Bless me Father

Chapter 13

150 Chapter 13 WhenDannyHendricksedied,inthemid80’s,therewasanarticle in one of Cape Town’s daily newspapers about ‘Danny Hendrickse … Cape Town’s Last Farrier …’ How Danny Hendrickse not only shoed horses, including the horses of the municipality, those big grayish-white horses that drew the municipal garbage carts in the early days, but also special racehorses from the stables of the wealthy, and how he had also been the last of the wheelwrights into his late seventies, still making and repairing wagon wheels from raw strips of metal in an old fashioned furnace, using the timeless bellows and charcoal fires. I remember the bellows. I used to work them for pocket money during holidays. Uncle Danny was my mother’s salvation. I loved horses, as did he, so I felt at home in Uncle Danny’s company, and that of his assistant John. I remember being extremely proud of Uncle Danny when I read the article, pleased that somebody had noticed that he had played such an important role in keeping the traditions of the past alive. Of course, apart from his love of the work and the horses, it was an occupation to Uncle Danny. He was a humble, simple man, as honest as any. He attended church every Sunday and drank very little, and very occasionally. Uncle Danny played a huge role in keeping my mother sane and hopeful. And alive. He was very generous with the money he earned each day. Danny was a large, powerful, but gentle man. He had a short- 151 cropped moustache and black hair that reminded me of Adolf Hitler. ‘The fucking rats …’ my brother Monty would repeat this over and over again when he was drunk. He would break into raucous laughter: ‘The fucking rats … we poison them here and the bastards die next door to stink out the neighbours …’ There were eight of us living in the back room of the boarding house in Stranton Road, which ran parallel to the train line, right next to Wittebome station. The coloured people across the line called our area ‘White Langa’, after the black township outside of the city. This December holiday, 1965, my mother, Uncle Danny, my sisters (Lillian and Alba), Monty and his two little girls (Erica and Pam) and I were living in that little room. My mother, Uncle Danny and Monty’s little girls slept in the double bed. The rest of us took turns between the floor and the single small couch. We had a loose rotation system going. When Monty was drunk, which was often, or if it was very cold, he would sleep under the bed. There was no fridge. We cooked on a single-plate primus stove. The washing up was done in a plastic bucket. There were two chairs, a table and an old wooden cupboard. Adjoining our room was a small passageway that led to the main house. Off the passage was a bathroom and toilet which we all shared with the neighbours from the main house. From the room itself there was a door which opened onto the yard which was part of Uncle Danny’s Blacksmith shop. The horses and carts gathered there early every morning, waiting until Uncle Danny was ready to open the workshop. Under the floorboards of our back room was a colony of rats. They came up regularly at night, when we were asleep and ate the groceries. That’s why we put down the rat poison. When I came home from Boys’ Town this December holiday 152 thingshadchangedradically.ThefactthatIcameatChristmastime was also different – I normally visited during the August holidays. My mother had moved from the main house. She had been evicted because she couldn’t keep up the rent. Monty and Victor had put Henry on the train to Johannesburg after beating the shit out of him, once again because he was beating my mother and sisters. Monty had left the police force and was working for the Railways. My mother was now ‘sort-of-living’ with Uncle Danny in the back room. Monty left the police force because he had lost the will to continue. He was patrolling outside the grounds of the State President’s estate in Rondebosch with his partner when they gave chase to three men trying to scale the perimeter fence. Monty chased after one of the culprits who stopped, turned, and attacked him with a knife. Monty shot...