Whitethorn (71 page)

‘Nearly eighteen!' I replied brightly. ‘And anyway, it just did!'

Pirrou laughed at this half-good quip. ‘Tom, my beautiful, beautiful boy, you're probably wondering what's in all this for you?'

Which I wasn't at all! What was in it for me was sitting naked on my stomach, and it was more than I could have possibly imagined happening to me in a hundred thousand years! Even if it only happened once, I mean, twice.

‘Well, as a matter of fact, at a recent ballet reception with my grandfather, I met Professor Mustafa and your law professor, what's his name? I should remember, both of them are good friends of the Johannesburg Ballet.'

‘Professor Rack, Shaun Rack,' I said quickly.

‘That's right, and the chamber orchestra conductor, David Levi, was there as well. My grandfather recounted the incident of his junior trainee salesman and the sale of the three Steinways, telling the story to amuse David, and in passing he mentioned your name. Mustafa and Rack reacted almost simultaneously, both calling out your name and exchanging glances in some surprise. Then each told us of the Tom Fitzsaxby they knew, Mustafa laughingly saying that law had stolen you from a potentially spectacular career in medicine, and Rack saying that you were the most brilliant first-year student he could ever remember attending the law faculty. Then, Tom, to everyone's astonishment, Professor Mustafa told us about the way you attended to the needs of the alcoholics in Joubert Park. How they'd huddle for warmth among the steam pipes behind Park Station in the winter where you'd gather up the ones who were sick with pleurisy and other bronchial complaints, and bring them to his hospital's Emergency Department. Then he added the equally astonishing facts that you were an orphan and a scholarship student at the Bishop's College and from necessity spent your school holidays living with these destitute men. He also told us about the faceless beggar and your special care of him until he passed away earlier this year.'

By this time I had turned multiple beetroot, and grabbing the pillow I covered my head in an attempt to conceal my shame. All the hiding out in front had been in vain, people all over the place, the founder old Mr Polliack, Professor Mustafa, Rack, my law professor, and now the prima ballerina from the Johannesburg Ballet all knew everything there was to know about me. ‘Please stop!' I cried out.

It may have been the miracle of the loneliness stones and all the loving earlier that had put me completely off my guard. Pirrou's words had suddenly made me revisit the past and it consumed me. The air around me suddenly filled with the abuse I'd silently accepted at the hands of Mevrou and Meneer Prinsloo. I could hear the laughter and derision and saw myself knocked down, my mouth bleeding and my ears ringing, grovelling at the feet of some bigger kid, looking pleadingly up into his bully grin, apologising for being a murderer of
Boer
women and little children. I saw the light streaming from the window behind the
Dominee
, and the small child that I used to be, trembling at the back of the church as the promise of God's punishment of my kind came in words as blunt as bullets from his thundering pulpit. As Pirrou recounted her conversation with these high-ups, all of this stuff was being resurrected, sharp images roiling around in my consciousness. My careful anonymity had vanished in a puff of magician's smoke and the past had come rushing back to destroy me.

I know you may be wondering how this could be. That I was beginning to sound like some sort of a pathetic neurotic with a penchant for melodrama. But Pirrou's words filled me with a terror that these people she'd mentioned would see right through me, see who I
really
was,
Voetsek
the despised
Rooinek
, untouchable and guilty. Why couldn't I be left alone, just for a little while longer until I became a little stronger? Did they not see that my punishment forever was the harsh cruel words, the never-ceasing hurtfulness that cut deeper into my soul than any
sjambok
ever could my flesh? Did they not understand that the suppuration caused by constant hatefulness came from wounds that never heal? I was unclean, wicked and unlovable, and if they hadn't discovered this yet, they soon enough would, and then what? So much for my being born again and becoming brand-new. My lucky-day fuck had turned out to be my complete undoing. It wasn't just my body that lay naked and exposed in this strange bed with the sun streaming though a picture window – it was my very soul.

Pirrou climbed off me and I immediately turned onto my stomach like a recalcitrant child, discarding the pillow. She lay beside me and began to gently stroke my back. ‘I've said something terribly wrong, haven't I, Tom?' she asked softly.

‘No, it's just me,' I replied. ‘It's difficult for me to accept —'

‘What? Praise?'

‘Yes, I suppose so.'

‘But why, Tom, you have so much to be proud of. You've succeeded against all the odds.'

‘
Ja
, sort of.' I couldn't think of anything further to say. How do you explain all that stuff? ‘It's just that here, today, it's . . . well, it's all so unexpected, overwhelming, like a wonderful accident.'

Pirrou laughed. ‘I have to tell the truth. It was no accident, darling Tom.'

‘How do you mean?'

‘I confess, I asked my grandfather to invite you to the garden party. You see, I wanted to meet you.'

I turned and sat bolt upright. ‘But why, Pirrou? You knew all about me, all that bad stuff!' I decided it was time I attempted to go on the offensive. ‘We come from entirely different worlds! We have absolutely nothing in common!' I said, deliberately raising my voice.

‘I see, I'm the spoilt rich bitch and you're . . . well, never mind . . . is that what you're saying, Tom?' Pirrou shot back, putting me firmly in my place. I lacked the courage to reply, and besides, there was some truth in what she'd just suggested. Then she added, smiling, ‘There you are, you've just caught a glimpse of La Pirouette, the nasty one!'

‘Where's my dog?' I said, alarmed, turning and looking around. I was suddenly ashamed that I hadn't thought of Tinky once since waking up.

‘In the kitchen, Tom. I gave him almost half a leg of lamb to chew on.'

‘He'll be sick,' I said churlishly, then added, ‘We have to go.'

‘It's a long way to walk, Tom.'

‘I've got my bike,' I said, not thinking.

‘It's an even longer walk to my grandfather's place. We left it there, last night, remember?'

What was the use? I wasn't any good at this sort of bickering, even with guys, never mind the opposite sex. So I grinned and looked at Pirrou. ‘I don't remember anything about last night, just the first bit beside the stream, and then trees and lights whizzing by. Did I make a bloody fool of myself?'

‘Oh, Tom, you were delightful, you told me about that lovely sheep farmer from the Karoo and how Union Jack the Zulu played “God Save the King” sixteen times on the pianos.' She hesitated and then said, ‘I'm afraid I quite fell in love with you, darling.'

That was two ‘darlings' in English, a word I'd never had applied to me before. I know people use it all the time, and I was to learn that in ballet circles it was so common among the dancers that even the men used it among themselves and they weren't
all
of them Graham Trubys. ‘I didn't . . . er, brag about the pianos?' I asked, feeling myself blush.

‘No, of course not! You just told a lovely story about a nice man who wanted to buy his wife a gift for loving him so much. It was very touching and it's nice to think this kind of enduring love still exists.' She smiled. ‘Does this mean our first lovers' tiff is over? Will Tinky really be sick?' she asked, switching tack, the two sentences following closely so as to allow the one to ameliorate the other.

‘Yes and no. Tinky will be in doggie heaven. He'd be scratching at the door and yelping long before this if he wasn't gutsing himself.'

‘Come here, Tom,' Pirrou said, her arms reaching out to me. My only hope was that my brain didn't send out the same set of instructions as before, because I would be totally stuffed. She hugged me, then drawing back, planted a kiss on the centre of my forehead. ‘C'mon, let's have a shower and then breakfast, I've stocked up on everything a hungry man could possibly want.' She tilted her head and looked at me questioningly, to see if I realised she'd gone young-guy-grocery-shopping, anticipating my presence at the breakfast table all along. If all women in conquest were as confident and as prescient as Pirrou, a man was a goner for sure.

Thus started the true education of the brand-new, born-again Tom Fitzsaxby, by definition the shiny new handbag attached to Pirrou in good times and La Pirouette in bad ones. I must say right at the beginning of the relationship and in her defence that she was starting out with very crude clay. I guess I possessed an intelligence way above my knowledge of how to behave in the company of Johannesburg's wealthy arts patrons. These consisted of older European Jews, the rich part of the locally born Jewish community and others of the wealthy classes that lived in Houghton Ridge, Sandton and the posh suburbs beyond.

Johannesburg for the wealthy white population was a city that is essentially concerned with money, where the arts became a way of outwardly displaying one's wealth. We were besieged with invitations to cocktail and dinner parties, opera, theatre, symphony concerts, gallery openings, the races, mayoral receptions, parties and the like, and when Pirrou accepted an invitation, her handbag tagged along. She was regarded as good company not only because she was principal dancer in the ballet company, but also because she was a sparkling conversationalist, laughed easily, was witty, had a naughty sense of humour and knew how to flirt with older men. She also possessed wide cultural interests and a very good brain. Added to this, long before it was fashionable for a woman to pick up the instrument, she played the classical guitar very well, and had a clear, clean and pleasant voice. And, of course, she had been right; among the bitchy, of whom there were certainly many, she was referred to not as Pirrou the dancer or ballerina or musician, but as La Pirouette the cradle-snatcher.

Now that I was sharing Pirrou's bed, though at my own insistence, not her home, I had grown in confidence and could soon hold my own in a conversation involving the arts and a number of other topics, including finance, an essential requirement in the City of Gold. I admit, a lot of it was due to my prodigious memory, grown all those years back by learning verbatim the entire contents of the stolen red book. But I was steadily catching up with the actual experience of the arts and was less often sounding like a fake to myself. Literature, of course, had never been a problem, and in addition I was devouring Smelly Jelly's enormously eclectic library as well as reading law. I would sometimes surprise myself with what I apparently knew, or I would make an observation or offer a point of view, often in much older company, that made people seem to stop and take notice.

Pirrou was a hard taskmistress, but a good one; she had a wicked temper and she knew how to humiliate me if I messed up. She worked very hard at her profession and suffered anxiety and depression, and I learned to take a fair bit on the chin. Pirrou and La Pirouette were both very much a part of the relationship. By today's standards, she could be called a control freak. By Mevrou's standards, she was an angel. By my own standards, I was eager as a puppy to learn and to slough off the uncouth mannerisms of the past. This was not because I was a snob, as Pirrou explained. ‘Tom, you're too young and too poor and not influential enough to be crude, rude and lack basic manners. People will judge you initially by what they see and while you may have sufficient intelligence for them to alter their opinion when later they get to know you, why put yourself at a primary and unnecessary disadvantage? You have instinctive good manners, but very poor physical mannerisms. Just remember, in essence, everything people react positively to in life is sound, dance and movement. How you speak, how you hold yourself and how you act.'

She taught me how to cook, to drive and how to dress, although it shamed me that she purchased my clothes. In this I had no choice, I simply lacked the means to dress the way her lifestyle and my associated handbaggery demanded. She tried not to humiliate me, though she often succeeded with her quick temper, impatience and outrageous sense of privilege. Of course, there were a great many compensations, among them perhaps her greatest gift of all – the many ways there are to make love, to always attempt to satisfy her needs and by so doing enhancing my own experience and ultimate joy of sex. She taught me that slow and patient was infinitely more rewarding than what she termed ‘the snorting rhino charge' that so often exemplified the male ego in bed. She also taught me that a rampant phallus isn't the only physical appendage available to bring about coitus or even necessarily the best one available. I can tell you, this, and the various demonstrations and instructions that followed, came as some big surprise!

She would sometimes pick up the guitar and sing me a song. I suppose refrain would be a better word, more in the idiom of the old English ‘Hey nonny no' folksong tradition, for it carried with it a gentle nostalgia.

In the Mood

My love is always ‘in the mood',
His technique is no mystique,
A rhino charge with snorting horn
And then a good night's sleep!