Leopold Blue (8 page)

The day after the article appeared – spread across a double page and impossible to miss – I arrived at school early. Juffrou du Plessis would be waiting, with all the righteous wrath of the Afrikaner nation. I'd rather she unleashed it without an audience. I was not that lucky. I had to sit in my desk and endure the stares and remarks of the rest of the class as they trickled in. While
The
Sunday Times
would have done well to sell ten copies in Leopold, there was no doubt that everyone would have heard about it.

Elmarie marched up to me. ‘My dad says, he says –'

‘I don't care what your father says,' I cut her off. ‘Leave me alone.'

Xanthe was nowhere to be seen.

Juffrou arrived, and made a point of ignoring me as she distributed a pile of excercise books. My palms were sweaty. There was a ringing in my ears. Juffrou was now at the top of our row. Elmarie and Esna turned around in anticipation. As Juffrou reached my desk, Xanthe appeared and sank down next to me, out of breath.

‘Jammer
^[*]
, Juffrou.' Xanthe attempted an apology in stuttering Afrikaans. But Juffrou only had eyes for me.

‘The English Doctor has been busy.' Juffrou's voice slithered like a furious cobra.

Xanthe looked from Juffrou to me.

‘Perhaps in England children are not taught the simple rules of community. Perhaps they do not feel pride in their town.' She tossed my book down onto my desk. ‘Perhaps the English Doctor has forgotten what she owes to the people who took her in so many years ago.'

As Juffrou marched on Xanthe started laughing. ‘What was that?'

I shot Xanthe a warning glare, but she wouldn't let it go. Adopting a heavy Afrikaans accent, she continued, ‘The English Doctor would do well to remember that Big Sister is watching.'

Juffrou swung back around.

‘For the love of God, Xanthe, shut up!' I snapped.

After school I went in search of support. Marta and Beth were in the garden.

‘Did you see the article, Marta?'

‘Juffrou Engelbrecht was almost in tears,' said Beth. ‘She wanted to know who was this Bibi person who had written such lies about Leopold. She said Leopold would be tainted forever.'

Marta sighed. ‘It was a shameful day.'

‘I know. How could Mum do it?' I said.

Marta stiffened. ‘It was shameful because it is all true.'

Everyone knew about the article. The Dominee went on regional radio to denounce the article as hysterical propaganda by an uninformed and dimwitted foreign journalist. But we all knew he was talking about Mum.

Our house felt battered, as if somebody had died.

‘Hendrik wouldn't serve me in the post office this morning,' said Mum on Tuesday. ‘Sonia du Plessis crossed the road when she saw me coming.'

‘It will blow over. These things always do.' But Dad didn't look at her as he spoke.

‘I don't think it will,' replied Mum. ‘They've always hated me. At last they have a reason.'

‘I thought you were going to change the names,' he said quietly.

‘That's not journalism,' Mum replied, watching Dad. She watched him for the rest of the week. It was a side of Dad I'd never before seen. His skin seemed to hang off him, as if all his essence had been sucked out of him. This was what I'd been wanting him to do, to stand up to her. But instead of feeling triumphant, I felt worried.

Mum didn't work without Dad. I found her staring out of the window in the sitting room.

‘I can't remember the name of the fabric your grandmother covered the sitting-room chairs with,' she said, looking out at Bosmansberg. ‘Morris-something. I can't even picture the room anymore.'

Dad clattered into the sitting room on Friday afternoon. His footsteps kicked back the silence that had blanketed us all week. Beth and I were spread out on the sofa, watching an old copy of
The Bodyguard
. Mum was in the armchair next to us, pretending to read a science journal.

‘Look who I found lolling around in town!' he said. Dad loved Fridays. It was market day in Leopold, when the farmers and their wives came to town. The wagon-wide Main Street became a slow-moving procession of ‘King Cab' bakkies and 1970s Mercedes sedans. While the wives went to the bank and the post office and caught up on a week's gossip, the men congregated up the hill at the Co Op. They stood about in solid khaki clusters, swapping news, as they collected feed or a new supply of cattle dip or tractor parts. Dad could spend all day up there.

‘Who did you find lolling around?' I asked, because he appeared to be alone.

Dad looked back, took a few steps towards the door then called out, ‘Hannes!'

Beth and I swivelled back to Mum, in time to see the horror cross her face. All Mum's speechifying about ‘fighting inbred prejudice' and all people being created equal came to nothing in the way she reacted to Hannes. Hannes was Dad's oldest friend, Dad's favourite person in the world after us. He made Mum knuckle-crunchingly uncomfortable. Not that she saw him often: sightings of Hannes beyond the boundaries of his farm were rare. Other than Christmas and Easter, his visits to town were made only under duress.

Hannes appeared, stooping as he negotiated the doorframe. With each passing year Hannes seemed to blend more with the land he farmed. His skin, like dried-out clay, told of hot, long summers; his restless eyes of the worry of coaxing another harvest out of the tired ground. He was dressed, as always, in his khaki short-sleeved shirt, shorts and veldskoen. Instead of a watch he wore two copper bracelets on his left wrist. The skin around it was stained green.

He stood next to Dad and blinked a few times in the shuttered light, fiddling with the hat in his hands.

‘Hello, Hannes!' we chanted dutifully. He swallowed and nodded at us.

When he turned to Mum, he blushed deeply and muttered, ‘Mevrou,' into the carpet.

‘What a lovely surprise!' said Mum, her voice too loud. I looked at Beth and bit my lip. On the TV, the music stopped. There was a single drumbeat, as Whitney Houston's lower jaw dropped for her to deliver her final, heart-stopping chorus of ‘And I will always love you!'

Hannes' eyes widened in alarm.

Dad stepped in to rescue his friend. ‘If you'll excuse us, Hannes and I have an important business meeting on the stoep.'

As soon as they were out of hearing, Mum said in a loud whisper: ‘That was odd, don't you think?'

‘No,' said Beth.

‘But he's so quiet,' Mum shuddered. ‘So painfully quiet.'

‘Some people don't need to talk,' Beth said with a shrug.

‘What's he doing in town, anyway?' said Mum, getting out of her chair to peer out the window at them.

I felt smug. ‘It's perfectly obvious why Hannes is here.' He was here under the direct orders of his big sister, on behalf of the Leopold community. ‘He is here to ask Dad to make you stop.'

Hannes was Juffrou du Plessis' younger brother. Although they shared the same high forehead and piercing eyes, in everything else they were complete opposites. Juffrou was a tormentor of the human spirit, Hannes was Leopold's hermit. He understood the land better than any other farmer. He rattled off the names of indigenous plants as if they were members of his family. He could treat almost any ailment with one of his foul-tasting bush remedies. In an emergency, the farmers called Hannes before they called the vet.

Marta passed us with a tray intended for the important business meeting.

‘Marta!' said Mum, eyeing the full bottle of brandy, alongside the two glasses and large packet of biltong.

‘Special request from Mister Tim,' replied Marta, avoiding Mum's disapproving eye.

There they stayed, Dad and Hannes, sinking into their deck chairs as the last of the day disappeared behind the house. We carried on with our usual Friday evening, eating fish and chips in front of
L.A. Law
, and then a video. Every now and then a low rumble of conversation or an eruption of laughter wafted in through the open window, but for the most part Hannes and Dad didn't say much. Later I heard Hannes' heavy footsteps through the house. I imagined him in his bakkie, slowly winding his way over the pass, and into the next valley, back to his sleeping farm.

Dad didn't make it out of bed until lunchtime, and that was only to stumble into the embrace of his favourite armchair.

‘More Disprin, Doctor,' he croaked. ‘And Meggie, close those shutters.'

‘Why is it,' said Mum, delivering the tablets and a glass of water, ‘that two men finishing off a bottle of brandy is seen as celebrating a cultural heritage in these parts, whereas if two women had to do that they would be publically flogged and driven out of town?'

‘Because, Wife, you don't know how to drink brandy. If I were to sit you down with a bottle of brandy, you'd have started a revolution before you'd finished half of it.'

Mum punched his arm.

‘I rest my case!'

‘What did Hannes have to say?' Mum asked, feigning a casual tone.

‘Hmm? Oh, the usual. Farm, baboons, rain.' Dad chuckled. ‘Tokkie van Jaarsveld saw a leopard up in the foothills. Twice. Haven't had a leopard around here for ages. Someone needs to tell the spotted fellow to get the hell out of that valley.' Tokkie was the largest sheep farmer in the area. He hated leopards.

‘I wasn't talking about farming chitchat,' Mum said.

Dad stiffened. He turned to Mum, the silence of the past week revealing itself in a flash of anger. Or perhaps it was doubt. ‘You know very well what he came to say, Vivvy.'

Mum looked as though he had slapped her. ‘I only meant –'

But he held his hand up and she stopped mid-sentence. ‘Go phone your friend, Meg. Tomorrow we go to the mountains.'

The dust cloud that had been travelling with us was momentarily so thick that it was impossible to tell where we were. As it settled, we found ourselves in a world of jagged rock and red soil and scrub bush. Clumps of gnarled and sawn-off boulder rocks littered the valley floor, stacked on top of each other, or balancing against each other at precarious angles, as though God had been building castles out of dominoes. We were in the belly of the mountains.

Ahead of us a footpath cut into the landscape, snaking its way diagonally up towards the saddle of the hill. Beyond the dip of the saddle, far away enough so that it looked a deep shade of browny-blue, was sheer rock face.

‘This is it?' Xanthe asked.

‘No,' replied Beth from the front seat. ‘First we follow that footpath for about an hour, over the hill and down into another valley that looks exactly like this one, only flatter and hotter.
That
is it.'

Xanthe looked sideways at me. The dirt track up to the fossil farm had been worse than normal. Dad drove our old station wagon over the dongas
^[*]
and potholes as though it were a rally car, which meant we spent a fair amount of the trip airborne.

Beth was not happy. Instead of hers and Dad's usual rendition of ‘Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall', she had been silent the whole way here. Her sulk had started as Xanthe had emerged from the boarding house, wearing a pair of cut-off denim shorts and a T-shirt with a picture of a seemingly naked boy that said ‘Manic Street Preachers'. Tattoed onto the arm of the boy were the words ‘Generation Terrorists'.

‘What's Manic Street Preachers?' Beth had asked.

‘A band, obviously,' I'd replied, although I had no idea.

‘Is it Christian?' Beth continued, which was fair enough as there was a large crucifix hanging around the neck of the boy.

‘Not exactly,' replied Xanthe.

‘Christian!' I'd laughed loudly and then felt stupid at the silence that followed. I hadn't fooled either Beth or Xanthe.

Dad opened Beth's door.

‘'What's that smell?' Xanthe asked.

‘Dust,' replied Beth. ‘And heat and boredom.' She turned to Dad. ‘I'm staying here.'

Dad shook his head. ‘Not a good idea, Bethie. We'll be gone hours.'

‘I don't care. You can't make me.'

‘True,' Dad agreed. ‘I'm worried, that's all. The other day Koosie up at the Co Op told me he'd got the fright of his life. He was checking on a broken water pump in one of his boundary camps. As he climbed back into his bakkie, his leg like so,' Dad demonstrated, his leg hovering above the ground, ‘a
tenth
of a second away from putting his foot down, he stopped. And looked down.' Dad looked at each of us in turn. ‘Under the accelerator was a cobra, thick as his arm, tightly coiled up.'

We three stared at him in mute horror.

‘He reckons the bliksem
^[*]
must have gotten itself curled around his front wheel, then managed to get up, through the carburettor and into the front cab.' He shook his head. ‘Man, I hate snakes!'

Beth was out the car. Dad looked back at me and winked.

Xanthe fell into step behind him. Her long, skinny legs kept pace with Dad's wide stride. They made me think of Simon. Not only would Simon listen as Dad pointed out a rock formation that was in no way similar to other hundreds we'd seen that day, but he'd remember from the previous trip the names and shapes of Dad's beloved fossils. I tried to picture Simon in Europe. I tried to picture Europe. Did you feel a different person after looking at an ancient castle or travelling the tube?

Beth followed Xanthe at an infuriatingly slow pace. I brought up the rear, carrying the rucksack of sandwiches and juice. We had grown up walking these mountains on Dad's ‘fun days out'. Each time we started up the path it felt like we were turning our backs on the rest of the world.

A distance opened up between Dad and Xanthe, and Beth and me. ‘For God's sake, Beth, hurry up!' I ached to push past her, and stop Dad saying anything too weird. But Beth would have a fit if she were left at the back.

We caught up with them at the crest of the hill. The next valley was flat and shallow. Rocky outcrops dotted the floor, home to dassies, wild cats and snakes. And fossils.

We passed the shell of an abandoned bakkie rotted slowly into the ground. There was a farmhouse in the furthest corner of the valley. It was more of a hovel, its walls crumbling and the thatch barely covering the roof in places. A sister and brother lived there, Hetta and Fillipus Jantjies, with their rheumatic, mangy dogs and their milky eyes. ‘They're like hobbits!' Mum had breathed on one of her rare trips here. At least they wouldn't have read the article.

‘Is this sea sand?' Xanthe bent down and picked up a handful of white sand. She looked up at Dad.

‘Uh-huh,' replied Dad. ‘You're standing on a very ancient seabed.'

Xanthe looked around at the rock-littered valley floor and surrounding mountains. ‘No kidding,' she said.

‘The shape of the mountains – you see the way it looks gouged out – that was caused by a glacier that pushed through these parts 420 million years ago,' Dad said.

‘Wow,' said Xanthe, her head cocked to the side.

‘When it melted, it deposited the millions of tonnes of rocks it had collected up north right here, and its water formed meltwater lakes. These icy lakes were home to some extraordinary organisms, many of which survive today as fossils.'

Xanthe stayed close to Dad as we descended into the valley, listening as he revealed the sacred mysteries of rocks. I used to think Simon feigned interest to show me up, but what was Xanthe doing?

I was bored, hot, and put out.

Beth flopped down on a rock in front of me and took a slug from the water bottle. ‘Found one,' she called with a yawn.

Dad double-backed. ‘That's a goodie,' he said, getting out his notebook. ‘You've got a talent for this, Beth. Going to take after your old dad, huh?'

Beth snorted.

‘What is that?' asked Xanthe, peering over Beth's find.

‘A Spirophyton, most likely,' Dad replied. ‘See the beautiful conical swirls. It was a small invertebrate animal that would have lived on the sea floor. That's why it's embedded in the rock.'

‘How old do you think it is?' asked Xanthe.

Dad rubbed his chin. ‘Anything up to 200 million years.' He took the stone from Beth and rubbed his finger over it. ‘Each of these rock fragments is a story that is eons old. Each story is slightly different and it's all here. You simply have to know how to read it.'

Dad was such a nerd. A part of me longed to be as passionate about something, or someone, but nothing seemed interesting enough.

Xanthe took the fossil from him. ‘That's amazing,' she said softly, running her fingers over the ridges and grooves the ancient sea slug made against the rock face.

Beth caught my eye and shook her head. ‘Remember that one Simon found? That one
was
amazing.'

Xanthe raised an eyebrow as she turned the rock over.

‘I'll tell you what,' Dad said. ‘Fifty years ago you could find the most extraordinary things up here. This was the real Jurassic Park, not some Hollywood studio. Then holiday makers got to hearing about them, and things started disappearing.' He shook his head. ‘Now it's rare to find loose rock with fossil traces on them. It makes me mad.'

As we ate our lunch of cold sausages, cheese and soggy tomato sandwiches and tepid squash, Xanthe jumped up. She was holding a fragment of rock, small enough to fit into the palm of her hand. ‘I found one! It was lying next to me, like it
wanted
me to find it!' She looked up at Dad, with shining eyes.

Dad leaned over to have a look. ‘Not bad for a beginner! That's a lovely little crinoid shape.'

Xanthe held on to her treasure, turning it over and over in her hands. ‘I found one, Madge! A crinoid one!'

I smiled at her, but didn't trust myself with words, on the off chance that I said: ‘It's a frigging rock, Xanthe! Get some perspective.'

‘My dad would laugh at me now, all hot and sweaty and fishing around in the dirt for fragments of rock,' said Xanthe later on.

I looked up. She never talked about her dad.

‘His favourite saying is “He who dies with the most toys, wins”,' she continued.

Dad laughed.

‘What do you think, Tim?' Xanthe turned to him. It occurred to me that with Xanthe there had never been the ‘Mr Bergman' stage. In Leopold anyone older than you was either ‘oom
^[*]
' or ‘tannie' – even if you yourself were an adult.

Dad looked away, towards the hovering mountaintops. ‘I don't know, but then I don't have that many toys. I think we are all magnificently important and entirely insignificant. Each of us has our place and time, nothing we do can help us extend that. The San and the Khoi people who painted the rocks around here, who left behind their stories for us, they knew that. Their time may have passed, but their significance remains.'

In the thick afternoon sun a jackal buzzard screamed above us. Dad stretched. ‘Enough mumbo-jumbo from me. Another half hour in purgatory, Beth, then we're off.' He turned in the direction of a clump of rocks nearby.

Xanthe watched him walk away. ‘Your dad is cool, Madgie.'

As we bumped our way back along the track, tired and sun baked and dirty, I felt as irritable as though sand had been caught between the layers of my skin. Xanthe was supposed to think I was cool – not
Dad
! Each time I felt close to understanding Xanthe's world she changed the rules and left me as clueless as the day she arrived.