Spud

PENGUIN BOOKS

John van de Ruit was born in Durban, South Africa. He went to the University of Natal where he completed a Masters degree in Drama and Performance. Since 1998 he has been a professional actor, playwright and producer, winning numerous awards.
Spud
is John van de Ruit’s first novel.

PENGUIN BOOKS

Over my journey of the three years it took from Spud’s first words to where this book now stands, numerous people have directly or indirectly guided my and Spud’s travels.

Deafening applause to the wonderful crew at Penguin Books, for their faith, generosity and absolute professionalism, especially Alison Lowry, Jeremy Boraine and my editor Jane Ranger. Thanks also to Hayley Scott and Claire Heckrath. My literary agent, theatrical guru and friend Roy Sargeant, for his belief and wise counsel. Tamar Meskin for her huge editorial input on the early drafts, and without whom this book may never have been written. And of course Dave, Roz, Cathy and Ash, who are my rocks.

Thanks also to Sue Clarence, Julia Clarence, Anthony Stonier, Murray McGibbon, Ben Voss, DMR Lewis, Rich (Fuse) Mylrea, Janet Stent, Guy Emberton (who isn’t really a banana vandal) and Vampy Taylor.

John van de Ruit
July 2005

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide…

On his blindness
John Milton

04:30   I am awake. The first streaks of light peep through the sides of my old-lady curtains. I think I feel nauseous. The sheet under my legs is sticky and my heart is beating like a bongo drum. I can’t get up yet.

04:48   The neighbours’ dogs seem to be the only ones awake as they bark savagely at the rising sun.

04:50   Dad’s awake. I just heard a loud shout come from his bedroom window. The dogs bark even louder. Dad stomps down the passage muttering to himself. (He hates our neighbours because they never seem to notice their dogs barking all night. He’s always threatening to sue them or thrash them within an inch of their lives.)

05:00   The neighbourhood erupts as Dad fires up his supersonic heat-seeking rose sprayer (which sounds like a ski boat hitting a sandbank at full throttle). The machine is so powerful that it blew Wombat’s (my grandmother’s) Queen Elizabeth rosebush out of the ground on its first try out. Dad, wearing only his Cricketing Legends sleeping shorts (my Christmas present) and a surgeon’s mask, to protect himself from the deadly chemicals that he’s now spraying into the atmosphere, points his machine at the neighbours’ yard and dances like a loon on the lawn in front of my bedroom window. Maybe boarding school won’t be so bad after all.

05:01   I watch from my window as my mother stalks into the garden in her granadilla nightgown and screams something in my father’s ear. He stops his loony dance
and switches off his supersonic rose sprayer. He follows my mother inside. Seems like the neighbours’ dogs got the last bark after all.

05:30   My father’s exhausted after his early morning madness. I can hear him snoring loudly while my mother verbally abuses the policemen at the gate. The sight of my mother in her granadilla nightgown must have frightened the policemen because they end the discussion by heartily apologising to her and scuttling off to the protection of their police van.

06:00   It’s time. I get out of bed. Next to the door stands my huge metal army trunk, my cricket bag and my trusty Good Knight duvet. My uniform hangs from an old wire coat hanger. I reach for the blazer – it feels hot and heavy.

08:00   I’m courageously trying to swallow a mouthful of greeny scrambled eggs (including shells). I would have thrown it out of the window but Mom was watching me like a hawk. She said I should have some nourishment before leaving for boarding school. Mom’s notorious for her dreadful cooking – Dad refused breakfast as he’s nursing a bout of the runs after last night’s roast pork. (I think it was roast pork.) I’m too nervous to eat anyway and manage to scrape most of the egg into my serviette, slide it into my pocket and then flush it down the toilet.

08:30   Dad’s put his back out trying to load my trunk into the boot of the car. He clutches at his back like he’s just been stabbed, collapses on the grass and then squirms around in agony. With the help of Innocence (our trusty maid) I lug my trunk to the car and squeeze it onto the back seat. Mom gives Innocence a shifty-eyed look when she plants a big goodbye smooch on my lips.

(Mom’s convinced Innocence is running a brothel from her khaya in the back garden.)

08:36   My father’s ordered to change his clothes as it seems he’s rolled in something smelly during his dramatic writhing on the grass.

We’re now running late. Mom taps at her watch and glares at me like it’s my fault. Suddenly my terror overtakes my excitement and I start wishing that we could just cancel the whole thing and all go back to bed.

08:42   All set – Mom in her bright red smock, Dad in a tweed jacket and bow tie, and me in my new blue blazer, charcoal pants, red tie and white shirt (which felt too big in the shop but now seems to be strangling me). Dad blasts the hooter as he reverses our 1973 Renault station wagon into the road – the neighbours’ dogs hit back with some ferocious barking. Dad throws his head back and laughs maniacally, and then screeches us down the road into the oncoming traffic. There’s no going back now.

11:00   An African guard salutes us and then opens the huge white school gates. We pass through and drive along a beautiful avenue of trees called Pilgrim’s Walk towards the school’s gigantic red brick buildings which are all covered in green moss and ivy. My father is so busy pointing out a pair of mating dogs to my mother that he doesn’t spot the speed bump that savages the underbelly of the car. Our station wagon limps up to the school and slides in between a Rolls Royce and a Mercedes-Benz. To announce its grand arrival our rust-infested jalopy vomits up a couple of gallons of oil onto the ancient cobblestone paving.

We are met by two older boys wearing the same red tie as I am. They introduce themselves as Julian and
Bert. Julian is skinny and confident with blue eyes and wavy hair. He has a skippy walk and a cheery manner. Bert is massive… really massive (he looks nearly as old as Dad) with crooked teeth, vacant eyes and a snorting guffaw of a laugh. Julian explains that they are prefects in the house in which I’ll be living.

As they carry my trunk through the giant archway into the perfectly trimmed quadrangle, my mother trots out a long list of my amazing talents. (Scholarship winner, cricket star, prefect at primary school…) When she tells them about my beautiful soprano singing voice, Julian licks his lips and assures my mother that he is very fond of choirboys. Bert lets out a giant guffaw and elbows Julian in the ribs, making him drop the trunk on my father’s left foot. Dad makes a funny squeaking whine and then assures everyone that he is ‘tough as teak’ and ‘right as rain.’ I do my best to blend in but it feels like the Boswell Wilkie Circus has just pulled into town.

The main quadrangle is surrounded by buildings, which remind me of those medieval castles in our old history books at primary school. We head towards a building that looks older than the rest. Its red brick has faded to peach brick and the moss and ivy are as thick as a hedge. The prefects lead us up a dark narrow staircase, through a long dormitory containing about fifteen empty beds and into another dormitory, this one dark and creepy with low hanging wooden rafters and dark brick walls. It is small and cramped with just about space for eight beds. It feels spooky and smells like old socks and floor varnish. One of these eight beds is mine.

The dormitory is divided into cubicles by five foot wooden partitions which separate one cubicle from the next. Each cubicle has two wooden beds, two cupboards, two footlockers, a blanket, pillow and mattress. Under each bed there are two drawers with golden doorknocker
handles. A few new boys wearing the same red tie as me are unpacking their clothes into their lockers under the watchful eyes of their mothers.

We arrive at a bed which has my name pasted onto the locker. The bed next to mine says Blackadder. At least I have a window.

My father, still limping around, and my mother, still puffing from the exertion of climbing the stairs, then have a huge argument about which drawer will house my socks and which my underpants. All the other parents stop what they are doing to stare at us. I kneel down and pretend to pack something into my footlocker.

On the way down the stairs we pass the whitest human being I’ve ever seen. In the dim light of the stairway, his paleness creates a strange luminous light. He is also wearing a red tie and he studies the floor closely as I pass by.

After a short sparring session between my parents in front of about twenty people outside the house, we make our way to the Great Hall, where we are addressed by various VIPs, including the local government official, our head boy Marshall Martin, and our rather frightening looking headmaster named Glockenshpeel. At first I think his name is a joke, but judging by the expression on his face his name is no laughing matter. Glockenshpeel keeps referring to the school as an ‘institution’ and the boys as ‘subjects’. He also keeps repeating himself about discipline and stern punishment for wayward subjects. My father, nodding in agreement, eventually lets rip with an embarrassingly loud ‘Hear, hear!’ This causes a moment’s hesitation whilst over four hundred people stare at my nodding father and mother and a schoolboy who has turned beetroot red and is desperately thinking up a plan to dissolve into the covering of his seat. The school chaplain, who goes by the name of Reverend Bishop (destined for greater things?), makes a speech about the spread of Christianity in schools and the
need for an open heart and an open mind. My father and mother agree that the Reverend Bishop is either homosexual or a communist, or possibly both.