How We Came To Be (I)
Night of the Equines
I don’t remember my parents very well. I wish I did. I do remember that my dad drank Viceroy brandy with water and ice. My mums’ tipple was scotch. I don’t recall the brand of whisky, but the brandy came in a bottle with a string/straw wrapping around it. I can see it now as if it were right in front of me. At the end of the day they would sit on the verandah with their drinks and cigarettes and watch the sun go down, listening to the radio, or reading. I don’t recall them talking much at those times. I would be allowed a long glass of coke as a treat when back from boarding school. I would fill it with ice and I could pretend that it was an adult drink, because of the ice. I’d sit out on the verandah with them, listening to the evening sounds slowly blend into the sound of the night. Those were happy times, those early evenings on that verandah, deep in the bush.
Music and the Smell of Cigarettes
Sometimes they would put on an old 33” record, and the sound of Shirley Bassey, Frank Sinatra, Nana Mouskouri, Charles Aznavour or Jacques Brel and his orchestra would float out into the night alongside the smoke of my father’s pipe tobacco; both drifting slowly out beyond the dimly lit yellow rectangle of the verandah, both velvety and gorgeous in their own way. My dad was more a Frank kind of guy, while mum favoured the Europeans. Then again, I could be wrong about that, like I said I didn’t know them that well. Perhaps my dad liked the Euro’s as much as good ole Frank. And I could be completely wrong about the actual music. Those recordings could have been played at an earlier time in an earlier place and my mind may be misplacing memories. But never mind if the music is interweaved with another time and place, no matter if Shirley and Frank never actually played on that verandah — they were there for me.
Both my parents smoked like hell. Blissfully unaware, they all did in those days, our parents. Rothmans for my old man and Peter Stuyvesant for my mum. And of course, back then there weren’t any such choices as Mild or Light — it was the full-strength hard tack, take it or leave it — all Red, even the Rothmans Blue.
Strangers in the Night, Summer Wind and the smell of cigarettes on sultry evenings always take me away and put me back down on that verandah. It’s almost physical. Everything seemed to be in its right place then, and as it should be. It was a good feeling, being there, in a comfy chair, with my faux-adult drink and both my parents close by, the ice in our glasses tinkling, seemingly in harmony with the warm evening breeze and the sounds of the night.
No TV Required, Electricity Optional
We would eat later in the evening, but not too late — and always at the table. There was no TV in that house. It was early to bed unless we listened to a radio show — although I can’t recall any particular one from that period. There are many shows I do remember, but those were from an earlier time. My bedroom lead off from the lounge and was on the opposite side of the house from my parents’ room. Electricity was supplied (at night) by the ubiquitous Lister diesel engine which powered a generator. There was no electricity during the day. Fridges & deep-freezes ran on paraffin and all cooking was done either on wood coals, or gas. When the time came to power down the old Lister, which would happen at about 9pm, my father would pull on a string hanging down from the ceiling by his bedside. This would in turn pull on a wire attached to a cut off switch in the engine room. This cut-off wire was a necessity, as it was an unnecessary hazard to leave the house at night and venture a few hundred meters out into the dark just to kill an old diesel engine. So, a plan was made in the form of the strategically rigged wire and string. Problem solved.
The Wondrous Silence
On a cloudy evening with no moon the night would be pitch black, once the Lister went down. And silent, with the wondrous silence of the bush. Not exactly silent you understand, but after the thrumming, pulsing mechanical beat of the Lister had slowly run down a sudden heavy quiet would descend, lasting only a few brief seconds before the nights’ sounds would take over again. When that string was pulled and the Lister was cut, the lights would slowly dim, from bright white in places, softer yellow in most, to an empty nothingness, and a beautiful natural still peace would descend on the night. As it should do.
On such a night, once your ears had become accustomed to the sudden silence, any natural sound of the bush would be suddenly magnified. There were always night-sounds in the bush, and I was accustomed and unconcerned by them. I was used to the moths fluttering against the mosquito-gauze which shielded the open windows, trying in vain to get in (or out), the scratching of a butter-beetle as it spun around on its back in a never ending circle on the cement floor, the rustle of a flying ant trapped under my bed if rain was due, or outside, the sharp warning cries of the night jars protecting their territory on the flat open lawn, or the call of the jackals and other nocturnal creatures. You don’t get those sounds in the city, and I miss them.
Visitors and a Scare
A friend and his younger brother came to stay during one of the school holidays. We three slept in my room. One night after the Lister had slowly puttered out, and the natural quiet and darkness of the bushveld had reclaimed its rightful place, and we had done with our young-boy post-lights-out ritual of tom-foolery, we became aware. Of a sound. Repeated, seemingly randomly, but perhaps not. Seemingly nothing, but perhaps not. A thud. Followed by another. From somewhere outside our window, not close, but not far either. Hard to tell. Repeated. What was it? Nothing? Or something?
This was the time of the bush-war in that country. The Guerrilla War. The Terrorist War. The War of Liberation. We downplayed it in everyday life but even as pre-teens we were acutely aware of it.
Imaginations went into overdrive. My immediate thought was that the house had been surrounded and our attackers were signalling to each other via these seemingly random thuds on the ground. And that an attack on the farmhouse was imminent. Being the son and the only farm-boy it was my unenviable (enviable?) task to scurry across the house (as low as I could manage so as not be seen) to my parents’ room and wake my father to alert him to the danger. The distance between my safe bed, across my room, through the lounge, down the passage to my parents’ room seemed to me a vast chasm. It had to be done.
My father was fast asleep and did not wake quickly. When he did eventually haul himself from slumber, not unaccompanied by a few muttered grumblings, he proceeded to walk purposefully upright and straight to our room. I followed in trepidation, wondering why THE HELL he wasn’t bringing his semi-automatic with him.
He entered our room and went straight up to the window, paused and listened. I prayed that the attackers were actually there and the thuds would be heard so that I could justify my mission and more importantly not lose face. Of course, there was nothing to be heard. … until, …. there was. We heard it again, that unmistakeable thud. I breathed a sigh of relief. Rather be caught in a fire-fight shoot-out than to be exposed as a scaredy-cat, any day. We were about to engage in a fire-fight sure as hell and some of us would probably be dead by tomorrow. That’s just how it was.
My father turned around and started off back to his room. “it’s the horses” he said as he disappeared into the darkened house. “they’re stamping their hooves in the paddock”. No more or less than that, and off he went.
Reflections
Years later in high school we laughed about that incident, and others on that holiday, on that farm deep in the bush. It was good times on that farm, and times I know my guests and friends have not forgotten, despite the thousands of miles and the 3 continents that separate us now. Good times, good places, good people. Different times.
Postscript/ The Mantis
This is my first piece. I am writing at a large rough Oregon pine table facing an expanse of semi tamed lawn and garden which I am privileged to be able to call my own and which runs down to the little forest in the greenbelt which has a stream running through it, and which is itself surrounded by the urban jungle sprawl around me. I like this place, not only because of the illusion of space. As I started writing this first piece, 2 things happened, which may have been something or may not have been anything at all. Firstly, it started raining. Soft and slow at first, then later heavier, with thunder. During the storm, a praying mantis visited. Green with a beautiful iridescent blue I had not previously noticed. The significance of the Rain and the Mantis’s visit, if you believe in such things, will become apparent in a later story.
