Tomorrow?

My dog George romped through the bracken sniffing out rabbits without a concern about his future. I sat on the hillside wondering if I had one.

It was October 1962. George and I were in a park in West Kirby just outside Liverpool. The Russian ships with missiles aboard were approaching the line President Kennedy had drawn in the sand. The world was on the brink of a nuclear war and Liverpool was bound to be a target. Would my life just be the twenty years I had lived until now, gone literally in a flash?

Until then I had not spend much time contemplating my future except in the broadest terms. I had finished with school when I was fifteen, starting work in the Department of (In)Justice in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe) because I thought I’d like to do law like my grandfather and uncles. That potential career path was interrupted by my being called up for compulsory military training.

Although I had hoped  to avoid this experience, I found that it was not as bad as I had thought  it would be – and even quite enjoyable. The camaraderie was something I had not experienced previously. Attending six schools in different parts of Southern Africa was not conducive to the formation of friendships. I liked the physicality of the training as well as the skills we learned. A year or so after the completion of the nine months basic training, when I was eighteen, I was offered a commission in the Rhodesian Army. It was tempting. Two years at Sandhurst Military College in England; a year serving in a British regiment in one of the outposts of the Empire; free board and lodging and job related clothing for at least five years when I got back to Rhodesia. Not quite the career in law – but what an opportunity to get out of the confines of Rhodesia and see the world.

Fortunately, another pathway to the outside world opened up with my father’s transfer to England. If I went with the family, I assumed I would have the chance gain the legal qualifications I was aiming for in Rhodesia. Not so, as I found after we arrived in England. There were no jobs for trainee lawyers – you had to pay to serve a form of apprenticeship. Taking the easiest route to paying work, I joined the insurance industry, often regarded as the last refuge of the incompetents who couldn’t get into banking. But at least it was a job – and there was the contemplation of the ladder of promotion if you served your time and didn’t blot your copybook.

Now this cosy, but somewhat dull future was threatened by the potential rain of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. Would Khrushchev back off? Would Kennedy hit the launch button if he did not? Was annihilation really likely? Could anyone contemplate that possibility – or probability? Which was it? Complex thoughts for a young man – or at least for me. My only conclusion at the end of my rumination was simply that I should be less concerned about the future, since the future might be so doubtful, and concentrate more on today, tomorrow and, maybe, next week.

The lesson was driven home the following week. George never knew that biting a postman was a capital offence in Britain. He never ran on the hill again.

Racist? Moi?

Growing up in the racist society that was Southern Rhodesia, we children did not initially challenge the basic concept that white people are superior to people who are not white. Indeed some never changed that belief into adulthood or to the grave. We were not taught this, any more than we were taught that  the sun rises in the East, that grass is green and the sky is blue. It is just one of the facts of life that we observed and absorbed. It was only later in life that it slowly dawned on some of us that none of these beliefs is correct.

My initial experiences after I left school at the age of fifteen to start work in the Magistrate’s Court in Salisbury (now Harare) tended to confirm the underlying perceptions of the inferiority of black people. My first appointment was as a junior Clerk of the Criminal Court under the aegis of a gruff retired ex-Indian Army man - The Colonel - who certainly had no doubts about the worthlessness of the people of colour.

My job was to process the criminals, organizing their case files, recording their convictions in the great ledgers – The Colonel insisted on a neat handwriting – and preparing the warrants that would see them go to gaol. There was no doubt that these black people were savages. Who else would turn up at Court one morning with the head of his girlfriend in a shopping bag? The memory of the photographs of the defence wounds in the hands of a white housewife stabbed to death by her black gardener still gives me the shivers. Bone showed through the slashes – how painful would that have been?

In contrast the white customers tended to be old fraudsters, young kids caught with a bit of marijuana, drink drivers still stinking of booze when they signed their bail bonds with a hangdog air. Victimless crimes. Not vicious, savage ones.

Nationalism was on the rise in Rhodesia and the Criminal Court became very busy. Riots became a regular event providing substantial herds of prisoners to be dealt with – and also some sudden death dockets when the police opened fire. The men and women who were to become the leaders of a free Zimbabwe also became frequent visitors as their political speeches became more fiery. Censorship meant that very few of their speeches were reported, but as a curious young Clerk I had access to much of their material. How dare they challenge the authorities in this way?

And yet, the influx of these important people brought with them black lawyers, black journalists, black businessmen to pay the bail. The white journalists who covered court proceedings were a pretty sleazy bunch. Good fun, most of them, but not always entirely abstemious and scruffy in their dress. Some of the white lawyers were not much better – Magistrate’s Court appearances didn’t attract top flight attorneys. In contrast the black people were smartly dressed, very polite and, listening to them in court, apparently more knowledgeable than the bumbling police prosecutors. And certainly more knowledgeable and better educated than I was.

Moving on as part of my training I transformed to a Clerk of Civil Court initially issuing  summons for debt – most of which, to my surprise, related to white people. Knowing how my parents scrimped and saved and paid everything due, I had not expected to finds that so many people simply didn’t. We also dealt with maintenance claims and domestic violence issues here. Although juniors were not allowed to be directly involved in the latter, someone had to do the filing. And what an eye-opener this was for me, who had been taught that raising a hand to a woman was not acceptable. Yet here I read of the cruelty of some men – and white men at that. One expected a black man to be a savage, but these men were white.

Another lesson learned at this time – or perhaps not learned – was how opposing a majority view could lead to problems. In addition to the political problems in Southern Rhodesia, there were similar issues in Nyasaland (now Malawi). In  discussing these in a tea break, the consensus of opinion was that the best way to deal with the troublesome blacks was to mount a heavy machine gun on the back of a truck and shoot every one in sight. That, it was felt, would encourage the others to be more law abiding and less troublesome. When I expressed an opposing view, I was ‘sent to Coventry’ as the saying was at that time. By common agreement, no one spoke to me, all ignored me as if I did not exist. Even my superiors communicated their instructions in writing. Of course all my fellow workers were white. What a way to behave, I thought. A most uncomfortable time for me, although as time went by, there was a relaxation of the ukase.

Moving on I landed up in the Licensing Section. There we dealt with a number of matters, including the issuing of marriage licences and the registration of voters. As far as the voting roll was concerned, most of the new voters registered were black. Until then black people had been disenfranchised, but legislation had recently introducing the concept of a qualified voters roll – anyone who met the educational or financial requirements could have a vote.

As was the case in the Criminal Court, there was a significant contrast between the marriage licence seekers and the voters roll people. Most of the former were white and many of them were pretty seedy – and often none too sober when they fronted us. One well known white farmer tended to re-marry his ex-wife when the crop was good and he was flush – and then divorce her again. In contrast the putative black voters were polite, and even if their clothes were old, they were clean and tidy. Many were much more wealthy than I would expect a black man to be. I started talking to them as I processed them, curious about how they felt about the political issues of the day. Most of them had a very clear idea of what needed to be done; none condoned the violence. The universal thought, expressed in many ways was “We want to see change for the sake of our children.”

My conversion was not Pauline. All those years of input absorbed as a child cannot be overturned in a couple of years of teenage observation, but I was pointed in a direction that would see me gradually realising how simply wrong it was to judge any person by observable differences – and to realise that sometimes majority views were untenable.

JACKIE The Fishing Dog

When I was a boy in Fish Hoek, just outside Cape Town, all the fish were caught by tanned old men who used rowing boats to take their nets out in a huge half circle off the beach.  One of their number would perch high on the hillside, waiting to spot a shoal coming into the bay, whilst the rest lounged on the beach, smoking and chatting in the shade of their craft. Wrinkled and grizzled, their faces reflected the rich mix of races resulting from the centuries when the Cape of Storms occupied a prime position as the staging post between the Spice Islands and Europe. A shrill whistle would be the signal for the action to begin and would bring the kids from all around to watch. The heavy boats would be launched and rowed through the breakers, paying out rope and net as they closed in on the fish, guided like kelpies at sheep trials by the whistles from the man on the hill.

Watching from the beach, we would see them turn and know that the fun was to begin. Surfing in on the waves, the man at the stern still frantically paying out the nets, they would beach the boats, leap into the water and begin to haul on the lines. Some of the older and bolder kids would attach themselves to the end of a rope to give the straining men a hand. The rest of us would be trying to spot the size of the catch as the nets swept in. Silver would start to show as they got closer, the mass of mackerel and mullet struggling and jumping in an effort to escape their fate. If the catch was really big, you could try and grab escaping fish as the school was hauled up onto the beach. But you had to be quick and there had to be a lot of fish if you wanted to avoid the horny hand of an irate fisherman.

But then came the day of the mammoth catch. Years later the old boys would recall, with ever increasing inaccuracy, how many fish were hauled in that day. They said that there had never been a day like it before, or since. Certainly for those of us on the beach it was a marvellous time.

We could tell from the air of excitement and the exclamations of the men on the ropes that something special was happening. As the nets came closer we began to understand the growing stir. There were fish everywhere. We could see nothing but silver. Some were trying to escape from the encircling trap, swimming in a panic towards the beach. The kids starting diving on the fish, trying to catch them, grabbing their shirts and using them as makeshift traps. Then the adults joined in, as the word spread throughout the village. The numbers of fish were growing all the time. I was in with the best of them. I caught a couple and took them up to the beach before pounding back into the boiling waves. As I did so, the nets burst. Fish streamed past me as I stood, up to my waist in the waves, desperately trying to grab them.

The fishermen still keeping at their work in the midst of the pandemonium slackened off on the one end of the line and frantically hauled on the other until the damaged net was on the shore. This spilled even more fish into the shallows. There were so many fish and people about by now that I just sat on the shore watching the show. My dog Jackie was with me. I thought for years that he was a husky - I had been reading a lot of Jack London when I got him - and I suppose if miniature huskies are ever bred, they  might look like him with his shaggy pelt and his tail curled over flat on his back. It had not always done this. He got it caught in a slamming door one day and broke it badly. We all howled in sympathy as he ran, whimpering, to my mother for comfort.

He had been guarding my towel until I had grabbed it to carry my catch and now he was off to join in the melee. His first trophy was a mackerel which had been killed in the crush and which was floating limply at the waters edge. He brought it to me, pausing only for a quick pat before dashing back to the sea. I watched him bounding about, snapping at the elusive prey and suddenly he had one! A fat mullet, slower than the rest. Grinning from ear to ear, Jackie trotted up the beach and laid it at my feet and watched it flip and flop in the sand.

I never forgot that day and neither did he. Show him any patch of water bigger than a bird bath and he would wade it for hours, searching fruitlessly for another prize. Occasionally in the rock pools a frightened tiddler would dash from one hiding place to another. Jackie would make a grab, but he never landed another one.

I feel like Jackie sometimes, when I am down. I feel that I am searching for something I once had. I am not sure whether I am looking in the right place or whether it is just a memory that I am hoping will return. Maybe I am like all old men.

BEING BACK - KALK BAY 1995

I wrote another piece - HOME AGAIN - THE CAPE 1995- soon after we returned to South Africa from Australia in 1995. This shorter piece was written several months later after my return to Kalk Bay from a business trip back to Australia. The first shot below shows Kalk Bay from the air, with the mountain track at the top right of the picture. The second shows our house from the sea.

Kalk Bay from the air

Our house has the white gable just above the tin roof

 

The dogs scamper ahead. This is their first walk for over of a week - and mine. I am surprised that the king protea which was budding is not yet blooming because all the other fynbos is. Masses of purple and pink - heath, erica and broom are beginning to paint the mountainside. Here and there yellow flowers which I have not yet identified punctuate the scene.

The sun has not yet risen, although  dawn colours the horizon. It surprises me to learn so late in life that the sun does not rise in the same place every day. Should I have known that it moves along the line of the horizon, heading in a northerly direction now that autumn is approaching?

Sunrise over the Hottentots Hollands Mountains

In the gathering light the drizzle clouds drifting in from the sea become clearer. One obscures the tanker still anchored in the bay, waiting with its minder tug for repairs to be completed. We may get damp today.

The dogs have disappeared up the track. I call and whistle and Tolkien, the pup, comes hurtling down towards me, eyes bright, grinning his happiness, his long pink tongue lolling. A quick lick and he is off again to join Pushkin in sniffing some interesting droppings. This certainly knocks the spots off the car yards of Elsternwick, their previous beat.

The path begins to rise quite steeply, but I press on quickly, trying to iron out the kinks from a 24 hour flight. As the sun rises behind me, it gets quite warm and the cloud which envelopes us all as we reach the top of the track is welcoming, even if it does cause my glasses to mist.

Pushkin is missing again. Normally a laggard, his enforced idleness has rejuvenated him and he has been foraging ahead far and wide. But now it is not clear which path has he taken. The pup and I wait for him to put in an appearance in response to my summons. Up in Echo Valley, the Jesus singers have started early. Maybe they camped there last night and this is their praise for a new day. Pushkin finally shows up at the bottom of the path wondering what is keeping us. I call him up to me, just to show him who is boss. Puffing and panting he finally makes it.

The mist clears and Kalk Bay harbour lies at our feet. Most of the boats are out, so the fishing must be good. Perhaps we can get some fresh fish for lunch. What will Matt and Danni make of this view when they come at Xmas? I mustn't forget to remind them to bring walking shoes.

Kalk Bay Harbour with Simon's Town across the Bay

We head down the hill to breakfast and a swim. How could I have stayed away so long? How long will this  euphoria last?

HOME BOY

                                                               

 I wrote this for a short story competition. Didn't come in as a winner, so it's probably pretty hopeless, but it does reflect some of my views on life!!

"Maybe this was not such a good idea after all," thought Gwen. Alone in the carriage, she knitted furiously, rocking with the rhythm of the train as it hurtled through the night. "What will I do if the wrong kind of person gets on at the next stop?"

She had felt so helpless, so dependent on the family since Jim had died. They were good to her but she could not expect her children and grandchildren to live her life for her. Finally the urge to get out of the confines of her unit had overcome her fear. That had been instilled by the thick black headlines in the papers, telling of crime in the city and on the trains. Jim had always said it was nonsense, that things were not really that bad. But what if he was wrong? He was not here now to help her. So she had booked a seat for the new David Williamson play, in what now seemed a moment of madness. She had set off on her own, confident that she was mistress of her destiny. But that had been when the soft evening light had cast a benevolent glow on the scenery as she had sped by from her suburban safehouse. Now it was dark and cold.  Stations flashed by every intermittently, unlit and deserted.

The train slowed and stopped. The doors hissed open. Gwen glanced up nervously. There was no one on the platform. The doors started to close. The sound of running feet and  raucous shouts heralded a mob of young men. They shoved the doors back and burst into the carriage like a pack of young Rottweilers. Gwen recognised their uniform - the baggy pants, shirts tied around their waists, baseball caps on back to front. These were the home boys her newspapers had told her about. These were the people who bashed and stole from anyone and everyone. She gripped her knitting needles tighter. At least she could use them to ward off the first attack.

One of the young men glanced her way. He turned to his companions and made some remark which set them guffawing like a bunch of hyenas. Pushing and shoving, they made their way to the other end of the carriage. As he came towards her, Gwen saw that he had a funny smile on his face. His eyes glinted. She dropped her eyes to her knitting as he banged down into the seat opposite her.

"Howyer goin'?", he said.

"Good," she replied, not looking up.

"I wanna speak to you." Something in his tone made Gwen look up sharply.  She saw that his eyes were swimming - was this the effect of the crack she had read about? "When I saw you sitting there, I thought you were my Nanna. But then I remembered. My Nanna is gone. She died last month. "  Tears started coursing down the young man's cheeks.

Gwen bundled her knitting away. Sitting next to the lad she held him while he sobbed out his sadness and his grief. " Men", she thought, "they are all really little boys at heart. Even home boys."

WALKIES IN THE FALL

I wrote this soon after we got back to Australia at about this time of the year - one of my favourites. Like Goldilock's porridge, not too hot, not too cold!

 

The dogs leap out of the car. They usually all but disappear into the morning pre-dawn gloom. Just their pale scuts and three patches of grey show where they are sniffing the scents du joure. But  today there is a full moon still shining, casting shadows as they scurry along. It’s a blue moon – the second full moon this month and I’m humming Blue Moon of Kentucky as I follow them. That takes me back about 50 plus years – what was her name? Norma Jacobs, that’s it! She didn’t leave me blue – I never had a clue.

We set off around the oval. A minimum of three laps every day, rain or shine. Well…. shine in summer but not at this tail end of daylight saving. We’re still about ten minutes from sunrise and there’s no sign of the dawn yet. Drizzle forecast: drizzle unlikely. It’s been a strange summer. Coldest night; hottest day; 100 year storm; snow on the mountains; hail in the city. Hail as big as macadamia nuts, as big as golf balls, as tennis balls, as grapefruit. We’re in autumn now and cool weather should be on its way soon. How good will winter be?

Where are the boys? Bilbo is under the bushes behind the  cricket nets. He’s hunting out the cricket balls the cricketers can’t be bothered to find in this throwaway age. His collection at home – more than two dozen. The tennis balls don’t last as long. He thought his Christmases had all come together the day he found an abandoned football on the oval. The other two are exploring their own patches. The grass yesterday was tall enough to hide a small schnauzer. The mowers came in and cut straw is everywhere, apparently releasing delightful aromas.

Other shadows are circulating around the oval. Some have been making this daily trek for 12 years and more. They’re old pals and we’re the newcomers. Some stride out clockwise; some anti-clockwise. Some we meet regularly; some we rarely meet. Our first encounter today is with the Oriental lady Ken calls ‘little lady’ having forgotten her name. She’ll join up with Janine who emigrated from Malaysia at the age of 70 and eighteen years later still battles with English. Their chirping Mandarin always sounds birdlike.

Under the enormous overhanging branch of the eucalyptus now. I don’t walk this way in high winds. That branch will come down one day. The parakeets are still asleep. Soon the sun will wake them and they will screech their way through a breakfast of gum nuts. Julie is scurrying towards me. She has the haste of the White Rabbit and always has a shopping bag. What can she buy at this hour of the morning? Husband Tom is a bushie and seems to wistfully yearn for the country life.

No sign of the Happy Hippos  today. School holidays maybe. Normally, as they lumber around the oval under the watchful eye of their personal trainer my boys eye them, wondering if there is game on for them. There were seven, but only three turned up last week.

We’re walking past the road now. Not much traffic pre-Easter, but the peloton of cycles we see every workday whirs past, heads down pushing up the slight rise. The umbrella ladies, yellow rain suits on all winter, greet the boys. Catherine catches up with them. ‘You’re gorgeous’, is her standard greeting to Gandalf who welcomes her with a yap. Ken limps up as we chat to Catherine and gets his greeting from the boys. His hip op didn’t help much and, widowed last year after 50 years plus he’s a lonely man. Two sons, one interstate, one a wastrel. “Maybe I’ve lived long enough”, he said one morning. Antonia is waiting for him as we complete the first lap. She’s there most mornings.

A cluster of Mediterranean women approach, all in black, all chattering happily. Rudolf, who regards himself as something of a park guard, sniffs them and passes them as friends. On we go. There’s Dexter, the smooth haired husky shining in the moonlight, romping on the oval; here is young Liz, badly injured when she was run down by a drunk driver one evening as she left uni. She’s with Gerda who  gives the dogs a wide berth. Very wary of dogs. Not so Rena who is off to Britain tomorrow and farewells the dogs, telling them she’ll see them on her return. Old Viv with her constant companion, a rescue dog Dolly is waiting for us. Rudolf dashes off with Dolly and I stroll with Viv, matching her slow pace. The doctors still don’t know what is wrong with her, but she is fading by the day.

We leave Viv and Dolly as we get going on the last lap. The sky is quite bright now and details of our surrounds are seen more clearly. The parakeets are in full squawk. Kevin steps out on the first of his eleven laps, waving a greeting, too busy to stop. The Grumpy Man and the Ghastly Dog loom into sight, but luckily go on their way to the shops. We avoid the unpleasantness of  the snarling dog.

All is well with the world as we get back to the car. The boys seem to enjoy their daily walks despite the repetition. Do they ever think fondly of their hikes over the mountains? Surely the scents would be more exciting there? Or is it only humans who find it difficult to live for today?

SOUNDS & SMELLS & MEMORIES

With Chess playing on the CD, I am suddenly transported half a world and a decade away to the Lowveldt of Zimbabwe. I played the tape non-stop as I drove Rab's Mini non-stop from Pretoria to Harare - a trip of about 1100 kilometres in eleven and a half hours damaging my coccyx permanently in the process. Six foot three of corpulence does that in a Mini. I could still find the spot  today - the bump which did the damage as I hit it at about 120 kph - about top speed for the Mini - with the love duet playing on the tape.

Funny how sounds and smells do that. Conjure up such crystal clear memories. I often wonder about Matt's sense of smell. I remember telling him, before he and Rab went to Germany where I was to meet up with them for the first leg of our first overseas trip that he should try and remember the smells as well as the sights - to use as many of his senses as he could. I do not have a great nose, but there are many odours which are evocative for me - the rain on the dust of the Zimbabwe high plateau: the scent of coffee brewing takes me immediately to the cold morning air in a Zurich square having just come off an overnight flight from Africa: the unmistakable esurience of lamb chops being grilled on an open fire - but these are pretty gross aromas compared to the fine distinctions which he can make. He can recognise dozens of perfumes and aftershaves hours later. Did he always have this ability which I unconsciously recognised when passing on my advice? Or did he start concentrating on smell as a concept as a result of the trip.

I guess it was a latent faculty because his ear is also so much keener than mine and he probably has more memories stored by sound and smell than I. Yet we still remember differing things, even when we shared experiences.

For me, the main source of sound memories is in songs. I can never hear "We'll Gather Lilacs" without thinking of Dad, and the two of us walking down the leafy path to the beach at Nahoon - why? I must have been very young - maybe that was just after he got back from the war and I was still coming to grips with no longer being the centre of attraction, yet it is a happy memory unlike the doleful "Four Legged Friend" which he whistled sadly after a blue with Mom. We used to mock him in later life whenever he started this one, offering him a horse hair shirt to go with the mood.

Funny that there are no tunes I associate with Mom except "Buy My Flowers". I can remember the last time she sang that, in our house in Fish Hoek. The sadness of the tune and in her voice reduced me to tears and before we knew it Steve and Ang, my brother and sister were also bawling their eyes out, rather like the time many years later when a suitcase fell on Mom's head on the train outside Bulawayo and knocked her out. She laughed when retelling the story because the first thing she saw on regaining her senses was four open mouths bellowing fit to bust.

And of course there is only one song that all our friends remember my darling old Anthea by - "The Way We Were" and the way she would belt it out late at night especially when we were all young and full of good red Cape wine. We had a tape with seven different versions and she would play that right through if you would let her, like the evening I sat next to the turntable and, according to the neighbours who were the only sober people within earshot, played "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" fourteen times in succession. I still like that tune.