That’s life

He’s become a nostalgic old fool, writes Herman Lategan, who finds reminiscing about rural life strangely comforting

There was a time in my life when I thought I was done with rural areas… Farms, dorpies, the people in them – even the animals had no appeal. I loved New York, Sydney, Cape Town and Johannesburg. Cities with a decadent vibe.

I was more of a smoky nightclub and disco man: rather take me to a cha-cha palace where I could hide in dark and dingy corners. I yearned for the smells and noises of the city – petrol, hooters and revelry in the air.

Even a traffic jam had the undertones of drama. I’ve lived in Cape Town most of my life.

The sea? You must be joking. A walk on the mountain? Don’t make me phone the police. Close the front door as you leave, please.

And then, before I knew it – time passed so quickly – I didn’t recognise the man in the mirror any more. Like many men who grow older, we start to look like women of a certain age.

I thought years of hard living would make me tough. What I saw in my reflection was a sentimental old fool, someone who’d become melancholic and nostalgic.

I’m the embarrassing uncle at the Sunday lunch who gets too drunk, says the wrong things and in the end sobs into his drink. But hey, so what?

I have my memories of visits to the platteland and they are wonderful. Life is too short to stuff a mushroom or to look back in anger.

Oh, now they flood back, those sweet recollections of me as a city boy of 10, milking a cow with Oom Gert at 05:00 in the morning. He was a worker on a peach and sheep farm, and showed me how to treat Blommie the cow with gentleness.

It was on a farm near Vanwyksdorp, in the middle of nowhere, stuck between Ladismith and Riversdale. It belonged to my step-grandparents, Oom Hannes and Tannie Elga.

Oom Hannes was a large man, but soft and wonderful like a buttermilk rusk dipped into boerekoffie. Tannie Elga was the intense one who’d studied drama at Stellenbosch University.

She was friendly with actors like Limpie Basson and Jannie Gildenhuys, famous in their day. It impressed me tremendously at that young age, and I loved her sense of the theatrical.

“Look at the stars!” she would scream in a stage-actress voice at her laatlammetjie, Truitjie, and me. It was as though she had discovered diamonds – and for her they were indeed a girl’s best friends.

Then we had to take blankets out onto the lawn and lie on our backs and

gaze at the beauty of the sky. There was no electricity, so it would be dark – so black that only the moonlight made the plants visible.

She would tell us riveting stories about many of the stars, all made up, of course, but we loved them more than ice cream. Her theory was that God had a cold one day and sneezed, and that’s how the twinkly lights above were formed.

One night we fell asleep outside. When the sun came up, I looked at Tannie Elga’s big bush of hair. It moved.

I nearly went mad; it was a huge spider that was stuck in her hair. She calmly raised herself from the ground like a ballerina and slowly drifted into the house as if flying over the earth.

A pair of scissors appeared and, looking in a mirror, she gently cut the monster out of her coif. It fell on the floor and ran away.

“Never kill a spider,” she warned.

“If you do, its entire family will come out at night and bite you.”

Oh, I have fond memories of that woman, who died too young.

OTHER REMINISCENCES OF RURAL LIFE are of Springfontein in the Free State and its surrounding towns. Most of the places have been neglected, but the yellow fields and bright, transparent clouds make up for it.

Although these hamlets are fragile, most of their residents are jolly trouts. Some have interesting names like Piet Muisvoël and Vleis Terblanche. The latter, I suspect, is a butcher.

I met a woman in a pub in Bethulie, as one does. Years of drinking had made its marks on her face and, to paraphrase Shakespeare, “The tartness of [her] face sours ripe grapes.”

She reminded me of the permanently tipsy and disillusioned character Wanda Wilcox in the movie Barfly, portrayed by Faye Dunaway. When she spoke, it was in a husky voice; she wore a tad too much make-up and looked like she’d done some time behind bars (no pun intended).

In the movie someone asks Wilcox what she does for a living. “I’m an alcoholic,” she croaked. Now this woman, who refused to give me her name, could have been Wilcox’s double.

She did talk about other strange things, nevertheless. “My father always told me a policeman who doesn’t drink can’t be trusted,” she said. She coughed a while and crushed her cigarette in an overflowing ashtray. Immediately she lit another one.

Then she asked me what I was doing there. I told her I was visiting a friend. She got up unsteadily from her seat, pointed her cigarette at me and warned: “Don’t ever go to Welkom; there they will moer you with a fan belt. Do you promise me, lovey?”

In Springfontein there is no pub, but I discovered a guesthouse with a lapa where you could have a drink should the fancy take you. Up, up the hill I drove to a deserted place where only the birds in the trees could be heard.

I knocked on the door. Silence. Slowly it opened and a woman who looked as though she’d just been caught stealing a pie from Pick n Pay stared at me.

“A drink,” I begged. It was past 17:00. “I only have Cape to Rio Cane and Creme Soda,” she said. She whispered as she told me about this curious concoction. At first I thought she was sending me up, but no such luck. Look, I was desperate for a pick-me-up, so I went inside.

We sat down and it went down quite well. Within a few drinks she got dronkverdriet. Tears were rolling down her cheeks.

“I can’t find a man here,” she cried. “All the men are taken. I was going to marry a farmer. No such luck. He left without a word.”

She grabbed both my hands, looked me in the eye and said: “Let me give you advice: get out of this area.

“Don’t stay too long. It has ruined me, ruined me, I tell you.” She wailed while hitting the arms of the ugly chair. In the end, I, too, left sobbing, never to return to her guesthouse.

The next day, there in Springfontein, a man set his car alight after his wife had left him.

Then there was the time I had to go to Trompsburg. Lo and behold, a famous and difficult man with a kierie walked past me.

It was the late author Karel Schoeman. As a groupie, I could not let this serendipitous chance to speak to him go by.

“Mr Schoeman,” I called to him. He turned around. We spoke briefly about mutual friends. He then mentioned he had a soft spot for alcoholics.

I was surprised – I realised I had visited quite a few pubs in the surrounding areas, but was it that noticeable?

Could it be the tiny red veins on my cheeks? Did I have the nose of a heavy drinker? Take me to the river. Now. Wash away my sins.

Perhaps he wasn’t referring to me, I thought.

He then took his walking stick, lifted it and gently prodded it against my chest. I’ll never forget his words.

“It’s terrible, terrible to grow old,” he said. “And, Mister, if you live long enough, your time will come. Your time will come.” He cackled like Jacob Zuma in parliament.

With that said, he turned around and left me standing there. I wondered whether Trompsburg had a tavern, a shebeen, anything, because I needed a thirst-quencher. Something stronger than innocuous water.

Today, Mr Schoeman, I hear your words. Clearly. I have looked at the older man in the mirror. Sadder, not wiser. My time has nearly come, but do you know what?

I have the fondest memories of the platteland and its wonderful people. It sustains me. I’ll be back.

“I’m the embarrassing uncle at the Sunday lunch who gets too drunk, says the wrong things and in the end sobs into his drink. But hey, so what?”