her teeth just stood everywhere in her mouth with huge distances between them. We called her the graveyard. The one with the biggest teeth was Uncle Vincent. He had nothing at the bottom, just a top row of enormous off-white levers. We called him the piano.
The only one with perfect teeth was our niece, Vernise. Vernise had a set of brilliant white, even-sized teeth. The problem was her mouth. She had one of those large, protruding mouths that looked like it was approaching you while she was staying behind. Sometimes Grandfather would make her hold a looking glass in front of her one eye and send her into the sitting room. When the children saw this big mouth with the big eye coming round the corner, they started screaming and ran to their rooms.
I love that child, Grandmother used to say, But you cannot look at her, especially if you’ve had alcohol.
The truth was that you could not look at anybody. So we always drank wine looking down. Grandfather said the reason ghosts didn’t have teeth was that we had them.
Every Christmas was spent at our grandparents’ house. Grandmother was the best cook in the world and filled the table with colourful, summery dishes. Then one year my great-aunt arrived with a large steamed pudding.
Did you burst a vein? asked Grandmother, The British put us in concentration camps and you want us to eat their food?
Before she put it on the table, Grandmother poured so much custard over the pudding, nobody could see it. Nobody said a word, but it was delicious. We ate in silence. Until there was a loud cracking noise and we looked up and saw one half of Vernise’s front tooth was missing.
Oh, said my great-aunt, She got the penny.
You put money in the pudding and you don’t tell us? screamed Grandmother, That child already has the mouth of death and now there’s a hole in it!
That night my grandfather sent Vernise into the sitting room with the looking glass and made her whistle through the hole. The children stayed in their rooms for days.
Grandmother did not speak to my great-aunt for almost a year. Then just before the next Christmas our cousin Voster bit his opponent during a Christian boxing match and got arrested. The court ordered that his two front teeth be pulled and he be put in jail for sixty days. Grandmother cried through the night, then she phoned my great-aunt.
We can fix the teeth, she said, But I cannot cook a Christmas meal knowing that boy is in jail. I have to make that British thing and get him out.
Grandmother got the recipe, found an enormous bowl and started mixing the ingredients. Then she poured the batter into a large glass bowl and placed it on top of a saucepan with simmering water. Just before she covered it, she dropped a screwdriver in the batter.
Grandmother had just left the kitchen when grandfather came in, opened the pudding and dropped a knife in the batter. Two minutes later Uncle Vernon entered and dropped a small pistol in the batter. Three minutes later Uncle Victor entered with a file and a small bomb. Four minutes later Aunt Veronica entered and dropped her husband’s revolver in the batter.
On Christmas morning our whole family arrived at the jail with a large steamed pudding. The pudding was so heavy it had to be pushed on a wheelbarrow.
I don’t know what went wrong, Grandmother kept saying, I just doubled the ingredients.
Every metal detector in the building went off as we entered. Grandmother looked at the guards.
There’s a penny in the pudding, she said, It’s Christmas.
She looked really, really sad. The rest showed their teeth and Vernise whistled softly. The guards went to fetch Voster. We all cried and hugged him and looked at his gap. Then we gave him the pudding.
The day after Christmas 52 prisoners escaped.
Grandmother said she didn’t feel guilty, she knew it was the right thing to do. She just didn’t understand how so many people could get out with one screwdriver.
And every Christmas after that she made steamed pudding. She just changed the ingredients, so it wouldn’t be British. And she never put money in. We had bad enough teeth already.
(from the Room for Dessert stage production, 2009)
Clementine
It was Christmas day and I was having lunch in the garden with my family.
These trees are lovely, said my mother, And all the birds! I can’t believe we’re in the city.
Yes, I said, But sometimes I think I should sell it all and move to a small town.
Oh no, said my mother, A small town will kill you, none of us can go there, it’s not in our blood.
But it’s peaceful, I said.
We were not made for peaceful, said my mother, Look at you! What do you want with peaceful?
But you just said these trees are lovely, I said.
Trees are lovely in a city, said my mother, In a small town they’re just part of all the nothing; there’s nothing, people just eat and die.
I said, But surely they don’t have all the stress we have.
Of course they have stress, said my mother, They think, What will become of me? I’m surrounded by nothing. Then they eat and die.
But I can still work, I said, I can still travel, I just live there.
It’s not in our blood, said Mother, Fish don’t sweat, we don’t live in small towns, that’s how it is. Those who do otherwise will not survive.
Like who? I said.
My grandfather had a brother who tried living in a small town, said my mother, We don’t talk about it, but his name was Clementine.
Isn’t that a girl’s name? I said.
It is the name of a fruit, said Mother, He never had a chance. People with food names are not successful. History has never been made by somebody called Peach or Cupcake.
What happened to him? I asked.
Nobody knows, said my mother, He disappeared. Not even that woman who wrote the book mentioned anything.
It was true, a book had been written about our family history. It was written by a very old lady who lived in Somerset-West. I found her number, prayed she was still alive and phoned her on the 2nd of January.
My great-grandfather had a brother called Clementine, I said, Why was he not in your book?
Oh, said the old lady, That whole business was too sad, certain things you just leave out. But I did write a few pages about him, my son is a dentist, he can fax it to you.
Two days later the dentist faxed me ‘The Tale of Clementine’.
On Page One it said that he was the youngest of five children who lived with their extremely poor parents in a house with only two rooms. Despite all their hardships he was an outgoing young boy, a real show-off who knew many songs and jokes. He regularly got into trouble at school, which he then had to leave on Page Two. He started
