remain her loyal students.
When Doris Fisher announces that she requires a pianist to accompany our lessons, Mrs May volunteers her services. So Kathleen and I meet for the first time in Doris Fisher’s tap and ballet class. Kathleen’s mother sits bolt upright on the edge of a high-backed wooden chair, banging out in hectic syncopation Harry M Woods’ Side by Side and Vincent Rose’s Whispering on the battered piano. She pounds so hard on it that the piano starts inching away across the wooden floorboards, leaving her to pull and thump her chair behind it in hot pursuit. Doris Fisher fixes us with a steely glare greatly at odds with her fairy-like appearance.
At the end of each lesson, Doris thanks Mrs May, and sympathises with her over the abject state of the piano. Kathleen and I swing our clacking tap shoes in each hand and walk outside to sit in the sun. Her mother remains undeterred by her weekly performances, but Kathleen is mortified.
‘Ag, don’t worry, man. Those other girls are just jealous – their mothers can’t even play the piano. Anyway, you also laughed …’
Kathleen hangs her head. Her cheeks are red. I can see tears caught in her pale lashes.
‘I know I did. It’s just all so embarrassing. I hate it when everyone laughs at her. I feel so bad for her. And I feel awful because I’ve laughed at her too. I mean, I love her – she’s my mum.’
The Pink Toffee
My Sub B teacher, Miss Potgieter, has her favourite pupils and, unless she happens to owe Pa lots of money on her chemist account, I’m not one of them. Now we’re in Sub B, we’ve already learnt to count up to one hundred and, when my best friend Gerda hears she’s come first in our class, she brags that means she’s the cleverest of us all. I don’t know why she thinks so, because we all know that bigger numbers mean more, and more’s always better. I’m sure you have to be much cleverer to come tenth in class – like me – than first.
We sit at our wooden desks drawing wavy patterns so we can learn how to do real writing. Tongue tips poke through pursed mouths, punctuating the slow squares of time in our school day. Miss Potgieter shouts:
‘You! Stop writing with your left hand! Only stupid children write with their left hand! Do it again!’
If we’re good, we’re rewarded with short break, followed by lunch break, and then home time, hallelujah! (Miss Potgieter says in the Bible that means you’re very happy.)
I wish I could be class captain … I’d be so well behaved if only Miss Potgieter would choose me. Miss Potgieter owes Pa money, but not that much. She only permits her favourites to help her gather our exercise books after our lessons. She takes our books home to mark with her stern red pen, or to decorate with gold or silver stars. I quite like the coloured stars, but Ma says she only wants to see gold stars in my books. I try to write the letters in the same neat, round way Miss Potgieter does on the blackboard, but my hand doesn’t want to do them that way. When she’s not looking, I hold the pencil in my left hand, watch it crab-sidle across the page.
‘I can see you there!’ Miss Potgieter shouts. ‘Stop that at once! Your handwriting’s disgusting – I can’t mark this rubbish!’
Ma says I have to practise and practise writing with my right hand. Even though it feels wrong, Ma says it’s the right hand to write with. When she says that, I have to think a bit about everything being right, when it all feels so wrong. I tell her I like Wednesdays because they feel green; that number seventeen fits the middle of the green day like a cherry in the middle of a biscuit. Thursdays are a bit brown, though sometimes they can be quite bright and orangey. Mondays are blue. Not a nice sky-blue – more the colour of a bruise. Tuesdays are silver. Eleven is a Tuesday number. I like to say the number and see the colour that belongs to each day.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ asks Ma. ‘Stop talking such nonsense. I’ve never heard anything like it – people will think there’s something wrong with you.’
Every day, once she’s decided which one of the wildly waving, hands-in-the-air children will help her, the pushing and elbowing for the truly favourite – the absolutely best position – begins: Miss Potgieter will hold the hand of one child who will proudly escort her to the teacher’s car park where her trusty blue Volksie is parked all day, where it sits patiently boiling up its potent bouquet of hot, sweating plastic seats and cheap, perfumed deodorant. Though my hand waves desperately every day, she doesn’t even glance my way.
One day – perhaps because she remembers she hasn’t paid Pa for a few months – Miss Potgieter notices me. Finally she grants me the ultimate honour: I’m allowed to walk her right hand back to the car park!
The home-time bell has rung at last. I’m so excited I can hardly breathe. I’ve waited in agony for the end of this long day to arrive so that I can slip my grubby little hand into her large, moist palm. Hand in hand, savouring every intense minute of the walk down the dusty pathway, my shoulders are back, my cheeks tight with excitement. I walk as close as I can to her stiffly swirling, petticoated dress. Even my plaits are rigid with pride. Today I’m the Chosen One; the special favourite for all to see and envy. I gaze up at her adoringly. She smiles down at me graciously. I duck my head, bring her coveted hand right up to my face, and bite it hard, sinking my teeth into the fleshy underside of her thumb.
Miss Potgieter howls, tries to yank away her hand. I hold on grimly, determined not to let go one minute earlier than is my due. She screams, throws me on the playground. Frightened children run away. Teachers rush to her rescue. Nobody helps me. I sit in the dust, tears drawing worm trails across my face.
‘It just looked so juicy, Ma!’ I try to explain. ‘I just wanted to know what she tasted like.’
‘What did she taste like?’ Ma sighs.
‘Kind of bitter, Ma,’ I reflect. ‘I thought she’d taste really sweet – like a pink-toffee, you know? But now I’ve got this horrible, bitter taste in my mouth …’
Pa’s angry. At the end of term, he gives Miss Potgieter a really big discount on her chemist account, and I come last in class – really last.
I Love Rosebud
Pa’s still the odd man out after my youngest sister is born. I’ve just turned seven.
‘Thank God for the dog,’ he says, ‘or I’d be the only male in this family!’
I’ve wished and wished, but my sister and the baby refuse to go away. Ma says I have to move out of my bedroom.
‘Babies need a room of their own, love. You and your sister can share the double room – you’ll get your own room back one day.’
The new baby is plump, pretty. Everyone makes a big fuss of her. My middle sister doesn’t like her. She cries and whines. Tries to sit on Ma’s lap when she’s holding the baby. Wets her bed at night. I’m busy with other things.
My sister may be younger than I am, but she’s infinitely more cunning. She’s Ma and Pa’s good girl. She does as she’s told. She never gets smacked – she’s too scared to ever be bad. It makes me cross. The better behaved she is, the more wayward I become.
‘If you don’t stop doing that, you’re going to get a hard smack!’ Ma shouts. ‘Honestly, what am I going to do with you? I don’t know where you come from, you’re so cheeky.’
Ma’s
