run away. I would moan and groan, I would threaten and sulk, I would cry every evening until my eyes were sore. But I would endure and persevere.
I was nothing if not her daughter.
‘This is wild country,’ Pa said with the pride of a pioneer in his voice. ‘Wild but beautiful.’
They were standing on the veranda, grilling meat and looking out over banana trees which stretched as far as the eye could see. Closer to the house, next to the swimming pool where I lay reading in the sun, the thin trunks of a few pawpaw trees towered above the pinks and purples of the bougainvillaea and the scarlet flowers of the hibiscus. I turned on to my back to catch the sun on my front.
‘Look, way across there, where it’s hazy, lies the Kruger National Park.’ Pa gestured, a beer bottle in his hand and a silly little cloth hat on his head. Prisoner of Love was printed in red on the white material. He swallowed a mouthful of beer and deftly turned the grill. ‘You can hear the lions roaring at night.’
‘I’ll be damned!’ said his friend from the Cape.
‘I kid you not,’ my father confirmed. ‘Sometimes the hippos come and drink at the swimming pool.’
The man from the Cape gave an uncertain laugh. I turned up the radio so that I wouldn’t have to listen to my father’s tall tales. Wiggled my bottom to the beat of Mick Jagger unable to get no satisfaction. Tried to concentrate on my book again.
Dalena had told me to read it. Which should have made me suspicious immediately because my roommate wasn’t the world’s greatest reader.
‘Has it got sex in it?’ I’d wanted to know.
‘It’ll make your teeth curl.’
‘In Afrikaans?’
‘Man, Andre P. Brink is not like other Afrikaans writers.’
The way in which she accented the P made the name sound elegant and exotic. ‘I’m telling you, it’s hot stuff. Nude scenes.’
I didn’t want to show any interest. But when my mother took us back to the hostel on the Friday afternoon, after our visit to the Portuguese café, I asked her to stop at the library.
‘Have you got Ambassador by Andre P. Brink?’ I asked the old lady behind the counter.
‘The Ambassador.’ She looked at my grey school dress and her heavy eyebrows rose like twin helicopters above her spectacle frames. ‘Aren’t you a bit young for such a difficult book?’
‘It’s for my mother.’ Without turning a hair. Sometimes I took after my father.
So here I was lying in my holiday bikini next to the swimming pool, sweatily searching for the first nude scene.
‘This place is alive with snakes,’ Pa said. ‘As thick as my upper arm. Mambas. Green ones in the trees, black ones on the ground.’
‘What do you do if you come across one?’ The man from the Cape was beginning to sound sceptical.
‘You wet your pants!’ my father laughed. I peered towards the veranda over my dark glasses. Pa shook his head and bent down to turn the grill again. ‘No, the black people here know how to deal with snakes. Never Die – he’s the boss boy – always carries a long stick. He can crush a snake’s head with one blow’
‘That’s probably why his name is Never Die,’ said Pa’s other friend who came from Pretoria.
Silently I sang along with Mick Jagger. I didn’t know what I would’ve done without LM Radio.
‘Mart, you must be careful of the sun!’ My mother warned from the edge of the veranda where she had appeared with a bowl of salad in her hands. ‘Else you’ll be crying in a vinegar bath tonight.’
‘Oh, Maa!’
‘It’s just a thought.’ Ma was wearing a trilobal skirt over a matching floral bathing suit. Her dark glasses could have belonged to Jackie Onassis. The clusters of red cherries hanging from her ears looked real enough to eat. ‘But remember it’s not the Cape sun.’
I placed the open book over my face. The black letters swam in front of my eyes. I felt the sweat running down my stomach and filling my navel.
‘Gosh, but the water looks good.’
The voice of the Pretorian sounded closer, as though he were standing next to my mother. Ma’s high-heeled cork sandals creaked as she walked away. It was quiet for a few moments, but I had the feeling that someone was watching me. I peered past my book and saw the man leaning on the railing of the veranda. ‘Nice hills on the horizon.’
‘Yes.’ My father gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘I’ll have to buy a shotgun one of these days to keep the boys at bay.’
‘I’d like to see her in a few years’ time.’
Did the bastard think I was deaf? I lay without moving as though I’d fallen asleep.
‘Mart is a quiet child,’ my father said, ‘always has her nose in a book. Lovey is going to give me grey hairs, I can see that already. She’s the wild one.’
‘My name’s not Lovey!’ Lovey called out from somewhere, ran down the stairs and jumped into the swimming pool with a splash which sounded like applause.
I was so grateful for the distraction that I didn’t even mind getting wet, just tried to keep the book dry by holding it above my head. I turned my back to the veranda and watched my sister bursting through the surface of the water like a glittering trout.
‘I caught her in the bathroom the other day, shaving her legs,’ my father said, sounding annoyed. ‘With my razor! And she’s not even in high school!’
Lovey climbed out of the swimming pool, straddled me and shook herself. The drops of water scorched my skin like dry ice.
‘Come on! Look what you’ve done to the book!’
‘What are you reading?’
‘Nothing you’ll be able to understand.’
‘How do you know?’
She sank down on the wet paving next to me. Her skin was as brown as a nut, her body still unformed, but her nipples already showed darker under the tight bikini top. She winked at me as if she knew what I was thinking.
‘You must ask Ma to buy you a bra.’
‘I already have.’ Not ashamed about it at all, as I had been. ‘I wear it to school.’
I pulled the damp book towards me, tried to read again. The frangipani tree behind me smelt as stickily sweet as Ma’s hairspray. All around me on the paving the creamy-white frangipani flowers had been dropped as though the scent had become too much even for the tree. It was difficult to concentrate on a book – even one with sex in it – when the trees around you smelt of hairspray and the sun burned your bare legs and the plants were so green that it seemed as if you looked at the world through dark glasses even when you took them off. Now I understood why everyone always
