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...

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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...

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