LITMIR.BIZ

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left the windows open since then, but they haven’t come back in.

      So there was Hattie, at my door. She didn’t have to knock because it’s always open. I love the fresh air, the smell of the veld with its wild bushes and dry earth, and the little sounds my chickens make when they scratch in the compost heap.

      ‘Come in, come in, my skat,’ I said to her.

      A lot of the Afrikaans ladies stopped being my friends when I left the Dutch Reformed Church, but Hattie is English and goes to St Luke’s. There are more than forty churches in Ladismith. At St Luke’s coloureds and whites sit side by side quite happily. Hattie and I are both fifty-something but otherwise we are different in many ways. Hattie is long and thin with a neat blonde hairstyle and a pish-posh English way about her. I’m short and soft (a bit too soft in the wrong places) with short brown curls and untidy Afrikaans. She has eyes that are blue like a swimming pool, and mine are pond-green. Her favourite shoes are polished, with heels, but I prefer my veldskoene. Hattie doesn’t bother much with food (though she does like my milk tart); while for me cooking and eating are two of the best reasons to be alive. My mother gave me a love of cooking, but it was only when I discovered what bad company my husband was that I realised what good company food can be. Some might think food is too important to me, but let them think that. Without food, I would be very lonely. In fact, without food, I would be dead. Hattie is good company too, and we are always happy to see each other. You know how it is – some people you can just be yourself with.

      ‘Good morning, Tannie Maria,’ she said.

      I liked the way she sometimes called me Tannie, Auntie (even though she says it in her English way, as if it rhymes with ‘nanny’, when in fact it rhymes with ‘honey’). She leaned down to kiss my cheek, but she missed and kissed the dry Karoo air instead.

      ‘Coffee?’ I said. Then I looked at the clock. The English don’t like coffee after eleven o’clock. ‘Tea?’

      ‘That would be super,’ said Hattie, clapping her hands in that Mary Poppins way of hers.

      But she wasn’t looking so super herself. Her frown was wrinkled like the leaves on a gwarrie tree.

      ‘Are you okay, skat?’ I said, as I prepared the tea tray. ‘You look worried.’

      ‘I do love your house,’ she said, patting my wooden kitchen table. ‘All the Oregon and the thick mud walls. It’s so . . . authentic.’

      When Fanie died, I sold the house we had in town and got this one out here in the veld.

      ‘It’s a nice old farmhouse,’ I said. ‘What’s the matter, Hats?’

      She sucked in her cheeks, like the words were falling back down her throat too fast.

      ‘Let’s sit on the stoep,’ I said, carrying the tray to the table and chairs outside.

      From my stoep you can see the garden with its lawn and vegetables and all the different trees. And then on the other side of my low wooden fence is the long dirt road leading up to my house, and the dry veld with its bushes and old gwarrie trees. The nearest house, is a few kilometres away, hidden behind a koppie, but the trees make good neighbours.

      Hattie smoothed her skirt under her as she sat down. I tried to catch her eye, but her gaze jumped all over the garden, like she was watching a bird flying about. One of my rust-brown hens came out from where she was resting under a geranium bush and helped herself to the buffet on the compost heap. But this wasn’t the bird Hattie was watching. Hers flew from the lemon tree to the vegetable patch then hopped from the lizard-tail bush to the honeybells and back again. I heard birds calling all around us, but could see nothing where she was looking.

      ‘Can you see something there in the veld plants?’ I asked.

      ‘Heavens above, it’s warm,’ she said.

      She took an envelope from her pocket and fanned her face with it.

      ‘Let me give you some milk tart.’

      I cut slices and put them on our plates.

      ‘It’s just got to rain soon,’ she said.

      Now she was following the invisible bird as if it was jumping all over the table. I pushed the plate towards her.

      ‘It’s your favourite,’ I said.

      I could tell Hattie had more to say than the weather report. Her face was red, as if there was a hot thing in her mouth, but the corners of her lips were tight where she was holding it in.

      Hattie was not one to be shy to speak, so I did not try and rush her. I poured our tea and looked out at the dry veld. It had been a long time since the rain. Across the veld were those low hills of the Klein Karoo, rolling up and dipping down like waves. On and on, like a still and stony sea. I picked up my melktert and bit off a mouthful. It was very good, the vanilla, milk and cinnamon working together to make that perfect comforting taste. The texture was just right too – the tart smooth and light, and the crust thin and crumbly.

      Hattie looked into her cup, as if her imaginary bird had jumped in there. I could see a real bird in the shadows of a gwarrie tree, too far away to see what kind. I love those old trees. Some of them are thousands of years old. They are all knobbly and twisted like elbows and knees, and their leaves are dark green and wrinkled.

      Hattie sat up straight and had a sip of her tea. She sighed. This is what stoeps are for. Drinking tea, and sighing and looking out at the veld. But Hattie was still looking inside her cup.

      ‘Delicious,’ I said, eating the last melktert crumbs on my plate.

      My bird flew closer and landed in a sweet-thorn tree. It was a shrike. Hunting.

      Hattie did not touch her milk tart, and I couldn’t sit still any longer.

      ‘What is it, Hattie, my skat?’

      She swallowed some air and put the envelope on the table.

      ‘Oh, gosh, Maria,’ she said. ‘It’s not good news.’

      I felt the tea and melktert do a small twist inside my belly.

      CHAPTER TWO

      Now I’m not one to rush into bad news, so I helped myself to more tea and milk tart. Hattie was still drinking her first cup of tea, looking miserable. The envelope just sat there, full of its bad news.

      ‘It’s from Head Office,’ she said, running her hand over a bump in her throat.

      Maybe the air she had swallowed had got stuck there.

      Hattie didn’t often hear from Head Office. But when she did it was to tell her what to do. The community gazettes are watchamacallit, syndicated. Each gazette is independent, and has to raise most of its own funds through advertising, but they must still follow the Head Office rules.

      The shrike dived from the branch of the sweet-thorn tree down onto the ground.

      ‘Maria, they say we absolutely must have an advice column,’ she said.

      I frowned at her. What was all the fuss about?

      ‘Like an agony aunt column,’ she said. ‘Advice about love and such. They say it increases sales.’

      ‘Ja. It might,’ I said.

      I was still waiting for the bad news.

      ‘We just don’t have the space. Or the funds to print the four extra pages that we’ll need to add one column.’ She held her hands like a book. I knew how it worked. Four pages were printed back to back on one big sheet. ‘I’ve tried to rework the layout. I’ve tried to see what we can leave out. But there’s nothing. Just nothing.’

      I shifted in my chair. The shrike flew back up to a branch with something it had caught.

      ‘I phoned them on Friday,’ said Hattie, ‘to tell them, Sorry we just can’t do it, not right

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