Do I wish she had a heart? Do I fear it? The heart or the absence of one?
1 May 1973
A. not herself since Jakkie has been at boarding school in Heidelberg. Works herself to a standstill before he comes home every weekend sweeps the garden paths scrubs the stoep washes curtains & polishes door-knobs & all the copper & silver & bakes the cakes & tarts & pies that he likes. Knits him beautiful cable-pattern jerseys with wool that she buys with her own money when we go to town. He’s not the king I say he’s just a child don’t wear yourself to a rag he doesn’t even notice but she just carries on.
What can I do about it? I do try every time when Jakkie comes home to arrange something that’s at least an outing for A. as well. Picnic or to the ferry or the Bontebok Park or last year to the wildflower show or to the sea. Otherwise she doesn’t go anywhere & sees nothing apart from the farm & the town. But it’s difficult now that she’s no longer a nanny. Jakkie jests get a wheelchair he says then he can pretend to have cerebral palsy then A. can go along everywhere as his nurse then he’s hr licence. He says every time he sees her the point of her cap is longer. Haven’t noticed it myself now I see all the caps are indeed higher on top & more pointed & completely filled with embroidery complicated patterns overlocked at top with little holes & scallops. Jakkie says she looks like the Pope.
A. crochets her own pullovers makes all her own house-dresses & aprons. Told J. we owe her a knitting machine for what she saves us in store-bought clothes or then at least my old Singer. He says that’s going too far give them the little finger & they take the whole hand & A.’s already got hold of all of us up to the armpits. A. is not ‘them’, I say. J. says she’s not ‘us’ either & a sewing machine won’t solve the problem it’s just like a chamber in parliament before you know it they want to pass laws. J. says if he catches Jakkie again teaching A. to dance in the outside room then he’ll send him to the Paul Roos Gymnasium in Stellenbosch from Standard Eight, & then we’ll only see him during holidays. He says he’ll place him further & further away if things don’t ‘normalise’. What is normal? I ask. Nothing on Gdrift is normal, he says. It’s a hospital full of female experiments if at least it had served a good purpose or had a practical application but he thinks we’re way past the point of no return & we must just note that he’s not the one who laid the tracks here he’s been a mere passenger for a long time now he asks himself why he doesn’t jump off the train it would be better than to ride to perdition knowingly with a little gang of saboteurs on board.
Would I mind if he left me? I have Jakkie. And Agaat.
5 April 1974
Decided to increase Agaat’s salary but not directly with money with animals. She’s had a cow & a few sheep from the start. Had them & their progeny branded over the years & she kept tally. By now 30 Jersey & 120 merinos & a few goats. The arrangement is she can sell as she sees fit not that she has anything to spend the money on but I tell hr save it build up a nest-egg for yourself you never know what may happen one day. For the time being it’s between hr & me. J. would never approve it if I consulted him about it in advance but if he asks I’ll say see it as A.’s pension she’ll also be old one day.
I leave her free to decide for hrself when she wants to have the animals serviced or dipped & sheared & so forth so that she can feel she has a bit of independence here what else does she have? She takes very good care. See hr often inspecting hr animals. Hr cows yield more milk than mine & her sheep’s wool is better. See she makes extra hay & even with hr last profit ordered hrself a few drums of molasses from the co-op & she regularly drives hr merinos next to the drift & she stands behind them hrself so that they can eat as much as they like of the long grass there. Only hr bunch of goats is a nuisance half domesticated the creatures & sometimes escape from their pen & eat my plants in the garden.
12 July 1974
Drove out today with A. for hr birthday 26 she is. How time flies! Went & had a picnic next to the Huis River. Had a good view of their working at the new pass. Nice strong stone walls packed there. If there’d been this fast road when you had to give birth to Jakkie, Même, she says out of the blue then we wouldn’t even have had to stop. It’s been a long time since she’s called me Même.
Jakkie sent hr a parcel that she opened there at the picnic a blood-red apron with a card that I’m not allowed to see & that left her completely silent for the rest of the picnic & all the way home. Ai, she does miss him so. He says he sings in the school choir there in Heidelberg but all that the music teacher knows is Whispering Hope.
14 September 1974
Jakkie home for the spring holiday. Busy time on the farm. A. busy all day & Jakkie at a bit of a loose end. Come let me help you with your German I say but he doesn’t want me to. Then I said let’s sing it’s the best way of learning a language but in fact I wanted to get some idea of how the voice had broken. So I taught him Der Musensohn: Und nach dem Takte reget/Und nach dem Mass beweget. A delicate tenor as I’d suspected & still the perfect pitch & the fine sensitivity, ag it would be a sin if he didn’t develop it. The most important thing is that I made some contact with him again.
Saturday 15 February 1975 half past six
Terrible day! It’s just me here in the house, feels as if I’m going mad. What must I do to escape this hell? Seems as if everything I undertake is doomed.
By four o’clock this afternoon back already from long weekend at Witsand. Do miss Jakkie so much now that he’s at school in Stellenbosch & it’s generally more relaxed in the beach house. Thought it might be nice if we ate out for a change as a family in the hotel there at the end of the weekend but what a fiasco! Jakkie (full of enlightened ideas these days) says he doesn’t want to go if Agaat can’t go along. There you have it, said J., A. is the government of Gdrift but out there she’s a domestic & look what I’ve brought up in my wisdom & now Jakkie also has wrong ideas in his head.