Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [26]
water
Jug
Rooibos tea
Frisco
Powdered milk
Sugar (tin)
(NB for her needlework basket:
extra buttons for the uniform &
darning mushroom needles pins
scissors crochet hook crochet
yarn oddments of wool for more
of the jerseys she wears she
will start knitting them herself
now)
Bible
FAK (old one)
Cook & Enjoy?
Farmer’s Handbook (Pa’s old
copy, A. must learn the principles
old & new methods you never
know & it’s good discipline)
Embroidery book
Optional:
Tin of ginger biscuits
Tin of rusks
Marie biscuits
Acid drops
Peppermint humbugs
Just a little something to suck on & something to enjoy with hr tea in the evening before going to bed. So much to do still. Quite ill with thinking of it. I ask J. doesn’t he feel anything about everything happening now he says it’s not necessary for him to feel anything I’ve got enough feelings for two. Next thing I see he’s gone & bought himself a whole box of new clothes. A new noise on Gdrift he says & after all he can’t appear without costume for the next act. I say why don’t you rather go & read something to improve yourself your whiplash repartee no longer impresses me. Since I’ve been pregnant, he’s at least more careful. Doesn’t seem as if he wants to as much as touch me, never mind beat me. But the language he utters. Comes along just now & grabs the diary from under me. Blessed is the maker of lists creator of heaven and earth he exclaims. Blessed are the poor in spirit I snap back. What must become of us?
13 May 1960
Everything goes as if preordained. Three rooms furnished at the same time nursery & A.’s room & the gable room of the left wing for J’s office. He’s sleeping there most of the time now anyway & with the baby it will definitely be better he says so himself.
Now quite exhausted after the whole day’s organising. Scared all the time that I’m forgetting something important. Anxious. What a disruption it is! I know it’s right but I nevertheless hold my heart about it all.
Had cradle & chest of drawers put into the nursery with hole in top in which the washbasins fit & enough space next to it to attend to the child. Under the bath space for nappies & bath things. Had single bed carried in there & an easy chair so that I can lie there if necessary & a place to sit for feedings & chest of drawers with enough drawers so that at one glance I can put my hand on everything.
Bought curtaining with half-moons & stars the windows open into the backyard so that A. can help listen at night.
Had linoleum nailed to the scrubbing table for hr kettle to stand on. OuKarel has fixed cross-planks between the legs of the table for hr tin bath & hr suitcase. Had a plank screwed down on iron brackets over the table on which she can keep hr coffee & tea & mugs & soap & cleaning material & hammered a nail into the wall for mirror one corner cracked but perfectly usable. Had a copper pipe inserted in the wall between the two partitions where shelves of the storeroom were to hang hr uniforms & dresses (look for old wire hangers NB) devised a two-strip curtain on a cord so that hr stuff needn’t be so exposed to view next to the bed a crate with a cloth over it for hr Bible & hr glass of water for the night & hr candle almost forgot about the candle add to list 2 (Inside crate she can keep hr other reading matter.) Got Dawid to nail 4 apple boxes together & painted two coats of white & screwed in two hooks & and made a curtain for that as well for hr shoes & shoe polish below & hr wool & cloths & her needlework basket.
Little old yellow vase for a bit of homeliness with nasturtiums inside should look pretty there. Walls still bare & light-bulb without shade but there’s no point in having her think this is a hotel old bathmat in front of the bed so that she won’t stand on cold linoleum with the getting-up & hung old kitchen curtains a bit skimpy had to undo the pleats but still quite serviceable.
What can she think of it all? Will just have to be good enough. Fortunately nice & sensible.
J.’s office now in stoep