they are the only children they know from the flats who are enrolled in a school called Convent High, on the prominent hill at the height of Queen Mary, the crown upon her majestic head. It’s a high school and primary school both, so the adjective ‘high’ means elevated, and perhaps refers also to the panoramic vista over Durban. Indeed, given that the institution is run by the Sisters of the Holy Family, it may also be intended as an invocation to raise the eyes upwards in spiritual aspiration, the dutiful desire of clumpy clay to be transformed into heavenly bliss.
This upwards distinction in the lives of the little Murphys continues an earlier precedent, when they were sent to Davaar Kindergarten, a progressive infant establishment run by two Swiss-German sisters, the Misses Zwinckel.
Kinder Garten: Kenneth Gardens. Perhaps Nora found the sounds pleasing, relished a certain balance in the euphony. Certainly, she knew from excellent repute that the school offered a caring home from home and a sound educational grounding. Both of which, of course, she’d already been working on herself.
People had snorted, called her a hard taskmaster for showing and sounding a boxed series of phonic flash cards to her first-born when she was but a speechless infant. But by the age of two, though still a spindling, Halley Murphy was able to read. The proof of the pudding, Nora knew, lay in the eating. Not that she had much taste for it herself.
In order to secure a place for Halley and then later Jennie at Davaar, their mother put her pride in her pocket and requested special fee arrangements, and having heard her account, the refined foreign ladies were happy to accommodate, given the woman’s evident respectability and her selfless efforts to rise above unfortunate circumstances. Thus are the little girls enrolled in their diurnal round.
There they are then, four, and three. Halley and Jennie in their vanilla pinafores buttoned at the shoulder, the scalloped skirts finished in royal blue satin stitch. The girls’ faces are shielded by broad white panamas, and each child clutches a blue cardboard suitcase stencilled in white with her name. Halley Murphy. Jeanné Murphy.
Nora puts the children on the corporation bus every morning, their season tickets looped in clear plastic luggage tags around the suitcase handles. Each time, she arranges with the driver about where to stop, although Halley knows perfectly well since she’s already been doing this for several months by herself. Like her mother, she has a good sense of direction.
When nursery school is over at midday, the sisters know to wait outside until the Umbilo Number 7 bus comes and then they get on and go all all all the way until the driver stops at the tearoom on Queen Mary, and then they get off together and walk home.
The slightly bigger girl, baby blonde hair turning to brown under her hat, she likes to hurry since there is always still so much to do. And she chides her slowpoke sister, who dawdles, swings her hat by its elastic like an Easter-egg basket, tries to twirl it on her finger, the sun glinting upon her dark, shiny curls.
For the rest of the afternoon, they play with their friends until their mother comes back from work. Which could be soon after two, if she can do half-day, or later, if not. All depending.
During which time, the girls shift for themselves, Halley keeping an eye on Jen.
The world just beyond Kenneth Gardens is very familiar. About midway along, for instance, Queen Mary Avenue is punctuated by a traffic circle. Not a full stop, but a poetic navel.
Halley loves the pleasing shape of the circle, and within it the bold black-on-yellow chevron that signals a sharp curve. She takes the circle as a centre from which her life, like that of others, has begun slowly to emerge. Along its axes there radiate a church, an Afrikaans school, a huddle of small, family-owned shops, the corporation flats and the intersecting roads. And don’t forget the bus stops, one opposite each of the circle’s grassy quadrants.
The bus routes are the lines which extend the world, promising ever greater distances. But in fact, buses aside, it is possible to walk miles and miles in any direction. The sky, as it still remains, is up, thinks Halley; the earth is down. Or on, in, under.
And walk they do, this female family. From Umbilo to what seems almost everywhere. Sometimes, the walking is leisurely, and there’s time to find small pleasures – pausing, picking up, pointing out. More often, they walk with determined purpose, because the mother has said they are going somewhere.
If you don’t walk, she says, With your own two feet, you aren’t going anywhere. That’s it. There’s not always money for the bus, so if feet are what you’ve got, feet are what you use.
Even when Nora’s flush, there are hard choices: the bus both ways, or just one trip and an ice cream? Which will it be, girls? You decide. And so their mouths are sticky with the short-lived memory, and their legs are very tired.
So they walk the streets. Pound the pavements. Discovering the city all the way, Halley thinks, from A to Z.
They walk in shine, and in wet, once even allowed to slosh barefoot in the raging gutters, just for fun. Singing in the rain.
What’s a gutter, girls, but the edge of the pavement, laughed their mother, twirling her umbrella.
On the way to Mitchell Park are houses like the town museum, with big grounds, and cars which live in garages. Closer this side, when they go to the Botanic Gardens, is Warwick Avenue, the houses stuck together half and half with people from different walks of life.
Some brown boys have got this kitten. Mushy grey, with blackish stripes. They’ve tied a tin can to its tail. The mewing is pitiful. The frail, gummy face and small jaws. The boys laugh.
You want? Have it!
You do want it. You really, really do.
But your mother says No, and drags you away.
Pets are not allowed in the flats, but you’d do anything to keep that kitten. Instead, the three of you must keep walking home, all three angry. You are full of hatred for your mean, heartless mother. And, for once, your horrible, stubborn sister is cried out with begging.
But your mother just carries on walking. She walks and walks, as though she is struggling to come free of an invisible cord.
Some days the walking is good, and you can feel it strongly, right in your body. Because while your feet are going, covering the ground at what feels like ten to the dozen, whatever that really is, you also set your shoulders straight and keep your head up and your arms stepping out briskly so that the oxygen can do its work, pumped from your lungs to all the far-flung corners of your body.
So you’re exhausted, but also filled with energy. You want to run, just for the hell of it, and sing out loud, even shout!
You do sing, all sorts. And you run, running ahead. Sometimes, your mother and your sister seem so very far behind.
And yes, you know you look ridiculous, perfecting a new run, jumping and knocking your heels together, and that all this racket is disturbing the peace. But you don’t care, you just don’t.
I don’t care! you scream at the passing cars, making faces, So, huh, you want to come stop me? And they don’t. Nobody does anything. Not even your mother, who’s now just a toy figure in the distance.
Which proves your point exactly.
So Halley knows that if the street is a line of civic discipline, sticking to the straight and narrow, it’s also a place of liberating irreverence outside home.
