Witches & Fantasies!

Kindles are jumping out all over the place and screaming, ‘Read me, read me!’ Everywhere I look, eReaders are there, surging alongside iPhones ‘n BlackBerries. And why not; they are what they say they are – damn good pieces of kit. Their pages remain un-gunked; the edges clean and crisp, without smear or thumbprint or folded corners. Know we’ve talked about this before, but the e-race is really hotting up; now it’s more about selling words than clawing back costs for the paper they’re written on. As long as eBook prices stay lower than those expected of their hardcopy brothers, sales will climb. The truth of the matter? No one can stop them...

*

Boyhood – from stream to raging torrent...

COWLING HOUSE

Often, people ask me what it was like at boarding school. The short answer is pretty straightforward – for the first year at least, I hated it; a period of intense trauma that I would rather forget. Being locked in a building that ranked somewhere between Alcatraz and the workhouse from Oliver Twist did little to strengthen my faith in humankind. Not so much the schooling itself, but the aftermath of hostel life. A white, austere building of high walls and red tin roofs with doors that, at night, were always securely locked, bolted and spied upon by beaky housekeepers; not as a guard against ‘things’ that might get in, but as barriers that would keep us little darlings from sneaking out and wreaking havoc on the town’s fruit trees and chaste daughters. We were as the housemaster put it, ‘a rabble that needed to be contained for the financial and moral safety of the community.’ And so it was that a hundred or so little boys planned and plotted their way through their first year of tutorial incarceration; a nest of little vipers that crept, crawled and spied on the ‘spy-ers’ about the dark halls of Cowling House, the boarding school from hell...

At meals, it was expected of Mister Arlers, one of the more senior teachers to say grace. Small guy, bony hands, mean administrator of the cane; his jowls shook, same as a St Bernard’s, always rung his hands at prayers – one eye left open to watch for dissidents.

‘For what we are about to receive...’ He paused to work his single eye around the hall; satisfied that all was well he carried on; ‘may the Lord make us truly thankful.’ Then after a further, pointless ten second silence... ‘You may all sit.’

So we sat; and waited for the day’s delicacies to be brought from the kitchen, ate whatever slop the cook had invented and then went to prep (homework) for an hour and a half. Maths and Latin – I detested both. Could never fathom how learning to speak like a Roman gladiator might one day enhance my life.

Being forced to go to bed at eight o’clock was a welcome release. The switch was flicked and forty chunnering boys were plunged into darkness. Forty iron-framed beds, forty tent-sized mosquito nets hung like gossamer church bells from the ceiling, forty little erections like forest mushrooms pointed up at it.

‘Are you doing it?’

Strained, ‘yes’s’ from further down the bed-line. No embarrassment, no clandestine rustlings from beneath the sheets, just forty furtive squeaks from pubescent boys harnessing their fantasies. We were determined self-achievers all working in perfect harmony.

Driven solely by professional dedication, Miss Saxon soon worked out what we were up to. Her room was just outside the dormitory, she was ‘the gatekeeper’. Her hostel duties included the monitoring and suppression of any subversive activities, an occupation she carried out with an unnaturally keen interest.

Miss Saxon had a torch, a powerful torch; I was convinced it doubled as a searchlight for anti-aircraft batteries during the Blitz. She was our very own Lady with the Lamp, but for different reasons to those of a more temperate Florence Nightingale. We feared her. Her attacks were rigorously executed, her stealth second only to that of a leopardess. Her application to duty knew no bounds, neither did her excitement when, with her face still smeared in night cream she would lunge amongst our rocking beds with Gagool-like fervour; eyes flashing, stick raised,  torch beam blasting back the dark; forty teenage libidos fluttering to a standstill.

‘Bloody little perverts!’

As the punitive sword of Damocles, her stick rose and fell, but with little effect; all of us had disappeared beneath our beds and stayed there; waiting for her to drool off back to her room. Strange how she always singled out where the bigger kids were before switching on her torch...

*

Sons of Africa; an extract:

... ‘Prepare yourself. On your life, do not try to use your rifle. What you see will be beyond your understanding, but no harm will come to you, Rex Kumalo.’

Alone in total darkness, a faint orb of wavering light rose up to him from deep in the hillside – then movement; as dry leaves over a wooden porch.

‘I see you, Rex Kumalo.’

It was not the voice of the man who had led him there. This was stricken with age, emanating from lungs that were filled with viscid fluid from the breathing in of foul air. Rex waited for the wraithlike figure to materialise in front of him; when the creature turned about in the narrow passageway the full horror of the harridan’s affliction flung him back against the sidewall.

About her shrivelled waist was tied a simple belt of leather. Hung from it, on sinew stripped from the limbs of the Vervet monkey were the sickening tools of her wizardry; slivered body parts, bone and teeth from venomous forest vipers, charms and ancient powders searched from a hundred secret places. Ashen body hair stood out from the juncture of her legs, the skin about her groin and upper thighs transparent enough for Rex to see the veins and arteries that for more than a hundred years had kept her living. Above the darkened pits that were her eyes, verminous colonies scurried to hide from the lamplight.

‘Follow me, Rex Kumalo, there are many things for you to see. Do not fear your destiny – you are both the destroyer and the father of our nation.’

Without warning she raised her lamp to the granite sidewall.

‘Behold the mothers of Kagubi and Muroyiwa, the bewitched ones! Messengers from beyond the wall of death. Eaters of genitals and lovers to dogs.’ Like steel on glass her voice keened inside his head; her eyes glittered and threads of silver spittle drooled from her lower lip. Rex suppressed a sudden urge to dash out her brains on the sidewall.

‘Touch them, Rex Kumalo – touch the ancient guardians of this fallen city of stone.’

Ghostly insects skittered inside his shirt. Alcoves had been fashioned into the living granite; the grisly remains of what once were living beings were held in place by hand-forged iron pegs. Dry air and skilled hands of their embalmer had held off putrefaction – the victims’ jaws set in that final grinning rictus of an agonising death.

‘My own child.’ Perverse pleasure thickened her voice, willing him to gaze upon the handiwork. Shrouded in swirling dust she appeared to float above the ground. ‘My own mother drew off the child’s blood and stuffed its belly with balm to hold off the maggots.’

Rex’s eyes bulged in their sockets. He felt trapped by the ancient rituals and superstitions of his own race. The harridan’s strength of mind held his feet to the earth.

‘How did the child die?’

‘From the bite of the mubobo, the black mamba,’ her voice a sibilant hiss in the quiet. With a skeletal hand she reached out and caressed the tiny, shrivelled neck. Then her lips parted and for a brief moment Rex caught the reptilian flick of her tongue. ‘Here, where the child’s blood was hot and close to the heart.’

The powerful neurotoxins in the snake’s venom had caused the child’s spine to arch backwards. The head had been drawn with it, forcing the mouth wide open. Rex turned away and fought to hold his voice steady.

‘What of these things, old woman? Why do you show them to me?’

Mutiswa held the lamp to his face.

‘As this flame takes life from the oil on which it feeds, so will the sons and daughters of the new order take life from the strength they find in you, Rex Kumalo.’ Her eyes narrowed. For a hundred years, this was the moment she had lived for – the resurrection of a people whose voice once held sway over an entire land. Again the bull bellow of the Matabele would be heard above the whine of their Shona underlings.

‘Was it not the power of the past that brought you here?’ Again, she shuffled forwards and raised the lamp to the sidewall.

‘Behold the magic that has brought your bloodline back to its rightful place beneath Zimbabwe, the birthplace of our nation.’

‘Another child.’ His voice heavy with revulsion. ‘Killing you now would not rob me of a single minute’s sleep, old woman.’

Mutiswa reached out for the corpse, touching, prodding, testing the softer parts with her finger tips.

‘The balm is not yet at its best, only when it hardens will the pup be safe from the fly. Come, son of Mashobane, we must hurry. The ghosts of your ancestors grow tired of waiting.’

So frail were the old woman’s limbs that they hardly cast a shadow. Rex watched her move from light to dark, scuttling forwards, roach-like and bent at the waist, more akin to a wild animal than any human being.

 The passage opened; changed to some dark and limitless void, the lamplight now too weak to reach beyond.

‘What is this place, old woman? What good has this done, bringing me to this stinking pit beneath the ground?’

Mutiswa turned to face him. Now the light, held close to her hairless skull showed the full horrors of her afflictions. Dark ophthalmic holes leered up at him and the advanced malignant cells of a deep and virulent melanoma clung to the ruined stump of her nose. In the living light, the canker appeared to Rex as some grotesque and separate beast upon her face, so that he reeled from the horror of it and almost lost his footing...

*

Church Social & Stage-Coaches!

Touched on this before so will keep it short; reckon it’s down to my judgement day looming on the horizon. A fair number of folk have been following what I write and for your support I will always be grateful. However (like that word, sort of lets me take a deep breath), blogging out book extracts and offering up a completed book come with very different price tags; putting out Sons of Africa as a whole, I could compare to me standing outside the Post Office on a Saturday morning – butt naked, open to criticism, but hopefully with some good reviews mixed in – just to balance things out. One thing I’ll say in my defence; it’s a bloody good read – a proper story.

‘Can’t win ‘em all!’ I hear you shout and that’s as maybe, but nerve-wracking nevertheless. Anyway, confidence still reigns supreme and just to prove it, will shortly be posting Sons of Africa’s new and final cover art. Hope you like; kept the theme as ‘Africa orientated’ as possible, attractive but not over-the-top. No flashing spears or leaping lions, I promise. Reckon that’s enough for now; vanity, as always, is insatiable. Now go read about my school’s church disco...

*

Friday night church social; the only night that we were semi ‘let loose’ on the town – the town being a church hall at the back of St Michael & All Angels. No big deal, but we welcomed it anyway. Marched in crocodile formation and guarded by front and rear prefects we were scuttled town-wards for a whole two hours of ripping it up with the hostel girls; more importantly, for the chance of a crafty fag and a frantic fumble in the alleyway.

The girls all came in frilly frocks; the boys, denied their freedom of choice, in school uniform – really gave us the opportunity to strut our stuff. Twenty or so spotty boys dressed in striped blazers, white shirts and matching stripy ties that I swear were designed by some crack-head pyjama salesman.

The coolest kids had twenty Stuyvesant and a quarter-jack of brandy hidden inside their blazers; the geeky kids – a comb and polo mints. My buddy carried the most coveted of cool items – a Durex! Nobody knew what the word condom meant back then. I eventually acquired one and hid the relevant rubber inside my blazer lining for my last two years at boarding school. Think it was a hand-me-down from one of the senior school-leavers; had it until the foil wrapper disintegrated and the rubber bit fell to pieces. Guess rubber wasn’t meant to last that long; would rather have faced a firing squad than bargain with a half a crown’s worth of my weekly pocket money for a replacement three-pack at McGhie’s Chemist. Even the seniors would crack under Mrs McGhie’s stare; then wobble back out with unwanted aspirins, toothpaste and weak excuses. Besides, the closest I ever came to using it was waving it under the nose of a pretty girl I fancied, like milliseconds before she screamed and lamped me one.

On Friday nights, the Vicar had a break from saving souls and doubled as our DJ for two hours of musical mayhem, coughed a lot as usual; more so when the prettiest girls gave their all to Brenda Lee’s, Let’s Jump the Broomstick. Had really thick glasses so we never knew where he was looking, the funny grin and slavering lips gave him away though...

*

Sons of Africa; an extract:

... Like a circus trick rider the boy flicked his feet clear of the stirrups and hit the ground at a run.

‘They’re coming in! No more than a mile behind me.’ He threw the reins to his mother and bounced through the bar-room doors. ‘Mister Dickens, sir – you said for me to watch for the coach!’ He stuck out his hand; palm up – his breathing quick with excitement. ‘You’d best be hurrying outside or you’ll be missin’ it.’

John Dickens flicked the boy a silver sixpenny coin.

He crooked a finger at Mathew. ‘Something I want you to see, been waiting nigh on two years for this.’ Mathew followed him out. Dickens had dressed himself in freshly laundered calico britches and shirt. His face still shone from a scrubbing and his beard caught well at the sunlight when he stepped out into the street; a mass of springy whiskers pressed against his chest like bees to some rocky overhang. John repeatedly sprung and latched the case on his watch.

‘At least they got the day right, I’ll give them that.’ He grinned at Mathew. ‘Keep your eye on the passengers, laddie and all shall be revealed.’

At first, the American built stage-coach seemed trapped inside the wriggling heat haze, its progress marked by a mere flickering of pale dust. Occasionally, when carried by a slight wind, the driver’s voice and the crack of his whip would carry. People crowded around the hotel frontage and craned their neck expectantly; a half dozen urchins and stray mongrels ran up the street, infected by the excitement.

‘Here she comes!’ someone shouted and the crowd opened.

‘Do I look alright?’

‘As you’ll ever be,’ Mathew smiled and saw Dickens’ eyes widen with trepidation.

As mythical spirits the mules came out from the haze and though not as well appointed as their equine cousins, still they were spectacular. At their best speed, a team of ten work-hardened hybrids dragged their Zeederberg mail coach rocking and lurching into the neck of Victoria’s First Street. Grey with granite dust, Doel Zeederberg flexed his legs at the foot-board and with his full weight against it drew back the mules, easing the thrust from their harness.

A cloud of dust caught up with the coach, together they rolled towards the crowd; magically, a woman, like a character from some fantastical dream appeared at an open coach window. Her hair, freed by the wind, glowed with the colours of a midnight sea ripping the tide off Cape Agulhas.

*

‘Elizabeth Anne.’ She held out her hand. A deep cobalt blue, her eyes held him spellbound; Mathew rummaged desperately for the right words.

‘Mathew Goddard.’ Mathew accepted the hand. ‘You’re John’s...

‘Daughter.’ Elizabeth helped him. ‘You seem surprised?’

‘I didn’t know,’ said Mathew.

‘So you didn’t tell him?’ Elizabeth admonished playfully. ‘You haven’t changed, father.’ She looked around and with the sun directly overhead her hair sparkled with blue lights. Mathew wanted to touch it and though they had just met he felt his pulse quicken. Elizabeth’s father watched him from the corner of his eye and he smiled like a man who had just that minute lucked to a winning streak at the Crown and Anchor table...

The Over-The-Hill-Gang & San Bushman!

Cheated today – had the morning off and lunch at the golf club. Sounds posh but isn’t. However, did me a power of good to step back from writing books and blogs for a couple of hours. Glad I went. So was Victoria, my long suffering wife. Hope you see the funny side of things...

*

Monday morning – golf day. Four minutes late for tee-off; having parked my car, changed my shoes, lashed together trolley and bag I merge with the rest of the over-the-hill-gang.

‘You’re late again.’

I give Geoff my best ‘so-what’ look and mouth obscenities at him without the others cottoning on.

‘A quid on the game?’

Everyone nods. Geoff looks surprised, even though it’s been a quid as far back as anyone of us can remember.

Les has got his blue, thermal vest on; the sleeves are sticking out from his shirt. When he laughs his eyes water and his top teeth drop; he’s eighty one forchrisakes! Pipes and tubes, tablets, teeth and sprays. I can’t wait to get that old – so much fun to look forward to.

I pinch my nostrils closed and mimic Peter Alliss; ‘On the first Tee from...’ wherever – doesn’t really matter and I get another dirty look from Geoff.  I guess waiting for whichever god he worships is driving him nuts.

So this is it. Now is the moment; one that we have dreaded and dreamed of since last Monday. Trolleys of varying colours, makes and price tags are parked and preened like Mayfair Rollers. Batteries are coupled, engines revved and wheels checked for fear of flying off halfway down the Glorious Fourth.

‘Show us the way, Tiger!’ I grin at Geoff and egg him onto the first tee.

Geoff glowers at me for talking and with a driver modelled on Picard’s Starship Enterprise lurches at a little ball no bigger than a pullet’s egg. 

‘Great shot!’ I lie and get muttered at when Geoff’s ball makes a spiteful swerve for squirrel country. Now he’s sucking his teeth and glaring. I can see by the accusation in his eyes that his crappy shot was my fault.

‘Do you ever stop talking?’ he asks me. My reply of ‘only when having an orgasm’ has obviously offended him because his grip on the driver is really tight now.

Eventually, we’re off. Most are in the trees but there’s a lone ball on the fairway. Ian, being dragged at breakneck speed by his temperamental electric trolley is first to reach it. He checks the logo and dribbles venom.

‘It’s yours.’

‘Titleist 3?’

‘Yes,’ he growls and the urge to stamp on my ball turns his ears red. 

‘Behind that tree,’ I point to his ball. ‘I think that’s yours.’

It is and another gargantuan slash with the Callaway equivalent of a Scottish broadsword squirts his ball towards the pond, skips it three times on the water and sticks it into the bank. I daren’t repeat what Ian said for fear of being locked up. However, an hour and three quarters later with spikes off we all traipse into the golf club dining room.

Les orders for all of us; always the same – soup, roll and a cup of tea. Four mushroom soups – four ageing men on the verge of a feeding frenzy. Ian flashes a smile at the waitress; not impressed by his Brad Pitt, plastic lookalikes she twirls her pencil and stares through him.

The soup arrives; hot enough to melt down Chevy engine blocks. Geoff burns his mouth and shouts out something that rhymes with duck. The waitress laughs, Geoff threatens to eat her liver, drops his spoon in his soup and leaves it there.

‘Time for another nine, then?’ 

The sun’s come out through a hole in the clouds, startlingly bright just above the tenth green; maybe God’s sending someone down for us. There’s no one else on the course; ‘millionaire golf’ everyone points out. Same as they pointed out last week. The air is fresh – the colours stunning. I shrug off the inevitability of me reaching my own life’s ‘final hole’ and with the rest of the over-the-hill-gang trundling along behind, walk as a grumpy old git of a golfer down towards the light...

*

Sons of Africa; an extract:

... ‘You carry the spear and axe of a great fighter, yet your hands tremble like those of a girl?’

‘But you hide from me?’ Mhlangana hissed. ‘If you are neither spirit nor wizard; step into the sunlight.’

‘Then give me your word, Induna.’

Mhlangana tightened his grip on the assegai and with his right hand, hefted the wicked battle axe up to his shoulder.

‘Step from your hiding place. On your life do not try to deceive me.’

Like a quick wind, a man, barely the height and build of a pubescent, Matabele girl darted from the forest. In his hand he clutched the hunter’s bow, its entire length no bigger than a child’s plaything – a slender, bone-tipped arrow nocked and readied for flight.

‘I am N’go; the caterpillar!’

‘UMuthwa!’ Mhlangana recalled the name given to the Bushmen by Zulu mineworkers on the Kimberley diamond fields. Only once before had he seen these little, amber skinned people of the deep Kalahari. Small eyes; thinly slanted as those of a snake – the poison that tipped their arrows just as deadly. As forest wraiths they would appear from nowhere. Like ghosts, fleet as desert winds, on sinewy legs they would match the stamina of any antelope – with a jackal’s cunning and an unmatched hunter’s eye they would strike at will.

‘This is not your place, UMuthwa. Where is your clan?’

Bird-like, N’go perched to the crest of a boulder; as a nervous finch he was ready to dart for cover. He arched a slender arm towards the west.

‘Makgadikgadi.’

‘The Great Thirst.’ Mhlangana knew of the name; as a small boy hunting ostrich with his father, he had seen the Bushman’s strange and shimmering land, a full twenty day’s march further west into the driest heartlands of the Kalahari – six thousand square miles of arid scrub and parched earth; where vast migratory herds once wallowed in the shallows of a great lake, now, set apart from the lush oasis of the Okavango, only the giant salt pans of Ntwetwe, Sua and Nxai with their islands of igneous rock remained.

N’go stared down from his stronghold. His eyes now those of the meerkat; watchful of the cobra’s every move. In the time it would take for an owl to blink he could release the arrow and as a puff of wind be away inside the forest.

‘Why does a son of the Matabele come alone into the wilderness?’

‘Perhaps I am not alone, UMuthwa.’

‘You are alone. For two suns I have followed your spoor.’

‘Then you also are alone.’

‘Perhaps.’ He freed the arrow from its bow-string and without taking his eyes from Mhlangana, slid the precious tool back inside a quiver cut from the bark of the Kokerboom. ‘Perhaps as the wind my people are everywhere.’

Mhlangana lowered his axe. A single, yellow butterfly hovered undecidedly over the Bushman’s head; then, soft as yellow sunlight it touched his nose and alighted there.

‘Uvemvane!’ N’go whispered, delighted by the tiny creatures preference. Cross-eyed he watched the yellow wings fold and then extend. Like a child he raised a little hand and gently brushed the creature away...

*

Bamboo Canes & Barbecues!

Sunday set us up perfectly for a sudden change in our feeding habits; barbecue time had kicked into gear a month early. The sun came up where it was supposed to do; in a blue sky rather than stuck behind a grey one. The birds were singing out bird-type Summery songs and the flowers, bees and bugs were all out there, languishing away their day in glorious sunshine.

Friends dropped in; totally unannounced, so from its wintering in the shed the barbecue was dragged, cleaned of spider webs, loaded with enough charcoal to power the boilers of a pre-sunk Titanic and when the flames had eased to a modest inferno, covered with meat enough to feed the entire third world. Then came two hours of see-who-can-eat-the-most and everyone exempt from driving home flooded their bellies with cold beer; except for the kids, for them it was burgers-n-pop-time and my youngest, refusing to relinquish his grip on a hard-won chop ended up being dragged across the lawn by our Labrador. Our friends, by now all of them in advanced stages of libation paralysis, just watched and giggled, then someone shouted, ‘he’ll give him worms’, wife gave me her best ‘for God’s sake do something’ look and off I went in hot pursuit before the ankles of our youngest disappeared into the Rhododendrons. But it was all good fun and up to now, Star, our Labrador eating machine still hasn’t contracted worms...

*

Being twelve years old and reaching January of that same year flooded my life in Africa with new horrors. Twelve was the cut-off point.

‘You’re going to boarding school, Jeffrey.’

Mother’s words fell upon me like the hangman’s final denunciation. I had no say in the matter. The nearest school for the over twelve’s was twenty five miles away; and that’s where I went: Fort Victoria, fond memories – only some of them.

‘You’ll be home most Sundays,’ Mother informed me, a delighted twinkle in her eye, ‘after church.’

Church finished at half ten; once the vicar had used up all his wine and coughed himself half to death with regular bouts of spiritual emphysema. Was never quite sure which of the two he worshipped the most; God or cigarettes. Six whole hours at home – that’s what the Head of Fort Victoria High decreed as time enough away from incarceration. Back at five; really pissed off, standing at the dormitory window watching my old man drive away for his regular night at the golf club. Sunday nights were the worst – total crap. Eight o’clock was ‘lights-out’. The Head would do the switching off and drifted into the dorm with a conjured up frown on his face and bamboo cane clutched behind his back.

‘Into your kennels, rabble!’ Always his favourite witticism; always the same austere face and I swear he yearned for any excuse to thrash our little junior bums black-and-blue, just for the sadistic hell of it. Dreamed of going back once I had finished school, one more time, just to rig his car with dynamite...

*

Sons of Africa; an extract:

... Nathan brushed through the batwing doors, raised his hand to the barman and shouted, ‘beer’ above the clatter. A face came out of the smoke and hovered moonlike in front of Mathew’s. Light from overhead hurricane lamps brought out the ravaged pall of the hardened drinker, and when he attempted conversation, the smell of rotten teeth and foul innards rocked Mathew back on his heels. Nathan shouldered the drunk out of his way and steered Mathew for an opening in the crowd. ‘Over by the wall,’ he pointed out a gap at the bar counter.

He watched his son’s reactions from the corner of his eye – the sudden turning of his chest to meet a stranger head-on, his clenching of teeth or narrowing of eyes that signalled how close the youngster was to lashing out with his fists. The barman moved with them and for Nathan’s readied money pushed two schooners of beer across the counter.

 ‘So you brought in the wagons, then?’

 ‘Safe and sound,’ smiled Nathan, and then returned his attention to Mathew. ‘Your mother spoke of your relationship with Magdel’s daughter?’

‘Sannie’s a nice girl,’ grinned Mathew, caught off his guard.

‘So having Magdel for a mother-in-law would not concern you?’

Mathew choked on his beer. Cold reality crept in next to him and he started guiltily. 

‘And whilst we are on the subject,’ added Nathan, ‘over by the piano – the rakish fellow – take a good look at him.’

‘What of him?’ Mathew keened.

‘Say hello to your father-in-law.’

The creature Nathan had pointed out seemed more akin to a stork than a human being, hung with the drab attire of a man on his uppers. His hands were knuckled and gnarled as the roots of an old tree. Whisky and harsh sunlight had wasted the flesh from his face, though above a hawkish nose, set deep inside the casket of his skull glittered cold, invasive eyes, the colour of black ice.

Petrus Bowker turned his head and stared in their direction, as if he had sensed their watching him. He smiled at Mathew, seemingly aware of his daughter’s fortuitous dalliance.

‘Not if he were the last man left on earth,’ growled Mathew and turned to face his father – just as both saloon doors flew back against their hinges.

Johannes Petrus Bowker froze where he stood. For more than a hundred nights a dream had come to him, always in the small hours and always with the hobgoblins of delirium chasing him through the dark. He was always running, but there were no features for him to recognise, none for him to run to, just darkness stretching away in front and his feet were heavy, cumbersome things trapped inside the morass of his own nightmare. Now, the subject of his worst dreams had become reality. A punitive aura parted the crowd and with the eyes of some vengeful soul just risen from the dead, the nightmare stepped towards him.

‘Four years,’ Magdel growled and the bar-room fell silent. ‘Four long years I have gone without the comfort of a husband, Petrus Bowker – and ja, not a single thought for your child whilst you were hiding in the wilderness with your verdonder whores and whisky.’

The tip of her sjambok whispered serpent-like about her feet. To Petrus, Eden’s snake had coiled itself about his woman’s arm and its head was her fist, clenched and ready to strike, ready to slash and lunge for his wasted body.

‘May the heavens forgive your sins of the flesh, Petrus Bowker,’ and with the skill she had learned from her father, put out the hippo-hide lash to the skinny half-moons of her husband’s trembling buttocks.

He leapt backwards, arching his body to avoid the flickering leather tongue – but the movement lacked timing and speed, dulled by the damning effects of strong liquor. Had Magdel put the full force of her shoulder behind it, the whip would have laid him open, but part of her remembered the time when he would come to her with flowers and promises of tender moments. It was these faint memories that curbed her ferocity so that only two or three times did Magdel’s curtailed efforts almost gently lay the whip to him, dancing him over the floor, a gleeful girl with her favoured whipping-top...

*



Eskimos & Burlesque Girls!

Funny sort of night last night; gets pretty spooky out here, all moon, stars and weird howling. Our closest neighbour’s a mile away; strange how quiet it can be when you live away from town. Often stand outside in the moonlight – imitate owl calls and frighten the kids. Hikers used to come past our house pretty frequently, but not so much anymore – word’s out there’s a crazy guy living down here – people say he wanders around with an axe and a chain saw, wears short pants and a far off look in his eyes. My wife reckons they’re talking about me but don’t believe her. Quite keen on trying my hand at writing horror stories; must delve deeper into the genre. Anyway, what the hell is wrong with short pants and a chain saw?

Got to find somewhere up in the mountains; maybe take up work as resident, winter caretaker to an old snowed-in hotel where I can finish my novel – our youngest can take his pedal-car...

*

A right royal pair...

Wednesday night; bioscope night (movies), the main event of the week, an excuse for men to stand in the bar and get wasted whilst wife and kids were watching, ‘Loony Tunes’ and ‘Tarzan Swims across the Desert.’ The intermission or, interval as the locals called it was give or take a half hour long. Mothers drifted as matriarchal groups to the cocktail bar, a sort of safe haven; no kids allowed. A place of three fags and three drinks before the lights dimmed to call them back inside for the main flick.

Interval was the cut off point for us under-sixteens; volunteer Mine Club Gestapo patrolled the aisles and threw out any underage kids the mothers had missed.

Mother waved her fag at me; magic wand-like hoping I’d disappear.

‘You can’t watch, Jeffrey, the film is rated at four-to-sixteen; you’re too young.’ 

So off I sulked with the other four or so underage expellees. I remember the movie; Savage Innocence – Anthony Quinn, polar bears and Eskimo women with large breasts. Unbeknown to the club gatekeepers, we had a plan. Come hell or high water we were gonna watch the horny bits. Problem was, there was only one ladder; one ladder between five pubescent hillbilly boys. Then we discovered that the ladder came in three separate pieces; so up the pieces went and by standing on the second from top rungs and clinging on like geckos with our fingertips, we were able to see through the side windows. Three on the ladders and two unfortunates forced to straddle the gaps.

Worked really well up to the bit where the Eskimo lady took off her top for hot-lips Quinn. There, for five trembling lads; for five desperate seconds – stretched across the screen were the biggest Eskimo nipples this side of the Arctic Circle. We had seen what most other twelve year olds wouldn’t dare open their eyes to. All five of us swore an oath; that in ten years time, en masse we would catch a plane for Anchorage...

*

Sons of Africa; an extract:

... ‘You’re gawping, lad – close your mouth before someone takes you for a herring.’

Mathew sucked in his jaw. ‘They’re almost naked.’ At that very moment Mathew knew that in his entire life he had never seen anything so beautiful.

‘Well, not quite,’ said Burnham, ‘but by the end of the night by God, I’ll wager a pound to a shilling they will not be far from it.’ He pointed out one of the burlesque girls. ‘The redhead, what do you say to that one?’

Mathew didn’t hear him. His life had filled with rouged cheeks and flouncing ostrich feathers, long silken legs that went on forever,  lips so deliciously coloured and shaped that to him, were rare, enticing blooms of subtle pinks and violent fiery reds. The crowd parted and in the eyes of drunken men these girls were gilded angels, heaven-sent for rumbustious Kimberley diggers. Cued by the piano they lined up; long legs and pink boas. A man at the back of the room could have heard the drop of a single pin.

‘Let’s have some order, then,’ shouted Michael ‘Taffy’ Thomas, a burly Welsh coal miner, now the owner of claim no. 408 near to the pit’s centre. His shirt was opened to the waist where a stomach half the size of a digger’s tent sagged to a leather belt. Every man at the Digger’s Rest was waiting, eyes popped like those of lovesick cows for a clear view of these six visions of perfect loveliness.

‘The ladies are hereby kind request of the management.’ His eyes were closed, imparting an atmosphere of mystery and amazement. ‘These wondrous creatures have travelled from the high class theatres of Port Natal for the cultural enlightenment of us Kimberley gents.’ He glared down upon the multitude. ‘So watch your manners. Any rough behaviour and whoever’s responsible will answer to yours truly – Michael Thomas.’

‘Get on with it, Taffy!’ Men hungry for even the slightest whiff of a woman’s scent were shuffling forwards.

‘Get a bloody move on, Thomas! You’re not the friggin’ vicar.’

The Welshman stood his ground.

‘Last but by no means least, gentlemen, don’t be shy with your money – the young ladies will be most appreciative of your donations.’

‘I bet they will, Thomas. Now get off the friggin’ stage before we damn-well shoot you.’

Cued by one of the girls, the piano player launched into a rackety rendition of Offenbach’s, ‘The Infernal Gallop’.

Burnham lit a cigar. The ladies from Natal went swiftly into their repertoire – they knew from a hundred similar experiences exactly what the diggers wanted and were holding nothing back.

‘Sweet mother of Mary. Would you get a load of that, sonny-my-boy.’

Mathew could not speak. His mouth was drier than the scattering of sawdust at his feet and he was loath to blink for fear of missing any of the lewd contortions being performed in front of him. He was lost between a world of fantasy and the Digger’s Rest, not even the miners’ ribald howls could turn his interest from these exquisite creatures.

Money flowed – bids were hurled, promises made and the ladies obliged – for the queen’s gold coin, men were taken far beyond their wildest dreams.

An auburn beauty with breasts the size of Tsamma melons fixed her eyes on the boy at the bar and crossed to where he was standing. Every eye in the room followed the sensuous sway of her hips, the languid slant of her eyes and the way her hair threw glints of copper and gold when she passed within range of guttering lamplight. The crowd parted to let her through then closed again behind her like some ancient biblical sea. She stopped within a foot of Mathew; a golden leopardess – a perfumed bird of paradise.

‘Come with me,’ she whispered, her voice mellifluous, that soft hypnotic lilt of a wild Karoo wind.

 To Mathew no other creature could have been made more beautiful. His legs were stiff, immobile things; rooted to the floor. He stared at her with wide eyes and his young heart raced and reared like wild water through the deep canyons of the Dragon Mountains.

‘I am your princess,’ she told him, her lips to his cheek, her voice little more than a husky whisper. ‘What do I call you?’

‘Mathew,’ he managed, but with a high unnatural pitch to his voice. ‘Mathew Goddard, Ma’am.’

Every man in the room craned his neck for a better view.

‘Everyone calls me Molly, Molly McGuire.’

Now the air was stale with smoke and sweat, Taffy Thomas, self appointed Master of Ceremonies bellowed encouragement.

‘And now for what we have all been waiting for!  I give you the queen of burlesque. The darling of the diggings. The most beautiful woman for a thousand miles either side of the Kimberley diamond fields!’ With outstretched arms and the rough, unkempt panache of an overweight ringmaster he delivered his gift to the crowd: ‘Gentlemen! A big hand and an open purse for the girl of your dreams – the most desirable woman between here and Pilgrims Rest!’ and with a final, brusque roll of imaginary drums: ‘The mistress of temptation – the one and only Molly McGuire!’

She winked an eye at Mathew, leaned forward and brushed his cheek with her lips.

 ‘Come see me when you’re eighteen and I will show you something really special.’ She turned for the stage and with that same licentious sway of her hips, floated away from the bar on a diaphanous cloud of pink and lilac feathers...

*

Killer Kestrels & Gold Falcons!

Early April. Days filled with kids’ tricks, blustery weather and not a minute’s peace for any of the ‘girl birds’ living around our garden. Every male Chaffinch, Blue tit, Woodpecker and Kestrel is on the prowl for a girlfriend. Even the Barn owls are doing what girl and boy owls do at this time of year.

One pair of Blue tits have again, claimed their ‘hole-in-the-wall’ residence well in advance; next to our front door and just behind a rose bush. Guess they like it round here and who would blame them – costs me a small fortune in nuts and fat-balls to get them through the winter. Nice to know though; I mean that they’ve made it and another string of mini-titlings will soon be homing in on the feeders. Though as we are all well aware, there is no such thing as the perfect place – even our innocent looking bird feeders have their sinister side. In the winking of an eye birds are snatched from their nutty heaven and shredded. You can imagine the survivors thinking; ‘what the f**k was that?’ and then ducking for cover. Only lasts a minute though then back comes the ‘will never happen to me’ attitude and away they go again, hammering at the feeders – oblivious to the feathered assassins hovering overhead; what the hell – as long as the nuts are free...

*

My first Mashaba friend was Ben; a little black guy. Guess we both had origin issues with other white kids, him being black and me being a ‘soutie’ immigrant kid not long out from England. Didn’t bother me ‘cause I learned a lot from Ben – kick-started a lifelong love for the bush, sort of drove me into the hills when other kids were doing cool things down at the swimming pool. Ben worked for my mother; our ‘garden boy’. Whistled away his work time with a hosepipe in one hand, weeding fork in the other. When his work and my schooling were through we would arm ourselves with catapult, pellet-gun and box of matches and head for as much wilderness as a mile or two away from the house could offer.

Away from civilisation things were different. We were hunters; both barefooted, watchful of snakes and things. Ants we didn’t mind – just brushed them off and pulled their nippers out from our skin. Once the asbestos dust was left behind the bush turned green and brown with natural colours again. If it had been raining, I could smell Africa in the soil and the Kites and Wahlberg’s eagles would be soaring close in to the ground because the flying-ants were out; in their millions. Ben’s Shona name for the winged termites was ishwa; I never forgot. Showed me how to pluck off their wings and heads and pop their buttery bodies into my mouth. Showed me wild plums and how to peel off their orange coloured skins and suck off their bitter-sweet flesh. Showed me lots of things the white kids didn’t know about.

We hunted the banks of a little river; the Chemberi I think it was called. We hunted birds, the innocence of each new kill added to a wire loop on Ben’s belt. Namaqua doves were the ultimate prize, skewered on green sticks and charred black by our overly active fire. We crusted them with salt then despatched our macabre kebabs, bones, ash, beaks ‘n all. It was almost always dark when I got back home.

‘You’re filthy, Jeffrey!’ Had I a dog, Mother would have sent me to share his basket. ‘People will talk, you know. Why can’t you mix with white kids?’

‘They fight with me.’

‘Fight with you?’

‘Because I’m from England.’

‘And do you fight back?’

I told her I did. Think she sort of liked that because her eyes glittered...

*

Sons of Africa; an extract:

... Philip had laid the table with a covering of fine white linen. Vibrant Stuart Crystal showed off servings of Sauvignon Blanc from the Cape Winelands.  The setting was brought to life by sterling silver candelabra, filling the room with glittering points of shattered candlelight.

Karen McKenzie stared across the table at the man she had fallen in love with, glad that she had driven out unannounced to the homestead.  Sometimes, Lee’s antics in front of guests could appear boyish and unforgivably asinine – conversely, he was the most loving person she had ever met. Their first meeting came spinning back to her – standing at the edge of a deep and verdant valley, her life until that moment had been totally immersed in the ruined city of Zimbabwe where she worked as first assistant to a doctor of archaeology from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. Lee had made some ribald comment about her choice of trenching locations. After that, several arguments and a reparatory dinner at the Great Zimbabwe Ruins Hotel they had become inseparable.

As though he had sensed her mood, Lee stood up from his chair and raised his glass. He waited for the chatter to ease then swung the conversation in Karen’s favour.

‘I give you the girl of my dreams. My incredible, unselfish, uncomplaining companion. Besides being first lady of my life, Karen McKenzie ladies and gentlemen, is now a fully qualified Doctor of Archaeology.’ Karen openly blushed. ‘And a fossicker of all things ancient – which would of course account for her fortuitous finding of yours truly.’

‘Wonderful news!’ piped Bella. ‘Will you be continuing your work at the ruins or moving on to greater things?’

‘I’ll be staying on,’ Karen admitted. ‘The Department of Antiquities will be funding the project. They want me to open up the Hill Fortress and part of the inner Temple.’

From diagonally opposite, Rex Kumalo screwed up his eyes at Lee, urging him to disclose their find.

Lee reached inside his trouser pocket.

‘If that is the case, my darling official fossicker of ancient ruins, then you may well find this an interesting start to your career.’ He laid the gold talisman in front of her. The yellow metal drew soul from the candlelight.

Karen knew that nothing of such exquisite beauty had yet been recovered from the ruins of Great Zimbabwe – nothing she had ever seen could compare with this precious artefact – a cast of pure sunlight.

‘Pick it up,’ Lee encouraged, ‘it won’t bite you.’ But Karen hesitated, seemingly intimidated by the stylised golden creature that lay before her.

‘It’s almost too beautiful to touch; there’s something spooky about it.’

 Tentatively, she held it at eye level; surrounded it with candlelight. From memory, she compared the metal raptor to its larger, stone replicas housed inside the museum at Great Zimbabwe. The same cruel eyes stared back at her and below them, the raptor’s beak curved almost to its chest, a wicked scimitar of almost pure gold. The wings, though folded back seemed tensed for flight and with golden talons it clutched to a perch of that same precious metal – alert as a living eagle, ready to spring for the eyes of those now gazing down upon it.

‘Where did you find it?’...