The Year the Gypsies Came Page 3

  I’m nearest to Mother, who leans back on her elbows, her head tilted up towards the sun, her eyes closed like nothing in the world is bothering her, as if her fighting with Father in front of Sarah and me never happened.

  ‘Scoot over would you, Emmie?’ Mother nudges me over a bit with her red-painted toe. I see two hard lines between Mother’s eyebrows starting to form and think of grapes that become shrivelled-up raisins when they’ve been in the sun too long. Here’s Mother with a wrinkled raisin face in a few years. A mixed-up giggle comes spilling out of me.

  ‘What’s funny, Emmie?’ she murmurs, not moving.

  ‘Nothing, just something tickled me from the grass. Your turn, Sarah.’

  Mother calls me Emmie when she feels bad about something, but I like the sound of it in her mouth, no matter the reason. Last night at dinner Father told Mother that she’s only in a ‘fake’ good mood if there are other people around. She got red-hot angry and said that he was being ridiculous, then she made a big show and aimed a forkful of mashed potatoes across the table at him, but never actually let it fly. I concentrated on cutting my chicken up into tiny pieces for a long time until they were in perfect squares. Inside my head I kept screaming, ‘Can’t you two just stop it? This is no family! Can’t you act more like Mr and Mrs Wright?’

  My only friend at school is Cynthia Wright. She doesn’t care that I say dolls are boring and that pink is my least favourite colour. She walks right up to the other girls in our class when they whisper about my short hair and tells them stuff like ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ and reminds them about being nice to your fellow man that’s written in the Bible that her mother reads to her every night.

  Cynthia’s father sometimes shows up for lunch when I’m over there. He and Cynthia’s mother kiss hello at the door when he comes in, then her mother helps him off with his construction work-boots before we can all sit down to eat the no-crust egg-mayonnaise sandwiches and drink the lemonade that Mrs Wright puts in front of us. Cynthia’s mother always smiles and has on an apron and sits down last, after she’s sure Mr Wright is comfortable. Even though Cynthia always says she wishes she lived in a big house like I do, she doesn’t know how lucky she is.

  ‘Anyone for a scone and jam?’ Mother asks, sitting up and spreading a napkin on her lap.

  ‘Not yet, game’s too close,’ Sarah says quietly. She has on a striped lavender pinafore and a few strands of her long red hair have spun themselves round the white buttons of her collar. In Sarah’s eyes I see trapped tears that have spun themselves so tightly that they can’t fall onto her cheeks, but will fall instead back into the empty hollow place in her. I imagine a deep, dark well inside her that’s filled with all the tears she never cries, and how cold and damp she must feel under her pinafore and inside her kind, pale body.

  While Mother lies sunning herself, we play quietly on the lawn. Sarah and I are extra gentle when we win draughts from each other. ‘Sorry, Em,’ ‘Sorry, Sarah,’ we say each time we take a jump. I feel myself not wanting to have any of her draughts and would rather let her keep them all.

  After a half-hour or so Mother stirs and sits herself up. She fans her flushed cheeks and gazes out into the woods.

  ‘Your father’s heading back already,’ she says, sounding disappointed and looking in the direction of the white pillars, where I see him, thin dark hair plastered back off his shiny forehead, walking at a fast pace through the gates, like an eagle on a mission.

  ‘You’re back much too soon, Bob,’ Mother says, eyes half closed, her head turning away from his direction as he reaches us.

  ‘Nastiness becomes you.’ Father breathes heavily over her.

  ‘You’re blocking my light, Bob.’

  ‘Nobody could ever block your light,’ Father snorts.

  Sarah and I both keep our eyes on the draughts board between us. My eyes burn into the pieces. Red over black, black over red. Your jump. My jump. His jump. Her jump. Mother’s jump. Father’s jump. Jump. Jump. Jump. One jump after the other all jumbled inside my head.

  Neither one of them moves for a few painfully silent minutes, then Father slowly begins to circle the blanket we’re sitting on.

  ‘I have some news that might sweeten your sting, Lily,’ Father says, placing one hand on his hip as he walks. ‘ “I met a traveller from an antique land” – some gypsies.’ He stops and grins smugly down at Mother.

  ‘Gypsies?’ Mother raises an eyebrow then squints up at him from underneath the propped hand above her eyes. ‘How clever of you.’

  ‘Real gypsies?’ Sarah sits up suddenly.

  ‘Well, let’s just say they’re gypsies of a kind. Adventurers. Wanderers I met parked in their caravan in the woods.’ He lets out a breath, then takes a cigarette from his pocket and lights up. ‘I’ve invited them to stay with us for a while.’

  ‘Stay, Father? Where will they stay?’ Sarah asks in a high-pitched voice, looking up at him wide-eyed.

  ‘In their caravan on our property. Don’t look so frightened, Sarah. They really seem awfully decent. A nice couple actually… ’

  ‘Do they have children?’ I blurt out, while Sarah quietly lowers her eyes and flicks specks of grass off her pinafore.

  ‘Yes, yes, two boys I think they said.’ Father draws deeply on the cigarette and blows out a large smoke ring.

  Mother is busy piling thick homemade strawberry jam and clotted cream onto a scone and acts like nothing’s been said, like the only thing in the world that matters to her right now is the scone she’s fixing.

  ‘They arrived last night. Didn’t know it’s illegal to camp in the woods. They’ve been told they have to be out by nightfall,’ Father says, like he suddenly doesn’t care who’s listening and who’s not.

  ‘Are they staying long?’ I ask, imagining a dark-haired gypsy couple in wild coloured scarves, a glowing fortunetelling ball between them and two scruffy-looking boys with big sad eyes looking on while their parents read fortunes to strangers outside their caravan. The thought fills me with terror… and excitement.

  ‘I told them we had a large garden and they could park their caravan in it for a while. Give them a chance to find somewhere to stay. They’ll be here within the hour or so.’ Father blows two more smoke rings.

  I watch them as they spin round, one inside the other. There are no sounds, except for the sprinklers that hiss rainbow sprays in the quiet air. Sarah must notice the quiet too because she starts to tap a red draught against a black one. Click, click, click, like tap shoes on an empty stage.

  Mother looks up from her scone. A small piece of strawberry jam clings to the side of her mouth. She looks directly at Father through the smoke rings that he keeps blowing. ‘Well, well, Bobby-boy. I didn’t think you had it in you. What fun! Gypsy house guests, how dee-vinely original! Do tell, what are they like? I’m all ears.’

  ‘You’ll see for yourself, Lil… He’s a robust sort of chap from the Australian outback; his wife seems interesting, I dare say quite unusual actually. I’m quite sure he said they have two boys, but they didn’t come out. Must have been inside the caravan.’

  Mother touches her sticky mouth and wipes away the strawberry jam with a lace napkin. We all watch her as she stands up and arches her back, stretching her arms high above her head. ‘Good!’ she says. ‘We could all use some livening up around here. Don’t look so glum, Sarah. No one’s going to cast a spell on you, for goodness’ sake!’ Mother laughs.

  ‘That’s settled then, they can park over there.’ Father stamps his cigarette into the grass and points across the lawn to a spot near the driveway. Mother looks across at the same place.

  I watch them, standing apart, but looking in the same direction and wonder if maybe they are both imagining the caravan that will soon be parked there. Something heavy seems to lift between them. It makes me think of the big black rock I once saw on a school field trip to Pelindaba that rolled off a cliff and crashed onto the ground below. For a moment, I feel happy.

&nbsp
; Arrival

  Up the long driveway comes the tinny rattle of a Land Rover, the sound of loose pieces, like change rattling in a giant’s pocket. It chokes its way up towards the house, spitting gravel in all directions. This is an injured car, I think, noticing the small metal chunks that hang from its sides. There is a dirty oil cloth tied to its bumper, its windows are covered with brown dust and a wiper lies across its windshield like the crippled wing of a bird so I can’t see the faces inside. Behind drags the caravan. Maybe it was once white or blue or red, but the paint has peeled in so many places that it’s a dull grey now, except for the faded bumper stickers of places they’ve been that decorate its back end like rosettes.

  We don’t see too many Land Rovers in Johannesburg. They’re mostly used in the bush. Once I saw one on a trip to the Kruger National Park. It was shiny olive green, speeding like a cheetah on the chase through the grasslands of the veld, keeping up with a herd of wildebeest, dust blowing everywhere from the tyres and the hooves as they pounded across the plains of the bushveld.

  The old Land Rover comes to a muttering stop on our driveway. I think how unlike the Land Rovers in the bush this one is, how here in the suburbs of Johannesburg it’s a chained prisoner to the caravan, like a cheetah in the zoo.

  It is late afternoon and the shadows cover the woods and the driveway. They cover me and Sarah too, as we stand side by side and wait for the doors of the Land Rover to open.

  I think of all the people who have lived with us before at different times and how used to outsiders Sarah and I have got and how things always seemed worse between Mother and Father after the guest left. This time, a whole family of people will be living with us – a strange gypsy family – and I wonder if maybe it takes not one house guest, but a whole family to make my parents get along now.

  I imagine a bonfire burning in our garden. Above it hangs a blackened pot where angry words are thrown in and boiled away, and shadowy gypsies give the brew to Mother and Father to drink so that they will be kind to each other.

  My heart beats loud against my chest as the Land Rover door opens.

  There comes first a man. A worn, leather work-boot kicking the door open. A big man with light brown hair and a smile for Sarah and me.

  ‘G’day,’ he says. Creased khaki trousers that sag at the knees come towards us. ‘I’m Jock Mallory.’ Father was right – Jock is no real gypsy but looks more like a tanned cowboy making all thoughts of a gypsy brew vanish instantly.

  ‘I’m Sarah, and this is Emily,’ Sarah says, sounding relieved by the tanned-healthy sight of him, and politely shakes his hand.

  ‘Hey there, Em’ly.’ A rough, warm hand takes my hand for a second. ‘Where’s the rest of my ragamuffin family?’ Jock says, looking back towards the far side of the Land Rover.

  The sound of crunching gravel. A cough. Someone spits on the ground.

  Now a lady.

  ‘This is my wife, Peg,’ Jock says.

  Peg. It is not her I notice. It is the six-foot python that she wears peacefully wrapped round her neck, like some enormous necklace.

  ‘Her name’s Opalina,’ she says, showing chipped jigsaw-puzzle teeth. Peg must have been pretty once, but her skin looks worn, stained by earth, rubbed thin in places from years of use, like her husband’s leather boots.

  Opalina. Smooth, oily skin, clouds of black colour on a milky-beige background, camouflaged as jewellery.

  ‘I named her after the fire opals of Lightning Ridge in Australia.’ She smiles. ‘You can touch her if you want. She won’t bite.’ Peg leans towards me, a mixture of vanilla and the sweat of old clothes.

  Opalina is inches from my face. I shake my head. I can’t touch the snake. Not because I’m afraid, but because the snake seems like part of her body.

  ‘Maybe later,’ I mumble, and reach down to pick up a grey stone from the driveway.

  ‘Where are your children?’ Sarah asks, sounding cheery and unafraid, but I notice her keeping one eye on Opalina.

  ‘Boys are a little bashful right now.’ Peg shrugs. Her voice is low and dry-sounding, like she could use a long drink of water.

  Mother’s face suddenly appears through the study window.

  ‘Welcome,’ she calls, as if there are a hundred people standing in the garden. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’ Her hair is wrapped in a thick pink towel, turban-style, and from here she looks soft and beautiful. Jock and Peg look towards the window and wave to her, like she’s an Indian princess riding a fancy elephant.

  ‘Wanna see inside and scare the bejeezus out of our boys?’ Jock asks. ‘They’ve hardly ever seen girlies before.’

  Peg gives Jock a ‘don’t tease the girls’ look. She tosses her blonde stringy hair back and walks off towards Father who is headed down the driveway with Lettie right behind him.

  ‘Python’s squeezed the sense of humour outta her.’ Jock laughs. ‘Only teasing about the boys. They’re more or less okay, as far as boys go.’ He gives Sarah and me a curly-eyed wink. ‘C’mon, ladies, let’s go show them how pretty you both are.’

  Jock pulls down the wobbly caravan steps, and Sarah and I follow him up. Jock has to duck his head down as he passes under the door and although Sarah and I fit through easily I get a strange closed-in feeling, like I’m entering into a cave where there is little light, where maybe someone could get lost and never find his way out.

  A peppery, damp smell hits me inside the caravan. Once my eyes get used to the half-light I see, at the far end of the room, a small stove with a copper kettle on it. Opposite there’s a mattress with a brown-and-orange bedspread, and against the far wall, on the other side, is a small partition where I can see the outline of a bunk bed.

  ‘Streak, Otis, c’mon out and meet the girls.’ Silence. ‘You two are such ninny-boys. Do I have to come in there and wallop you both to get your hides moving?’ Jock yells.

  Shuffling feet. A large boy appears. His skin is red, like he’s got a bad sunburn. He has a big forehead and dull blue eyes that are sunken deep in his head.

  ‘Otis is sixteen.’ Jock looks back and forth from me to Sarah, as if he’s worried about something.

  ‘Hello, Otis,’ Sarah says kindly.

  Otis takes a step forward, off-balance, like the drunk man I once saw in the street on New Year’s Day. There are too many of us inside and he trips and falls forward. He grabs for the nearest thing to hold on to, which happens to be Sarah’s plaits. Sarah lets out a shriek as she and Otis land in a messy heap on the floor. Otis laughs. A funny, high, ragged sound, like a mule braying. A mule with teeth like bad corn.

  I have forgotten about the stone that I picked up outside until I feel its sharp edges digging into the soft flesh of my palm.

  ‘Are you okay, girlie?’ Jock bends over Sarah.

  ‘Yes, fine. I’m fine.’ Sarah dusts herself off and gets to her feet. ‘It was just an accident.’ She looks over at Otis and pats him on the shoulder. ‘It’s okay, really.’ Sarah’s goodness seems to come out even more when there’s an injured bird or person for her to fuss over.

  ‘Dumb ox,’ a voice yells from inside the small room. A thin boy with golden-coloured skin and big dark eyes that can hardly be seen from under his messy mop of hair scowls out at us from the other room.

  ‘Our other well-mannered son, Streak.’ Jock says ‘well-mannered like he’s reminding Streak in advance to watch his words.

  ‘You don’t look like a girl.’ Streak points a dirty finger at me.

  ‘Guess you didn’t hear me, Streak. A tanning on that thick hide of yours is dessert for tonight.’ Jock’s not smiling. He touches my short hair with the flat of his palm. ‘Streak’s the other joker in this family. Don’t take no notice.’

  Streak slips back through the door to the other room where I see jumbled bed sheets and dirty clothes thrown about the floor.

  ‘Where the hell’s my chameleon, Otis?’ Streak yells.

  ‘Adunno. Adunno.’ Otis looks confused and scratches inside his trousers.
r />   Jock sighs and runs a big hand through his hair. ‘Sorry, girlies. They’re a bunch of heathens. Never been to school, never lived in a house. My fault, see. I’m a wildlife photographer. Take pictures of big game for the magazines – sometimes. We’re always on the go.’

  ‘Sounds like fun,’ Sarah says, with a longing in her voice.

  ‘In some ways it is, I guess.’ Jock whacks Otis on the head with the back of his hand. Otis is still scratching.

  ‘It’s okay, I’ve got the little bugger!’ Streak shouts back.

  He comes out from behind the door.

  ‘Dare you to touch my chameleon.’ He looks over in my direction. ‘Here, take it.’ He holds the chameleon out to me and grins like a wicked imp. The chameleon is spotted green and pink, and its eyes and throat bulge out, but creatures like this don’t scare me.

  ‘Okay.’ I look at Streak level and unafraid as I hold my arm out. Streak puts the chameleon on it and I force myself not to make a face or move a muscle as it fastens its claws onto my skin. Streak watches me closely, frowning at first, then he gives me a half-smile, like I’ve passed some kind of test or something because I’m not squirming and carrying on like most girls would with a scaly green creature attached firm to their arm. I cock my head at him then turn to hold the chameleon out in Sarah’s direction.

  ‘How funny it is.’ Sarah takes a dainty step back so as not to be too close to it. Streak and I give each other an even-eyed look, like we both know there are more dares to come.

  ‘Yup, funny, ugly thing.’ Otis smiles at Sarah.

  ‘C’mon, ragamuffins, let’s go find everyone,’ Jock says.

  We leave the caravan in single file, like we do after school assembly on Fridays.

  Outside there is still watery sunlight, and the chameleon digs its claws into my arm even deeper. I squint into the light and wonder if it’s only me and the chameleon who notice how dark the caravan is inside.