‘Thanks, Hymie,’ I said.
‘Don’t insult my intelligence, Peekay. If you’re trying to tell me I wasn’t doing all this for mercenary motives I resent it. Don’t you think I’m capable of thinking up a ploy as good as this one turned out to be?’
‘On the contrary, you had it figured out so that whatever happened you influenced the game.’
Hymie blushed, which I’d never seen him do before. ‘No point in leaving things to chance; much too risky,’ he said with a deprecating grin.
‘Christ, the number one spot always belonged to you anyway.’
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Look, why don’t we take a tenner each for the holidays?’ He handed me a ten-pound note. ‘I’ll put the rest in the bank, I’ve got big plans for next term we’ll talk about after the holidays.’
NINETEEN
Going home at the end of each term was like sloughing a skin. The joy of a small town lies in its unchanging nature. Except for Doc, Mrs Boxall, Miss Bornstein, old Mr Bornstein, the guys at the prison and of course, my mother, Granpa, Marie and especially Dum and Dee, people would look up when you entered a shop and enquire casually, ‘Goodness, hols again, Peekay? How’s life in the big city? Are you playing in the Easter concert? What can I do for you?’ They’d say this almost in one breath, not because they were bored and felt compelled to be polite, but mostly because time has a sameness in a small town, which the coming and going of people doesn’t disturb. I liked the idea of nothing ever changing in Barberton, it gave me a sense of belonging. Now that the war was over and the military camp no longer a part of the town’s economy, Barberton settled back into its favourite old scuffed leather armchair and went to sleep again. Even the prison warders seemed to fit into the community more easily and for the last two concerts they had remained while ‘God save the King’ was played, though Mrs Boxall reported that they still protested in their own way by not standing to attention. This made Mr Hankin of the
Mrs Boxall had become a firm favourite at the prison. The Kommandant, who had become a colonel because of Doc’s concert, decided he liked prison reform and had allowed her to start a Sunday morning school for the prisoners. She had negotiated with the Kommandant to reward progress with King Georgies. The Pentecostal missionaries, who had agreed to do the teaching in return for a fifteen-minute sermon every Sunday, disagreed violently with the distribution of tobacco to students who excelled. Their God was neither a consumer of strong drink nor a user of tobacco. They were forced to conclude that God worked in mysterious ways when attendance and scholastic effort increased markedly with the introduction of King Georgies as an incentive. A prisoner would study for every limited moment he had during the week for the reward of one cigarette. With the result, many blacks left prison able to read, write and do simple arithmetic. Mr Bornstein, Miss Bornstein’s father, had converted the Earl of Sandwich Fund into the Sandwich Foundation and already one little old lady had left it a bequest of two thousand pounds. The letter writing sessions still continued, and during the holidays I’d take over from the missionaries and Marie’s father’s tobacco leaf would once again be fitted into the folds of the tracts and given out with every letter. In fact during every school holiday letters to King George, which of course we never posted, became very popular again. The Tadpole Angel was back in town and Gert used to swear that trouble in the prison was almost non-existent during these periods.
Gert, with encouragement from Mrs Boxall, had tackled English and now spoke it fairly well. He’d become very attached to Doc and Mrs Boxall and made sure that the repairs around Doc’s cottage or Mrs Boxall’s house were done and that Charlie’s motor was kept going. Every time I’d get home it would be the same thing, ‘I’m telling you, man, only chewing gum and axle grease is holding that old
Klipkop had been transferred to Pretoria and Gert, to his enormous surprise, had been given the job of assistant to Captain Smit. As a consequence he had earned his corporal’s stripes. He was now the prison heavyweight and would be fighting for the vacant title at the next championships. The giant Potgieter, who had continued to beat Gert in the final of the two subsequent championships after Gert’s original defeat in Nelspruit, had turned professional.
The Lowveld Championships had been expanded and were now known as the Eastern Transvaal Championships, bringing in some of the bigger towns and making it tougher for the Barberton Blues. As they always occurred during the December school holidays, it was important to Captain Smit that I take part as a member of the Blues.
Regular boxing against the Afrikaans schools during term had made me a much better boxer, although I personally longed for the magic of Geel Piet, who knew how to make me think better in the ring. Whereas Darby White and Sarge, like Captain Smit, were honest carpenters, Geel Piet had been an artist and I missed his uncanny understanding of how to exploit my personality in the ring.
I felt I wasn’t growing as a boxer. Yehudi Menuhin once said that playing the violin is like singing through your limbs; Geel Piet had had the ability to make boxing seem the same, each punch the result of perfect timing, continuity, controlled emotion and intelligence. If I was to become the welterweight champion of the world, I knew I’d soon have to find a coach who thought beyond schoolboy boxing.
The holidays were packed. I’d be at the prison at five-thirty a.m. for boxing, and Captain Smit would make me go three rounds with two of the other kids. Mostly with Snotnose and Jaapie, both heavier than me but really the only two boxers who could box well enough to push me. Both would itch to have a go, both were fighters in the Smit tradition, and both were very tough. It called for all my ringcraft to stay out of trouble. Halfway through the second round, Captain Smit would blow his whistle and one of them would step down and the other come in. This meant each of them only boxed one and a half rounds and so they’d go flat out, prepared to take a few punches to get a good one in. Captain Smit was convinced that it was the only way to increase my speed and keep me sharp.
After an hour and a half in the prison gym I’d head for Doc’s cottage, where either Dee or Dum, who took it turn about, would have delivered breakfast. By the time I arrived at eight, the coffee would be made and a loaf of fresh bread would be on the table, together with eggs and bacon, plopping away on the back of the stove waiting for me to arrive. Doc was, after all, still a German and he expected me to be exactly on egg and bacon time. The girls loved the holidays and they’d spoil me rotten, with baking and fussing and generally cooking up a storm. Doc always claimed he put on several pounds when I was around.
Doc and I would sit outside on his stoep for breakfast and we’d plan the weekend hike. This usually meant repeating an old trail. Doc would bring out his notepad and we’d discuss the last time we’d done the planned walk, which might have been five years before. We’d discuss every specimen we’d found then and sometimes even leave the table to check the progress of some long forgotten succulent we had collected. Doc was still tied to the Steinway and his little girl students during the week, so our long walks had to take place over the weekend. Though I’m sure, after a while, he’d have had it no other way, the planning and the discussion over his notes became just as important to him as the excursions themselves. At nine he’d give me a piano lesson, shaking his head at the bad habits I’d acquired under the direction of Mr Mollip, the Prince of Wales School music master. ‘This Mr Muddleup, you are sure he teaches pianoforte?’ he would say, shaking his head. ‘I think maybe the banjo yes? He would spend the rest of the holidays getting me back into some sort of musical shape.
The first time I played St Louis blues for Doc I had expected to shock him out of his pants. In fact it was meant as a joke. Instead he nodded quietly. ‘Ja, that is goot.’ I turned to look at him in surprise. ‘But to play black, the music must come from your soul not out from your head, Peekay.’ He indicated that I should rise from the piano stool, and seated in my place he played the piece in the same haunting way as Hymie’s seventy-eight of Errol Garner.
‘Bloody hell, Doc, where’d you learn to do that!’ It was the first time I’d sworn in Doc’s presence but he seemed not to notice. ‘Okey-dokey, Mr Schmarty-Pantz, who is a person called W. C. Handy?’
‘He sounds like a lavatory brush,’ I said flippantly.
‘Mr W. C. Handy wrote this music, and now you want to play it without heart and even without knowing who is the composer! Would you do this to Beethoven or Bach? No, I think not. But now Mr Schmarty-Pantz thinks to
