“Work was
like a stick. It had two ends. When you worked for the knowing you gave them
quality; when you worked for a fool you simply gave him eyewash.”
Starting to
get light and I am awake. Must be about
5.30. Alex has his arms and legs hooked
around me and is breathing deep and slow; he has an hour of kip left in him
still. Alex can be a restless bugger so
I am not surprised to see that Marcia has swapped the matrimonial bed for his
vacated one.
I gently
untangle myself from Alex, slide out of bed and as quietly as aching limbs
allow, pad round Alex’s bed to select a clean pair of undies from the shelf. I step into them and my work shorts, grab my
sandals and stumble off to the bathroom where I ease springs, splash water over
my face and peel my eyelids fully open before giving the old teeth a good
seeing to.
In the
kitchen, I set the kettle on to boil and then head out to the washing line to
select one of five identical khaki short sleeved shirts that dried on the
washing line overnight. The hounds, their
night’s watchdog duty over, come belting towards me in excitement vying for attention
and doing their best to get underfoot and trip me up. The air is crisp and clean, belying the sweaty
heat to come.
Pulling on
my shirt, I stroll over to the seed beds and inspect progress. Apart from the Kohlrabi, bugger all. No sign of the leeks, carrots, tomatoes,
water cress, marjoram, sage or thyme I planted with eager anticipation. Perhaps the seeds after so long in storage were
stuffed? Only time will tell, I
suppose. I continue on to the generator,
check the oil and water and then switch it on.
I hear the well pump kick in and I stretch out the hose and give the
beds a good watering.
Kettle is
boiling furiously as I walk back into the kitchen. I make myself a big mug of tea and sit
drinking it on the stoep thinking about how far down my list of things to do I
am. I have built and filled all the
raised beds, 60 square metres of them which required twenty cubic metres of
rich soil to be dug out and transported by wheel barrow to the beds. I had built the shelter for the generator and
finished its roof yesterday. The
radiator had been removed from the Jeep to be sent into town for reconditioning
and it had come back, all clean and pressure tested last night. Refitting it would be my first job of the
day.
Over the
weekend, I had dug another well on site 3, a hundred metres down the road and
had hit water at 2.5 metres. My old
submersible pump is stuffed so I need to find another one so that I can pump
the water out as I dig at least another metre.
Good submersible pumps are readily available and cheap as chips in the civilized
world. Here they are expensive and
crap. Just another reminder of how
things either take ages here or are never completed through lack of decent
tools and equipment.
Yesterday I
had sawn the eucalyptus logs which will form the supports for the 5 x 12 metre enclosed
chicken run to length, dug the metre deep holes they needed and sunk them into
the ground. I had to stop last night
because I ran out of 12 cm nails. The
builders will bring me some from the restaurant site this morning and then I
can finish off fitting the battens that will support the shade netting sides
and roof. I need to dig a small pond so
the chucks and ducks have clean water and dig a trench so I can bury the
irrigation pipe that will feed it. I
will need cement to make the pond. I
added cement to the shopping list. I
have aggregate sitting in a big pile over at the restaurant site so I will need
to take the truck and shovel a load onto it.
On the way back I need to stop at site 3 and load up the unused building
blocks. More hot and sweaty manual labour. Still, the weight is falling off me and while
I may not feel it, I am at least looking healthier. I finished the last of my tea. Bugger, I thought, I still have loads to do.
Frank
appears all sleepy eyed so I tell him to grab all the tools from under the
stoep and take them over to the chicken run.
Without nails, there was little to be done there so I make him help me
fit the radiator. Naturally, there is a
bolt missing. Usually if I take
something apart and then reassemble it, I end up with a handful of bolts and
screws the manufacturer evidently did not need but this is a bolt I definitely cannot
do without. True to the cost saving
mantra with which anything is constructed nowadays, this one bolt secured the
left hand side of the radiator, the air con cooler and the bonnet slam plate. In such circumstances it is always best to
remain calm allowing for clear thought, a mental state not helped by Marcia
breathing down my neck complaining about how I am ruining her day and muttering
darkly that her friend had managed to remove the radiator in only a few minutes
so why was it taking me so long to refit it?
Clearly, to work out what had happened to the bolt, I must think like
Marcia’s mechanic. Or stop thinking
altogether. As I dummy fit the radiator,
I realize I am missing much more than just a bolt. The plastic grill of the car is loose yet I
cannot see any brackets to attach it.
The radiator should bolt to the air con rad. I examine the brackets on the radiator and
see the flanges through which the bolts specific for the aforementioned purpose
pass are torn. I examine the
corresponding flanges on the heat exchanger and see one nut and bolt hanging
there. I can see that an Allen key is
required to remove this bolt. Now I realize
that the rubber bushes into which the radiator bottom locating pins fit are
missing. Then I notice that the bottom
hose has been hacked off. I know this to
be true because a hose that has been clipped will bear the crimp marks as
witness and the end of it will have a smooth finish. Now I have a hose that is probably too short and
of the jubilee clip I need to secure it, also no sign. I add up all the evidence and come to the
conclusion that all Marcia’s mechanic had done was undo the few bolts he could,
remove the slam plate and then, for lack of the correct tools, just ripped the
radiator out.
I feel rage
welling inside me. I want to scream and
curse. I want to kill Marcia’s
mechanic. The fucking useless twat! Even if I could find replacement parts, they
would cost a fortune. The car has
survived over a decade and nearly quarter of a million kilometres only to be
fucked in less than half an hour, if Marcia is to be believed, by an Angolan.
Marcia
calls us all in for breakfast. We have
run out of porridge so it is rice pudding instead. You may think rice pudding is an unusual
first meal of the day but I can assure you, with a few hours of work under your
belt, there’s nothing like the sweet stickiness of rice pud to fire up the old
boilers again. Marcia asks me how I am
getting on. I detect frostiness and am
tempted to let fly a broadside but settle for a milder form of truth. I am, I tell her, taking the opportunity to
do a few other jobs on the car. Marcia
reminds me she wants the car urgently in a ‘stop fucking around and get it done’
tone of voice. She gives everyone a
second helping of rice pud but pointedly does not serve me any extra. Instead, she asks me whether she should call
her mechanic to give me a hand. Rather
than even attempt a smile, which I know would be all too wintry, I leave the
table.
 |
| Breakfast with the crew |
I collect
from a drawer in my desk a set of Allen keys, a roll of wire, insulating tape,
some odd bolts and washers, some long cable ties and then call the builders who
still have not turned up with my nails.
Have you ever tried explaining to a Filipino who does not speak English
what a bottom hose and jubilee clip are?
I want him to remove the bottom hose from the old Cummins generator and
bring it with its clips to me along with the nails. I run out of phone credit before I am even
remotely convinced he has understood.
Fine, so long as he pitches up with my truck, I can drive back to the
site and do the job myself. In the
meantime, I get on with wiring and cable tying my car back together. I manage to get the bolt requiring an Allen
key off despite its stripped threads and slowly refit everything as it should
be. A test fit of the bottom hose
reveals it is just long enough but without a jubilee clip, I am still stuffed. Then I remember the box of surplus plumbing
parts hidden away under the house. I
crawl through the dirt disturbing a swarm of hungry sand flies and find
it. I search for a good ten minutes
through the box and am literally itching to scream when I find two clips, a bit
on the large size but I pray that they will screw tight enough. I crawl out from hell and then wonder why I
hadn’t just hauled the box out and inspected its contents in comfort.
The clips
fit and I am pleased. Marcia stalks up
to me while I have my head under the bonnet and tells me that she has cancelled
her appointments and will now only go into town tomorrow because I have taken
far too long and don’t I know how bad the traffic is at lunchtime? I mean to answer but at that moment my
spanner slips and I graze my knuckles and curse. Marcia lets fly at me for swearing at
her. I straighten up to tell her I wasn’t
cussing her, I was just saying bad things about her God but it is too late, she
has already stomped off. I can hear her
telling all the clients in the shop what an incompetent fool I am and if only I
had just let her call her mechanic. The
clients titter sympathetically.
Everything
is now as it should be so I must now fill the radiator with a mix of water and
anti-freeze. Somewhere I have a five
litre container of it. I used to keep it
next to my desk but I notice it has disappeared. I risk asking Marcia. She tells me it is in the shop. I trudge back to the shop and ask the idiot boy
Marcia has serving there. He produces a
mostly empty container. I ask him where
it has all gone. He tells me he has been
putting it in the generator. I ask him
if the generator is using water. He
tells me lots. I do not bother asking
him why nobody has called this to my attention and add a thorough check of the
generator cooling system to my long list of things to do. I am very thirsty so I ask the moron to fill
the container with water from the tap outside the shop while I select a cold
can of tonic water from one of the fridges.
As I pour the first of it down my parched throat I glance outside to see
the mong tipping away the last of the anti-freeze. ‘But you told me to fill it with water!’ he
said. I knew I shouldn’t even have
bothered asking. If there is a God, only
he knows what goes through these exceptional examples of the minds He created.
I finally
fit the radiator cap and go to start the car.
The starter relay clicks like a toy machine gun. The car battery is dead and this is my
fault. The job took much longer than I
expected and all that time the car doors were open with the interior lights
blazing their way through the battery’s juice.
Well, not all my fault. Marcia’s
mechanic had not latched the bonnet shut so the under bonnet light had been
burning for two days. Deep down I knew
that a cardinal rule when working on vehicles is to disconnect the battery
first. I look around but there is thankfully
no sight of Marcia. Just then the
builders turn up with nails, a saw and, bugger me sideways, a bottom hose and
two jubilee clips. They tell me they
took so long because the hose was seized onto its fittings and they had to be ever
so careful while easing it off so as not to damage it. I thank them, hand them a ten mil spanner and
tell them to fetch the battery from the truck.
I used to
have a set of jump leads, like I used to have a full tool kit and all sorts of
power tools, like I used to have a video camera, my deceased father’s gold
watch, loads of things but they have all been stolen so I am not going to jump the
car safely. I perch the truck battery under
the bonnet as close to the car battery as I can, hold it in place with my gut
and make the connection using two large spanners across the terminals. I tell one of the builders to crank the
engine over. He floors the
throttle. 5.2 litres of V8 American
muscle screams into life and I step back in shock. The truck battery falls to the driveway and
cracks open. The concrete fizzes and I
shout at God again. The builder thinks I
am shouting at him so switches the car off.
This time I shout at him. Alex,
who had appeared to say hello to the builders, repeating it perfectly, asked me
what the very bad word I had used meant.
You should never use that very bad word, I tell him, and I was wrong to
call the builder that, I said. Of course
I was wrong to call the builder that, I think to myself, cunts are useful.
In front of
our property is a car. It has been in
front of our property for nearly three months.
One day, three guys had driven up in it, had a few drinks at our shop but
when it came time to leave, the car would not start. They promised they would be back with a
mechanic. After a month, I drew the
attention of the police to the car suggesting that in my opinion it may have
been stolen. Weeks later, I asked the
police about the car. They confirmed it
had been stolen and they would come and collect it. In the meantime, someone has broken into it
and nicked the radio and spare wheel. I
hand the ten mil back to the builders and tell them to nick the battery off
this car while I go and fetch my battery charger. Marcia catches me walking out of the house
with the charger and asks me what’s wrong.
The car battery is dead, I tell her.
What about the truck battery? She asks me. That’s dead too I say truthfully.
The
builders settle down for lunch and I make myself scarce at the back of the
garden and start cutting battens to length for the chicken run. An hour later I feel the battery has enough
charge which it does, the car starts and I keep it running. The battery even has enough charge to start
the truck which I also leave running. I
get inside the car and switch the air-conditioning on full blast so as to load
the engine. I want to see if it runs
hot. I am busy sawing battens when I
hear the car stop. I am annoyed. It hasn’t had enough time to run really hot
and in all probability it will not have charged the battery enough. I brace up for a shout at someone and hurry
to the car. There is no one around. I look in the car; all the ignition lights
are on. I try and start the car and the
engine turns over nicely but does not start.
I look at the petrol gauge. It is
showing empty. Marcia is inside watching
a soap so I grab some cash from the till and drive to the petrol station in the
truck. I get back and have the car
juiced up and running just as the soap ends.
I have
missed lunch so I turn my attention to the chicken coop. I cannot find my hammer. No point asking Frank to search around for
me, even though since he had packed the tools away last night and stuffed them
under the house, he was best placed to do so.
No sign of it under the house, nor the last place I used it. Oh well, I would just have to manage with the
flat end of an axe, not exactly a handy tool for driving in nails while
balancing precariously on the top of a knackered aluminium step ladder.
I am using
salvaged wood. After over a year in the
sun and what little rain we have enjoyed, it is well seasoned but sadly warped. Being an African hardwood, it is also as hard
as the nails I am using. The top row of
battens has to be nailed to the equally tough eucalyptus poles exactly 225 cms
off the ground, the height of the poles.
I try but fail to do this by myself, the battens at four metres long are
just too awkward for me to handle while trying to balance on the step ladder hanging
onto an axe and a nail. I give up and go
and find Frank.
I carefully
explain to Frank what I want him to do.
It cannot be easier. All he has
to do is hold his end of the batten up as high as he can while I nail the other
end to a pole. Driving a 12 cm nail
through one bit of hardwood into another bit of hardwood is not easy. To be honest, I think I would not be able to
do it with an ordinary hammer. The back
of the axe is good, I think, it is heavy.
I can tell when I am hitting the nail straight on the head because it
sings a note to me with each perfect strike.
I am nearly through the batten and about to start driving into the pole
when Frank notices that his end is not lying square on the pole. Of course it isn’t, it is warped. I take an almighty swing with the axe just as
Frank decides to twist his end flush.
The nail twists away from me and I hit my left index finger a mighty
wallop. The end of my finger bursts and
squirts blood. I squeal and fall off the
ladder. Frank laughs.
The blood
makes the nails slippery so I ask Alex if he could spare me one of his
plasters. I show him my Doi Doi, a babyish
term derived from the Portuguese for pain which he uses to describe any injury
from a slight graze to decapitation. He
disappears into the house and takes an age.
Eventually he comes back with a plaster on his knee. Sowwy Daddy, he explains, Mummy says we had
only one left and I needed one for my knee.
I tear a strip from my handkerchief and tie my finger up.
I try
again. It is hard enough getting the
nail through the batten. Even lying the
batten down on a hard surface and driving the nail in until it is just poking
through makes no difference; as soon as the nail hits the eucalyptus, it just buckles
into an ‘S’ shape. I am really
frustrated. I tell Frank to fetch me a
tonic water from the shop while I have a puff and a think. I suddenly realize something I suspect Marcia
has known for a long time. I am an
idiot. Instead of trying to knock the
nail into the side of the pole, why don’t I just nail the top row of battens to
the top of the poles?
With the
top row complete, I decide I need two more poles but I don’t have any
eucalyptus logs long enough. These poles
will be inside the chicken run and more or less obscured by the netting I was
going to use to enclose the run so they did not have to look pretty. I find four off cuts and decide to nail them
together using scrap pieces of wood to make two poles of the right length. I am glad that the builders brought me a big
bag of nails because I am bending most of them but, with the sun setting, I
have two poles.
 |
| Frank holding up a pole |
 |
| Some fat old bloke holding up a pole. You can hardly see the join... |
I finish
the work day as I started by watering the beds.
I am pleased to see more green shoots poking above the soil. I can’t tell what they are. I know what I planted but cannot remember
where in the beds I planted the Marjoram, Sage or Thyme, all I know for certain
is where I planted the watercress, tomatoes, leeks and kohlrabi and only the latter is
showing any sign of life. Maybe now I have some herbs as well.
I am far
too tired to cook supper so I take out two frozen pizzas. Alex likes pizzas, especially if I cover his
with loads of sliced olives. I like
olives too but also load mine up with sliced red hot local peppers. While the pizzas are in the oven, I strip off
and have a shower. The well pump is
pretty much at its limit. The house sits
a few metres higher than the rest of the property so if the locals come to
collect water and turn the tap on outside the shop, the water pressure in the house
drops to zero. I am fully lathered up
when someone turns the shop tap on. I
call to Marcia but she and Alex have left the house and are down at the
shop. I wait patiently for the pressure
to come back with the soap drying on my skin.
Then I remember the pizzas. I wrap
a towel round me and run out of the shower, through the lounge and into the
kitchen. No tea towels. I can see the pizzas must come out of the
oven now. I peel my towel off and haul
the pizza tray out. I am standing there
naked in the kitchen wondering where I can safely put the hot tray down when
the veranda door slides open and Marcia walks in with two ladies from the
Church.
Look! Shouts Alex unnecessarily,
Daddy’s naked!
