Having so many lonely times in my life in the mining village, I longed to have another baby. Séan and I had always wanted a large family and it would be nice, I thought, to have a baby when we could afford one and when I could take care of the little one myself for a change, while my son and daughter could share with me in the joy of the little one's upbringing. With all the attention they were receiving from me, they were learning new things every day. But no new baby made announcement.
Séan was saving away. But we were fully conscious that trouble was brewing very close to our border and fearful that one day it might spill over to us. Maybe it was anxiety that was keeping me from another pregnancy. After several months, my doctor spoke to me. “I’m afraid you will never have another child,” he told me regretfully. Despite my disappointment I was very happy that I still had my daughter and son.
“Why
would you want another child? Children
are expensive!” my friends asked when I spoke about this as we were having a
tea party together. But this
day I was to be the prima donna and all eyes would be on me.
“On
Séan’s salary I could afford a dozen,” I said stoutly.
There was dead silence. All their husbands were earning as much money as Séan did and some got more, but there is a particular kind of lassitude intrinsic to the contradicting of an obvious untruth. It was easier just to agree that babies are unaffordable, even though children are such a blessing. Nine months later several babies were born to mothers in our street and I hoped my comment had had something to do with that.
Meanwhile,
my appreciation of the mining village was diminishing until it finally faded
altogether. About
Séan and I woke up at the same time and lay, rigid with horror, listening to the approaching multitude. We decided to take our children and run to the neighbours' house, hoping for safety in numbers. I tore on a coat over my nightie and flew into the children’s bedroom where Séan was already picking Nicolette up. I our son up and we ran outside. There was no thought of saving our belongings, not even of our savings book. All we wanted to do was reach safety.
Since there were no fences in our gardens, by going out of the back door we managed to avoid the first of the roisterers. As we passed the backyard of the empty house next door, suddenly the sun came up. I looked towards the street where the people sounded as if they were already in the street in front of our garden and so they were.
It
became light almost immediately and suddenly the noise behind us stopped. We knocked loudly on Jane and Earl’s back
door, and they arrived, mystified. We looked nervously behind ourselves and
there was not a soul in sight. I could
only conclude that they had all gone back into the jungle.
“Didn’t
you hear anything?” we asked.
“Not
a thing.”
“Please lock!” I begged. “There was a crowd coming down the road and I thought they were coming to kill us. I’ve never been so scared. Don’t ask me where they got to when daylight came."
So there we were at the crack of dawn, drinking hot, steaming coffee and if we could have left the area that very day it would have been time enough in my opinion. Earl was civil about our untimely call. As he accompanied us outside, it was about five twenty in the morning. He grinned and said: “Drop in any time.”
We
had Mass that day and I told Father Ludwig about it.
I knew one thing. I didn't want to spend another New Year in the mining village and I started asking Séan to leave Zambia.
Some
months later Earl went to visit his mother who lived outside of Brakpan, where
we had stayed. One day Jane came running
to our house. It was her turn to be
terrified.
“Séan! Séan!” she begged, “please come to my house. A spider fell down from the ceiling and it is hanging on a cup.”
Séan went with her to help her and I realised how brave I had become as far as spiders were concerned. Those were not spiders like the ones you meet in most other places. They have eyes which dart at you and move like greased lightning on their thick hairy legs. If you swipe at them from the right, they scuttle to the left and back again. Many of them are very poisonous.
Once I saw two Alsatians scavenging from the bin one day. I passed them to go inside and told Séan who said: “Those aren’t Alsatians. I think they’re wolves. They must have come out of the jungle."
One day as I stood watering the front lawn, Séan was talking to Jack, our neighbour on the other side. Our children were playing around me. Jack’s wife Pat came out and I dropped the hosepipe, wanting to talk to her.
Suddenly the children started laughing and I turned around to see a massive ape, almost as tall as myself, come walking out from the jungle, cross the tar road, and enter our garden. I was energised. "At least I'll have something to write about to the family in South Africa this week," I thought. Then I heard Séan's voice, intoning: "Take the children by the hand, Lu, and start walking towards Pat's front door. Close it quickly behind you. Don't show him you're scared."
Until then I hadn't been scared but now I was, though less so than Pat who slammed the front door shut behind her, so I walked over to her kitchen door, opened it, pushed in the children and shut that door behind us. Just then Pat appeared in the kitchen from the other door with the face of the monkey behind her.
“Your face!” Pat said, laughing. I indicated the monkey behind her. Pat looked over her shoulder, and rushed out via the kitchen door, grabbing one child in each hand on her way and I followed, closing the door behind us in the monkey’s face.
Shortly afterwards Jack and Pat got the mine to give them another house, situated in the centre of the village – a little further away from the jungle and surrounded by a fence.
The end of the incident could have been a very happy one for me but I had lost my nerve. Almost the entire street came to my front garden where Mr Monkey sat on the stoep, flanked by Séan, Pat (who had somehow regained her nerve) and Jack, the monkey eating bananas, peeling them before consuming them and working up a gastro attack. I served gallons of tea by way of the window. Later they took the monkey away to a safe home.
I kept on asking Séan to let our family leave Zambia. He
yielded to my unrelenting requests and we sold up all the things we had so
painstakingly collected in
