clear out! clear out! the whole caboodle is up for auction then you who remain behind can start afresh from scratch throw out the silver hand-bells for the table-summons for whom would you want to ring it anyway? the red copper and the brass the ornaments without reason throw them out! porcelain dogs! dark-brown diana with the wolves at her hem! reading nursery couple on the half-moon table, what a misplaced idyll! the silver coasters engraved with canadian swamp cypresses where in god’s name does it all come from? the drift the vlei the mountain pictured oval mirrors stuck-together vases woven hangings birth-plate of delft blue take it give it to him when he comes or wrap it in foam and bubble-wrap and post it to the north gathered lamp-shades blown-glass necks of preening swans framed portraits the talcumed bloom of my great-grandmother my great-grandfather’s waxed moustache mustard-yellow curtain tassels pewter ashtrays copper indian shoes cast-iron doorstops compotiers on precarious stems behold all this work of their hands cast cavities forged fillings riffled textures ornate weights leather upholstery chintz velvet macramé nests where spider and mite and self-satisfaction breed dense banal things that give a name to nothingness clear out the wardrobes! court shoes shift dresses wrapover skirts culotte pants double-breasted jackets bat-sleeve coats cable-pattern jerseys button-front cardigans raincoats windbreakers church hats beach hats pantyhose maidenform cross-your-heart bras step-ins panties don’t give it to the servants they’ll just fight about it select for the kitchen the essentials do away with the multitude of mixing-bowls the meat-mincer the dough-paddles endless breadboards sharpening-rods redundant knives wooden spoons plates from broken sets with autumn leaves empty bottles under the sink old pyrex dishes blackened pots the thick-lipped lieberstein cups the cracked römertopf the stained porcelain the worn gilt edges the faded glazing the lidless soup tureen the stopperless carafe the old enamel jugs the buckets and the cans and the zinc tubs with the slow leaks the sixty labelless frisco tins the brasso and the silvo with nothing as last dregs throw away the plastic bands and pieces of string and used sheets of silver foil the bags full of bags full of bags plastic paper string I must die in a year
16 May 1968
A. now measures Jakkie every week — Friday evenings much ado about his supposedly growing so fast. Have just again observed the operation there in the passage she calls it keeping up-to-date the ‘growth rate’. He has to take off his shoes & exhale & open his ribcage & stand with his heels against the skirting board & his back up straight & his head to attention against the ascending ladder of pencil marks from each preceding birthday.
Suspect it’s just an excuse that A. thinks up to touch him because of course he’s starting to get shy nowadays. She presses & pushes his shoulders & neck & knees as if she’s trying to stop him from changing sometimes I’m scared she’s doing him some harm & then she brings the ruler & places it square & level over his crown & makes a small pencil line. Have just seen her holding him round the throat with hr strong hand while he’s standing bolt upright against the wall with eyes shut tight. But you’re growing way past me now you’re going to get an Adam’s apple just like your father just feel this almighty thick gullet.
What are these other lines? I hear Jakkie ask there at the end of the passage. Reply: low-tide mark depth of the drift height of the time length of the shadows who can tell? it’s an old house maybe it’s your mother who was measured there or perhaps your grandmother.
Who posted letters here? asks Jakkie & he clappers the copper flap of the post-slit. Internal correspondence says Agaat perhaps there was somebody in quarantine she says. What is quarantine? asks Jakkie. That’s when you don’t know what disease someone’s suffering from then you isolate them otherwise they infect the healthy people then they communicate only in writing because talking is too dangerous because the germs live in the breath.
In passing I got an almighty look from A. What does she want me to say? What would Jakkie make of it if he knew? Does she want to protect him from the knowledge? Or does she want to protect me? Or herself? Suspect in any case J. has already told him everything. Although perhaps he’d rather hush up the past from his son.
Concerning Jakkie’s birth there are several stories. One story is that A. changed into the noonday witch & caught him on the pass & stuck his tail into a pillowslip & chopped it off with an axe before de-hairing him further. But there are also always new stories & there is the last bedtime story that must always remain the same & of which I never can make out the ending.
I suppose it’s time for the facts of life. Wonder if I should leave that to J. Perhaps A. has also in that left us far behind. Saw her the other day standing there on the front stoep with him hr little hand on his shoulder & pointing with the other hand down there by the river the stallion pawing his front legs in the air trying to get on top of the mare.
15 July 1968
A. & Jakkie’s games — something about them I find disquieting nowadays. Do so badly want him to mix with children of his own age. Time that he went to school again.
They call each other from long distances. The game is apparently to see who has the finest hearing & turns up within a reasonable time. Sometimes it’s a terrifying hissing deafening between-teeth-whistling & hammering on the yard gong in season & out of season & a sounding of the lorry’s hooter fit to wake the dead. Put a stop to that the shouting with the hands in front of the mouth is bad enough. What on earth could fascinate them so about it? The one or the other vanishes into thin air & then the agreement is apparently to leave something behind in the vanishing-place like a handkerchief or a bottle-top (as proof of how far you could hear). The latest variation is the ram’s horn. The notes don’t really vary much. Sometimes though the duration of the notes & the intervals sometimes longer sometimes shorter. Just now again I was standing on the front stoep & heard one of them sounding up from somewhere in the mountain. Lugubrious it sounds plaintive it must have been A. she has a tremendous lung capacity from blowing fires into life in her fireplace & then very faintly from somewhere behind the ridges Jakkie answered. To & fro went the calling on the horn a code if I had to guess. What could the message be? Without content it would have to bore them very quickly but apparently they can carry on with it into all eternity.
12 September 1971
A. learns everything with Jakkie from his schoolbooks, asks him his idiomatic expressions & his multiplication tables. He teaches hr what they sing at school. Land of our fathers. She knows more verses of The Call of South Africa than he. You’re making it up! he says & she shows him in black and white in the old FAK. You sound just like a donkey when you sing she says stay in tune now! Do hope he retains his love of singing after his voice has broken. A lyrical tenor I would guess.
16 September 1971