– a stoep – you know, only it’s a whole room.’
Isak plants poplar trees along the silver-painted fence, clumps of calla lilies and dahlias, roses and shrubs, petunias and pansies in the flowerbeds. He plants fruit trees in the orchard and a perfumed syringa tree in the back garden for shade.
The new rooms echo, the parquet floors ring with Ma’s brisk footsteps, Sandy’s clicking nails. On weekends we can hear the bells of the mother church.
‘Why do the church bells ring for such a long time, Pa?’
‘They’re calling the people to come. To pray.’
‘Pray for what, Pa?’
‘Forgiveness. For being bad … naughty …’
‘Why don’t we go to church, Pa?’
‘Shush. I’m reading.’
The new house is much bigger than our old one; Ma decides Marta needs someone to help her. Bettie and her clinking carpetbag move into the maid’s room on the other side of the yard. I don’t like her. She smells. She shouts at Sandy and me when Ma’s not there.
‘She’ll have to go. She drinks,’ Ma tells Pa.
Marta’s outside hanging up the washing.
‘Marta!’
Marta drops the washing back in the basket, wipes her hands on the front of her overall and runs into the kitchen.
‘I want you to find someone to help with the housework, Marta,’ Ma says. ‘That Bettie’s no good – how about your friend, Sara?’
Marta claps her hands, dips her knees.
Sara moves into the empty maid’s room. Tall and thin, she has a quiet voice, slow smile. Her long feet are narrow, with small toes like baby grapes. When I sit under the plum trees with them, Marta and Sara sit on their Basotho blankets, their legs straight on the grass in front of them. In winter, they wrap their blankets around their waists to keep themselves warm. Isak sits on an upended bucket. They eat putu pap and gravy out of the pot with their fingers. Ma calls me inside for lunch.
‘Why can’t I sit outside and eat with them?’ I ask.
‘Because I say so,’ she says.
‘I don’t want you going into Sara’s room.’ Ma’s voice is firm.
‘But it’s always so neat and clean, Ma!’
‘I know it is, but her room is private and I want you to stay out of it.’
Sara’s raised her bed high on bricks, covered her mattress with my old pink bedspread Ma gave her. She hasn’t got a lot of clothes or furniture. That’s because she’s poor. She told me so. She’s only got a bed, a narrow wooden cupboard and a small table in her room. The table’s one leg is shorter than the others. It doesn’t wobble very much, because Sara’s stuffed a thick piece of newspaper under the short leg. Ma said she could also have the old wicker chair from outside. I don’t like sitting on it – the curly bits in the hollowed-out seat prick my bottom. Ma gave her the feather cushion that used to lie on the piano stool. The sharp ends of the feathers poke out of the green cover. Ma said it was too uncomfortable to sit on, so she gave it to Sara.
Pictures from Ma’s old Ladies’ Home Journal and the Sunday Times are stuck all over the walls. Sara and Marta sigh, click their tongues when they look at them. Sara’s lined the small shelves of two wooden tomato boxes with scalloped newspaper. That’s where she keeps her black comb and her bright, pink, round mirror. Her room smells of Vicks and cold, like ice left in the freezer for a long time. Ma says the smell’s probably from the cement floor; it wouldn’t be so bad if it had a carpet on it. She gave Sara a paraffin heater to use in winter – she doesn’t think she needs a carpet as well.
Ma’s arranging flowers in a vase at the kitchen counter. While she surveys her handiwork through narrowed eyes, her hand hovers over the foliage in the basket in front of her.
‘Ma, don’t you think a carpet would look nice in Sara’s room? Hey, Ma? I told her, maybe you could make curtains for her window – it isn’t big, you know? You wouldn’t need a lot of material …’
Ma says she hasn’t got time to make curtains for the maid’s room. I must stop making promises on her behalf.
‘But I didn’t promise Sara you’d make them, Ma. I just said maybe you’d be able to …
Ma says if Sara wants curtains, she can jolly well make them herself.
I play with Sandy and my farm cousins and, sometimes, depending on how desperate the situation, my younger sister. My second-best friend Willie-Venter is still living in the sideboard in our new dining room. Only Sandy and I can see him. Sandy’s my best, best friend. I love him. I’ve got a new friend too. Her name is Nellie. Her granny and grandpa live in the house on the corner opposite ours. Nellie’s one year older than I am. She’s also going to start school next year, only in Bloemfontein. That’s where she lives.
When it’s Christmas time, she and her family always come to visit her granny and grandpa. Her granny’s got a face just like the man on the moon: pale and flat and round, with small currant-eyes. Her grandpa has the same name as my second-best friend, Willie-Venter. I call them ‘tannie’ and ‘oom’.
One hot December morning, Ma and I are having breakfast.
‘I see Nellie and her family have arrived to visit for Christmas, Jen. Why don’t you run across the road and see if she’d like to come and play with you?’
I dash outside, down the garden path, out of the gate, and across the road.
Nellie’s granny answers the door.
‘No, no – you stay out here on the stoep,’ she tells me, closing the screen door. ‘I’ll call Nellie. You wait here, hey? I don’t want …’
Nellie comes pounding down the dark passage.
‘Haaallo!’
Her granny clicks her tongue.
‘Ag no, child. Not so loud – and stop running inside the house – it’s not nice!’
We wait outside on the stoep while her granny lumbers back down the passage. Nellie wants to show me the Big Surprise in the corner of the voorkamer. Ma says that’s another name for a ‘lounge’. Grandpa MJ and Granny have got a parlour. We’ve got a lounge.
The Big Surprise stands in its corner every year at Christmas time. Every year, I stand with my hands on either side of my face, my breath fogging and smearing the window while I gaze in wonder at the shimmering Christmas tree, its gold baubles and flashing green and red lights. At the very top, on the spiky tip, a great, golden star glitters and winks. Strings of silver tinsel are draped around the branches of the fir tree and iced gingerbread men and small wooden toys swing among the exquisite balls hanging from the dark pine needles.
‘My granny says you can’t come inside to look at our Christmas tree,’ Nellie whispers the first time she shows it to me, ‘’cause you’re not a true believer.’
‘What’s
