Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [299]
29 August 1958
Crawled in behind A’s back in tears again last night. J. particularly rough after the whole circus episode & swears & scolds & abuses me to my very soul. Another dress with a broken zip. I suppose I shouldn’t turn to the poor child for refuge. In the end she was the one who comforted me. Never mind she says I don’t have to feel bad she looked through a slit in the tent & saw the ringmaster’s high hat & the antics of Tickey & the trapeze artists on the highest rung their red velvet slippers with the shiny stuff & then she stood back when the drums started ruffling to say here it comes they’re going to jump & then she could see from the shadows on the tent wall & the spotlights how they swung & let go & turned somersaults in the air & caught each other by the arms at the last minute & then she went closer again & saw the trumpets shining as they were lifted to blow. So then of course I cried more than ever & the more I cried the more tightly she locked her arms around me. Nothing to about cry she whispers in my ear, must I go & make Même a glass of warm milk? Father in heaven how am I going to resolve this matter?
23 February 1959
A. very responsible helps only too diligently with everything around the place: Stacks pumpkins pulls potatoes plucks the geese. She shines in the kitchen, can make a good white sauce already & a quite presentable stew & hr flapjacks & scones are excellent. She’s managing very well with needle & thread. Gave hr a needlework basket for hr little things. Teach hr something new every day, buttonhole flat-seam blanket-stitch. I praise hr often & she reacts excellently to praise & encouragement & tries only to excel & improve herself. She’s even been to pick blackberries & made blackberry jam according to the recipe in the book without one sticky patch in the kitchen. For the rest very perceptive came & reported that the chickens were sneezing & we could prevent an outbreak of roup. Lost only about four day-old chickens & all the others including turkeys & ducks treated preventatively. J. has this idea that he can build poultry-runs in a draught so that’s what he has for it. He says the chickens got it from me & A. we infect everything we touch & what will I do if he gets chicken flu?
11 March 1959
A. solemnly came to sing to me this morning for my birthday. Best wishes dear Même on this your birthday, That the Lord you will keep we earnestly pray. She’d baked an orange cake first thing this morning all on her own & written 33 on it with icing sugar in higgledy-piggledy letters. Then she gave me wrapped in a scrap of green velvet stitched with blanket-stitch & tied with a red ribbon hr prettiest fossil. Was with her the day she picked it up on the mountain. Haven’t yet been able to make out what it is. Some or other floating seed with membranous wing or otherwise a membrane-winged insect. A parasitic wasp perhaps. Looks exactly like a little galleon & the stone-ripples look like waves. A remarkable likeness. Can’t really believe she wants to give it to me. It’s our ship, just the two of us where are we sailing to? she asks me. What could be happening in the child’s head?
10 October 1959
Can’t abide J.’s aggression towards A. any longer. An unbearable atmosphere in the house. She’s an early bloomer he says she ogles him. What nonsense but perhaps I’m missing something. Hear the maids teasing in the kitchen: But you’re pushing tits Aspatat. She’s been moody of late. I suppose the start of the trouble.
13 October 1959
A. reads all the time went & fetched a lot of Ma’s books out of the cellar last year. Genoveva, Alone in the World, Prisoner of Zenda, Scarlet Pimpernel, In the Footsteps of the Master by HV Morton & In the Steps of St Paul by HV Morton & Late Harvest. A. knows them