The Avocado Pear Tree

LINEAR LIBRARY C0100731717 H1111111111111 The Avocado Pear Tree Bonita Case University of Cape Town Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Iv1aster's Degree in Creative \Vriting The University of Cape Town 1999 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 The Avocado Pear Tree Bonita Case Synopsis For twenty years Elsie September has refused to visit her uncle, Hannie, a state patient at Valkenberg mental hospital. At her grandmother's insistence, she almost goes to see him one day, but she only gets as far as the building and cannot bring herself to go inside. Instead, she meets Shaun and, as a relationship develops, Elsie begins to tell him the stories of her childhood. But Elsie's relationship with Shaun is troubled and unbalanced. Before Elsie reaches the point in her narrative where she will explain why she refuses to see her uncle, she and Shaun part acrimoniously and he disappears. Elsie has, by now, become so caught up in the telling of her story that not even Shaun's disappearance can stop her from going back to the day her world changed beneath the sheltering arms of the avocado pear tree. The Avocado Pear Tree Chapter 1 Forceps 14 Chookoo Train 19 Bell Bottoms 30 Peagats 35 Chapter 2 40 Dirty Washing 49 Bread 54 When God Listens 62 Chapter 3 73 The Parade 80 A Chinese Bangle 90 The Change of Life 98 The House in Gympie Street 103 Chapter 4 114 The Moneybox 123 Mona's Smile 130 Mr Smith's Combi 140 Chapter 5 147 Boulders 163 Chapter 6 183 Chapter 7 191 Chapter 8 198 Chapter 9 212 Water Pistol 214 The Avocado Pear Tree 227 Chapter 10 246 Chapter 1 The shrill, insistent telephone wakes me. My throbbing head and mouth that feels like it was scoured by sandpaper make me curse all those bottles of wine I drank last night and vow never to touch the stuff again. "Hello," I mumble into the mouthpiece. "Elsie?" "Yes, Gran?" I reply, squinting at the digits on the alann clock. "Elsie, I'm ready. You are still going to take me, aren't you." "Oh ... sure Gran," I say, trying to figure out where exactly it is that I'm supposed to take her. "I'll be there as soon as I can. I just need to get showered and dressed." "Thanks, Elsie," she says, "Uncle Hannie will be so glad to see you." Oh, shit. I forgot about that, now I'll have to go. Unless, unless ... ''I'll see you in an hour, then," says Gran, very optimistically. "Okay, Gran.'' ""And don ·t be late:· she adds. before saying goodbye. IVhy do 1 get myself into these situations'? I gaze longingly at my bed. Before I can indulge in anymore self-pity. I run into the bathroom and throw up the remains oflast night's wine. So an hour and a couple of Panados later I park outside Granny's house. The bright yellow daisies and sickly s\vcet jasmine spilling wildly O\ er the fence contrast sharply with the dark. sulky house. Granny's garden has always been her pride. but now I see that \\eeds are trying to displace her neat rows of dahlias and roses. I turn the door handle and the door opens. I wish that she would learn to lock the front door. ifs bad enough that she refuses to have burglar bars or an alarm system installed. Granny stands at the sink. vvashing the dishes and humming to herself. ·Where the boys are·. it"s a song shc·d ah\ays sing when she \\as in a good mood . .. Hello Gran:· I say. and she turns around and wipes her hands on a dishcloth . .. Elsie. you\e made ir.·· Granny says brightly. --well. we still have a little time left. Do you want a cup of tea before \\e goT ··coffee please. r11 make i1.·· .. No. no: you sit clown.·· Granny puts the kettle on and takes the faded. rose patterned cups from the dresser. The kitchen looks gloomy today. the damp marks stare accusingly from the \Vall. The linoleum \\as once yellow but noY\. it is brO\vn and worn in places. ' Granny places a cup of coffee before me, sits down in her ·chair, at the head of the table, and lights a cigarette. She inhales and the smoke brings on a fit of coughing. "You should try to stop smoking," I say. "You're a fine one to talk!" she says, holding the packet out towards me hoping that I will take one to confirm her point, but I shake my head in refusal. "And anyway, why should I stop smoking at my age and with one foot already in the grave? Don't worry about me, you should worry about yourself, my girl. Why are you getting so thin? You should eat more and drink less coffee." Outside the kitchen door, a fat, ginger cat lies curled into a tight ball in the fading afternoon sun. "New cat, Gran?" "No, not really," she replies. "Whenever I feed the dogs, all these stray cats come and eat as well. You should see how many cats there are in the yard now, there's that ginger, a black tom, one black and white and two black and greys ... I saw your article in the paper about the gangs," says Granny, changing the subject. ··You must be careful, my girl. I worry about you. Going into dangerous areas like Manenberg and writing about gangsters is asking for trouble, especially for such a pretty girl like you." "Oh, Gran," I reply. ''Those guys don't hassle me. I never go alone; I always have a photographer with me. And in any case, I'm no Cindy Crawford." 3 "Nonsense!" snorts Granny. "If you would just take a little care \vith your appearance. Wear some make-up, have contact lenses instead of those dreadful spectacles. Buy some nice clothes, have a good haircut. You will soon have plenty of men knocking at your door." When I still lived with Granny, she found fault with every single guy who made the trek from the front door to settle in front of the television in the back room, squashed between the two of us. But things have changed now. I'm approaching thirty and she worries that I'm still on the shelf. I'm almost past my sell-by date. "You should try to get out of newspaper reporting. It is too dangerous, look at what happened to that journalist in that township up in KwaZulu. You know what you should rather do? You should write a book about our family history. I am getting old and I won't be around for much longer, so you should do it while I can still help you, tell you all the stories. People should know about what those damned Nats did to us, how they destroyed my family. I can't believe that they think that they can just tum around, put a new guy in charge and add ''new" to their name: A New National Party for the New South Africa. And people fall for that? I just hope that they don't win in the Western Cape again. And if you write about what they did to people like us, it will help all those idiots voting for them to remember that they destroyed their lives as well." This is Gran's favourite tirade- what the Nats did to her family. Gran is one of six children, three brothers and three sisters. The three eldest children were very fair, the 4 three youngest very dark. When the apartheid government ·started making all their laws, bringing in the Group Areas, Bantu Education, Job Reservation and all the rest, Granny's siblings realised that they had to act quickly. So the three fair-skinned ones had themselves reclassified and the two darker ones emigrated. Granny's the only one who stayed behind as a coloured person and had to put up with all the bullshit and second class citizen stuff. When exactly did Gran's siblings desert her? Late sixties, early seventies - I'm not sure. But one thing I can be sure of is this - my grandmother certainly knows how to bear a grudge. Not that she blames her brothers and sisters entirely though, it's always the Nats. Nelson Mandela was locked away for twenty-seven years and even he's tried to get over it. But not Gran, she treasures her wounds from the past. Instead of letting them heal, she worries away at them until they become infected and full of pus. And now she wants to proudly display her stinking, festering wounds to the world - as if anyone else will find it all as fascinating as she does. Like anyone else wants to know about how she had to see her sister at Plumstead station every morning and every afternoon and watch the conductor tip his hat to Lizzie. "Good morning, Miss September," she'd illustrate with a tip of her imaginary hat. How she had to walk past her sister, sitting on the whites only bench, right down to the bottom of the station \vhere there \Vere no benches for her to sit on.

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