Flakes of Dark and Light: Tales from Southern Africa and Elsewhere

By Roy Holland

The title Flakes of Dark and Light is evocative of the sharp flakes of insight and colour which characterise these tales. The tales in the first part mostly depict an African setting and, in fact, are more recent, often suggesting the climate of change and violence that has gripped southern Africa in the last two decades. The stories in the second part were inspired by a more English tradition and, in fact, capture the climate of change that brooded over life during the Thirties and the war years. A contemporary of Ted Hughes, and with many of his stories set in the depressed, sometimes seedy England of the Thirties and Forties which Graham Greene depicted in his early novels, its not surprising that Roy Hollands images and sentences are like flakes that cut like broken glass. A true artist, he does not take sides, but holds up a mirror to show life as it isorwaswhether in a pre-war England or an Africa ravaged by drought and violence. His tales are snapshots, truthful, sometimes startling, of two quite distinct cultures. However disparate they may seem, one is invariably aware of an underlying tenderness and sympathetic vision in the portrayal of character, regardless of race or background, that binds them together.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 28, 2001
• ISBN: 9781462080977

Roy Holland

Roy Holland was born in Birmingham. He went to Africa in 1966 to teach in the universities of the Boleswa countries. He wrote full-time until 1974, when he returned to the U.K. and worked on a research project until returning to Africa in 1977. He retired early to write full-time. Recently he has returned to England to settle in Dorset.

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Flakes of Dark and Light

Tales from Southern Africa and Elsewhere

All Rights Reserved © 2001 by Roy Holland

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by

any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without

the permission in writing from the publisher.

Writers Club Press

an imprint of iUniverse.com, Inc.

For information address:

iUniverse.com, Inc.

5220 S 16th, Ste. 200

Lincoln, NE 68512

www.iuniverse.com

These stories are the product of the author’s imagination, as are the names,

characters and places. Any resemblance to persons living is entirely coincidental

ISBN: 0-595-17423-X

ISBN: 978-1-4620-8097-7(ebook)

Contents

Foreword

Death of a Frog

The Curfew

The Ebony Hanging-Tree

Ouma’s Christmas-Box

MacRobert’s Requiem

Running to Paradise

The Christmas Stork

A Couple of Twisters

Comfort Me with Apples

Two and Two Make Six

The Day Jesus Came

The Boneyard

The Birds of Deceit

Harvest Rabbit

Honey From the Rocks

A Jalopy Called Experience

A Man without Enemies

The Little Treasure

The Snare

The Hallelujah Woman

About the Author

Foreword

The author put forward a number of titles for this collection of pithy tales that cover the England of the Thirties to the South Africa of the Nineties. To suggest their diversity, he listed titles such as ‘Light and Dark,’ ‘More Black than White,’ ‘Oh, Lord! It’s Us!’ and ‘What a Mixture, Oh Lord!’

As editor I plumbed for Flakes ofDark and Light, which, to my mind, is evocative of the sharp flakes of insight and colour that characterize his tales. But because they have come out of such disparate cultures or settings, I have divided them into two parts. The tales in the first part mostly depict an African setting and, in fact, are more recent, often suggesting the climate of change and violence that has gripped southern Africa in the last two decades. The stories in the second part were inspired by a more English tradition and, in fact, capture the climate of change that brooded over life during the thirties and the war years. A contemporary of Ted Hughes, and with many of his stories set in the depressed, sometimes seedy England of the thirties and forties which Graham Greene depicted in his early novels, it’s not surprising, perhaps, that Roy Holland’s images and sentences are like flakes that cut like broken glass. A true artist, he does not take sides, but holds up a mirror to show life as it is—or was—whether in a pre-war England or an Africa ravaged by drought and violence. His tales are snapshots, truthful, sometimes startling, of two quite distinct cultures. However disparate they may seem, however, one is invariably aware of an underlying tenderness and sympathetic vision in the portrayal of character, regardless of race or background, that binds them together.

I must stress, however, that the dichotomy of the tales into two parts, African and European, or the southern hemisphere and the northern, don’t correlate with the division of ‘dark and light.’ The dark and light permeate all ofhis stories, whatever the milieu that inspired them. Some are lighthearted, some are full of anguish and latent violence. Often it is the narrator’s voice—so different in the various tales—that determines the darkness or lightness. In general, the flakes of dark and light scintillate and refract the author’s vision, producing a rainbow of shattering truth and stark colour.

C H Muller

MA (Wales), PhD (London), DLitt (OFS), DEd (SA)

PART ONE

Southern Africa

Death of a Frog

Adrain-pipe at the corner of the house meets the concrete base of the garage where it is dark and wet under the ivy leaves. There, a frog luxuriates in the steady drip-drip from its opening. The storm has gone. Water ran off the galvanized roof in an unbroken silvery curtain. It boiled white in the mouths of the pipes and the gutters ran like rivers. The garden was sodden. Now, it steams in the sun, almost powdery at its surface.

The frog is stretching out a long back leg, as if easing a pain. Now, it stretches the other. Its throat works under the water-drops; its eyes are blinking, alert. Its forelegs are too short to allow it to sit up like most of its kind. It is primitive-looking and lies close to the ground, a horizontal species, designed for living under stones in a flat world or following a fossorial existence in holes. A denizen from somewhere dark, damp, subterranean without verticality-an intruder.

But, in the peace of the garden, there is another intruder which quite belongs to that arid land: a shrike. It sits upright, not five metres away from the frog, on the barbed wire fence surrounding the plot. Its deep mahogany eyes are bright, bright. It looks and looks this way and that quick and pert with its tilted gaze. All the time, it emits a grating screech, sideways right, sideways left, forward, upward, downward, at the shrubs and the trees, at the quickly-drying ground, at the mountains beyond, at the sky. The other garden birds all flew away the moment it arrived and will not return until the black-and-white killer is no longer there. Even the crickets have hidden themselves away in their cracks and holes, and they stay quiet.

On its belly, under the moistness of the ivy leaves, the frog moves sloppily. The slight rustle is picked up by the shrike and its body and gaze become fixed on the darkness the frog has entered. It is suddenly quiet and dead still against the bright sky, black as a clef on a page of unplayed music. There is a pause, when everything is still. Then, another slight rustling under the leaves makes the shrike zoom in at the ivy. It lands, bobs, and immediately flies back to the fence. Its beak is empty; it has missed. The frog has been too clever for it.

From the open doorway of the house, music spews out onto the walnut tree that stands close by. The notes flit from leaf to leaf on a breeze that has enticed the tree to dance. The willows droop, swaying slightly as a whole, but they do not dance. Only the canna-lilies, with their gaudy mouths, shout their passions aloud; apart, that is, from the shrike, which has re-commenced its outrage. Even when the figure of a man appears in the doorway, it does not cease. The man steps outside. He picks up a stone he sees in the gutter, shies it discontentedly into the middle of the ivy against the garage wall, and goes back indoors. He fails to notice he has frightened the frog from its cover. The shrike at once sees its chance. It flies down, bobs, turns, and flies back with the frog in its beak. It jabs quickly at the wire. The frog is left sprawling helplessly, a barb through its belly. It keeps jerking spamodically and the bird watches it curiously for a while before it begins to jab.

It pecks pieces from a leg of the frog, seemingly in time to the music, leaving raw open places in the flesh. Soon, there is only one leg; but the frog continues to twitch. So the bird hops round to demolish the other one. Afterwards, it goes for the eyes. And then the twitching of the frog stops and only a shapeless raw morsel of food is left on the barb. Shortly, there is nothing left at all.

The music from the radio has been interrupted by a news flash. The reader is announcing a murder:

…The victim was necklaced and burnt alive. The police have so far been unable to supply any definite reason for the crime, but it is believed to have been politically motivated.

Afterwards, the music resumes and floods again into the garden. The man looks out of the doorway and again does not see anything unusual enough to take his attention.

The shrike is wiping its beak on the wire one side, and then the other like someone sharpening a knife on steel.

Its belly is full. Its appetite is satisfied.

The bird flies off, unaware of murder.

The Curfew

The township, which lay in the triangle made by Pretoria, Johannesburg and Vereeniging, let upwards its accumulated heat into cooling air. A flimsy veil of grey dust shimmered over galvanized roofs. In two hours the sun would be down. The doors of the small redbrick houses were shut and their curtains were drawn across the windows. The day had been hot.

Most of the inhabitants got up at dawn to walk to work, or to the bus stations: they could not afford cars. In the late afternoon, close to every object—house, gate, lamp-post, bald tyre or beer-can (very few trees)— tight encircling pools of shadow began to lose their shape, to leak and lengthen in the slanting sun, becoming obvious they were there. Soon, each would be a long dilution of darkness pointing eastwards, and then the children would come out to play.

They would bring old iron barrel-hoops and buckled cycle wheels and sun-perished tyres and coca-cola tins and little home-made wireframe cars propelled on twisted-wire handles, and rag balls and empty bottles—whatever they could find to play with. The square would be full of life and noise and dust. An hour or so later, when the curfew was near, back indoors they would all scamper and the square would subside into emptiness and silence again under the dwindling light.

It was at such a time, on one side of the square, near to one of the brick shanties, that a liveliness impressed itself on the quiet air: a boy, no more than fifteen or sixteen, suddenly appeared there, quickly, smoothly, with strong decisive movements. He was shoeless, in ragged shorts and an old jacket too-large for him. His hair was thick and dusty and his round black face glimmered in the slanting light. His eyes— darting from side to side, up and down, looking, watching—were vividly alive.

Satisfied at last there was no-one to observe him, he moved tentatively to the flaking wooden gate of the little garden and opened it with care, so that it should not creak. Straightening up, he looked about him. No-one! The stillness seemed to deepen. Two steps more. Stop. Look. No sign of danger. He began to walk naturally but slowly across the square, alert as a cat. As he reached the middle of the square, he stopped, poised in mid-step, cat-like. In front of him some of the shadows themselves seemed to have slid out! In three separate gardens, by three of the little gates, their hands ready to fling them open should he attempt to flee, stood three youths with shaved heads.

Stock-still, stupified, he watched them. They were all clad in bright T-shirts and sunglasses, and each wore a specially-favoured article of clothing. One had leather shorts. Two had jeans, old and new: the one with the new jeans sported a grimy pair of bumpers, the other bare feet. But they all had multi-coloured Basotho blankets round their shoulders and held small two-edged axes of the kind used by firemen; and they all grinned, insolently, without speaking.

The boy in the middle of the square jerked into action. He turned and started to flee whence he had come. But, almost at once, he had to stop. Just inside the square, confronting him, against the fences two more youths leaned, similarly wrapped in Basotho blankets. He had not heard a sound. Insolently, they grinned without speaking. The blanket of one of them fell widely open, revealing a pair of workman’s brown dungarees, replete with all its pockets. Their heads were also shaved.

So they had got him!

He quivered with fear.

Centripetally, like the spokes of a wheel, they began—the three in front and the two behind—moving slowly inwards towards him. Suddenly, the boy made for an empty section of the square, darting to his right. Little spurts of dust jetted up behind his heels, one and one and one, quickly. The five bald youths flowed out and closed ranks on the periphery. The boy stopped. The dust settled on his feet. The five stood still, their teeth gleaming slightly pink in the fading light.

A tiny rictus of fear formed round the boy’s mouth. He made his second leap—this time to his left—and ran for the opposite side of the square. The five youths circled fast, closing their ranks. He stopped again. Ten metres away, they grinned even more widely. The piazza was silent. The light continued to fade. There was only the boy’s heavy breathing and the pounding in his chest.

He tried a different tactic. Like black quicksilver, he ran backwards and forwards, forwards and backwards, to his left, to his right, then left again, forwards, right, back: a permutation of fear. He was desperate to bewilder them, to penetrate their wheel of intimidation and make a break for the warren of streets he knew so well. But he did not bewilder them. They anticipated his moves. They tightened their circle, closing in on him. And they flourished their two-edged axes in the air, menacing him, and grinning.

Like a shimmer of dust, the light filtered itself through a suggestion of the coming darkness. The shadows—from the chimney-pots, the fences, the gates, the little houses—lengthened as they faded, losing their sharpness of edge, reddening. His trio of tormentors advanced. Long dark fingers fanned out before them, quivering, hovering, like a terrible sundial indicatinging the hour of doom. And behind, a large vee-shaped shadow cast by the other two was approaching him.

In his fear, the vivid eyes of the boy widened. He swung his head about; in front, he could see no way out. He turned to face the two behind him. He was trapped! But he must have felt recklessly desperate at that instant, for he ran full tilt at the two grinning faces, trying to force himself between them, trying to reach the familiar streets, the streets that stretched outwards to freedom. Oh, how quick they were! One of the pair grabbed him round the chest, and gripped, and gripped. The other hit him on the top of the head with the flat ofhis axe. The boy sank to the dust and lay still.

Slowly, utterly relaxed, taking their time, the other three strolled up. They reached the boy, prone at their feet, and surveyed him. Then, in silence, all five looked at each other and grinned with satisfaction. Or was it anticipation?

As if at some signal, they squatted on their hunkers round the body and waited. Simply waited. From time to time, one of them prodded him with the handle of an axe, or a forefinger, as they would prod the carcass of an animal. Eventually, he groaned, stirred, and opened his eyes. It must have startled him to see them encircling him so closely because he let out a little screech of fear. The five assailants grinned again. They were observing a creature they had seen before and knew to be harmless. But they watched him, as if curious about what he would do.

The boy sat up unexpectedly, drew his wiry legs back unto him, rested his head on his knees and, clutching himself round them, stared at the dust in front of his feet. He was panting slightly, as if he had been running. Although the evening had noticeably cooled, beads of sweat were oozing out of his forehead and trickling into his eyes and onto his nose and down between his knees.

The five of them watched the top of his thick hair in silence. The slight panting subsided and the boy’s breathing became almost normal. Then one of them spoke.

Do you know why we’re here, sonny? asked Leather Shorts.

The boy did not answer and the youth laughed.

You didn’t keep the curfew, said Grimy Bumpers.

Again, the boy did not reply.

Why not? asked Bare Feet, almost at once.

There was a pause.

Answer me, boy! the youth rapped out.

The boy glanced up quickly with his vivid eyes but—like ten uncomprehending holes—their plastic lenses gaped back at him.

He whispered: I don’t know! I forgot. I was playing. I forgot.

And he looked down again into the dust.

You forgot! said Grimy Bumpers incredulously.

He turned to his friends. He forgot! he informed them.

Are you on the other side? asked Bare Feet sharply.

The boy looked up.

What other side? he asked tremulously.

There’s only one side, put in Leather Shorts, and laughed deep in his chest. Ours!

I don’t know what you mean, he said. He was a spirited lad.

Brown Dungarees spoke for the first time. Do you know what people call us?

The boy had to turn his head a long way to the left to look into his questioner’s face. Quietly, he said:

Yes, I know!

The youth could see the boy had spirit.

What? insisted Brown Dungarees.

Silence.

Say what!

At last the boy answered: They call you—The Russians.

Then they all laughed together, with appreciation.

He knows!

Asked a new voice, a rasping voice: Do you know why they call us that?

The boy turned his head far to the right. The face he saw was unpleasant. On the glistening black forehead was a splotch of white skin, the size of a potato; and then again, below the eyes, an unhealthy- looking whitish colour; and the neck and hands were pinkish-white. He saw that the scalp was partly white, also. An albino! He talked as if he had a file in his throat.

No! I don’t know! answered the boy bravely.

Shall we tell him? asked Bare Feet.

Why not? agreed Grubby Bumpers.

It’s a leader’s job, said Brown Dungarees. It’s up to Comrade Mohlapo.

They all looked at the albino.

We’re Stalinists, Comrade Mohlapo rasped, importantly.

He waited, but the boy did not react.

Don’t you understand? asked the albino.

No, said the boy.

Hard-line Commies! spat out Bare Feet. See?

Oh! said the boy. Commies!

Now, he understands, said Grubby Bumpers.

Dummy! said the albino.

Suddenly, the boy leapt to his feet and lunged through a gap in the circle. He was ten metres away and running fast before they got up. But, instantly, they had shed their blankets and fanned out, and they were moving to head him off before he could gain the limit of the square where he would vanish into a maze of gardens and dirt paths.

Don’t let him reach a gate! yelled the albino.

The boy was heading for a garden with thick thorn shrubs. He had his hand on the latch when Grubby Bumpers hit him from behind with the flat of his axe. For a second time, down he went, out for the count. Grubby Bumpers grabbed his ankles like a broken wheelbarrow and dragged him towards the centre of the square. The ragged jacket got rucked up under his armpits; the arms stretched lifelessly behind him; his shirt had snagged and exposed his hollow brown abdomen. The head lolled on the shoulders, the tight thick hair now a lustreless cap of dust: it left a wobbly narrow trail of humiliation. When he reached the centre of the square, Grubby Bumpers dropped the skinny heels to the ground, with contempt.

Nobody spoke. The group resumed their circular vigil.

The shadows lengthened. The dust reddened, and round the fences, the sparse grasses were touched with russet. Now, just above the horizon, the sky was a deep orange; higher up, flame. Where a suggestion of moisture lingered, the clouds were pearl-grey, almost like shadows.

The boy’s eyes flickered. Before they had opened properly, the albino rasped out:

On the other side! You’re on the other side! You’ve proved it, now!

What’s the sentence, Comrade?

The boy came to full consciousness, just in time to hear it.

The usual! rasped the albino.

Four of them jumped to their feet. They turned the terrified boy onto his stomach, his face in the dust. While Leather Shorts and Bare Feet pinned his arms, Dungarees and Grubby Bumpers held his legs to the ground. The albino pulled up the boy’s jacket to make sure that his spine was exposed from shoulder to small of back. Not satisfied, the albino pulled down the boy’s shorts below the waist. Then he stood up and surveyed him.

Okay! he said to Dungarees: You take over!

Dungarees rose, and they changed places, the albino now holding down one of the boy’s legs.

What are you going to do? whimpered the boy, his mouth full of dust.

No-one replied.

Upright now, Dungarees unbuttoned a small flap from the rule- pocket on his right thigh. From it, he withdrew an assortment of bicycle-wheel spokes. They had all been sharpened at one end. He tested the points of them on his forefinger and