THE GARGANTUAN WOMAN BEHIND THE GAUZE
As we headed down to the beach from the dealership I tried to memorise the route, so I would be able to find my way back on Monday. But fuck me if we didn't cruise for kilometres along a bustling downtown strip, before taking a confusing number of lefts and rights on the last downhill stretch to the sea - which glinted merrily, a pretty blue band over a dense strip of coastal scrub and palms.
'You can walk it, easy!' Samuel the driver said to me, when he saw me worriedly peering at street signs. I told him a walk like this would kill a Londoner.
The camping ground lay snugly in the heart of the coastal forest. It looked promising. Tall spreading trees provided plenty of cool dappled shade. A dense tangle of shrubs and vines and smaller trees encircled the camp and walled off the outer world. The ablution block as we drove past had salt blotched walls, with strips of yellow paint hanging from them. Most of the windows were either cracked or broken, and I caught a musty whiff of wet concrete coming from the drains and the showers, and of rotting vegetation coming from the back. This all felt so right - laid back beach decrepitude for me to wallow in for a few days.
A few caravans and tents peeked at me from secluded corners, but not too many. I directed Samuel to a good spot, directly beneath a tree, with soft grass and space all around me. I was thrilled. I was on the same slightly elevated patch of ground as a battered old Jurgens caravan. It was tucked into the wall of green, about fifteen feet away. It was beige, with heavy, chunky fibreglass and mouldering grey canvass on the side of the square extension that pops us on the roof to give extra headroom. A big ratty tent was attached to it, and an orange Ford Sierra V6, lekker clean with groovy chrome mags - someone's treasure - was parked snugly alongside.
My arrival cause excitement in the tent. I counted three kids scurrying to and fro. There were yelps of 'Sokkies! Sokkies! and a runty white Fox Terrier with black markings on all four feet shot into the tent. After a while a ferocious looking man with a thick handlebar moustache and a broken nose began stalking over. He was barefoot, in baggies and a lime green t-shirt. He had the terrier cradled in muscular forearms, which were knobbled with hard stunted muscle like a warthog's arse. If you walked into a kickboxing gym in the really hard part of Boksburg he was exactly the sort of oke you expected to see wearing tacky tracksuit bottoms, working the bag in the corner. Oom can lift the engine out of his XR Drie all by himself the kids were to tell me later. I thought he had had that piece of bone in his nose removed as a precaution against it being driven into his brain in the ring, but his brother in law told me later, "No man, he got hit in the nose by a kaffer with a plank.'
Because he was obviouly making his way over to me I looked at him in a friendly way; but he kept his head turned away, with his eyes fixed on me obliquely. When I looked at him he stopped and peered at me sideways, with such stillness, confident in his camoflauge, that it seemed perfectly acceptable: he was half approaching and half not approaching. There was some sort of feline stalking ettiquette involved. I would just get on with my unpacking.
While he was inching closer a gargantuan - this word applies here - woman popped her head out of the tent and shot me and Spud a worried, slightly hostile look. I had my camping gear strewn around me on the grass: tent, sleeping bag, torch, radio, backpack - but no fucking cellphone! Of all the things to leave in the Uno, I had gone and left behind my one link with the outside world.
I was pondering this latest fuck-up, sitting distraught amongst my stuff, when Brakman finally cleared his throat and decided to make himself visible.
'Byt daai honde ander honde?,' he asked about Spud (Does that dog bite other dogs?).
Spud is terrible with other dogs. He almost killed my sister's beautiful brindle once in Cape Town. But he isn't a bully. He generally tolerates smaller dogs - maybe a nip if they irritate him. Come to think of it, he had also nipped my sister's Maltese Poodle in Cape Town - twice.
'Nee,' I said. 'No. He's a good dog. But I'll keep him on this leash. The whole time. Just in case. He won't be any trouble.'
Brakman's head produced a tiny tremor - like I had tapped him on his neurons. Now he must maar fokken praat Engels. He peered at me groggily, slowly allowing the information to work its way downwards, like those old pre-digital airport displays where all the flight times shuttle in a blur of little flaps. I could see the outline of the huge woman's head behind the gauze window, in the gloomy light of the tent, watching us.
'But that dog is a keeler,' Brakman said to me, the trembling terrier perched in a sitting position on his scarred forearms. He had one of those growling voices that vibrates from a calm pocket deep in his chest and is mashed into treacle by a slowly failing epiglottis. Now and then something in his throat seemed to get stuck and he swallowed and carried on. 'That dog will ... keel ... other dogs.'
I repeated that Spud was a good dog. But my heart wasn't in the conversation, and neither was his. I was distraught about leaving my phone behind and he was delivering a message for the heavy breathing presence behind the gauze. To prevent myself spiralling into gloom I jumped up and asked him if he wouldn't mind watching my stuff. Then I quickly trekked off, trailing Spud on his leash, while Brakman stared after us in quiet wonderment, his flaps slowly turning.
'You can walk it, easy!' Samuel the driver said to me, when he saw me worriedly peering at street signs. I told him a walk like this would kill a Londoner.
The camping ground lay snugly in the heart of the coastal forest. It looked promising. Tall spreading trees provided plenty of cool dappled shade. A dense tangle of shrubs and vines and smaller trees encircled the camp and walled off the outer world. The ablution block as we drove past had salt blotched walls, with strips of yellow paint hanging from them. Most of the windows were either cracked or broken, and I caught a musty whiff of wet concrete coming from the drains and the showers, and of rotting vegetation coming from the back. This all felt so right - laid back beach decrepitude for me to wallow in for a few days.
A few caravans and tents peeked at me from secluded corners, but not too many. I directed Samuel to a good spot, directly beneath a tree, with soft grass and space all around me. I was thrilled. I was on the same slightly elevated patch of ground as a battered old Jurgens caravan. It was tucked into the wall of green, about fifteen feet away. It was beige, with heavy, chunky fibreglass and mouldering grey canvass on the side of the square extension that pops us on the roof to give extra headroom. A big ratty tent was attached to it, and an orange Ford Sierra V6, lekker clean with groovy chrome mags - someone's treasure - was parked snugly alongside.
My arrival cause excitement in the tent. I counted three kids scurrying to and fro. There were yelps of 'Sokkies! Sokkies! and a runty white Fox Terrier with black markings on all four feet shot into the tent. After a while a ferocious looking man with a thick handlebar moustache and a broken nose began stalking over. He was barefoot, in baggies and a lime green t-shirt. He had the terrier cradled in muscular forearms, which were knobbled with hard stunted muscle like a warthog's arse. If you walked into a kickboxing gym in the really hard part of Boksburg he was exactly the sort of oke you expected to see wearing tacky tracksuit bottoms, working the bag in the corner. Oom can lift the engine out of his XR Drie all by himself the kids were to tell me later. I thought he had had that piece of bone in his nose removed as a precaution against it being driven into his brain in the ring, but his brother in law told me later, "No man, he got hit in the nose by a kaffer with a plank.'
Because he was obviouly making his way over to me I looked at him in a friendly way; but he kept his head turned away, with his eyes fixed on me obliquely. When I looked at him he stopped and peered at me sideways, with such stillness, confident in his camoflauge, that it seemed perfectly acceptable: he was half approaching and half not approaching. There was some sort of feline stalking ettiquette involved. I would just get on with my unpacking.
While he was inching closer a gargantuan - this word applies here - woman popped her head out of the tent and shot me and Spud a worried, slightly hostile look. I had my camping gear strewn around me on the grass: tent, sleeping bag, torch, radio, backpack - but no fucking cellphone! Of all the things to leave in the Uno, I had gone and left behind my one link with the outside world.
I was pondering this latest fuck-up, sitting distraught amongst my stuff, when Brakman finally cleared his throat and decided to make himself visible.
'Byt daai honde ander honde?,' he asked about Spud (Does that dog bite other dogs?).
Spud is terrible with other dogs. He almost killed my sister's beautiful brindle once in Cape Town. But he isn't a bully. He generally tolerates smaller dogs - maybe a nip if they irritate him. Come to think of it, he had also nipped my sister's Maltese Poodle in Cape Town - twice.
'Nee,' I said. 'No. He's a good dog. But I'll keep him on this leash. The whole time. Just in case. He won't be any trouble.'
Brakman's head produced a tiny tremor - like I had tapped him on his neurons. Now he must maar fokken praat Engels. He peered at me groggily, slowly allowing the information to work its way downwards, like those old pre-digital airport displays where all the flight times shuttle in a blur of little flaps. I could see the outline of the huge woman's head behind the gauze window, in the gloomy light of the tent, watching us.
'But that dog is a keeler,' Brakman said to me, the trembling terrier perched in a sitting position on his scarred forearms. He had one of those growling voices that vibrates from a calm pocket deep in his chest and is mashed into treacle by a slowly failing epiglottis. Now and then something in his throat seemed to get stuck and he swallowed and carried on. 'That dog will ... keel ... other dogs.'
I repeated that Spud was a good dog. But my heart wasn't in the conversation, and neither was his. I was distraught about leaving my phone behind and he was delivering a message for the heavy breathing presence behind the gauze. To prevent myself spiralling into gloom I jumped up and asked him if he wouldn't mind watching my stuff. Then I quickly trekked off, trailing Spud on his leash, while Brakman stared after us in quiet wonderment, his flaps slowly turning.
posted by Krisstoffel at 2:17 AM
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