On the power of owning property in SA or elsewhere

Alasdair and Thomas ran up from Carlos Rolfe’s Pan in the Boksburg farming area, caked with mud from wrestling in the water and trying to build a raft and get the thing to float. Bums bobbing in the sun, they knelt on the bamboo raft and dug in the water on the sides whilst the raft circled slowly about. Its spinning got faster, till that became the game because as sure as hell the raft was not going forwards. Faster and faster it whirled, till the dogs joined the boys and barked madly at the water-craft as if it were alive. The sight of Scruffy, Thomas’s black mongrel with white socks, her face crazed and strained as she tried to reach the swirling bamboo sticks and snap at them, was hilarious. Eventually the raft went under, the first few seconds slow, and then suddenly the front part tilted up and Thomas and Alasdair fell into the water, scrabbling at the bamboo.

“This,” gasped and tittered Alasdair, “was your fault. You should have tied the string round the bamboos tighter, you silly bugger”. Alasdair said “silly bugger” as snootily as Alasdair’s father and uncle, Thomas noted. You silly bugah was a refrain in Alasdair’s family. “I did, I did,” giggled Thomas, “and I told you to use those barrels to get it to float better”.

“Silly bugger, those barrels are too heavy,” retorted Alasdair, splashing the water with a bamboo, showering Thomas, and Thomas splashed back, using another bamboo. The dogs barked crazily, almost baying at the scene of a wobbling raft and boys smashing the water with bamboo sticks.“What do you think you lads are doing?” a voice thundered with a British accent. The two stopped their water fight and looked to the shore. There, at a short distance, stood a man like a picture out of one of Thomas’s classic British novels. The man was slightly tall, wearing white jodhpurs, black riding boots and a posh black riding hat. His hair was reddish and he sported a gingery moustache like a large moth. The boys stood silently and the dogs kept barking and whimpering, getting quieter because the boys had ceased thrashing about. “We’re playing with the raft we made, sir,” said Alasdair eventually. Thomas enjoyed the sound of his elder friend’s voice. It had a hint — but only a hint now — of that bright steel which later on he would come to know as carefree confidence and arrogance.

Thomas eyed the man with awe. He stood there, legs wide apart, lord of the land if you please; legs that would swagger if he began striding towards them. He reminded Thomas of the husband of Lady Chatterley, remote, powerful, a landowner. He had already read Lady Chatterley’s Lover at the age of fourteen, then banned and coveted in South Africa. “But you are making a real mess of someone else’s land,” indulged the horse-riding man, sweeping the immediate area with his gaze. Thomas looked around for any sign of a horse. There was none.

The boys waded out of the water as if so ordered. Horse-man pointed at broken and chopped-off bamboo trees with his riding crop. “You’ve destroyed these to make that silly thing,” he remarked, thrusting the riding crop at the bit and pieces of raft. The dogs had vanished into the reeds and bushes, seeking better entertainment. “This is not your land,” announced the horse-man. “You are on it and are destroying property.” His green eyes glinted on the last word. Property. A weighty nugget to be reverentially turned over and over. The boys stood there dripping. Out of the corner of his eye Thomas watched Alasdair, hoping he would say something, do something. Alasdair stood there numbly, bewildered like he was, Thomas thought, as to what they had really done wrong and what the man was on about. “So what are we going to do about it?” asked the horse-man. The riding crop was suddenly aimed at Thomas. Thomas started. “You. I know you. Seen you around. You live at the plot next door to us. I think I shall visit your father and tell him what you have been up to.” Thomas’s stomach went cold. The green eyes glittered.

“And you,” the man then pointed at Alasdair with his crop. “I shall remember you. I shall find out who you are. I am certain your friend’s father shall know.” The green eyes glinted; the gingery moth made an attempt at gleeful flight as a smirk appeared. “Now off you go,” said the man. “You shouldn’t be here. He swatted his thigh with the riding crop for emphasis, voice cracking, “Off you go!” The boys muttered, “Sorry sir,” and Thomas could see the anger on Alasdair’s face. He knew his friend was humiliated, his face reddening unlike Thomas’s, who was sure his was white. They ran up the hill and Thomas just wanted to get home, terrified as he was by the thought of his father finding out from the Englishman that he had been destroying property. So the boys ran up the hill, fearful, and ran until they got to the safety of Thomas’s home. There was just something very unpleasant about the Englishman, the horse-man, they could not put a finger on, other than what he had said.

By the next evening Thomas had already almost forgotten the existence of the English horse rider. He was on school holiday and ran into the lounge from a day of cycling and attempting to build a tree-house with Alasdair, and now froze. In the lounge, legs somehow longer in the white jodhpurs and imperial black boots, sprawled you know who, having a drink and a cigar with his father. Thomas knew dad only brought out the cigars occasionally and wondered if it was the English horse rider’s grand attire and manner which had caused this. “Thomas, this is Mr Rowe, he lives on the plot next to us,” said dad. Mr Rowe looked up at Thomas from his chair in a way that still made him look down at the boy, and smiled. “Hello, Mr Rowe,” whispered Thomas, and the man nodded slightly in response. The green, smiling eyes were savouring the fear on Thomas’s face while the boy looked away.

Thomas noticed dad was also smiling at his son, and then asked, “John, how about another whisky?”

“Yes please,” said Mr Rowe, not taking his eyes off the prey he had caught two days ago.

“You can go now, Thomas,” said dad. “Mr Rowe and I need to talk about something.”

Thomas slunk off, petrified about the contents of the conversation in the lounge. dad knew how to use a belt. The men sat and drank for a long time while Thomas’s mother silently prepared the evening meal. Later, she went into the lounge and asked Mr Rowe to stay for dinner. Mr Rowe declined and, gentleman that he was, took that as his cue to leave. The men muttered over a last cigarette on the veranda, then Thomas’s dad strode into the dining room.

Face red, he stared at Thomas with a large grin and snorted then looked at mom. “He came here to report Thomas and Alasdair.” “Oh, what for?” said mom with some trepidation. Thomas knew she was trying to gauge how much whisky had been consumed. “For destroying property,” declared dad, starting to laugh. Mom didn’t know what to do: laugh or become fearful. She held her fork in mid-air, staring at dad, waiting for him to decide what information was revealed next, and what was to happen next. “The two bashed up some bamboo trees down by the pan, which Alasdair’s uncle owns, just like he own this property,” dad waved around him. “And John Rowe, if you please, also rents from Ernie.” Ernie was Alasdair’s uncle. “And Ernie couldn’t give a damn for the bamboo; they grow like wildfire and are a pain in the neck.” Dad snorted again, shaking his head. “John’s from England and comes here acting like the lord of the manor. I almost always see him wearing posh horse-riding clothes … ” dad started to snigger again. He put down his fork and spluttered between chews, “but I’ve never seen him actually riding a fucking horse!” Mom joined in the laughter, relieved.

Thomas always remembered running up from the Rolfe’s Pan in fear, a fear he could not understand in Alasdair as he was always much more confident, but not that day. The day his father joked about Mr Rowe not actually owning a horse made him just vaguely think for the first time about the power of owning property. Only later on in life would Thomas understand Alasdair’s arrogance towards him, and indeed, the arrogance of Alasdair’s entire family, despite the friendship, and that it was mixed with unbridled contempt. You silly bugah.

Notes towards an autre-biography