My mat-tress and your blan-ket

And there lies the thing!

If the music seemed appropriate to the establishment they’d expected, the house did not. It was a solid, assertive building: a strange mixture of grand hotel, railway station and museum, built on two storeys, squat, bulky and prodigiously solid, perhaps eighty feet high and crowned by a great dome of coloured tiles, pierced by oval windows. A flight of stairs in two graceful stages climbed majestically to the bronze doors. The windows on the ground floor were arched and comparatively simple while those on the second storey were flanked by columns and surmounted with medallions and above it all, and for the whole of its length, the pediment was crowded with statuary: Greek gods, perhaps; venerable old men with philosophers’ beards; horsemen; griffins; wrestling cherubs and other fancies intended to give an aura of substance and dignity, but this was undermined by the big loudspeakers mounted on poles which framed the statuary.

They drew even deeper into the wood, aware of how strange they must look, two ragged fugitives, eyes pink from lack of sleep, bodies smelling of sweat, chocolate, cheese and brandy.

‘We should go forward. Introduce ourselves. We should see if this is the right place after all,’ Blanchaille spoke without conviction.

‘Or we could wait until we felt a bit stronger,’ Kipsel suggested.

Blanchaille appreciated his trepidation but knew it wouldn’t do. ‘We’ll never feel as strong again.’

‘Excuse me, but I need a swaz,’ said Kipsel and disappeared hurriedly.

A swaz! How many years was it since he heard that expression? One had to admit it was precisely onomatopoeic, echoing perfectly the zip and gush against the rock in the dusty veld, or the business of drilling muddily into a garden bed, but it pained and discomfited here in its buzzing directness. Accuracy of observation, whether of the names of flowers or of the sonic effect of urination did nothing to help; what was needed was not description but meaning!

When Kipsel returned he challenged him accordingly.

Kipsel shrugged. ‘Fall into a small pool of words early on and you’ll spend the rest of your life splashing around in it. For example, I had a girlfriend once, by name Karina. She had five brothers, all cricketers. I think her father played, too. Her life was taken up with starching shirts, whitening boots and keeping score. As a result she was a child of the pavilion. There was no other world. Her bag of words came straight out of the changing room. She had no other terms of reference. Everything was described in cricketing language. Even sex. She was forever making jokes about maidens. When we were in bed she would cheer me on if I looked like flagging with cries of “only another sixty to go or you have to follow on”! And when she was coming she’d cry “how’s that?” and stick a finger in the wind like an umpire giving his man out.’ Kipsel banged his fist against his forehead to still the extravagant memories of these exhausting matches. ‘Going to bed with her was like going into bat without a box. She took that as a compliment when I told her. See what I mean? It wasn’t so much that she was really interested in cricket itself but it provided her with a life she could get hold of. And beat. Cricket was her way of living, her get up and go, her entry into the life of action settlers must have, because doing gives an illusion of winning. Her way of grappling with life.’

‘And going forward,’ said Blanchaille. ‘No illusion is more precious.’

It is interesting to note that they themselves did not go forward at this point but walked away from the house until the music from the loudspeaker faded. They found themselves in an apple orchard. The fruit beckoned them, the crispness of the huge pale green apples tempted them. They must have eaten half a dozen each, tearing at the tight sweet flesh as if their systems needed it, as if it was some sort of antidote to the poison of too much travel, a diet of brandy, chocolate, cheese and a constant series of shocks to the system.

I saw also that there was a vineyard nearby and this, too, they invaded, gorging on the plump white grapes until they could eat no more. I watched Kipsel who lay on the ground with his fingers over his eyes to keep out the sun and let the juice run down his throat, spitting the pips into the air, even though Blanchaille had asked him politely to stop. And then with full bellies and pleasantly overcome by the walk they slept, restlessly muttering of home, heaven and angels and policemen, no doubt believing themselves safe in the privacy of their dreams.

Then I saw that they weren’t alone.

He stood up among the vines. A big broad man in a floppy straw hat, waring faded and patched brown dungarees, with his thumbs hooked into his belt. He stood watching the sleepers from a little distance away, listening to them; a big man with freckled arms and a considerable tan, attending closely, taking notes in a small book with great rapidity. And when he saw me watching him, he looked up and smiled and said: ‘What’s so puzzling? They come here, they’re tired and hungry, they eat, they relax, they sleep. In their sleep they talk. It’s a habit of people like this, terrified of speaking aloud what they think, they confine their comments to this sort of dream talk. Dreams are the only underground left.’

‘And you? Is your note-taking also a habit?’

He didn’t answer me, but I had my suspicions.

So I saw when the sleepers woke they found the man watching them, though he no longer carried his pencil and notebook.

‘Who are you?’ Blanchaille asked.

The big man smiled, he rubbed his neck, he cracked his knuckles, he flexed the muscles in his freckled arms and he said: ‘I’m a gardener. At least I help to keep the place up. Of course I’ve got under-gardeners with me. This place is too big for one man.’

‘I hope you didn’t mind us helping ourselves to your fruit,’ said Kipsel.

The gardener smiled. ‘That’s why it’s there. Only I wouldn’t stay here very much longer, it’s getting on towards evening. You’ll be wanting dinner soon. The others have already gone in, the music has stopped.’

‘Are they expecting us — up there?’ Blanchaille nodded his head towards the big house beyond the wood.

The gardener nodded. ‘Anybody who gets this far is expected. They’ll be looking out for you all right. The worry always is that people who make it this far might get lost again.’

‘We weren’t lost,’ said Kipsel. ‘A few detours, perhaps. A few hedges and ditches to jump. But not lost.’

The gardener smiled. ‘If you hadn’t been lost, buster, you wouldn’t be here.’

‘What’s your name?’ said Kipsel.

‘Happy.’

‘Happy!’ Kipsel laughed, genuinely rolled about. Blanchaille was embarrassed.

In fact it wasn’t too difficult to understand Kipsel’s amusement or his friend’s sheepishness, since, after all, the term ‘Happy’ was used in their own country as one of the many derogatory terms in the rich vocabulary of racial invective the ethnic groups enjoyed directing against each other. Mutual abuse was a mainstay of political life. The pleasure of calling supporters of the Regime, Happies, with all the ironical strength the insult carried was matched only by the enjoyment with which the Regime declared its opponents to be Kaffir-loving Jewish Commies who should go and live in Ghana… Hence Kipsel’s laughter and the embarrassed silence which followed.

The big man stood by impassively watching. ‘There’ve always been Happies here,’ he said. ‘Ever since the old man started up the place.’

‘I think I see what he means.’ Blanchaille cleared his throat with the air of a man anxious to prevent misunderstanding. ‘This word “Happy” I think is a corruption, or at least a mutation, of the name of Kruger’s valet, a certain Happé. You remember? He was the one who was with Uncle Paul when they found whatever it was they found.’