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University of Cape Town (UCT) in Terms of the Non-Exclusive License Granted to UCT by the Author The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgement of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Published by the University of Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University of Cape Town UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN GRADUATE SCHOOL IN HUMANITIES The Things We Left Unsaid Amy Barr-Sanders BRRAMYOOI A minor dissertation submitted in partialfil(filment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Masters in Creative Writing Faculty of the Humanities University of Cape Town 2008 DECLARATION This work hasUniversity not been previously submitted of Cape in whole, or inTown part, for the award of any degree. It is my own work. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in, this dissertation from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced. Signature: ---.30.J--+-"-t;;.LL'------------- Date: The financial assistance of the National Research Foundation (NRF) towards this research is hereby acknowledged. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at, are those of the author and are not necessarily to be attributed to the NRF. The Things We Leji 1'l1said. C) :COOS. lillY Barr·Sal1ders. 11/ rights reserved. 2 UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN GRADUATE SCHOOL IN HUMANITIES DECLARATION BY CANDIDATE FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER IN THE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES L Amy Barr-Sanders of 15 Cook Rd, Claremont, Cape Town do hereby declare that I empower the University of Cape Town to produce for the purpose of research either the whole or any portion of the contents of my dissertation entitled "The Things We Left Unsaid" University of Cape Town in any manner whatsoever 5 ~I' 2008 DATE The Things We Leji L'nsmd. C 2008. .tmy Barr-Sanders .. 111 rrghts resen·ed. 3 The Things We Left Unsaid Amy Barr-Sanders ABSTRACT At sixteen. Alice. a gifted and highly sensitive teenager in her final year of school. has it all: perfect parents, loyal friends and big plans to attend university. She would never have imagined that in a week everything could vanish. After a party where things go horribly wrong. Alice has a dark secret, one she longs to tell her mother. Penelope, with whom she shares a close bond. But when Penelope is killed in a head-on collision on route to an unknown destination. Alice is bereft of both confidante and guardian. In the chaotic days following her mother's death, Alice discovers she was having an on­ line affair. She fears that her mother's deception renders their whole life together a lie. As she delves into this mystery, she becomes obsessed with the secret life of Penelope and is torn between her pursuit of the lover's identity and an instinct to abandon the search. She is simultaneously embroiled in a series of scandals at school. Disillusioned, Alice risks everything to uncover a truth which she believes will miraculously solve her crisis. Her best friend. Theresa. is the constant voice of reason which Alice wilfully ignores. When she finally tracks her mother's lover to his home, her neat judgements disintegrate as they encounter a complex reality. The idea of Penelope as a sexual and emotional being, not simply a one-sided symbol of maternal care that sacrifices herself to the needs of her family, is, for Alice. deeply disturbing but ultimately redemptive. In this coming-of-age story, as Alice begins to relinquish her judgement of others. she is able to forgiveUniversity herself for her own failings of and Cape accept ambiguity Town as part of life. It is her decision to move beyond prescribed roles as well as to identify and fulfil her own needs that constitutes her essential development into maturity. It is a story for young adults that acknowledges that childhood is the springboard from \vhich we launch ourselves into the world. that the things we learn in adolescence and the ways in which we cope with adversity during that time determine to a large extent the adults we will become and that those youthful choices reverberate throughout our lives. The Things We Leji Unsaid. .c :lOO8. .//1/)' Barr-Sanders.. 111 rights reserved When I was a child I spake as a child I understood as a child. I thought as a child: but when I became a man. I put away childish things. I Corinthians 13: 11 University of Cape Town The 7hil/gs lie Left iiI/said (' ~()()8. ,Iml' Barr-Sanders.. 111 /'Ight.> reserwd 5 1 "0 h, Alice come look! It's raining!" Her mother was standing at the large picture window that overlooked the pool and garden with a look of rapture on her face as though it had never rained in the history of creation. Alice reluctantly went to join her. Penelope wrapped an arm around her and squeezed her in unrestrained delight. "Isn't it beautiful?" Penelope's love of the rain was only partially explicable by her being an avid gardener and so revelling in the idea of her thirsty plants, even those frequently overlooked dears in the very back of the beds close to the boundary walls, being drenched with water. "Heavenly water,"University she'd smile. "Holy of water:' Cape Town She loved contemplating how each drop was finding a secret dry inch of ground and quietly reviving its inhabitants. The garden did always look revived and fresh after the rain, all the dust washed from the leaves, so that they gleamed in renewed shades of luscious green. Penelope often spoke excitedly about the Emerald Isle's hundred shades of green and how the Irish did not appreciate how lucky they were. Alice knew that secretly her mother longed to reproduce a similar success in her dusty hot corner of the world. "Let's go and stand in it!" Penelope squealed, thrilled at the prospect. Alice's father came stomping in, face like the storm that had brought the rain, dashing the droplets from his face and anns and banging and stamping his boots on the coir mat at file Things We Leji Cnsaide: ::008. ,jnll' Barr-Sanders. All rights reserved 6 the side entrance. "Bloody rain! Weather for ducks!" He was the embodiment of doom. "Duck weather!" Penelope enthused and then, looking at Dennis, she narrowed an eye, mimicking the close inspection all avian creatures give a changing and possibly dangerous situation. With a sudden twinkle in her fowl-like eyes, her mother made a low duck sound. Then she quacked loudly and flapped her arms. Alice's father froze on the mat and watched the scene as though his wife had, at last, gone mad. Penelope looked at Dennis and there followed a series of quacks: "Quack?" (What's wrong with you?) "Quack." (Oh, no you don't. I'm not letting you ruin my fun.) "Quack, quack, quack!" (I'm going to play in the rain, so there!) And she charged otT in a t1urry of flapping limbs. Alice, weak with laughter but by now also quacking, ran out into the wet garden with its deep earthy scent. The land seemed to breathe in the rain and exhale itself in a deep sigh. Penelope did a mock waddle and quacked at Alice. Alice giggled and flapped her arms high above her head and quacked back. Wet pigeons dozing on the telephone lines un-tucked their heads to watch and listen to these strange new birds. A crow answered their hoarse cries. This only encouraged her mother and she went into a frenzy of quacking. Her father flung open a window and said in a whispered shout, "Penelope! Come inside! You look ridiculous. You're both going to catch your death in that rain. Don't come crying to me if you get pneumonia. And what will the neighbours makeUniversity of all this?" of Cape Town Penelope stopped and turned to see her husband's angry red head, which seemed to t10at. separate from his body like a red balloon. The man has too much face, she thought uncharitably. With such a big head, he really ought to grow a beard again. She stared at him in mock seriousness and said, "Just tell them we've gone quackers." Dennis slammed the window shut. Alice rolled on the wet grass, clutching her sides. Penelope spun like the girl in the old Timotei shampoo advert, her spun-gold hair in a veil around her, head tilted back to let the rain kiss her beautiful face, tongue out to taste it, because she didn't care ifit made her look silly. But nothing could. She was a water nymph; she was a garden faerie, a storm angel. Alice sat up and watched her mother 7he Things We Lefi C'nsaid (1 ;COOl!. lillY Barr-Sanders. All rights reserved. 7 twirling and dancing as the t10wers on her dress eagerly sucked up their fair share of the rain, excited at not being left indoors in the poor weather. "How could anyone call this , poor' weather?" she shouted to the sky. "'I r s the richest weather of all!" Then she ran back inside, calling to Alice to come with her. She ran her daughter a hot bath with geranium and lavender oils and Alice stripped off and hopped in. She lay in the warm water and listened to the rain outside. It made a sound like an electric kettle does when it first begins to heat up: a strange rattling, shushing sound as the falling drops struck the house forcefully and ran down to the relieved vegetation.
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