Sample

Chapter 1
    
    Child of Mine

October peach trees peppered the landscape like pink frilly skirts. The air filled with the song of morning. The bare earth heard their coming. Some of the women, their toes pressing the soft sandy gradients, gathered grasses as they approached. Round their skirts, children clung. Babies folded into blankets, some asleep, rocked against their mothers’ backs. The women stopped singing and halted by the big gate. The guards looked on, roused from night duty, wondering what message this small chorus wanted to deliver.
    They gathered like a flock of birds around the high wire fence, eyes peering through the bars like nervous sparrows. Then it began.
    “White ladies, please listen to us. We look after de children, we cook for you…” voices pleading, striving to keep their dignity, called through the high wire fence.
    “We are good maids. We clean de house and work for you, please give us now a job - we are hungry….”
    The voices went on calling. One of them had jewellery to sell so I went down to the gate to buy trinkets. I liked the girl who made earrings made from copper wire (probably stolen from the site.) She and I had exchanged greetings several times in the past few months when she came with her clever pieces of crafted jewellery. These women faced dilemmas which we could not possibly understand. Poverty and sickness dictated their lives.
    How could we say to them, “ It will be better when the dam is built. You will have electricity in your homes. Your farmers will have irrigation for their crops. The people will have jobs.”
    A mist of silver dew spread along the lower slopes and dazzled like jewels in the grass. In the far distance snow still lingered on the highest peaks. The mountains listened, hearing the pain of their womenfolk. In October families must have seed for the next harvest. If they have no money there is no seed. Sometimes the people are so hungry they eat the seeds and there are none to plant. Sometimes the seed vanishes into the thin soil and is washed away by the heavy rains. Their men folk are probably away working in the gold mines in South Africa. The Mosotho woman must do the best she can – alone. She waits for months, sometimes years, for her man to come home.
    
    My husband Barrie and I had moved to a house on the slopes of the Lowlands of Lesotho, and domestic help had not been on our agenda. But this was Africa. Expatriate wives were expected to have one - if not two - cleaning ladies. And perhaps a garden boy.
    Betty was employed on the basis that I didn’t need a maid but she needed the money. On the day we hired her, Mrs Mojoro explained that she had three children and was expecting baby number four, promising to work throughout her pregnancy and continue after the birth. That was the deal. Betty’s deal.
    This new reality had hit me like a kick from a bad tempered mule. Maids and garden boys had never before been part of my vocabulary. Desperately, I tried to make sense of the things which were the very bedrock of South African society in 1997. I had stumbled into a history book and the pages fell open before me.
    Betty was large and lovely. Wearing a blue dress and scarf to match, sporting frizzy hair which refused to be brushed, she stepped inside the door, arms akimbo, and radiated a smile as wide as the Orange River. Her bright eyes sparkled with determination. We agreed to pay her the going rate. She would start on Monday.
    Betty’s grasp of cleaning and polishing was simple. Make dust. Madam pleased. Patting her belly proudly and stretching wide apron twice round midriff, my new maid harnessed herself to the vacuum cleaner as in frigate pulling yacht out to sea.
    “Lumela ’M’e. Today I will make you as clean as a pin. I will take the bedrooms first. My work is very fast.”
    We had three bedrooms off a central hall which was wide enough for an elephant to pass through. A tin of Brasso at the ready and polishing rags stuffed down every pouch and pocket – Betty hitched up her abdomen and launched into the attack. A small framed charcoal print hanging opposite the kitchen was the first to fall off the wall. A cloud of dust rose into the air and set off the smoke alarm. Clearly she was happy, as chair after chair was swung across the hall and polished to the tune of some illuminating gospel song.
    “White ladies like shiny furniture,” she chorused, as with gusto the beeswax was ladled onto the top of my already polished dining room table, in ice-cream cornet scoops. Betty had no idea why we needed so many pieces of paper, known as letters or bills, sitting on the sideboard. Nor could she possibly know that Barrie was a tidy person and liked things in date order. Papers were for collecting together and filing behind the sofa out of sight. There was a slight blip in domestic harmony, when bills were not paid on time due to Betty’s filing system.
    Cheerfully, she washed the dishes with the same amount of water other people used to hose down their cars. In her village there were no taps and water had to carried in buckets from a stand pipe - and it was cold. Hot water, a sink and ‘Fairy Liquid’ was Betty’s washing heaven.
    It took us a while to get used to each other. From Betty I learned my first Sesotho phrases. She taught me what a Sangoma was, how the women planted vegetables and how to barter for fruit in the market. Her spoken English improved by the week On hot days during the long months of her pregnancy, she would finish the ironing on the stoep where it was cool and there she would hum softly to herself while straightening the clothes..
    “Can you tell me de English name for my baby ’M’e? I will practise saying it. The name must be not common.”
    This went on for months. Her stomach grew large and most days she suffered from hiccups. We went through all the names: David, Edward and Christopher. Daniel, John and Richard.. Betty repeated them over and over again to herself, pressing the name rhythmically into Barrie’s shirts.
    “No ’M’e - it is not the right one.”
    
    It was Easter Saturday. Petros, our Chief Engineer and Director of Infestations (to give him his full title) came running to tell me there was a lady at the security gate who would not leave until she had seen me. She was a Mosotho lady and wanted to hand me a note. Consumed with curiosity, Petros hung about until I read it to him.
    The note read: ‘Miss Glen I will not be at wok, my child is born. Betty.’
    “It is from Mrs Mojoro, Petros – her time has come.”
    A look of genuine concern fell over his face. He was very fond of my maid. The staff always loved to hear of the birth of a baby; for them it was a time for celebration.
    Early the next morning, carrying a parcel of cotton wool, blankets, soap and a bunch of cosmos, I walked across the field leading to the hospital, past the large tree where people were gathering – for it was Easter Day. From the hospital building I could hear the hum of voices. Tiptoeing inside the entry door to the maternity ward, I was greeted by a sea of black faces. Patients and visitors alike were sitting on the ground. They filled the whole corridor. Pregnant girls who looked ready to drop their babies any minute, old ladies, men in wheelchairs, small children wearing frothy organza dresses snuggled against adults in bible black cloaks, all singing their hymn of Easter morning; ‘Christ is risen, Christ will come again’ in English.
    Faces turned to stare at me and children whispered. A white stranger making for the maternity ward would have seemed unusual. A sudden tide of homesickness pressed against my chest. African voices sang loudly, praising God for his love. I was unable to swallow. Tears pricked my eyes. My thoughts sprang to another Easter four years ago. Easter 1993, when Barrie and I first met. A village churchyard in Hertfordshire, where, during every spring, petals of blossom cling round the mossy trunks of the old cherry trees like pink coronets. Our place. Six thousand miles away. Together we had come to Africa ….and now The Mountain Kingdom was our home.
    
    In the next bed to Betty was a women whose baby had been born dead. Scenes of torment and misery were acted out in the same room in the hours which followed. Privacy was not catered for. While one mother glowed with pride at her healthy baby son, another was wracked with pain and cried pitifully for most of the night.
    The plain grey walls of the hospital corridors stared down as I hurried to find her. In the grim recesses of the maternity wing, Betty’s child had been born. A child weighing 2.6 kilograms - a child to whom I had been asked to give a name. Inside the rough blanket, a tiny scrap of life screwed up his face and turned a velvet head to his new world.
    “Look ’M’e…. my baby son.,” whispered Betty, as I bent to see inside the folds of cloth beside her. My heart was thumping. “He is alive….I prayed he would be born before you came…..it was one o’clock in the night. His name will be Oliver – it is the one I liked the best of all the names. The nurses - they were kind to me ’M’e because you paid for my delivery. Thank you and Mr Barrie.” Her head went down and her words soaked into the pillow. For a few moments a bond of silent weeping engulfed us. It was a promise kept.
    “Betty, he was born on Easter Day. He’s a really special baby…mm…Oliver… I like it. Come on, wipe your eyes.”
    Large tears splashed onto her brown hands and I saw the lines of exhaustion on her strong face. She looked pale. But there was still that spark of determination to make the best of everything – money or no, husband or no husband. Oliver, the brother of four-year-old Margaret would be taken to the tin shack up in the shanty village. So long as he didn’t take an infection in the first two weeks, he should survive.
    “…. I will go to see my mother in Maputsoe today. She will look after me…. I will come back to work soon ’M’e. I can send my cousin to do the work if you need a maid.”
    “Don’t worry Betty, when you are well, come back to us. Your job is safe. Now let me hold Oliver and see how tiny he is. Do you want me to bring the baby clothes this afternoon?”
    “No ’M’e,” she hesitated and lowered her voice to a whisper, “new clothes will be stolen in the hospital. Please, I only like one blanket.”
    The news filled me with dismay. Levels of poverty were so extreme, that stealing was commonplace. Even here. That Betty had an English visitor to her bedside would have already been noticed. Jealousies arose between womenfolk when favours became known. Women who could not pay were not given a hospital confinement. They must do the best they can in their own homes.
    Straw hard mattresses and no bedding to speak of, dysfunctional taps and toilets, insufficient nursing staff, all indicated a lack of money in the system. The burden of Betty’s problems had just been staved off for a few days. Soon she would be out there facing the world. No one supported her financially. Like thousands of other African women, my maid was caught in the poverty trap. Her job on camp was her only salvation.
    “Betty, how will you manage at home with baby Oliver?”
    It will be okay ‘M’e he will sleep with Margaret and me. In our country a mother helps her daughter. The men – they drink too much,” she answered with a dismissive wave of her hand.
    Her man of was one of those, but she would not name and shame.
    
    * * * *
    
    I had never planned to come to Africa. It was the last place on earth I had ever expected to find myself. My roots were well and truly in England. There was no hidden traveller in me. Foreign countries existed in my mind as places where other people went. The sun fried my skin and multiplied my freckles. Funny insects bit me.
    Slogging happily away at our chosen future, my partner’s new appointment had come like a bolt from the blue. A move from our base in South London could not have been further from our thoughts. Cemented into mortgage repayments, family commitments and a suburban garden which demanded nothing less than a course in grave digging before planting, we were putting down roots for the next ten years. Somewhere between the galloping Russian vine and laying a concrete base for a garden shed, the earth under our feet moved. A kind of divine intervention had scalded us, something sharp and painful – yet exhilarating, disturbing. It was our first parting, our first emotional prod.
    Barrie and I had taken out our first late-in-life loan in March 1996 and acquired an elegant Victorian flat in an elegant Victorian street in Beckenham, Kent. After investing in new garden chairs and a concrete mixer, we spent hours discussing prospective gin and tonic evenings sitting on the south facing veranda, which we hadn’t built yet. When, two months later, my other half was sent his marching orders to drop everything and go build a dam in Lesotho as part of his international status agreement, he took the first available flight to Johannesburg and left me clutching a wet hanky in one hand and a copy of ‘Romantic Herb Gardens’ in the other.
    “For Heaven’s sake” said my sister, “he’s only gone for three weeks!”
    A sense of pure loneliness engulfed me and like the gas boiler in our kitchen, everything shut down. There didn’t seem any point in cooking for one. On the windowsill, unwatered seedlings shrivelled in their infancy and plastic wrapped roses were left to wilt. My children took to ringing me up every day - a sure sign that all was not well.
    Exactly twenty one days after Barrie’s departure, something approaching insanity propelled me onto a flight to South Africa. Me and a small bag of unsuitable clothes. And maybe a very small miracle. Without a backward glance at sunken garden or worried bank manager, I embarked on my first real life adventure. Beckenham to South Africa in three days with no forward planning and the wrong clothes, has to be a record of some sort.
    Aboard the flight to Johannesburg, my emotions still dangling in the free fall position, feeble thoughts of my school geography lessons chased through my mind - images of elephants in the bush, crocodiles and swamps .….leeches, scorpions, snakes. What was I doing? This sudden surge of adventure in mid-life had nothing to do with Miss Beale’s geography lessons at the Percy Jackson Grammar School in Doncaster, and everything to do with hormones. My man had been sent on a job and that’s where I wanted to be. I knew absolutely nothing about Africa and even less about The Kingdom of Lesotho.
    Leaving a warm rosy summer in England, carried out with my usual brand of optimism and lack of planning, was probably the most painful way of being introduced to an African winter. Travel guides are helpful if you have time to read them, but in three days flat, with a buttock full of typhoid and tetanus and a frenetic farewell to friends and family, not even a passing ‘Lonely Planet’ reached my brain. Booking myself onto a flight with South African Airways, carrying a small suitcase containing a few pairs of shorts, a bottle of Factor 30 sun cream and little else, galvanised me into a whole new cycle of energy which confounded even my closest friends.
    After the shock of my arrival (“God, Nettie, I know you’re spontaneous, but this is crazy…..yes of course I’m pleased to see you!”) and the teary joyful reunion in Johannesburg Airport Arrivals’ lounge, Barrie’s company phoned to offer us a solution. A rented house in the nether regions of Fouriesburg, a small town in the Free State. What we could not have known was that an unexpected snowfall – the worst in twenty seven years – was imminent and would completely cover the mountains.
    For six days we were marooned in the icy grip of winter. All the power in the region had gone off. Six foot snow drifts were all we could see from our window and candles were in extremely short supply. There was only one thing to do – make an igloo in the garden. An engineer’s igloo, built to scale. This housed our food rations, which were slowly deteriorating without a fridge. Our house was icy cold and a visit to the bathroom in the middle of the night was the equivalent of a mad dash to the North Pole. Had it not been for Baden Powell’s survival techniques, casually learned at Caterham5th Scout Camp during a previous summer, we would have been perilously close to disaster. Hilarity and a supply of good humour threw us together in the teeth of the storm.
    Next door’s Alsation dog was frozen into his kennel. His pathetic howls could be heard during the night like wolves across the prairie. Like a scene from Dr Shivago, Fouriesburg Jail on the opposite side of the road must have been the only safe house where prisoners were happy to be locked up.
    As soon as main roads were passable, we received instructions from the company to move from Fouriesburg to a new home in Lesotho, which meant we would be nearer to Barrie’s job. With ice on the road and more snow forecast, we embarked on a dangerous journey across the South African border complete with entire possessions packed into the boot of our car. This journey was to be my initial introduction to Lesotho, the Mountain Kingdom.
    At snail’s pace, we made our way across the Caledon River Bridge, in the dazzling afternoon sun, feasting our eyes for the first time on the majestic peaks of the Maluti Mountains. We stopped at the side of the road to take a long look.
    I had never seen anything so beautiful. There were hardly any trees, no fences, no towns, just open vistas of pure dazzling whiteness rolling away to a rim of hills and then higher peaks in the distance. Nothing could have prepared us for this dramatic landscape. The purple streak of a pine forest showed on the horizon like a piece of driftwood on white sand.
    “Isn’t it stunning… magnificent. The snow is actually blue,” I gasped. “But where are the people?”
    Herd boys with their goats were out on the slopes, seeking the few patches of grass where the snow had melted. They waved at us from underneath woolly hats. Miniature dwellings, higher up, looked like silver thimbles threaded together along the ledges of rock. The sky was ice-pink. It was love at first sight
    We were travelling through a silent world, the only beings alive on this planet or so we felt. The road dipped and rose in front of us. Homesteads stood along the low slopes, grouped together under traditional thatch, a horse or a donkey tethered in the yard. Some of the houses were square with tin roofs. After a time, the translucent pearly twilight which precedes night descended onto the mountain. A few women passed us carrying water pots on their heads.
    Our progress was slow and slippery. Only another ten kilometres to go My excitement grew with every bend in the road. The temperature was dropping fast. No vehicles passed going the other way. Rubbing the ice off the car window, I peered out. On the outskirts of Leribe, families who lived in villages near the road were preparing their evening fires. Every now and then a fountain of live embers showered the frosty night. The sky was damson. Daylight had almost gone.
    “Look at that sky full of snow Barrie,” I said softly, drawing my blanket closer. “They must be so cold cooking outside on a night like this.”
    Our journey had taken three hours. We pulled up outside the main gate of Leribe Camp. Someone stepped out of the darkness and shone a torch in our faces.
     “Come in folks, we’re expecting you..” said an English voice. “The electricity’s gone off, sorry about that – often happens here. Come this way. I’ll show you to your house.”
    
    Life on camp had been an enigma at first. Living at a height of 1,700 metres, initially we were a little breathless, but quickly readjusted to breathing pure air and revelled in our new- found love of the Mountain Kingdom. The fact that the electricity supply crashed every few days, phones didn’t work, and hardly anyone spoke English was a little disconcerting. Having to travel in convoy was new to me. Gossip and rumours circulated wildly about hijacks and company cars being stolen. But the construction work had to go on.
    The engineers were here to build dams so that water from the Highlands of Lesotho could flow into South African reservoirs to alleviate the problem of drought in the exploding industrial city of Johannesburg. Where the Senqu River rose, high in the Maluti Mountains would be the source of that water and in future years, the installation of electricity supplies with the added bonus of stable employment, would be the reward.
    Katse Dam, the largest in the scheme, had already been built. Our contribution was to bring about the impounding of a second dam at Muela in the north, the new water transfer system with an underground hydro-electric power station that would generate electricity to supply the entire needs of Lesotho.
    Barrie’s job was in the underground powerhouse at the Muela site. His involvement in planning the future programming of the power station was challenging work and often necessitated long journeys and tight schedules. Seeing him off at the crack of dawn with a hard hat and a packet of sandwiches became a regular routine. For him, it would be a twelve hour day. He would arrive home after sundown, tired and caked in white dust from the site, with a raging thirst. I could contribute nothing towards hydro-power and transfer tunnel deadlines, but I made it my business to organise early evening swims before a hearty supper, keep the wine cupboard well stocked and plan for leisurely Sundays – Barrie’s only day off.
    
    * * * *
    
    It was four weeks since Oliver was born - or one moon. Betty had counted her pregnancy in moons. Her illnesses came in moons and she counted her money in moons. Three moons to a new pair of shoes. Time doesn’t get any more specific than this in Africa.
    I saw her approaching the verandah steps one hot afternoon.
    “Lumela’M’e, I have brought my new son….he is now ready to greet you.”
    “Hello Betty, come on in. Let me look at Oliver. It’s good to see you well again.”
    Her beaming maternal smile told me everything.
    “Wait there one moment.” I ducked under the vines around the verandah and went inside the house. There in the drawer lay the gift. I took it out of its paper and felt the softness against my cheek.
    A shy smile came over Betty’s face. Her dark eyes shone. Slowly, she bent forward, her legs planted comfortably apart on the wooden floor. She picked up Oliver and placed him face down on her back. Skilfully she drew the soft blanket around herself, taking him expertly into the folds and then, tying the corners of the cloth firmly in a knot on her stomach. She stood up.
    “Today I have de gold coin and I am singing de song of happiness. My baby will be warm, even in cold winter night. In Sesotho we call this thing mohlolo ’M’e.” (a miracle) Betty had come to ask if she could have her old job back. “Oliver will come with me.” As she rocked to and fro a tiny cry came from within the folds of the blanket. “For feeding, I will sit outside on the stoep ’M’e,” she murmured, “in case I am not agreeing with you.”
    It was settled. Oliver would visit us three times a week and I would watch him grow. She had no income other than from her jobs on the camp. Her partner offered her neither financial nor emotional support and she spent her life trying to avoid him. This was the only solution for Betty. She needed to keep her job. And her pride. Her two older children lived with their grandmother. She only saw them once every moon.
    “If you like Oliver can have his bath every day in our sink. He must begin life with a clean face,” I suggested .
    “Yes, ’M’e I would be glad of it.”
    We walked together towards the camp entrance where the duty guards opened the big gates to let her out. We parted agreeably and the liquid brown eyes of her baby peered out of the blanket at his new world. The grinding poverty the child had been born into was no fault of his.
    “Khotso ’M’e Ke le boha”, (peace and Blessings)
    “Come soon,” I replied gently.
    She walked away down the dusty track and across the tussocky grass where the cows were tethered. A patch of cosmos caught the breeze and fluttered pink and white by the high wire fence which marked the perimeter of our camp. The afternoon was hot and the mountains glimmered blue in the distance. The May wind was picking up and in less than an hour the afternoon storms would lash into the eucalyptus trees and the rains would fill the hard - baked dykes around the camp until the road became a yellow swamp.
    She didn’t come the following day. Or the next. No word came from her. Then on the night of the new crescent moon, she came walking to the gate of the camp. Beams of silver lay on the ground as she came swiftly across the lawns. The small shape of Oliver lay close to his mother as she passed by the window. Hercule, our neighbour’s large black wolfhound, waved a ghostly tail as the moonlight caught his shadow. His bark was silent as our visitors disappeared into the rondavel where the maids always slept.
    Betty came back to work fresh and in good spirits, carrying Oliver with her. I would hear him cry every now and again when she sat on the stoep to feed him.
    Most days after lunch, we would have our language lessons at the big table under the green baize roof where the sun fell in bright shafts onto the floor. With Oliver on my lap - tightly bound in his cloth, I felt sure that he would come to know me a little. His fingers clung onto mine. They were tiny and plump and black. The inside of his palm was a pale milky colour and the dimple on the back showed a little hollow which would change when he grew. I looked into his chubby face and loved him with all my heart.
    
    The phone in the house rang; an unusual sound - I almost ignored it. I gave Oliver to Betty and went to answer it. The call was from Barrie.
    “Nettie, Thabo is coming soon to deal with the tree. He’s got to go up on the roof. Make sure he has the long ladder.”
    “Yes, okay, I’ll be going out with Betty soon. I’ll leave everything ready. Does he know what to do?”
    I went outside again and spoke to Betty. “U tsoha ka nako mang?” (what time are you going?) I asked her, “ I’m going down into Leribe, do you want a lift home?”
    “Ke hantle ’M’e, I will come.”
    “I want moroho (vegetables) from the market, can you help to translate for me?”
    She laughed, knowing that I paid more than the price I should. White ladies with a purse always got charged more if they couldn’t speak the language.
    “There is cow meat at the butchery, do you want sausages – or liver?” I questioned, knowing that she loved the offal to cook for her children.
    “Kea leboha ’M’e.”
    She picked up Oliver who was growing into a sturdy weight now. He had inherited her dancing eyes. Her dry unruly hair stuck out from underneath the sides of her scarf which was tied attractively around her head. It perfectly matched her blue dress.
    “ ’M’e I am ready.” She hitched up Oliver and without a whimper, he settled into a comfortable bulge on her back.
    Most weeks, I would drive into our local town to buy fruit from the market. Leribe is not a big town by English standards. It used to be known as Hlotse (pronounced Shlotsie) and recently changed its name. Founded by Reverend John Widdecombe, an Anglican missionary in 1876, it gradually became a town of some importance. The District Commissioner’s Office built of sandstone, situated on the main street must have been very imposing in its day and still has an air of civic grandeur about it. The kneeling figure of a soldier carved by a local sculptor is still there but the flagpole has sadly gone. Major Bell’s Tower, the old monument built in 1879, is the only reminder of the days of the Empire.
    I know my town well now after living here for almost a year. Its faded run-down ambience with crumbling pavements and decaying buildings, is anything but modern, but I like it. The noise and bustle of the main street, filled with jostling crowds and shouting traders; its smiling faces and loud funky music is now my home. Many stalls sell fascinating cure-all medicines and herbal remedies in packets. The customer describes a symptom of illness and the trader knows exactly which colour medicine to use as the solution to the problem. Instant spiritual guidance, looking dangerously seductive in jars of bright red and blue powder, is handed over for a few maloti. Nowadays, there is a Standard Bank in the main street, which has changed the way people think about organising their money. Plastic and neon have arrived in the form of garish shop signs, flashing incongruously next to corrugated sheeting and wooden planks of home made stalls.
    “Lumela ’M’e,” called out the ladies from the butcher’s shop, in unison, “how is your Queen?” I would smile and wave.
    “She is well!”
    This was the regular greeting if I went to buy meat, from the only butcher in town who possessed a fridge. It was assumed Her Majesty and I were on serious nodding terms. The queue inside the shop gyrated to Radio Lesotho’s thigh slapping music which came in waves over the loudspeaker. The lady butcher with arms akimbo peered over a blood-spattered apron and waved her cleaver in recognition of our friendship.
    “Will you have the ox-tail today?”
    “No, only liver for my maid and some fillet of beef from your freezer please.”
    We could buy a whole fillet for the equivalent of two pounds sterling. Nothing excited the locals so much as when the ‘offal man’ came to town. Long queues would form on both sides of the main high street. Tons off it came in fortnightly from the abattoirs in South Africa, driven in huge container lorries.
    “Kea Leboha Alice, see you next week.”
    As a lone shopper I was illiterate and invisible. In the presence of my maid bargaining was much more fun. I walked across to the pavement stalls. Fresh supplies of litapole, sepinichi and enormous tamati – were bought under Betty’s eagle eye.
    Feeling pleased with my purchases I drove back up the hill to the camp. As I unloaded the boxes from the car later in the afternoon I stepped over a spade lying in the grass. Thabo, the head gardener, was in the process of digging yet another trench. He was trying to save the roots of our weeping willow tree. Without rain its leaves shrivelled up. With too much rain the water ran away quickly from the hard baked soil and no moisture reached its roots. Only one of Thabo’s trenches could save it now.
    The sight of a blue boiler suit and a hose pipe reassured me that the job would be done today. When Thabo said the word ‘soon’ it could mean anything from ‘tomorrow’ to ‘next week’.
    “ ’M’e I am cutting wood from branches. De tree – it grows too much in de roof. Do you want I look for rats also?” Thabo, who was very fond of tips, looked pleased to see me.
    Our willow tree dropped its dead branches onto the roof and filled the loft with seething insects, which clung in orange patches under the eaves. Lately, we had also experienced rat noises on the ceilings in the early morning. We had a feeling they had taken up residence.
    “Thanks Thabo,” I shouted, carrying my bags into the house and reaching urgently for the kettle. Barrie’s long ladder leaned perilously close to the drainpipe. It would not be a good idea to watch Thabo climb skywards. He wasn’t good with ladders. And with the added hazard of the tree cutters it could be a disaster. I went indoors. Esther, one of my regular pupils, had just arrived and wanted to tell me about her school examination results.
    “Esther do you want a cup of tea? I will make one for Thabo.”
    Esther didn’t usually stop to drink tea. She liked to get on with her lesson. She had done better than all my other pupils. And that was without an English teacher at her school.
    “My mother say thank you ’M’e for giving me the lessons. She say she is very grateful.”
    “Tell her that I hope one day you will be a famous doctor. You will make a good doctor Esther….” my voice trailed off at the sound of metal scraping metal in the direction of my bathroom.
    “Heavens above - what was that?”
    Thabo had come to rest in a pile of lopped branches. The ladder had slid crazily away from its moorings. I stared at the devastation. The fronds of my willow would no longer weep. Its wonderful flowing foliage had been shaved off and only bald tentacles stuck out at rakish angles ten feet from the ground. Sheepishly Thabo raised himself from the leaves and smiled his beautiful smile.
    “’M’e I did not see any rat.”

View Synopsis View Information Purchase Options