom, this is a very difficult letter to write, but if Tinker doesn't
respond she cannot last more than a week, or a little more at the
very most. We had thought to wait before writing, but your letter
sounded so distressed I decided it was unfair to keep you in the dark.
I am supposed to heal people, but I simply don't know what else I
can do other than try to keep her alive in the event that she makes
the decision to live. This is the first time I have ever witnessed an
animal that is dying of a broken heart, and it is not a prognosis I
fully understand.

You can be quite sure I will do everything possible to keep her
brave little heart beating. Last night we all went down on our knees,
Mevrou Van Heerden, Marie, Sergeant Van Niekerk and myself,
and prayed to God to save the life of this little creature we know you
love so much. This is a gesture very uncharacteristic of a person like
me and I also imagine Jan van Niekerk, but I want you to know
that we did so with the utmost sincerity.

I remain your friend,

Alex van Heerden

It was not a long letter but it took me almost an hour to read because I just couldn't stop blubbing. When I had recovered sufficiently, I looked at the envelope to see how long it had taken to get to me and it had been three days. If Tinker could stay alive for another four or five days then I could somehow get to her. When she saw me her broken heart would start to mend, and she would recover. It had been terribly wrong to leave her, and for what? To become a loner hiding in the front? You can't go around breaking hearts just because you want to get a nice education and get away from The Boys Farm. I loved Tinker more than anything on earth, she was my sun and my moon and all the stars in the sky, and I had woefully deserted her. I started to cry again, knowing I was a piece of shit.