Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [298]
2 August 1958
Quarrel with J. about A.: What do I want to do with hr when she’s big? he asks, after all she can’t stay in the house with us for ever. I’d better make a plan, he says, it’s either she or him.
25 August 1958
All hell loose here. Went out to B. to deliver down for her eiderdowns this afternoon. When I got back A. was sitting in the corner in hr room & it’s chaos. Apparently J. got the idea into his head that A.’s stuff in her collections is infesting the house with beetles & wood-borer & mites & undesirable fungi & heaven knows what else & then he chucked out the whole lot in a heap in the backyard. Ordered A. to get rid of the rest. Apparently doesn’t want a single object or picture or list of words or feather or horn or packet of fennel seed in hr room except what belongs in a bedroom.
Helped her to rescue what could be rescued & consoled I’ll help to start all over again with the collection but she’s inconsolable over hr birds’ eggs & hr mounted insects & dried wild flowers. Even the leopard skull smashed there in the backyard. Good Lord it’s all the child possesses such innocent little playthings. Fortunately the fossil stones are unharmed.
Very sad about all the pictures that J. tore up. Thought I’d keep a few for hr from when she was small so that one day when she’s grown up she can marvel at them.
26 August 1958
A. sulking. What does she want me to do? I can’t exactly fling J. over my lap & give him a hiding for what he’s done? I know better than to scold him. Best is to stay out of his way & not to confront him. She refuses to eat sits there at table & glares at me as if I’m the one who broke her stuff.
28 August 1958
Took A. to the circus tonight to console her & then that also turned out a fiasco because we bought three tickets but then they wouldn’t let her go in with us on the white side. The man was in fact quite rude. What could I do? So then we went to the non-white entrance & then the white ticket wasn’t right & if she wouldn’t make me buy a coloured ticket & all & then she didn’t want to go in on her own but by then Jak & I already had our tickets & of course by this time he was already irritated with all the trouble with his now-do-you-see expression on his face. So I suggested that he should go in & Agaat & I would stroll around outside amongst the cages & the caravans outside & look at the animals & the artistes because it was still dusk. A whole to-do there at the entrance to the approach tent: The elephant & the ponies with plumed crests & the horse-lifter with his tiger-skin suit & the clowns starting to practise to be funny. We would then go & wait for him in the car. But that was then of course not good enough either & he grabs me by the arm there amongst all the people & he hisses in my ear: You will go in with me woman & then I had to leave the poor A. right there. Had just enough time to give her money for an ice-cream. Terrible sitting there in the tent. Could enjoy nothing so upset was I & I could think of nothing but A. who’s really not used to strange places & so many people. When we came out she was sitting in the dust next to the car in the parking lot because of course it was locked all the time. Fortunately it wasn’t cold but now she’s angry with me all over again & all I was trying to do was make it up to her.
J. has just been here glaring at me: Write! Write! with those little claw-paws of yours what good is it going to do you? There’s a life here to be lived & decisions to be taken & work to be done