door and lean out of the carriage so I could see down the full length of the train to the third-class carriages. He then jumped back onto the platform and began to wave the flag, giving a long blast on his whistle.
You should have seen the kerfuffle. Africans who had left the train to stretch their legs or have a pee scrambled frantically to get through the doors of the carriages as the train began slowly to move, laughing and yelling and climbing on top of each other. Hoppie Groenewald gave two more short blasts on his whistle and hopped aboard the train.
‘Goodbye, Mevrou. Thank you,’ I shouted, waving at her.
‘Keep your tackies on, you hear!’ Mevrou shouted back.
It was a dry-eyed farewell on both sides. I ardently hoped the Rooinek and Mevrou would never have to see each other again.
Hoppie Groenewald closed the carriage door as the train began to gather momentum. He quickly refurled the flag and clicked it back into its holder next to a red one above the door. Then he picked up my suitcase and opened the door to the nearest compartment.
The train was moving along smoothly now and I enjoyed the comforting, predictable clackity clack, clackity clack of the carriage wheels.
The empty compartment had two bright green leather seats facing each other, each seat big enough for three adults. A small table, which I was later to discover turned into a wash basin, was positioned between the two windows. The rest of the compartment seemed to be panelled in highly varnished wood and immediately above each green leather seat was a glass frame about ten inches high running the length of the seats. Inside the frames were lots of photographs. It was all very posh. Before it got completely dark, Hoppie Groenewald turned on the compartment lights and all seemed very cosy… just like the beginning of a proper adventure.
‘It’s all yours until we get to Tzaneen. After that who knows. No worries, Hoppie will take good care of you.’ He looked down at my tackies, bits of newspaper were sticking out of the sides and up past my ankles.
‘The old cow can’t get you now, take them off,’ the guard said. I tugged the canvas shoes off. My feet were hot and uncomfortable and had turned black from the newsprint rubbing off on them. It felt delicious to squiggle my toes again. Hoppie Groenewald stuck his hand out. ‘Shake a paw. You know my name but I haven’t had the pleasure.’
I’d already thought about what Harry Crown had said and had decided to take his advice and call myself Peekay. ‘Peekay,’ I said tentatively. I pronounced it in English, the way Harry Crown had, so it sounded like a proper name.
I suddenly felt new and clean. Nobody ever again would know that I had been called Pisskop. Granpa Chook was dead and so was Pisskop. The first two South African casualties in the Second World War.
‘All the best, Peekay. We will be pals.’ He took his cap off and put it on my head. I wondered if he was a Nazi. He didn’t seem to know I was English, so why tempt fate?
‘Thank you for taking care of me, Mr Groenewald,’ I said politely and handed him back his cap.
‘Ag man, just call me Hoppie.’ He grinned as he replaced his cap.
Hoppie left to check the tickets in the African carriages but promised he would return soon.
It was almost totally dark outside, as I sat alone in a lighted room, flying through the African night, lickity- clack, lickity-clack. I had defeated the Judge and his Nazi stormtroopers, survived Mevrou and I had grown up and changed my name, lickity-clack, lickity-clack.
Opening my suitcase I took out one of Harry Crown’s green suckers. Carefully removing the Cellophane wrapper I licked the bits of green sugar that had stuck to it. The faint taste of lime transferred to my tongue, sweet promise of the main event when I began on the sucker itself.
Harry Crown was right, of course the green ones were a very close second to the raspberry. I examined the photographs above the seats, sepia-toned pictures of a flat mountain with a streak of white cloud resting just above it. The caption underneath read, ‘World famous Table Mountain wearing its renowned tablecloth’. All there was was a big white cloud above it but I couldn’t see a renowned tablecloth. Another showed a big city seen from the air with the caption, ‘Cape Town, home of the famous Cape Doctor’. I wondered what the doctor had done to be famous and rich enough to own a big town for his home. He must have been richer even than Harry Crown. Years later I discovered that the Cape Doctor was a wind which blew in early spring to clean out the flu germs and general accumulated nasties that had gathered during the winter. Another photograph of Table Mountain was captioned ‘Truly one of the world’s natural wonders’. The last picture showed a big white house and it said, ‘Groot Constantia’s famed and spacious cellars, the home of superb wine’.
‘Well,’ I thought, ‘this will be a pretty good journey if we visit all those places!’ I decided I’d ask Hoppie about them when he came back.
Hoppie returned after what seemed ages but probably wasn’t very long. On a train, with the darkness galloping past, time seemed to disappear, the lickity-clack of the wheels on the track gobbled up the minutes.
He plonked himself wearily on the seat opposite me. ‘Sis, man, those Kaffirs stink!’ he declared then gave me a big grin and a light playful punch to the point of my chin.
‘When we get to Tzaneen in an hour we’ll have some dinner. We stop for forty-five minutes to take on coal and water and there’s a cafe across the road from the station. From Tzaneen I’m only the guard and another conductor takes over. What’s your favourite food, Peekay?’
‘Sweet potatoes,’ I answered.
‘Sweet potatoes, maybe and maybe not, I’ve never asked for sweet potatoes at that cafe. How about a mixed grill. A two-bob special, heh?’
‘I’ve only got a shilling and it’s for emergencies. Is a mixed grill an emergency?’ I asked.
Hoppie laughed. ‘For me it is. Tonight I’m paying, old mate. The mixed grills are on me.’
I didn’t want to ask him what a grill was and how it was mixed so I asked him about the pictures on the wall. ‘When are we going to see Table-Mountain-one-of-the-natural-wonders-of-the-world?’
‘Huh, come again?’
I pointed to the picture above his head. ‘When do we go there?’
Hoppie turned around to look at the picture, but he didn’t laugh when he worked out what I was talking about. ‘It’s just stupid pictures showing where South African Railways go, but we are not going there, Peekay.’ He started to study all the pictures as if he’d noticed them for the first time.
‘I almost went to Cape Town last year to fight in the finals but I was beaten in the Northern Transvaal championships. Split decision but the referee gave it to the fighter from Pretoria. I’m telling you, man, I beat the bastard fair and square. It was close, I’ve got to admit that, but I knew all the time I had him on points.’
I listened, astonished. What on earth was he talking about?
Hoppie looked me straight in the eyes. ‘You’re almost looking at the railways boxing champion of the Transvaal, you know.’ He brought his finger and thumb together in front of my face. ‘That close and I would of been in the National Railway Boxing Championships in Cape Town.’
‘What’s a boxing champion?’ I asked
It was Hoppie’s turn to look astonished. ‘What a domkop you are, Peekay. Don’t you know what boxing is?’
‘No, sir,’ I dropped my eyes, ashamed of my ignorance.
Hoppie Groenewald put his hand under my chin and lifted my head up. ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of. There comes a time in everything when you don’t know something.’ He grinned. ‘Okay, man, settle down, make yourself at home, we’re in for a long talk.’
‘Wait a minute, Hoppie,’ I said excitedly. I clicked open my suitcase. ‘Green or red?’ I asked, taking out a sucker of each colour. I had decided that I would have one sucker in the morning and one at night, that way they would last me the whole journey. But a friend like this doesn’t come along every day and I hadn’t heard a good story since Nanny.
‘You choose first, Peekay. What’s your favourite?’
‘No, you choose, Hoppie. You’re the one who is going to tell the story so you get first choice,’ I said with great generosity.
‘Green,’ he said. ‘I like green, my mother had green eyes.’ He took the green sucker and I put the raspberry one back and clicked the suitcase shut.
‘I’ve just had one,’ I said, grateful that I had two of the best raspberry ones left for the next two days.
