Shirley, Goodness and Mercy

Chris Van Wyk

Description

Shirley, Goodness & Mercy is a heart-warming, yet compellingly honest story about a young boy growing up in Newclare, Coronationville and Riverlea during the apartheid era.

Despite Van Wyk’s later becoming involved in the ‘struggle’, this is not a book about racial politics. Instead, it is a delightful account of one boy’s special relationship with the relatives, friends and neighbours who made up his community, and of the important coping role laughter and humour played during the years he spent in bleak and dusty townships.

In Shirley, Goodness & Mercy Chris van Wyk – poet, novelist and short story writer – had created a truly remarkable work, at once both thought-provoking and vastly entertaining.

Sujets

• Santé et bien-être
• Développement personnel
• Personal Memoirs
• Republic of South Africa
• South Africa
• Biography
• Memoir
• Autobiography
• Afrique du Sud

Informations

• Publié par: Pan Macmillan South Africa
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781770104358
• Langue: English

Extrait

About Picador Africa Classics
The Picador Africa Classics imprint, launched in 2014 by Pan Macmillan South Africa, aims to build a catalogue of exceptional titles that may be out of print or lack presence in digital form. It builds on the historical concept of something like the African Writers Series as well as a publisher such as Ravan Press, which showcased works of excellence by African writers.
As a leading South African publisher, Pan Macmillan’s initial focus is on classics of South African literature, both fiction and non-fiction, but we hope to expand this to writers from other countries on the African continent.
CHRIS VAN WYK (19 July 1957 to 3 October 2014) was born in Soweto and educated at Riverlea High School. He lived in Riverlea for many years before moving to Northcliff, Johannesburg, where he worked as a full-time writer. Van Wyk was an award-winning and internationally published writer of poetry, books for children and teenagers, short stories and novels. Shirley, Goodness Mercy: A Childhood Memoir , first published in 2004 to critical acclaim, was shortlisted for the 2005 Sunday Times Alan Paton Award and became a South African bestseller. Eggs to Lay, Chickens to Hatch: A Memoir (2010) followed with more entertaining and colourful stories drawn from Van Wyk s childhood.
Shirley, Goodness Mercy
An authentic and important contribution to South African literature; it is also an entertaining social document of a specific community.
Mail Guardian
Van Wyk is a man possessed with writing and transmitting a love of literature so that it makes a positive impact on people s lives.
Sowetan
Shirley, Goodness Mercy , with its fulsome homage to Es kia Mphahlele s seminal Down 2nd Avenue , is unprecedented in South African literary narratives of the self. Well worth waiting for, this is a memoir not to miss.
Sunday Independent
A lovely book; well told and beautifully executed.
Cape Times
Shirley, Goodness Mercy is a tale of optimism and hope - the kind of tale that South Africans tell best.
Citizen
By the same author
It Is Time to Go Home The Year of the Tapeworm Now Listen Here: The Life and Times of Bill Jardine Eggs to Lay, Chickens to Hatch: A Memoir Long Walk to Freedom , a children s picture-book (abridged by Chris van Wyk and illustrated by Paddy Bouma)
CHRIS VAN WYK
Shirley, Goodness Mercy
A childhood memoir

PICADOR AFRICA
First published in 2004 by Picador Africa
This ebook edition published in 2015 by Picador Africa Classics an imprint of Pan Macmillan South Africa Private Bag X19, Northlands Johannesburg, 2116 www.panmacmillan.co.za
e-ISBN 978-1-77010-435-8
in the text Chris van Wyk 2004 in the editorial matter and final arrangement Pan Macmillan South Africa (Pty) Ltd 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Cover design of this edition by K4
For Kathy
Disclaimer
The names and surnames of some characters have been changed to protect their privacy.
Table of Contents
Prudence in Tomato Yard
My father
My mother
I won t do it again
A big mistake
Shirley, Goodness and Mercy
Grannies and gifts
Words and music
The Mystery of the Lots of Nice Books
Supermen and Superwoman
Numbers
Crumbs in the cooldrink
The queue
Mr Brown
Sunday soccer
Errands
The Terrific Three - minus one
The mouse
Ten years experience
Magic
Divine intervention
Politics and sex
Stamp collecting
Kathy
Burning
Poetry
Mrs Wilson
A gentleman
Books and more books
Sleeping on the ninth floor
The night of the killer Kangaroo
Three packed into one compartment
A short obituary
The A to Zeke of black literature
Africans and Sons
Smithie and Cappie
No freedom yet
The boys at the Fountains
I will return
Meeting Mandela
A miracle and a wonder
The stories begin again
Glossary
Prudence in Tomato Yard
T ODAY IS THE DAY I SEE MAGIC .
We re living in Newclare, Johannesburg. It s 1961 and I m four years old. There are dramas unfolding in the country, which are putting black faces on the front pages of newspapers on a daily basis. The Sharpeville Massacre, the banning of the ANC and the PAC. The beginning of long prison terms for many.
But I know nothing of any of this. My world is a slum called Tomato Yard, which got its name from the blotches of rotting tomatoes and vegetable peels around the over-full dustbins.
But what do I know about slums and the struggle?
Tomato Yard is my home and I am happy here.
Four rows of tiny cemented-together cottages make up a square. We - me, Ma and Dad - live in one of these cottages. Everyone s back door looks on to the courtyard, the washing-lines and the shared outside toilets. In lots of places on outside walls paint is peeling away and rough brick is peeping through crumbling plaster. The front doors of the row of houses where I live open on to Southey Avenue. But it s in the courtyard, Tomato Yard, where life happens.
We live so close together that we could be one family.
Even at that young age I remember realising that I am a new arrival, gazing up at people who, by their sheer size and their confidence and their knowledge of where the butcher and the grocer are, have been around before me. Life is one huge magic show.
Two doors from us live the Sacks brothers, Allan and Irwin. They are so big and tall that they could be adults if they wanted to. All they need is a wife each, because that seems to be what makes people adults. Allan is in his final year of primary school. Irwin is doing his first year at high school. They re always writing in books with pencils - and then rubbing some of it out again.
Today finds me playing outside our door when one of them calls me over.
Hey, Chris! It s Allan. Come over here quickly, I wanna show you something.
Allan and Irwin are sitting at their kitchen table where, as usual, their books are spread out. It s a hot afternoon and the generous sun warms their kitchen, glancing off glasses and shiny doorknobs.
You wanna see magic?
Of course I do.
They push their books aside and place a teaspoon, the metal top of a medicine bottle, a hairclip and a yellow tin mug on the kitchen table. Allan slides his hand underneath the table. I follow his hand but he says: Don t worry about my hands, just watch the stuff on the table.
The things on the table begin to move about - without any help from anywhere. My face has such a stunned look on it that the brothers fling their heads back laughing.
A new couple, the Jacobses, moves into the Yard, keeping me in thrall almost from the moment they arrive. His name is Nicholas. This is exactly the same name as my father s. Why? How could that be? And she has the biggest stomach in the world. I would have been even more enthralled - no, disbelieving - if someone had told me there was a baby growing inside there.
One day Uncle Nicholas, sitting in the shade of a peach tree, calls me over. He s fixing his scooter, which is leaning unhappily against a wall. A tool-box squats at his feet and he has smears of grease on his face and hands.
A tool-box is a strange thing. I ve seen many in my life since that day. They have compartments, shelves and sub-shelves, which rise up and present themselves when you open the lid as if they re saying: Look at me, look at me. They are all full of nuts, bolts, screws, wire, screwdrivers, pliers, things with such strange shapes that you wouldn t believe they had names. But here s the thing: very seldom have I seen a man put his hand into his tool-box and come out with what he wants. They are forever pushing aside cascades of screws, digging into strata of greasy ball-bearings and bolts. Usually they are all after one thing: the twin of this one that they ve got in the other hand - and which they hardly ever find.
Uncle Nick is digging and poking around in his tool-box. Out comes a pinkie-sized Eveready battery, a piece of electric wire, a tiny light bulb.
Watch here, he says. He rigs all these things together and the bulb shines brightly in the shade of the peach tree, like a distant planet on which life has been discovered. It s so cute and I wonder if he would find it in his heart to give it to me.
As it turns out there s no need to worry: it had been meant for me even before the light went on. This is electricity. In our home we have candles that drip long streaks of wax all evening and make our shadows dance and bounce about on the walls, lamps that hiss and a Primus stove that Ma pricks and pumps into life.
Another of our neighbours are husband and wife, Hansie and Maureen Pyos. Hansie is a short man with a perpetual grin on his face - which increases fivefold whenever he has a drink in him. His wife is even shorter than he is, with a voice that has a high pitch whether she s happy or sad. They have no children.
One sunny Sunday afternoon, I stand on our front stoep , unaware of the discovery I am about to make. A black teenage boy pedals down the street past me on his bicycle, ringing his bell and calling out his wares. Except that he has no wares because all I see is a bunch of green sticks stuck into his carrier like broomless broomsticks, and he s shouting down an already noisy street: Sootreek! Sootreek! One penny. One penny!
Uncle Hansie materialises in the street, stops the boy and buys two sticks from him. He calls me and gives me one.
What must I do with this?
Eat it. I can t say he grinned because that was a fixed feature of his face.
I don t eat sticks, I tell him.
This time he really does do a sort of extra grin. He peels away some green bark and gives the stick