Scenes From Provincial Life - J. M. Coetzee [65]
Before he leaves the house in the afternoons his father takes care to empty the mailbox and remove certain items, which he hides at the bottom of his wardrobe under the paper lining. When at last the flood-gates burst, it is the cache of letters in the wardrobe – bills from the Goodwood days, letters of demand, lawyers’ letters – that his mother is most bitter about. ‘If I had only known, I could have made a plan,’ she says. ‘Now our lives are ruined.’
The debts stretch everywhere. Callers come at all hours of the day and night, callers whom he does not get to see. Each time there is a knock at the front door his father shuts himself up in his bedroom. His mother greets the visitors in low tones, ushers them into the living room, closes the door. Afterwards he can hear her whispering angrily to herself in the kitchen.
There is talk of Alcoholics Anonymous, of how his father should go to Alcoholics Anonymous to prove his sincerity. His father promises to go but does not.
Two court officers arrive to take an inventory of the contents of the house. It is a sunny Saturday morning. He retreats to his bedroom and tries to read, but in vain: the men require access to his room, to every room. He goes into the backyard. Even there they follow him, peering around, making notes on a pad.
He seethes with rage all the time. That man, he calls his father when he speaks to his mother, too full of anger to give him a name: why do we have to have anything to do with that man? Why don’t you let that man go to prison?
He has twenty-five pounds in his Post Office savings book. His mother swears to him that no one will take his twenty-five pounds away from him.
There is a visit from a Mr Golding. Though Mr Golding is Coloured, he is somehow in a position of power over his father. Careful preparations are made for the visit. Mr Golding will be received in the front room, like other callers. He will be served tea in the same tea service. In return for being treated so well, it is hoped that Mr Golding will not prosecute.
Mr Golding arrives. He wears a double-breasted suit, does not smile. He drinks the tea that his mother serves but will promise nothing. He wants his money.
After he has left there is a debate about what to do with the teacup. The custom, it appears, is that after a person of colour has drunk from a cup the cup must be smashed. He is surprised that his mother’s family, which believes in nothing else, believes in this. However, in the end his mother simply washes the cup with bleach.
At the last minute Aunt Girlie from Williston comes to the rescue, for the honour of the family. In return for a loan she lays down certain conditions, one of them that Jack should never again practise as an attorney.
His father agrees to the conditions, agrees to sign the document. But when the time comes, it takes long cajoling to get him out of bed. At last he makes his appearance, in grey slacks and a pyjama top and bare feet. Wordlessly he signs; then he retires to his bed again.
Later that evening he gets dressed and goes out. Where he spends the night they do not know; he does not return until the next day.
‘What’s the point of making him sign?’ he complains to his mother. ‘He never pays his other debts, so why should he pay Girlie?’
‘Never mind him, I’ll pay her,’ she replies.
‘How?’
‘I’ll work for the money.’
There is something in his mother’s behaviour that he can no longer close his eyes to, something extraordinary. With each new and bitter revelation she seems to grow stronger, more stubborn. It is as though she is inviting calamities upon herself for no other purpose than to show the world how much she can endure. ‘I will pay all his debts,’ she says. ‘I will pay in instalments. I will work.’
Her ant-like determination angers him to the point that he wants to strike her. It is clear what lies behind it. She wants to sacrifice herself for her children. Sacrifice