After work, she walked home via the pharmacy, where Mr Cordial informed her that this, clearly, was no mere threadworm or pinworm. An adult roundworm, he said. In italics for emphasis, Ascaris lumbricoides.
And where there was one . . .
So both Halley and Jen should take double the quantities of the usual mix, and maybe, he advised, hands raised to entertain the possibility, could be Mrs Murphy ought to do herself too?
Nora takes her own measure in private, which is a good thing because my godfathers, she grimaces, it’s terrible. Why make such a foul medicine, she asks herself, and for children? You’d think the plan was to punish a child for falling sick.
To placate Halley, Nora said Well, at least it was only two measures. If it was one dose for the little worms, it could reasonably be ten for a worm big as hers.
Which freaked Halley out. Was her mother mad? What did her mother think? That she wanted to be a monster, some crazy female who squeezed worms like mutant babies from her bum?
But that’s what she did, after the treatment. All arsy-versy. A substantial bolus. They had to come out.
All the Kenneth Gardens children gravitate towards the park, which is what’s left of the gardens from once upon a time. Patches of worn grass tangled with clover and dubbeltjies, though even this green gives up near the seesaw and the swings, where it’s only red sand.
It’s shabby, all right, the park in Kenneth Gardens, but there’s no concrete, and nothing to mess up, so perfect for all the kids who run rough, rude and rowdy, who climb and corner and camp out; hordes of dirty savages who shriek through Kissing Catches and aggressive, thumping bouts of Red Rover Red Rover we call Marnus over!
Here, the children can happily play out the hierarchies they’ve learnt from their parents, though this place, this time, race isn’t the issue. It’s Europeans only, no question, but still there’re many lines along which to marshal cultural distinction.
The English-speaking kids curse all the time about Afrikaner vrot banana koeliesnot, and they know to avoid the dirty Dutchmen, damn rockspiders even if they’ve never seen the Transvaal. The Afrikaners steer clear of the rooinekke, because the Engels give themselves airs and graces, and seem to love everything about the Queen even if they’ve never set foot in England. Yirrah, don’t they know what country they living in?
With feelings like this, it’s necessary to have different schools for English and Afrikaans, which is a big help in the ongoing battle, though the same convenience does not apply to male and female.
Boys are expected to be loud and dirty; girls to be quiet, gentle and pretty.
Pole! graunches the woman in her nylon shortie nightie across the wash-lines. Pole! (And all those years, all that shouting, the boy growing from small to finished school, what Halley couldn’t believe most was why a mother would give her son such a stupid name.) But it’s long ten o’clock on Saturday morning already, and Paul’s got tired of waiting for his mother to sleep it off, so he’s ducked into the park. There’ll be trouble, later, because he’s forgot about watching the baby, but later’s not now, only thennn, which is when he’ll have to worry in case she tries to crack him.
Looking at the children’s mothers, many of whom are extraordinarily rough and ready, it’s clear that many lines have been crossed.
Tomboys such as Halley have also crossed the line. Busy with fires and dead things and making stuff, she hasn’t learnt the limits of what a girl’s allowed to do. And quiet, nervous Albie, another odd man out. His father is Uncle Zach upstairs, and he’s not pleased that his twin boys are so different. They look the same, those two, pale blue eyes, sandy hair and freckled as eggs you cannot tell apart. But Andre is always in trouble, which is right for a boy, while Albie keeps to himself. He’s clever, you’d think to look at him, sensitive, but proving very slow on the uptake. Even after many hidings, he won’t change from playing with dolls and teapots borrowed from the small ones who’re too little to say no.
All by himself, Albie sets up his blanket house in the shadows of the big trees, maybe imagining that no one can see. But his father . . . ? Uncle Zach is always watching.
At Kenneth Gardens, if your surname’s Murphy, the norm is that children from solid working-class families, families trying to make good, these children must not play, ought not to play, are strongly discouraged from playing, with kids whose parents are clearly lower class.
Which to Halley and Jen seems to be almost everyone.
From what they can gather, top of this category are people who at any time do bad swears (you must use your imagination, because Halley is not allowed to tell exactly what), and people who say kaffir, coon, munt, pekkie, or wog. Plus koelie, koelie mary, or sammy.
Be careful, also, of people who play loud music, and drink, either during the day or for most of the night. Men who hit the bottle, who can’t hold their drink like gentlemen, and hit their wives. Any men who chat up women on the off chance, hoping to score.
Chippies who smoke in public, appear in curlers outside, shout like fishwives, and swan around like floozies. Or strut. Any form of. Either braless, or wearing inappropriate clothing. Which includes any daywear which is black, gold, net or lace, and high-heeled, open-toed shoes. Particularly red. Oh, and leopard print is a dead give-away. These women may pretend to be housewives, but they are hussies and tarts. Strumpets.
Slags who can’t be bothered to hold their stomachs in. They’ve let themselves go; they are so far gone they don’t even care.
However, Halley knows to be careful. You can think the words which describe these women, but you must never use them. Her mother says the words are coarse, like the women.
And then in the category of offspring: in addition to the many children whose legs weep with the stigmata of Natal sores, terribly contagious and slow to heal, Halley and Jennie are not to play with children who are dirty, and probably have lice; those who say snot, and who have it (wet or crusty) under their noses. Children who say they live ‘that side there by the shops’, or who indiscriminately call adults they do not know Aunty and Uncle, without polite first names, or – heaven forbid! – Tannie and Oom.
And they mustn’t touch the grubby babies who are left to stew in sodden or soiled nappies, a disgusting rash chafing their inner thighs. Toddlers who are still in daytime nappies after age two, or who are using a dummy or a bottle, the same. Especially if this comforter hangs from a tatty length of string around the neck. Oh, and kiddies who are allowed to go to the tearoom in vests and knickers.
Further, Halley and Jennie must steer clear of families where there’ve been brushes with the law. For this, they must stay especially alert. One clue will be if they hear the words chookie or clink, then they must come home straight away. And obviously they’re to avoid the flats which already have a bad reputation; the ones where the sons are skollies or ducktails, and where there’s the bad kind of cigarettes. And they mustn’t assume that only boys are bad news. Some girls shoplift, or they’re just loose, tanning topless on the balcony. The standard line here is like mother like daughter.
And yet most of these fine distinctions are not merely of Nora’s making; they’re run of the mill, for in keeping with the times, many tenants work hard to set up and maintain the complex minor machineries of human differentiation which correspond to the big engines that keep the country running, regardless of what unhappy life gets crunched in the works.
Though for Halley, there is such a
