Moffie Read Online Free PDF Page B

Nicky, we’d better get in.’
    â€˜What were you looking at for so long out there, Nicky?’
    â€˜Nothing,’ I say, as I would for the rest of my life when I can’t explain or (I believe) they don’t have the understanding to grasp.
    â€˜When are they coming?’ my mother asks my father.
    â€˜In two days’ time; until then at least we’ll have peace.’ He shakes his head and clicks his tongue to emphasise his displeasure. ‘If only she would stop her drinking and leave that useless Jacobus!’
    â€˜Just don’t let it affect you so.’
    â€˜She’s my sister, Suzie; of course it affects me. Now the child complicates matters even more. How can that hippie be a father?’
    â€˜What’s a hippie?’
    â€˜A hippie, Frank, is worse than a ducktail. They are disgusting people who listen to crazy music and don’t believe in God.’ He allows the silence that follows to press home his sentiment. ‘Promise me you will never become one, because if you do, I will chase you away and you will never set foot in my house again.’
    â€˜Don’t say things like that to him; he will believe it.’
    â€˜Well, he’d better, because I will.’
    â€˜I promise,’ says Frankie.
    A hare jumps out in front of the car and runs in the light pools that break the shadows of small undulations. Our father laughs and speeds up to chase it, but it darts into the dark ahead of the big-eyed noise. The car drifts slightly over tinned-roof corrugations, and then rights itself. When we go through a dip, the bottom of the car scrapes the gravel and bounces up.
    â€˜Three more gates to open, then we’re there!’
    We rib-run over the cattle grid and reach the place where our father was raised.
    The house is set within a big, green lawn dotted with pepper trees. The high roof with the curved covering over the wraparound veranda looks proud and inviting.
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    There is a formal politeness in the way the two brothers greet each other. Uncle Hendrik and aunt Sannie have a son, Hanno, who also stands on the neat pathway of greeting. He is my age. In him pulses a father-shaped competitiveness, scab deep, barely civil.
    It is a place of contrast—the freedom of the spirits borne on the evening air and the mundaneness of my father’s family. They seem carefully crocheted into self-righteous squares on which their prejudice rests. There are special voices for God, then in descending steps of deference, for people of the church, authority, old people, friends, children, dogs, and finally the voice they use for the staff.
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    Long table, respectful children on one side, humble, grateful, then off to bed. We walk down the high-ceilinged passage covered in photographs, to the blank room that Frank and I share. High above the bed a light hangs on a long cord. The frilly, blue lampshade projects in half moons on each wall, with harsh light below the dividing line and mysterious shadows above. We ask my mother to leave the door open. When she leaves, I crawl into bed with Frankie, and we fall asleep hugging each other. Breakfast consists of ‘build-you-up-to-play-rugby’ helpings that we have to eat in silence. When my uncle asks me a question, I stutter a reply in Afrikaans and my father grimaces.
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    It is time for a tour of the farm. We reach the barn with the farm vehicles and implements, and the ever-present layer of dust amidst the smell of sheep manure.
    Our drive around the farm takes all morning. Frank and I stand on the back of the Ford truck with high railings for transporting sheep. Hanno has a ‘you-don’t-really-belong-here’ attitude and takes up position in the centre against the cab. We reach a whitewashed clay wall and go through a rusty gate leading to the stones that mark the places where our dead forebears lie, contorted as though the hard soil wants to twist them out. My father combs his hair, almost as