Whitethorn (68 page)

I wish I could say the same thing about Frikkie, who proved impossible to bed-train. He was an alcoholic and wasn't about to attend Alcoholics Anonymous. He still needed his
dagga
and brandy at night, and he'd often mess his bed in his sleep or his casual aim into the spout of the urine jug would, more often than not, miss the mark. I had a rubber mat under his sheets to protect the mattress and kept three sets of sheets for him, one always at the local Spotless laundrette, with his blankets making the same journey every Saturday morning. I'd pay Hettie, the coloured woman at the laundry, a shilling extra for a scrubbing brush and the loan of a bar of Blue Velvet soap. This allowed me to use her large washtub to remove the crud off Frikkie's blankets before she'd let me consign them to one of the semi-industrial washing machines. I can tell you there were times when a person felt pretty desperate, but what kept me going was that slowly but surely I was getting the information I wanted.

I wouldn't allow Frikkie his smoke and brandy until we'd completed half an hour of what I suppose can only be termed interrogation. I know he grew to hate it because I'd constantly cross-reference the stuff he wrote to make sure he wasn't inventing any of the facts. I was aware that alcoholics often develop delusional disorders and become paranoid, so I had to be careful. I guess I was pretty remorseless, and in retrospect it must have seemed cruel, but it worked. Despite the alcohol and the marijuana his recall was amazing, facts he'd written months and even a couple of years previously would be repeated unchanged on paper. From the very beginning I dated the spiral-pad notes and kept them together with my own. Frikkie may have been uneducated but he was a country boy and he'd learned early in life how to listen and to acutely observe his surroundings. Besides, righteous hate and the desire for revenge becomes the best way to stimulate and to keep the memory sharp. Invariably his last written sentence would be,
Those bastards we'll get them hey.
Frikkie had no idea of punctuation or exclamation marks and often even saved himself the trouble of a full stop. Curiously he didn't mind photographs being taken of his face, in fact if a tourist wanted to do so he charged an extra shilling. I borrowed a camera from Bobby Black and took a series of pictures of Frikkie from every possible angle, although I wasn't quite sure why I wanted them. Certainly not for vicarious reasons, the living, breathing Frikkie was a constant reminder of the tragedy of his broken body and his pathetic life. I simply filed them with the rest of the notes.

Mixed into all of this was life as a first-year student, which I found absorbing, and I loved the study of law. For the first time I realised that the big red book I'd stolen from under Doctor Van Heerden's house, and which I'd long since completely memorised, had served to train my mind. The learning of torts and the more detailed aspects of law came easily to me, whereas they seemed to be anathema to the other students. This ability to commit stuff to memory was probably a good thing. I was kept very busy caring for Frikkie, working at Polliack's during the varsity vacations and on Saturday mornings, and checking every Saturday afternoon after work on the brotherhood to see who among them needed emergency treatment. So I had very little time to study and my assignments were almost always late. My law professor called me in. ‘Tom, you have the ability to win the university medal when you graduate in law if you apply yourself,' he said. Then, giving me a meaningful look, he added, ‘May I suggest a little more application and a little less play, eh, young man?'

Then the ‘winter of one too many' finally arrived, and on the evening of 10 May 1952 Frikkie died in the bathtub while I was soaping his back with a flannel. He simply jerked once and his body slumped forward so that I reached out and grabbed his arm. ‘
Wees kalm, ou maat
. Be calm, old mate.' I called. But his head lolled awkwardly and his body became a sudden dead weight, and I then realised his breathing had stopped and moments later he evacuated in the bathwater. The farmer, boxer, resistance fighter, accident victim, showbiz personality, park and steam-pipe derelict was finally dead, his suffering over. Only moments later Tinky started scratching frantically at the closed bathroom door and commenced to howl his dear little heart out.

I'd be lying if I said I missed Frikkie Botha. But I was grateful to him for three things: a complete set of notes on how Mattress was murdered; another of the incident where he lost his face at the railway culvert; and finally, the custody of the nicest little dog after Tinker that you could possibly imagine.
The year 1952 proved to be a very good year for me. I was seventeen years old but my life to this point hadn't exactly been a load of fun. I'd learned a fair bit about the process of staying alive in a hostile world, but it had been all work and very little play, and I suspect Tom was in danger of becoming a very dull boy. Even though I was known at Polliack's for my enthusiasm and easy laughter, you can fake life and happiness for just so long before the process starts getting too difficult. I'd never been drunk or smoked a cigarette and, most of all, never kissed a girl, much less fondled, as almost every other young male my age claimed to have done, a set of firm and luscious breasts with nipples pointing to the moon.

The university campus was full of young female students, many of them gorgeous enough to render one trembling at the knees, while the basement at Polliack's was a veritable Mecca for pretty girls. More than once I'd received the ‘big eyes', especially when it was followed by an elaborate compliment about my musical knowledge. I'd know in my pounding heart that this was a thinly disguised invitation to take the next step and to ask them out. Furthermore, the news of the Steinway triumph had swept through the company and several of the young women who worked in the accounts departments paid a visit to the basement. They always lingered much longer than was necessary to enquire about a pop song currently climbing up the charts on Springbok radio.

Bobby Black would tease me and say things like, ‘Tom, you've got more young crumpet walking into your life than Frank Sinatra has bobby-soxers at his concerts!' And Graham would raise one eyebrow, prop, pout and make remarks such as, ‘My dear, if you wished to do so, you could get laid more often than the centre table at the Carlton Grill.' They were teasing me, of course. In those days before the pill, getting a nice girl to part with her knickers was a very difficult process, even for the Casanovas of this world. While my imagination ran to lurid detail, in reality my wildest hope extended to a chaste kiss on the lips (never mind tongues becoming involved), and a bit of a fumble at the front of a straining sweater.

Alas, I had no idea how to behave in front of a girl or how to go about achieving this inept ambition. I knew that my easy confidence, chatty demeanour and lyric patter would disappear in a puff of smoke the moment I stepped out of the Polliack's basement. The instant I hit the pavement I felt certain I would turn into a mumbling, clumsy oaf. While my fantasy life appeared in panoramic Technicolor, my sexual reality was a black-and-white, faded, cracked-and-curled-up-at-the-corners box-brownie snapshot. The memory of a cheek once briefly kissed, its softness never quite forgotten.

Then all of a sudden, out of a clear and wholly translucent blue sky, La Pirouette came into my life. Metaphorically speaking, one moment I'd been trundling along in a squeaky pedal car and the next I was behind the wheel of a Formula One Jaguar racing at Le Mans.

It all happened when old Mr Polliack had his annual garden party at his mansion in one of the very posh outlying suburbs. It was a very important affair on the musical calendar of Johannesburg and involved a marquee and French champagne by the silver bucket-load dispensed by an army of waiters in white uniforms and cotton gloves to match. The food was catered for by the one and only terribly famous Carlton Grill with practically every delicacy known to man laid out on a table in the marquee the length of a cricket pitch. An outdoor stage and dance floor featured bands representing almost every aspect of music, except
boere musiek
, as well as the top musicians and singers in the country. Termed ‘Polliack's Annual Musicians' Garden Party' on the invitations, it was intended to take place during a Saturday afternoon but was habitually known to continue until the early hours of the following morning.

While no expense was spared, this wasn't a stuffed-shirt affair with the usual compulsory high-ups such as the mayor in attendance, but was instead strictly a party for musicians. Even so, it was considered a most prestigious event and an invitation to attend was regarded as a badge of honour and a sign that you were considered to be among the
cognoscenti
in your profession. A fact, according to Bobby Black, that in no way prevented a great many of the participants from behaving very badly, which, he pointed out, was considered almost compulsory.

The other aspect for which the garden party was evidently famous was the calibre of the females who attended with their invited male partners, or the glamorous singers who were there in their own right. ‘Let me assure you, Tom, this is a party-and-a-half, man!' Bobby would say to me. ‘When it starts to get dark you begin to hear the moaning taking place in the bushes. If you walk into the maze on the third lawn, ooh-la-la! You better be wearing dark glasses, man! Behind the hedges and the swimming pool cabana, you wouldn't believe what's going on.' He'd say all this in a conspiratorial voice, almost reduced to a whisper. And, of course, I lapped it all up, my febrile imagination recreating this modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah taking place in Mr Polliack's manicured garden. I tried to isolate the goings-on behind the neatly clipped hedges, in the cabana and within the dark recesses of the exotic maze on the number three lawn, creating for each location a new and increasingly erotic fantasy.

‘Bobby, do you . . . you know, also . . .' I'd once attempted to ask him.

Bobby's hands shot up in protest. ‘Tom, it's not a question you can ask a person. I'm supposed to be there as the company's representative, you know, strictly kosher. Also the Bobby Dazzlers, they one of the official bands. It's the three monkeys, you understand? No see, no hear, no speak.' He hunched his shoulders, rolled his eyes and wiggled his hands. ‘But I'm a jazz musician, man! What else can I say, does a bird fly, does a camel fart in the desert?'

I must say, with such a famous wicked event going on and the Nationalists now in power I wondered why the Government allowed something like this to happen in front of their very eyes. The South African police force was not exactly known for its unconventional viewpoint, such goings-on would, in their opinion, have the potential to undermine the whole society. Boy, oh boy! If the
Dominee
was still alive and he happened to get a hold of the details!
Magtig
! What a well-rounded sermon Polliack's Annual Musicians' Garden Party would make, with old Mr Polliack starring as the solid-gold-toothed, dark-haired, black-bearded, diamonds-concealed ‘you know where', Christ-killing, devil-incarnate Jew!

For days after this company-sponsored musicians' afternoon champagne gargle and subsequent drunken sexual soiree, Bobby would hold his head in his hands as if his hangover still persisted, and recount yet another lurid tale involving the opposite sex. I listened wide-eyed and open-mouthed, while at the same time I tucked away in my memory the conclusion that French champagne and a woman was a deadly effective combination. One to be resurrected, if ever I could afford the first and was fortunate enough to find myself in the company of the second. I also knew that even should I know the lyrics to every pop song in the world, with me unable to sing a note I was unlikely to ever receive an invitation to this simultaneously famous and infamous garden party.

So you can imagine my surprise when Mr Fisher called me into his office and told me that Mr Polliack had personally suggested that I be invited. ‘Tom, I'm not at all sure it's a good idea, but the old man was fairly adamant.' Mr Fisher grinned and his voice changed. ‘ “Let me tell you something for nussing, Lew. Any vun vat can sell already three Steinways for cash, this is a mensch! A boy who is goink right to the top, I guarantee it. Invite away, believe me, for such a boychick, it can't harm.” ' But you could see he mimicked the founder in the gentlest possible way, drawing me into a mutual conspiracy of laughter.

Now I have to mention something else. With Frikkie dead I had the responsibility for Tinky who, like his late master, was not accustomed to being left on his own in a dark little flat. Like the great Tinker, he wanted to be in on all the action. But this meant I couldn't use public transport to get to university. So I bought a second-hand bicycle with a carrier stand at the back to which I wired a butter crate lined with a piece from one of Frikkie's oft-scrubbed and constantly laundered blankets. Tinky took to it like a duck to water, viewing the world whizzing by with imperious disdain and giving any hoi polloi dog we happened to pass on the way a piece of his exalted mind. He attended university with me, and was even allowed to come to Polliack's where I trained him to do the ‘Woof! Woof!' part in Patti Page's ‘How Much is That Doggie in the Window?', which almost doubled our sales of the hit record, as well as turning him into a star in his own right. Bobby even had a sign made that we put outside the lifts on the ground floor:

The Music Basement. Mr Lyrics and Tinky, the singing dog!

It was a stroke of genius and we continued to sustain big sales of the record long after it had lost the number-one spot on the charts. Although this was Bobby's idea, I seemed to get all the accolades these days. I was discovering that in life you only had to do one big thing and people would give you credit for successes not of your own making. My one big thing was, of course, the three pianos and now, all of a sudden, I was the boy genius, the super-salesman around the place. When you protested and gave the credit where it was due, they quietly added modesty to your virtues.