My Writing Career

 

 (Image: Ideogram.com)

I began my writing career in 2000 at the age of 50. I was aware that the majority of famous writers hit their stride in their thirties and forties, and that I was making a late start. Undeterred, I told myself that my muse had been in no hurry, preferring to allow me sufficient time to accumulate a rich store of experience to draw on before releasing my pent-up creative energy.

It was also around this time that it dawned on me that I had finally developed a world view. I had given up the futile search for the meaning and purpose of life, and had reached conclusion concerning human nature and my place in the cosmos, which I put into print in a 4500 word essay entitled, Why I Haven’t Killed Myself, Yet.

While my wife went out to work, and between home-schooling our two children and performing domestic drudgery, I set to work on a semi-autobiographical novel that I called The Life of Henry Fuckit. This took more than five years to write in longhand (I could still see well enough to put pen to paper), and at least another year for my teenage daughter to turn it into a Word document. I then approached a publisher and began the first of many demeaning encounters with literary gatekeepers.

Around this time, 2007, I started to use a PC. Having hit a brick wall with Henry, I decided to try my hand at some commercial fiction, and wrote Pop-splat, a fast-paced modern novel with plenty of violence and sex in it.  After three rejections I began to explore the possibility of self-publication. My wife reluctantly agreed to ‘invest’ R25000 in the printing of 1000 copies of my book, which I assured her would fly off the shelves and make us a profit of R50000.

I tenaciously badgered the books editors of numerous magazines an newspapers, sending them copies of the novel and requesting a review. This proved a lengthy process but eventually yielded several positive results, which I used as promotional material.

“How many books have you sold?” my financial backer asked me after a year. “When am I going to get my money back?”

I had to admit that only some 200 copies had flown off the shelves, and nearly 700 were still in the printer’s warehouse waiting to fly.

“All I need is a lucky break. If some influential person was to endorse the book it would take off, I’m sure.”

It was about this time that I began to consider another reason for why I had not become a sest-selling author, apart from the ‘lucky break’ excuse. Maybe Pop-splat wasn’t such a great read after all, and the writer was a little short on talent?

Despite a great deal of help and encouragement from my daughter and son, who set up a website and Facebook page to promote the book, sales dwindled to zero, and I was obliged to admit defeat on the Pop-splat front. However, in the meantime, I had continued writing and completed a second novel, Kikaffir, in 2011.

“Have you heard of Smashwords?” my son asked me. “It’s an online publisher that sells ebooks. You provide them with your manuscript and they make it available on their platform, and take a small commission from every sale.”

I was through with mainstream publishers, so I agreed to give it a try. By this I meant I would be grateful if he went ahead and did the necessary formatting, cover design and submission, which all entailed a considerable amount of skilled labour.

Over the following decade I continued writing and he kept placing the results on Smashwords but, I regret to report, our efforts were almost entirely in vain, for sales over the years amounted to hardly more than $100.

“Have you heard of Print On Demand publishing?”

Technology had moved along and it was now possible to self-publish anything from five to a hundred, or more copies at a relatively low cost.

Again, I managed to wheedle a few thousand rand out of my long-suffering wife, and we had 20 copies each of Kikaffir, Shark Alley Shootout and Strandveld Private Investigators printed.

“It should be dead easy to sell them locally, and then the word will spread and I can have more printed.”

The Gansbaai Book Exchange sold half a dozen copies, while the Book Cottage in Hermanus eventually told me after two years to come and collect my books, as they had been unable to make a single sale. Somebody suggested I try the flea markets in Pearly Beach and Stanford. Three Pop-splats and two Shark Alley Shootouts. Pathetic!

“Well,” I said to my wife at the end of 2020, “it doesn’t look like I’ll be asking you for any more money to further my writing career.”

It was with that acknowledgement of failure that I concluded my final attempt to prove that arsehole headmaster wrong.

Towards the end of 1967, which was my last year at Fish Hoek High School, this pedagogic prick called my parents in for an interview. He told them it was his sad duty to inform them that their son would never amount to much in life. Because I was dull-witted and lacking in any God-given talent, my prospects were bleak. It would be futile to hope that I might avoid the usual disappointment, boredom and pain associated with a life of mediocrity.

Well, it turned out that he wasn’t far wrong in his assessment. What he didn’t get right, though,  was the boredom bit. I have always been, and remain so to this day, interested in everything under the sun. I find the natural world and the antics of humans endlessly fascinating., and approach each day with fresh curiosity.

I now feel a certain degree of embarrassment that I should have deluded myself into believing I possessed enough talent to become a successful author. I also experience a strong sense of guilt when I consider how much time and effort, not to mention money, my wife and children have expended over the years in supporting me in my foolhardy literary ambitions. I can only hope that they do not harbour resentment or a sense of betrayal after realising they had allowed themselves to be persuaded to participate in such a misguided venture. My son, especially, has spent years trying to encourage me and promote my writing. Upon reflection, was it all for nothing? It is my hope that he will one day turn what he has learned from the experience into something of value and make it worthwhile.

Finally, although this signals the end of my writing career, it does not mean I will stop writing as a hobby. Hell, no! I intend to continue examining life and putting my thoughts into words. If I was to call a halt to this creative process the consequences would be dire. In the words of Henry Fuckit, “I'll be destroyed, totally and utterly. My spinal column will dismantle itself and fall in pieces upon the floor. My inflamed eyeballs will inflate and stand forth from my head before rupturing and collapsing back into their sockets. My liver will dissolve, my kidneys vitrify and my spleen will desiccate and crumble into dust. My poor heart will squawk and then shrivel to the size of a pea. My testicles will retract and putrefy with shame. My pride and joy will fall down dead, turn brown then black, and hang between my legs curing like a piece of biltong. My hair will turn white and fill my comb with tuft upon tuft. My tongue will thicken and become coated in lichen, choking my airway, blocking my gullet. My teeth will fall out with a clatter like ice into a bucket. My intestines will reverse the peristaltic flow and excrement will ooze from my nostrils. And my brain! The reaction of my brain to the terrible insult of being made to give up writing will be truly cataclysmic. My brainstem, cerebellum and cerebrum will fuse together into a dense, lifeless mass like a golf ball. The process will be instantaneous and the resulting vacuum in the cranial cavity will suck in stirrups, anvils and hammers to strike my defunct brain and ricochet out through my tympanic membranes. My entire nervous system, central and peripheral, will burn out in a storm of electrochemical fireworks and I will fall to the ground. Destroyed. Totally fucked in my moer."

Yes, that is what will happen if I stop writing, sure as night follows day.

 

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Waiting for Walter

 

On the last of our ten days with Guy, he drove us to Lanseria Airport to catch a 12.05 flight on a Safair Boeing 737 back to Cape Town. It was another fine day: mild, no wind, cloudless blue sky, minimal smog – just like all the other days we had been in Joburg. He chaperoned us as far as he could, we said goodbye, and checked our hand luggage through the metal detectors. I was surprised when the official told me to add my hat to the basket. Never try and be smart with officials, I reminded myself, and refrained from asking him if he wanted my shoes as well.

In the passenger lounge Kryś picked up three free newspapers and we looked about for somewhere to buy a sandwich. Kauia. Never heard of it. She later Googled it; even the pronunciation. These were no low-class, pre-packed sandwiches, and we had to wait a good ten minutes while the woman behind the counter put them together. I had chicken mayo, and Kryś cheese and tomato between sourdough bread. Freshly made and hot out of the snackwich machine, one hundred bucks seemed a fair price and not too extravagant, seeing we were on holiday.

We made sure our bladders were empty, bar a few dregs, and took a seat for ten minutes before joining the queue at Gate 3. I did not enjoy standing there for a quarter of an hour, and worried that I might come over dizzy, like I did on the ramparts above the prison at Constitution Hill. It was a relief when we were allowed to descend onto the runway and then climb the boarding stairs. This time we were seated towards the back of the plane behind the wings, and there was a better perspective of the cabin, which was about three quarters full. Kryś sat between me on the aisle and an elderly German woman at the window.

Take-off and ascent were exhilarating, aware as we were that engine failure could send us plummeting to our death. We levelled up and unbuckled seat belts. It was then that she asked me what I had done with our free newspapers. Damn it! I must have left them on the chair in the passenger lounge. Not that we could have opened a paper in such cramped conditions, but it would have been interesting to look at them at leisure back in Pearly Beach. She agreed that I was a stupid old bugger.

At a quarter to one I suggested we tackle our fancy sandwiches. Mine had plenty of chicken but was a little short on mayo, while Kryś found hers entirely to her liking. Slow eaters, it took us nearly half an hour to munch our way through lunch, taking more than twice as long as a ‘normal’ person would need to wolf down a semi-masticated sarmie. By necessity, I tend to eat slowly because I only have 20 teeth left, twelve of the original allocation having fallen out or been pulled. On the other hand, my wife is a slow eater by design. She intentionally chews her food to a smooth paste before swallowing it in order to facilitate the digestive process. She also maintains that she is better able to savour the taste of what eventually ends up as wate matter after all nutrients have been extracted.

It was not long before we began the gradual descent to Cape Town International. After a turbulence-free flight the pilot got us to our destination punctually at exactly 2.20pm. Unfortunately, he blotted his copybook at the last moment by touching down with such a thump, I thought the undercarriage would collapse and the plane would skid to Arrivals on its belly. Luckily, this did not happen and he was able to taxi to the main airport building on all 6 wheels.

We had told Walter, the owner of GB Shuttles, that our estimated time of arrival was 2.20pm, and we foolishly believed that once we had disembarked, we would collect our old-fashioned luggage and proceed to P2, where our lift would be waiting for us.

P2 is an underground parking area with a pick-up section. There was no sign of Walter, so Kryś phoned him. He said Francois, our driver, had her number and would be in touch. It was now 3.30. We made our way over to the stainless-steel bench against the Passenger Waiting wall and sat down. Kryś’s phone dinged. It was a message from Francois to say he would be with us at 4.20. Christ, that was nearly another hour we were going to have to wait in this mausoleum! And we didn’t even have a newspaper to read!

I took a walk around the chill periphery of this echoing hellhole, breathing the toxic fumes of the cars that came and went. I returned to my spouse, who was keeping an eye on our luggage and waiting patiently.

“This is a fuck-up,” I said. “After such a great time with Guy and Jen, we end the holiday on a sour note. It’s going to be dark by the time we get home. And that’s if this goon pitches up at all!”

“Oh, stop whining! It has already gone four. Not long to wait now.”

At 4.30 she messaged Walter: ‘Francois said he would be here at 4.20. It is now 4.30.’ The answer came back: ‘He is right there.’

A silver-grey Kia Sedona had pulled up in front of us. GB Shuttles was written on the door. The man who came round from the driver’s side looked about 60, had a huge belly, and walked with difficulty. He refrained from explaining why he was nearly two hours late, and dispensed with apologies. Despite being relieved to see him, I was surly, and made him load the luggage into the back of the vehicle without helping him, even though he appeared to be in pain. Kryś chose to sit in the back, so I got in next to the chauffeur and he drove us out into the afternoon sunshine.

My seat was astonishingly comfortable, ergonomically designed with the needs of those suffering from spondylosis of the lumbar spine kept in mind. A far cry from the non-reclining, cramped accommodation foisted on travellers by the avaricious Airline Corporations. To his credit, the transport Walter provides for his clients is more than adequate. This luxurious 7-seater must have cost him a pretty penny.

The Friday traffic exiting the City was heavy but moving at a brisk pace. I had decided to show my displeasure at having been kept waiting by not talking to Francois and merely grunting if he attempted to engage me in conversation. However, he seemed an affable sort and kept up a commentary, to which my wife was responding with interest, and my resolve soon dissolved. After all, if I saw myself as a student of the human condition, why miss the opportunity to hear another autobiography complete with analysis and pronouncements on the state of the world, the meaning of life and the price of cheese?

He was talking about the elections that were coming up in five days’ time. He held up his left thumb to show the blue-black mark on the nail.

“We had a home visit this morning. With my knees, I can’t stand in a queue, and my wife has five auto-immune diseases. Every vote for the DA counts. We have got to stand together and keep those people out of the Western Cape.”

He had more to say about ‘those people,’ describing how useless, corrupt and backward they were. When I asked him if he had ever been accused of being a racist, he answered with glee, as if he had been hoping I would ask him just such a leading question.

“I’m not a racist. I don’t hate white people.”

As we approached Somerset West, his phone, which was on speaker, rang. It was Walter, and he suggested stopping to buy the clients coffee and a hotdog, seeing they had been kept waiting for so long. I firmly declined the offer, stressing the urgency of our desire to get home as soon as possible.

The traffic began to thin as we started the long climb over the pass. I asked him what was wrong with his knees, having already diagnosed part of the problem. My knees would also be buckling under the weight of such a massive gut. It spread out in front of him and to the side like a half-full sack of mealie meal and almost reached the steering wheel. He said he had played competitive hockey right up to the age of 45, and his joints had taken a hammering. What about knee replacements? No. The orthopaedic surgeon at the state hospital in Worcester had taken one look at him and refused point blank.

“I was 160 kg’s then. Now I’m down to 140. I don’t have any pain while driving or sitting in a chair, or lying down. It’s only when I stand and try to walk. I will just have to live with it. It could be worse, you know.”

For a second time he coughed so horribly I nearly put down the window and spat on his behalf. Christ, had he swallowed that lot? My wife, who is far more knowledgeable in medical matters, later assured me it was not phlegm that I had heard rumbling and gurgling; it was a classic smoker’s cough erupting down deep in his lungs as dead tissue was sloughed off, resulting in irritation to his inflamed bronchi.

“I am the only smoker I have known who has never wanted to quit. You know how much satisfaction I get in the morning when I have that first smoke with a cup of coffee?”

“It’s an expensive habit, these days. Cigarettes aren’t cheap.”

“Depends where you buy them.” He picked up the pack lying in the well between hand brake and gear lever. “R7.50. I get them from Bagit, the Chinese shop. No tax, you see.”

He was a good driver. I approved of the way he obeyed the speed limit and kept a respectable following distance. And it helped that it was a powerful vehicle with a 7-speed transmission that gave a smooth ride. Not like our old Venture, which requires multiple gear changes and a heavy foot on the accelerator to climb hills or overtake other vehicles.

“I was a rep for 12 years, and I used to drive 7000 kilometres a month. But then the management changed, and they got rid of the other guy and expected me to cover his route as well as my own for the same salary. At the end of the month I handed them the keys and walked out.”

We were approaching The Orchard farm stall. On the left informal housing stretched away from us in a jumble of corrugated iron.

“More and more shacks. There’s no work for them but they keep coming. Have you ever bought apples from them at the side of the road?”

“Hell, no,” I said.

“The best apples in the world. The big red ones. You never get them in the shops, because they get exported. We only get the rubbish they can’t sell to the Europeans. R20 a bag; they taste divine.”

“Isn’t it dangerous to stop? And those apples are stolen?”

“I’ve never had any hassles. Fantastic value for R20.”

His wife was on the phone, and she did not sound like she suffered from five auto-immune diseases. But who am I to judge a person’s state of health from the sound of their voice on speaker phone? There was only a trickle of water. They had a plumbing problem and needed a number 13 spanner. He told her his toolbox was in the car, and the car was at Walter’s.

“I was 200 metres from Walter’s when the cam belt broke this morning. That’s major damage to the pistons. A backyard mechanic is supposed to come and look at it and give a quote. All my tools are in the car. I don’t know why she and the boy can’t get a spanner from one of the neighbours.

He lives at Uilkraal, which is a kind of upmarket trailer park. The house is small but he likes it there. The sea and the lagoon are on their doorstep, and it’s nice and quiet and safe most of the time.

It is getting dark as we enter Hermanus. I am surprised that we are already there, time having gone by largely unnoticed, thanks to our driver.

“After repping I worked as a barman. At the Sea View, and then at Oppie Dek, and also Kuslanks. A few times at the Sea View, where I was also bouncer.” I found it hard to imagine him bouncing anyone, unless he was to fall on top of them. “I don’t believe in violence. I just tell a troublemaker they will be banned for two weeks if they don’t leave. It usually works, but the worst troublemakers are the women. Man, there are some rough ladies in Gansbaai! And can they vloek, and throw things!? Glasses and bottles and billiard ball, you name it.”

His wife was on the phone again. Now there was no water at all. He told her to send the boy to the neighbours to borrow a spanner. The boy, he said, was her adult son who had come to live with them because he had a drug problem.

“He is coming right with us, but I have to watch him like I’m a psychologist.”

He also told his wife he would be late, because he first had to take clients to Pearly Beach. In the meantime, she must take out the fish from the freezer.

The Klein River lagoon was reflecting the last light from the west and was fast losing its lustre. It would be dark when we reached Stanford.

“My fisherman friend gave me three katonkil. I will fry them when I get home.”

“Katonkil is a good fish,” my wife, who gets our fish from Boetie Otto when she goes shopping on a Friday, spoke from her seat in the dark just behind me. “It’s very nice on the braai.”

There was still a fair amount of traffic. After Stanford the country side and the sky turned so dark only the road lit by our headlights and the lights from other vehicles were visible.

Walter again. The mechanic had been, but he said it was too big a job. Not worth it. And trips for the rest of the week had been cancelled. Francois was silent as he digested this double whammy. Then he sighed.

“We will just have to make a plan, like we always do.”

Gansbaai was still wide awake, with police vans pulling up in front of the cop shop, cars and bakkies waiting for petrol at Caltex and Shell, and patrons parked on both sides of Jimmy Rockets. Ok Foods was doing a brisk trade, and there was a queue outside the Absa ATM. Gangsters in a mobile boombox nearly rammed a Quantum at the four-way. Light traffic all the way to Fraskraal. I was relieved he did not want to call in at Uilkraal. Across the way at Johnny Rockets, the boozers were playing darts and pouring alcoholic beverages down their throats, and then we were out into the dark.

And I mean dark. I would not have known we had crossed the lagoon if the concrete railings had not shown up in the headlights, and from there on there was nothing to tell us where we were until we passed Duineveld. Just four cars parked outside.

For the next 10 k’s we drove in silence until his GPS told him to go right in 300 metres. The big green and white signboard repeated the instruction and he obeyed, turning into the stretch of road lit by five solar-powered street lights. For the last 5 k’s of our journey, only the woman who knew where we were going spoke, and I had the feeling our driver was done with talking to us.

There could be no doubt that we had left civilization behind us and were now in the depths of the countryside. If we did not know better, we might have thought there were only half a dozen habitations in Pearly Beach.

“Your destination is 200 metres on the left.”

The headlights lit up the path and the front of the house, and I hurried stiffly round to the back door, disarmed and unlocked. I turned on lights, picked up a torch, opened the front door and hastened, less stiffly now, down to the car. Kryś had meantime handed over the cash, all R1760 of it, and unloaded our luggage.

“Thanks for the ride,” I called out, But he was already reversing into the road.

We got our goods into the house. She trotted to the toilet while I went out to check whether the garage and the shed had been broken into, and if the car was still in the carport. Before turning on my torch, I stood on the stoep and savoured the night air, which was cool and clean in my nostrils. I could hear nothing apart from the faint mumbling of the sea in the distance. No sound of traffic, and no activity over at Eluxolweni. Jesus, it was quiet! And dark! It hit me like an epiphany, as if an extreme event had taken place in my brain. I later attributed this astonishment and awe to the dramatic contrast between city life and living out in the sticks. For ten days we had been immersed in unceasing traffic, street lights, headlights, the lights of houses and commercial buildings, lights everywhere at night, the smog from exhaust fumes and smoke, the constant sound of human activity, and the ubiquitous presence of thousands and thousands of people. And now we were plunged into this void. The shock was exhilarating, and I realised I would not have experienced it to this extent if we had arrived in daylight. Instead of our holiday ending with a disappointed whimper (from me), it had climaxed with a bang. And for this satisfactory ending to a holiday that had doubled as an adventure we owed thanks to Walter and his driver.

 

My Building Career

 

In my late twenties, disillusioned with city life, I began to dream of building a simple seaside cottage well away from civilization. At that time Pearly beach seemed as good a place as any, so, on returning from a year on Gough Island with a few thousand in my bank account, I began my building career.

Knowing next to nothing about the process, I bought a book entitled Building Basics, and got started. At the same time, I fell in love with a woman in Cape Town, and persuaded her to give up her job and join me. She agreed, the house got built, after a fashion, and we settled in. Oh, but life was so hunky-dory! Then, loathsome reality poked its filthy face round the corner. Money.

“Damn it,” I said to my wife one day, “I am going to have to find work and earn a living for us. But what can I do?”

“You have learned the basics of building, sort of,” she said, as she stroked her belly. “Maybe you could find some odd jobs, like building a garden wall, or a septic tank?”

My first job was a concrete strip driveway. Then I met Fred October, who claimed to be a bricklayer, and said he would work for me and put together a team if I could land a contract.

One day, I saw a man loitering in the bush not far away, so I approached him and asked him what he was up to. He said he was the owner of the erf he was standing on, and it was his intention to build a holiday house right there. He had an approved plan and all he now needed was a builder. Well, of course I told him I was a building contractor and I could start tomorrow.

“I’ve just landed my first big job,” I told my spouse, whose belly had gone down after it had been vacated by our first born, a daughter. “I will have to get up at the crack of dawn in the freezing cold tomorrow, drive to Elim, and find Fred.

“You poor thing. We’ll have to get to bed early, then”

I found Fred, whose father and older brother also happened to be bricklayers and were willing to work for me.

“I can get four good labourers, and that will be enough. But you must buy a bakkie and some tools and two wheelbarrows.”

Taking his advice, I sold my Peugeot station wagon and acquired a battered Isuzu diesel bakkie from a farmer, and the next Monday saw me back in Elim to pick up my team of seven.

At this point I must confess to using a strategy that has served me well over the years. I pretended to know far more than I actually did, and issued instructions that left plenty of scope for the artisans to exercise their own discretion. In this way I have learned a lot and been credited with expertise and depth of knowledge I do not possess. It is a subterfuge that requires an act of faith on my part. I have to believe there is always a solution to a problem, and that it will be revealed to me if I conceal my ignorance and coax others to apply their minds and share their know-how.

By using this cunning method, I was able to complete my first major assignment to the satisfaction of the owner, who recommended me to a friend, and from there I never looked back. By that I mean I got going, and not that I never made mistakes or had regrets. Christ, no!

Another admission. I am not cut out for playing the role of an employee. By this I mean I am temperamentally incapable of meeting the expectations of an employer who is looking for someone with a good work ethic. My father, who was apprenticed at the age of 14 and worked until he was 65, saw my reluctance to hold down a job for more than three months before taking an extended holiday as a flaw in my character. I once overheard him describe me as both feckless and work-shy, and he might have had a point, but the strange thing is that, when self-employed, I apply myself with diligence and perseverance. So much so, that my building career eventually spanned 17 years.

For seventeen years I toiled unceasingly in order to provide for a wife and two children.

Beginning in Pearly Beach, I built seven houses and four garages, and completed several alterations and additions too numerous to remember with accuracy. Then, because work was scarce, I decided to look further afield. A sizable alteration in Hermanus came my way, and then I heard of a project in the industrial area that involved converting a warehouse into a marine workshop and sales room. The entrepreneur behind this scheme was a wealthy Dutchman who had recently arrived in the country and was looking for ways to launder his money and enjoy an opulent lifestyle while escaping the European winters. I think he saw in me the qualities that would render me malleable in his hands. I was outwardly hard working, honest and naive. It was only later that I began to understand the devious way his mind worked and what lay behind his business ventures.

He proposed setting up a construction company with me as its manager and he as the controlling investor. The first assignment would be to build him a mansion on a huge property overlooking the Onrus lagoon.

Enticed by the prospect of prestigious work and the financial backing to acquire the vehicles and equipment that would be necessary to tackle large projects, I agreed to go into ‘partnership’ with the man. It meant staying in Hermanus and only returning to PB for the occasional weekend, and for the next ten years, with my wife as bookkeeper, I slaved away at trying to establish a successful construction company. Predictably, it all ended in tears.

We built dozens of luxury homes, a school in Bredasdorp, and a 20-unit complex in Glencairn, but increasing friction with the Dutchman finally led to an acrimonious parting of ways, and the demise of the business.

Apart from a bakkie and some tools, I walked away with next to ‘fokol’ to show for the years of stress and hard work.

“Now what am I going to do?”

“Reinvent yourself. You could start by looking for odd jobs, like a garden wall or a septic tank.”

I followed her advice and, with the help of my trusty foreman, George Montaque, it was not long before the work started coming in. Over the next seven years I established Ian Martin Construction, building luxury homes for wealthy clients, as well as some commercial projects like a winery and cellar, a restaurant, and an ambitious development on the seafront.

At one stage there were just over a hundred men on the payroll, not to mention several subcontractors. On the surface of it I seemed to be doing well, but trouble was brewing. Overheads were high, and three large contracts ran into trouble, one after the other. And making running the business increasingly difficult was my deteriorating eyesight.

“You shouldn’t be driving.”

“I know. I can’t read plans any more, either, and people are taking advantage of me. The writing is on the wall.”

When another builder made an offer to take over the business, I accepted gladly, even though the deal was heavily loaded in his favour.

“We will have to sell up and move back to Pearly Beach,” I told my wife. The children can be home schooled, and maybe you can find work in Gansbaai.”

That is how my 17-year building career came to an end. It was at the close of the 20^th century and I was 49. I took on the dual roles of school teacher and domestic servant while my wife became the bread winner.

So, what did I have to show for those 17 years? What had I achieved? I had provided us with a comfortable living, but had been unable to amass enough to provide financial security into the future. Was it all for nothing?

“You built a lot of high-quality houses and learned about running a business. More importantly, once you got away from that Dutch crook, you have been honest and fair in your dealings with clients and employees, as well as subcontractors and suppliers. And, in spite of all the rubbish that has come your way, you haven’t become bitter, and you have retained your sense of humour.”

“I suppose so. And I have learned a little about human nature and the way of the world. Did I ever tell you about how that Van Huysteen woman tried to seduce me after a site inspection? You know, the one whose husband cheated me out of my retention money? That fancy house down at Kwaaiwater?”

“Yes. More than once. You’re lucky she didn’t succeed, or I would have thrown you out on your ear, minus your manhood. But what did you learn from that experience that you didn’t already know?”

“Well, it was further evidence that members of the moneyed class, including the women, behave just as badly, if not worse than the rest of us.”

“And the workers? What did they teach you? Remember Melvyn Minaar? How he always got drunk on half a beer at the roof wetting parties, and played an oil can banjo and sang something about oh, my darling, I love you? What did you pick up about human nature from that?”

“Nothing specific. Just another detail in the bigger picture.”

We could have continued reminiscing about my building career, but a feeling of mental fatigue came over me. Twenty-five years later, I still have no desire to dwell on that period in my life, which must mean it was largely a failed undertaking. I made many bad choices and wrong decisions, and it has left me with a lingering sense of regret and self-loathing.

“I should have stayed small and never aspired to be anything more than a bakkie builder,” I tell her, and she agrees.

“With a small team you could have made an adequate living here in Pearly Beach, and spared us all that stress. But you wanted to get rich quick in order to stop working and sit around tippling and contemplating your navel.”

So, there we are. We agree that my building career was a fuck-up. Fortunately, she was able to go out to work and provide for the family, and I embarked on a new career, the last, which was to prove as unsuccessful as the previous ones. I shall describe it in a future post and add it to the list:

My Military Career

My Academic Career

My Nursing Career

 

The Ashton Bridge

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Photo: Nina Martin

When I heard on the radio they were going to build a new bridge over the Cogmans River at Ashton, and that it would be the first tied arch design to be constructed in South Africa, I looked at my wife and said, “That sounds interesting.”

“What is a tied arch bridge?”

“Never heard of it before. My knowledge of bridge designs does not extend beyond suspension, truss, cantilever, and ordinary arch bridges.”

“You are forgetting our bridge at Uilkraal, the beam bridge, the oldest and simplest design of all.”

“Oh, yes. Like a tree trunk over a stream. And rope bridges are another example of early technology.”

“Yes, but a rope bridge is a form of suspension bridge.”

“Hmm.” I could see she knew just as much, if not more, about bridge design as I did. “Well, we will have to do some research if we want to know what’s so great about a tied arch bridge.”

This is what we came up with:

A tied arch bridge is a structural form that combines elements of both arch and suspension bridges. It features an arch rib on either side of the roadway, connected by a horizontal tie beam at the bottom, which supports the bridge deck. This design allows for efficient load distribution and offers several advantages in terms of construction and aesthetics.

“They are going to use a transverse launching method, which sounds quite mind-blowing,” I told her. “It means building the new bridge alongside the old one, which will be demolished to make way for the 800-ton structure that will be dragged sideways into place. Amazing, hey?”

This was back in 2019, two years before the project was due for completion. We agreed to follow progress and attend the opening. Well, that was the intention, but circumstances changed and we did not make it. However, it remained on the bucket list and we finally found time to undertake the expedition in October of this year, 2024.

Guy was down from Joburg on a two-week visit, having had to leave his wife behind on account of work commitments, which was a pity, but at least it freed him up to do a considerable amount of maintenance work on the parental abode. We chose a Wednesday so that Nina and Anthony could join us on the family outing, and the five of us set off in our trusty 1998 Toyota Venture just after 9.30.

I had promoted the trip as a wonderful opportunity to enjoy a drive through scenic and varied countryside in order to view a unique example of how modern technology and aesthetics can combine to produce a work of functional beauty. The first part of this spiel lived up to the hyperbole, as it was a fine Spring day with a clear sky and mild temperatures, and the changing scenery was a delight to behold.

“You know,” I said at one stage of the journey, “I have been looking at some of Anna’s photography books, and it strikes me that colour is a distraction, and black and white is better able to capture the essence of a scene. Take that ruined farm building we just passed. Photographers like David Goldblatt and Walker Evans would have been able to get us to think about the history of the building, and what had led to it being abandoned and falling into decay.”

“Why can’t that be done with colour?” Nina, who was driving, said. “I don’t agree. Colour can be just as powerful. It’s composition that makes an exceptional picture, whether in colour or black and white.”

Also keen photographers, the other two millennials concurred with her.

“That old house made me think of Walter Meyer,” Krystyna, who was in the front passenger seat, said. “It’s just the sort of building he painted, and he would have made it look as stark and forlorn as a Goldblatt photo, only in colour.”

It seemed like they all thought I was on the wrong track. A little miffed, I thought of saying something provocative about the monotonously pretty countryside we were travelling through, and pointing out how predictably picturesque it was, but we were entering the lovely little town of Bonnievale, and I got distracted.

We trundled through the streets, admiring the unpretentious nineteenth and early twentieth century architecture and enjoying the peaceful atmosphere of a country dorp, and then made our way over the mountain to our destination. Anthony and I were in the second row, while poor old guy was sitting sideways in the dogbox.

As we entered Ashton, we caught our first sight of the bridge, and it certainly wasn’t a disappointment. The simple elegance of the gleaming white arches immediately convinced me that we were looking at a work of art. We passed over the bridge, Nina parked in front of some shops, and we all got out, eager to take a closer look.

was an information board that gave the background story to what had necessitated the whole enterprise, and furnished some interesting facts about the construction process. Kryś read it to me and then we walked the 60 metres along the pedestrian pathway to the centre of the bridge. I know it was 60 because the info board had said the span was 120 metres. We looked down at the gently flowing stream as it made its way through reeds and fern-covered banks.

“It’s hard to believe this could become a huge river, flooding the whole valley. But those pictures of the old bridge being submerged is proof of what is possible. It would be an awesome experience to stand here and watch that massive body of water flowing at speed just a few metres beneath our feet.”

“As TS Eliot pointed out,” I said,” the river is a strong brown god, implacable.
Keeping his seasons and rages, destroyer, reminder
of what men choose to forget.”

“Look, there’s Guy and Nina and Anthony checking out the underside of the bridge. Let’s walk to the end, and then come back and join them.”

It was at the far end of the arch that I received a kick in the groin. On the pristine white concrete somebody had sprayed graffiti. Crude black letters spelling a name or an obscenity, and some random shapes and scrawls. Appalled, all I could say was, “Fuck, no!”

“Hopefully, they can clean it off.”

We walked back and followed a rough path down towards the river. The young people were under

the bridge taking pictures and, as we made our way towards them over the rough ground, I again felt

a surge of dismay. Scattered about beneath the ribbed deck was the usual rubbish associated with

all open places in South Africa (and most of the world) that offer shelter from the sun and the rain.

Plastic bags and containers, broken bottles, cooldrink cans, some filthy rags.

Guy joined us. “It looks like people could be living over there on the other side.” He was pointing his Nikon and zooming in. He showed me the image that had captured five young men sitting in a group. “I wonder what they’re smoking?”

We made our way back to the parking area, where Anthony was standing before a monumental

locomotive reading the plaque. This relic from the days of steam is a historical reminder that

The town of Ashton is named after Job Ashton, the railway engineer and director of the New Cape Central Railways (Ltd). The town was established in 1897 on the Roodewal farm, and was originally a trading post that became a railway station after the completion of the railway line from Worcester to the coast in 1887.

We gathered around the iron monster, marvelling at its size and trying to imagine, and in the case of us two oldies, actually remember what it was like to take a train drawn by just such a puffing billy. True to form, Guy climbed as high as he could and stood atop the huge black boiler, and I hoisted myself up into the open cab. So this was where the driver and stoker worked. This must have been one hell of a tough life, I thought.

“Jesus, what’s that smell?” I asked. Guy had just climbed aboard.

“Shit.” He pointed to the coal chute behind us. “People have been using this as a toilet. Maybe out of necessity, or possibly as a political statement.”

“Fucking human beings!” I snarled as I returned to terra firma as fast as my arthritic joints permitted, the stench having taken up residence in my nostrils.

“People are disgusting,” my wife agreed, as she sprayed sanitizer on my hand. “I hope you haven’t got anything on your shoes.”

It was time for lunch. We piled into the Venture and continued on Route 62 through the Cogmanskloof Pass to Montagu, which turned out to be nothing like my memory of it from forty years ago. The streets were tree-lined and there was evidence of gentrification everywhere. Very pleasant, very bucolic, and oh so generic. Just like Macgregor, and Greyton, and Napier, and Stanford. The well-heeled retirees and the larnies who could afford a country retreat had booted out the real people who used to live there, and colonised the place.

We chose a shady spot to stop and eat our sandwiches. There was a low-level bridge over a gurgling stream just a little way down the road and it seemed we had the place to ourselves. How wrong we were!

“Did you see how that hoity-toity bitch glared at us?” Nina, who was munching on her homemade cheese, ham and tomato sandwich, was referring to the fortyish woman in a Pajero who had been obliged to pull up behind us in order to allow an oncoming vehicle to pass.

“I bet she would love the cops to have us poor whites run out of town,” said Anthony.

It became apparent that most of the traffic consisted of SUV’s driven by women accompanied by children, which meant we were parked on a regular school route.

“Now for the beer tasting,” Guy said, having finished his nartjie. “Google says Route 62 Brewery is just two blocks away.”

It looked more like a restaurant than a brewery. There was one man at the bar talking to two of the staff, but otherwise we were the only patrons. The waitress, who had an open face and shapely figure, brought three trays of the six tasters. After sipping all six brews we were unanimous in judging the stout to be excellent. Opinion was divided about the others, but none were condemned outright.

When all of the eighteen little glasses had been drained, I would have been happy to depart. Not so fast, old man. The three of them ordered a pint of their chosen draught, insisting that this is what you do at a beer tasting. Oh, well, I thought, when I was their age I, too, would not have been averse to be feeling mildly inebriated on leaving a licensed premises.

I enjoyed the ride back. The afternoon was advancing and the countryside looked different, now that the sun was coming at it from the west. The glare had gone and shadows were developing and softening the texture of the landscape. I was reminded of the time before we were married, when Kryś and I took a trip to South West Africa. I had particularly liked the mellow feeling that came over me while heading north, the sun going down on our left, she at the wheel, while I relaxed with a glass of Bols brandy and water. Yes, very mellow and carefree. Just as I was thinking this, Guy spoke from the dogbox.

“Anyone like to try some Muscadel?”

He had bought local liquor from one of the shops where we had parked in Ashton. A brandy and two bottles of muscadel, red and white, produced by Montagu Winery.

“Hell, now you’re talking, my boy!” He pored me half a coffee mug of the red stuff.”Shit, I only wanted a taste,” I lied. “But thanks, anyway. Cheers!”

Anthony had just opened a craft beer, and mother and daughter up front declined the offer of sweet fortified vino. I sipped the dark nectar and savoured its calming effect.

“This is a fine muscadel, ideally suitable for the occasion. Here we are, following the road over these rolling hills towards the setting sun, feeling comfortably relaxed in good company. This is just the perfect beverage to lubricate one’s mental machinery.”

“And loosen the tongue,” I heard Krystyna say to Nina.

“It has been a really interesting day. Enriching, if you know what I mean. Breaking fresh ground on our pilgrimage to the famous bridge, and then standing in awe before that monument to technological ingenuity combined with aesthetic beauty. It was so uplifting, it made one proud to be a member of the same species that was capable of such an achievement.”

“Where is he going with this rubbish?” Nina asked.

“Be patient. He’ll get there eventually.”

“Yes, as I was saying, imagine my disappointment, the abrupt deflation of my elation, so to speak, when I clapped eyes on that crude graffiti, that barbaric act of desecration! And when descending to examine the ribbed underbelly of the structure, what did we discover?”

“Trash,” said Anthony, and he took another swig. “The usual trash left by the homeless. It was to be expected.”

“I suppose so, but I was dismayed, nevertheless.”

“And the locomotive?”

“I’m getting to the locomotive, Guy. Don’t rush me. Alright, just a dash.””

Mrs Martin glanced over her shoulder, her eyebrows raised in disapproval, but she refrained from urging restraint.

“That locomotive was put there for a reason. It was to memorialise the town’s origins and to educate the public about the time when steam engines were at the forefront of technology. It was a relic from the early 20^th century to be admired and wondered at. When I climbed up into that cab, I was marvelling at the simplicity of the design. A coal-fired boiler on wheels, water heated to produce steam under pressure, and the energy released to drive pistons that turn wheels. What  a brilliant concept!”

“And what did you find up there that left you shattered?”

“For fuck’s sake!”

“Sorry. Go ahead; I won’t interrupt again.”

“Thank you. Well, there I was imagining what it must have been like to be a train driver, when something assailed my olfactory organ, and it wasn’t coal smoke. On turning around I was confronted by the sight of human excrement. Somebody had climbed onto the metal plate of the coal shute and defecated. The unmistakable stench horrified and nauseated me, and I couldn’t get off that locomotive fast enough.”

“Why are you telling us again, Daddy? We heard about it back in Ashton.” Nina was looking at me in her rear-view mirror.

“I am assimilating the events of the day, ordering and assembling them so that they fit together to reveal some underlying meaning.”

“The unexamined life is not worth living, you know, babe.” There was mockery in Anthony’s voice.

“Today’s experience can be interpreted on two levels. The amazing technology behind both the locomotive and the bridge show just how clever we humans have become. And the aesthetics of the bridge, and the noble educational intention behind displaying the locomotive, are testimony to the artistic and intellectual heights we have reached. On this level we are justified in feeling smug and patting ourselves on the back.”

“And on the other level? I suppose…”

“I thought you weren’t going to interrupt me? “

“By interjecting now and then I am helping to turn what could be a boring monologue into an engaging dialogue of the Socratic kind.”

“Very well. You might have a point.”

I paused to take note of our surroundings. We had just passed Raka Wines and were ascending Akadis Pass. I drained the last of my muscadel, which was just slightly tainted by the taste of coffee, and then picked up my train of thought.

“On the second level we must consider the significance of the graffiti, the rubbish and the excrement. The graffiti is an act of vandalism expressing resentment, defiance and contempt, just as the barbarian marauders defaced Roman art works, and smashed and toppled statues. The rubbish is evidence of a dysfunctional society where millions are unemployed and live in squalid conditions. The excrement is the result of an atavistic urge to foul the lair of one’s enemy. In combination, these three things, the graffiti, the rubbish and the excrement, clearly point to what I see as an inevitable conclusion.”

“Ah, the punchline.”

“The human brain is at a stage of development where the growth of scientific knowledge and technological innovation is almost unlimited. We have also mastered an astonishingly powerful facility for artistic expression. However, our ability to modify and control the fundamental instincts that determine our social behaviour has not kept pace with those other aspects of the evolutionary process. That is why we are still shitting on ourselves, and it would take many thousands of years for our quarrelsome and violent traits to be modified sufficiently for us to live in harmony with one another and the environment. I’m afraid that well before that could happen, we will have annihilated ourselves, along with many other forms of life.”

We had bypassed Stanford and Grootbos was on our left. The sun was low over Walker Bay, the sea glittered, and the sky was beginning to present a photo opportunity for passing tourists.

“Basically, what you are describing is a design fault,” Guy said. “Instead of developing in tandem, cognitive ability and behavioural adaptation have progressed at a different pace, resulting in the gross malfunction of both individuals and society as a whole. Definitely a design fault.”

“And what about our other design faults?” asked Anthony. Evolution has made a mess of us. Standing up and walking on our back legs might have had advantages, but it resulted in wear and tear on our joints, and the narrowing of the pelvis has made childbirth difficult and painful, not to say dangerous.”

“What about the appendix? Totally superfluous and nothing but trouble. And wisdom teeth. The mouth got smaller but the number of teeth stayed the same. Man, I’ve had to have all of mine out. That’s a design fuck-up, if ever there was one!”

“If we were an aircraft or a car, we would have been taken out of service long ago.”

“God made a major foul-up right in the beginning,” Krystyna said. “We are a failed project, and the sooner a meteorite obliterates the entire race, the better.” She sounded quite matter-of-fact about it, and even cheerful.

“Yes,” Nina agreed. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful for the rest of life on earth if humans went extinct? The only worry would be that one of our primate relatives might evolve into Homo sapiens 2.O.”

We had passed through Gansbaai, crossed the beam bridge at Uilkraal, and were almost back in Pearly Beach.

“Well,” I said, “it’s been a most interesting outing. The weather was good, the company charming, and….”

“Blah, blah, blah.”

“And thank you for doing all the driving, Nina. Much appreciated. Now we must plan for another trip, before the Apocalypse comes.”

“Too late,” said Anthony. “The end times have already begun.”

(The events are factual but the dialogue is fictional, and I apologise for putting words into people's mouths.)

In the Podiatrist's Dental Chair

 

Image: Ideogram.ai

 For more than a decade I paid Doctor Carey to work on my teeth whenever one or more of them caused me pain in the form of toothache. He was a soft spoken, reserved man of slight build who was moderately competent without showing enthusiasm or flair. He was also of sober habits, for which I was thankful, two of my previous dentists having been drunkards. The one was an ex-Royal Navy immigrant who refused to mess about with the drill after lunch, which he washed down with whisky, and preferred to do a quick extraction, whether it was necessary or not. I lost a perfectly salvageable molar one afternoon back in the sixties when I was a schoolboy too timid to offer any resistance. The other dronkie suffered from anxiety. To steady his shaking hands, he medicated himself with tots of neat gin prn. I stopped going to him shortly before the Health Professions Council of South Africa declared him a danger to the public and withdrew his licence.

When I moved back to Pearly Beach I had to find a dentist in Gansbaai to replace Doctor Carey. Dr Koos van der Merwe has the strong meaty hands of a platteland farmer and does what he can with my dwindling stock of toothy pegs. I get the impression he thinks I won’t be needing teeth for all that much longer.

Now for the podiatrist. Up until about the age of 60 my preferred footwear was the open sandal, which kept the feet well ventilated. Unfortunately, the dusty gravel roads began to take their toll, and I developed cracked heels and calloused toes, and the nails became thick and twisted and as hard as those of a dog. I consulted an old-school dermatologist who frequented the dorp on occasion, and he said the only effective remedy for cracked heels was a mixture of 50/50 milking cream and shaving cream. The milking cream, which could be obtained from the farmers’ co-op in Stanford, contained lanolin, and was originally used by milking maids when tugging at a cow’s udder, and was good for both hands and teats. I tried it for several weeks and found it almost entirely useless. That was when I decided to consult a podiatrist.

There being nobody local, I had to look further afield. Mike Sheldon came to Hermanus from Somerset West twice a week. In the morning, he attended to clients in the old age establishments and saw other patients in the afternoon. To my surprise, it turned out that he worked from rooms that had once been Doctor Carey’s surgery, the dentist having vacated them when he retired some years back.

Mr Sheldon had an off-hand manner, as if he didn’t particularly like the look of me. This triggered a reciprocal response, and I took note of some of his negative qualities, like his middle-age spread that verged on obesity, and his abrupt and humourless manner. On entering his consulting room, I immediately recognised Dr Carey’s brown dental chair standing in the centre of an otherwise unfurnished space. He told me to remove my shoes and socks and recline in the chair, which he then tipped forward. Seated on a low stool next to his instrument table, he examined my feet,an expression of disdain on his face.

“Do they look bad?” I asked.

“I haven’t seen feet this badly neglected since I had to treat a homeless man in the provincial hospital.”

He then got to work on my toenails with heavy duty clippers and shears, and managed to trim them right back, the way one would drastically prune a vine at the end of the grape season. Then, using a variety of tools that included a mini sanding machine he set to work on the callouses and cracked skin.

While he was busy, I attempted to engage him in conversation.

“What is the difference between a chiropodist and a podiatrist?”

“Podiatrist is the modern term. Only old people living in the past talk about a chiropodist now. Lift your foot so I can get at the heel.”

“You know,” I said after a while, “I have sat in this chair on many previous occasions, and it has a familiar feel. That was when Dr Carey, the dentist, worked on my decaying teeth.”

He made no comment, so I lay back and thought about what I had just said. I began to chuckle.

“Don’t you think it’s a weird coincidence, Mike? You don’t mind me calling you Mike? Just call me Ian. That’s my bloody name after all, ha, ha. I mean, just think about it. Here I am, relaxing in this chair, having been worked on at one end by a dentist, and now having a podiatrist attending to the other end. It makes me feel kind of regal.”

“Are you going to be paying cash?” He was packing up his tools and instruments, which meant he was done. “I am charging 650 and not 550, because your feet have taken far longer than a normal treatment usually does. My lady will write you a receipt.” He then left the room without any attempt at formal courtesies, and I put my socks and shoes back on before hobbling to reception.

I sometimes recall this episode while moisturising my feet after a bath. The image of that resentful minion grovelling before his lordship never fails to amuse me. Probably because of its persistence and entertainment value, it has become a cherished memory well worth recording and sharing it with the thousands of people who read this blog and appreciate absurdity and irony.