Брайс Кортни - The Power of One

It is the earnest opinion of the committee that, having completed your first degree, you should apply again.

Yours faithfully,

L.J. Fisher

Secretary to the Committee

The people around me had become accustomed to my winning, it was a habit they shared, an indulgence they took for granted. I could see they were shocked and bitterly disappointed that, having done their part, I had somehow failed them. Miss Bornstein and Mrs Boxall were distraught beyond belief, having quickly convinced themselves of some sort of plot. My mother, after shedding a few tears, soon concluded that the Lord had decided it was not His will for me and that, if only I would accept Him into my heart and into my life, His purpose for me would become clear. Two days later she announced at the dinner table that the Lord had guided her quite clearly and that I should give up boxing as it displeased him. When I had done so, I would be guided in the Lord’s special plans for me.

When I replied that boxing was too important to me, she had burst into sudden tears. ‘That is the devil in you talking, God is not mocked!’ she shouted, leaving the table with her face buried in her table napkin.

‘There, there. There’s a good lad,’ my granpa soothed.

The following day a letter arrived from Singe ’n Burn in which he said that he was confident I would ride through the disappointment and that I had the internal fortitude to grow stronger from the experience. He added that the true Renaissance man accepted defeat as the ingredient which made eventual success worth striving for, blah, blah, blah. He then added that he had received a letter from Professor Stonehouse of Witwatersrand University who, it turned out, was Ichabod Crane. In it Stonehouse had remarked that the committee had been visited by a Captain Swanepoel who had not been complimentary about the school and its activities and in particular my implication in these activities. He wanted to assure Singe ’n Burn that should he hear otherwise, this involvement by the police did not affect his judgement nor did it, he felt sure, affect that of his colleagues. Stonehouse concluded by saying that my application for a scholarship to Witwatersrand had been accepted and that he hoped the headmaster would be able to influence me to accept.

The following week the second scholarship, to Stellenbosch, was confirmed and I received an invitation to apply to Natal University. But I knew, in the minds of those who loved me, that this would be accepting the crumbs from the rich man’s table. They were emotionally involved with Oxford and no other place, no matter how grand, would have satisfied their expectations for me and rewarded them for the parts they had played.

Only my granpa seemed unconcerned. He’d said nothing when the letter from the committee had arrived, except of course, ‘There’s a good lad.’ I found him later in the garden grafting rose stock and we sat out of the blazing December sun in the dark shade of one of the big old English oaks. As usual he took ten minutes to tap and tamp and strike and eventually puff up a blue haze around his head. I’d given him a tin of Erinmore which I’d bought in Johannesburg and the honey-treated tobacco smoke smelt delicious as it swirled around his head.

‘My brother Arthur went to Oxford, he was the clever one in our family. Like you he won scholarships, first to grammar school and then to Oxford.’ He puffed and looked over the roof which still hadn’t been painted. ‘In my time not too many grammar school boys made it through to the dreaming spires of Oxford and Cambridge.’

‘What happened to him, Granpa?’

The old man puffed at his pipe and stared out into space for ages, puff, puff, puff. ‘I don’t know what went wrong, lad. He rose to be Lord Chief Justice of Appeal and was completely crippled by arthritis by the time he was forty. A miserable life really, made a lot of money and a lot of misery for himself and everyone else. According to my sister Jessie, he died rich and lonely.’ He puffed on his pipe a little longer. ‘Funny thing about Arthur, he never could get things in their right perspective.’

Hymie had sent a telegram every week demanding to know if the results had come out and asking me to phone him, reverse charges, when they did. I called him from Mrs Boxall’s office in the library.

‘Hard luck, Peekay, so close, so bloody close!’ There was a click on the phone and then a woman’s voice. ‘Operator here, please do not swear on the public telephone,’ the phone clicked again. ‘Christ! Who was that?’ Hymie said on the other end. The phone clicked again and went dead. I dialled the exchange.

‘Operator, I was cut off.’

‘Peekay, this is Doris Engelbrecht!’ Doris was a woman in her mid twenties, a Marie ‘tonsillectomy’ convert who now taught Sunday school at the Apostolic Faith Mission. ‘I am supposed to cut off calls that contain obscene language. Your party in Pretoria used filthy language and has taken the Lord’s name in vain. I can’t allow it on the public telephone even if he is paying reverse charges.’

‘I’m sorry, Doris, he just talks like that, he means no harm, it’s just his way.’

‘Ag sis, Peekay, how can you know such a person? You who are so clever and all and whose mother is a very high up born-again Christian?’

‘Doris, you’re not supposed to be listening, telephone calls are meant to be private.’

‘It says in the book I must not allow people to use obscene language on the telephone. How can I not allow them when I don’t hear them?’

There seemed to be no ready answer to this. ‘Doris, if you get me my party in Pretoria, I’ll tell him not to use bad language.’

‘Tell him also to wash his mouth out with Lifebuoy soap!’ Doris said.

The phone rang a couple of minutes later. I grabbed it and before Hymie could speak said, ‘Watch your mouth, Levy. Doris the born-again Christian is monitoring you.’

There was only the slightest pause on the phone. ‘What’s your favourite chocolates, Doris?’ Hymie asked. There was silence on the other end. ‘Black Magic or one of those big three-pound boxes with the picture of an English cottage on the outside showing all the flowers in the garden, you know, with a big pink ribbon?’ The silence continued. ‘I just want to say I’m sorry for my language, language like that can upset certain parties.’

Doris’s voice cut in sharply. ‘Tell the party on the other end I will not be tempted by the devil, Peekay!’

‘Ag man, Doris, my friend has a chocolate factory, it is just a way of saying sorry,’ I coaxed.

‘A box so big you can’t pick it up with one hand, Doris,’ Hymie said.

‘The box with the garden and the pink ribbon, then,’ Doris piped in a small voice.

‘Okay, then you’ve got to promise not to listen any more, Doris,’ I said.

‘Only if you promise on the Lord’s name that your friend won’t swear some more,’ she said, a trace of warning still in her voice.

‘Thanks, Doris,’ we both said. The phone clicked and Doris was gone.

‘For Christ’s sake, don’t forget to send the chocolates, Hymie. I’ve got to live in this town.’

‘Is it safe to talk now?’ Hymie said.

‘Of course! You have the word of a born-again Christian!’

‘No I won’t forget, we keep a roomful of obscenely large boxes of chocolate at the carpet emporium. My dad calls them his “sweeteners”; every customer gets a box when a salesman determines it’s time to close the sale. My dad claims his entire carpet empire is built on chocolate.’ Hymie laughed, ‘He even calls the salesmen his chocolate soldiers!’

His voice changed abruptly. ‘The offer still stands, old mate. You don’t have to take the money, it’s just a loan. Now that you’ve passed the Oxford entrance examination and all.’