Clare Houston: An Unquiet Place

She gulped down her breakfast, picked up Patchy, and let herself out, pulling the door and hearing the Yale lock click into place. It seemed to signal a life closing behind her and, as she reversed her Mazda pickup out of the garage, she felt like she was heading into no man’s land. One door closed, and nothing yet open before her.

The highways around Cape Town were never empty, and it was four am by the time Hannah cleared the outskirts of the city, heading up the N1 towards Paarl. The sun began to rise as she passed through the Hex River Valley, the sky lighting pink over black, ragged mountains. She passed the stony town of Laingsburg, her little Mazda purring as they cruised along, the landscape opening up into the spectacular expanse of the Karoo. Miles and miles of semi-desert, coloured in greys and oranges. Small sparse bushes dotted the ground and, in the distance, rose-blue mountains.

The road stretched before and behind her in an absolutely straight blue ribbon to the horizon, the November sun glaring bright off the now silver-and-green landscape. Crossing the Orange River, the longest in South Africa, was a milestone in Hannah’s day. It marked her entry into the Free State, taking her well over the halfway mark. The landscape shifted after Bloemfontein to vast fields which stretched flat to the horizon. She passed kilometres of maize, wheat, and sunflowers. The golden light was softer and more forgiving than the bright white light of the Cape. She smiled to herself, fancying that maybe life here could also be so.

At a small town called Winburg, she turned off onto the N5. As she passed the dusty-looking town, she caught a glimpse of tall concrete needle-like structures set back against the hillside. She had heard of the second Voortrekker Monument, dedicated to those fierce, determined pioneers who had crossed the rough country by ox wagon. Their history was much contested now. The apartheid government had turned the Voortrekkers into an idealised mythology and now the pendulum had swung, with their history removed from school curricula and their monuments defaced. Hannah wondered as she drove, What if somewhere in the middle, they were ordinary farmers looking for a quiet place to settle? She smiled at the thought of how wild that would make her mother. Her academic mother, who, despite – or perhaps because of – her Afrikaans roots, would now make a strong case against the Afrikaner history having any place in a new South Africa.

When Hannah saw the first sign to Leliehoek, she gave a shout of triumph, ‘We did it, Patch! A freaking long way in one day and we did it.’ At half past five in the afternoon, she turned off the main road into the small town. A tall stone Dutch Reformed church stood on the corner, appearing too large for the scale of the little town. The light had faded, dimming the stretch of grass on the town square to blue-green. On the next corner, old trees shadowed a small stone Anglican church. The shops around the square were quaint. A gallery nestled alongside a cafe and a gift shop, and on the opposite corner Hannah could see a bistro-style restaurant. Next door was an attractive old house, newly painted white with a narrow stoep running along two sides. A metal sign hung on one of the stoep’s wooden pillars, ‘Leliehoek Books’.

Hannah parked alongside the house. As she was rummaging for her bag in the debris of the passenger footwell, a short man with dark curly hair and thick black-framed spectacles opened the garden gate at the back of the house. He stood on the pavement with his hands in his back pockets, grinning at Hannah.

‘You are so welcome, Hannah Harrison,’ he said. ‘I told Chris that we must wait – and here you are!’

Giving up on her bag, Hannah unfolded her long, stiff legs from the car and was engulfed in a hug, just managing to squeak, ‘Hi, Tim,’ before the breath was squeezed out of her.

‘You must be so tired from that drive, goodness me… Let’s get you inside. Chris is champing at the bit and the car is all packed. Our flight to Oz leaves on Sunday and we’re spending our last day with friends in Joburg. I can’t believe we’re actually leaving. I know Chris needs to explore this. I know he does. He’s given up so much for me, you know, agreeing to live in the backwoods and working from home. Now’s his chance to try something new.’

Hannah nodded, her scrambled brain only just keeping up with the continuous stream of chatter. ‘How long will you stay in Australia?’

‘For the foreseeable future. We need to give it a proper shot, you know? Although I just couldn’t bring myself to sell this place. Not until we know for sure that it will work out over there. I need some security, and we worked so hard on it.’

Tim steered her up the garden path. A tall, distinguished-looking man opened the French door with a smile.

‘I’m Chris. Come in,’ he said.

She stepped into a spacious kitchen, decorated in country style. It was furnished with free-standing antique pieces. A dresser with glass-fronted doors held a collection of pretty, mismatched china, and a square kitchen table and chairs stood in the middle of the room. Set below a window was a rectangular porcelain sink, plumbed into a concrete plinth with an old-fashioned copper tap and spout.

‘This is gorgeous,’ Hannah said.

‘We just love it!’ said Tim. ‘ Country Life did a feature last year – you might have seen it? We’re auction addicts, so we’ve picked up bits and pieces over the years, and it’s all just come together so beautifully.’

‘Let’s show Hannah the rest of the house,’ said Chris, ‘and then we really must be getting on the road.’ He ushered Hannah into the passage. To the right was a small bathroom.

‘That bath is the pride of the house,’ said Tim, peeking over Hannah’s shoulder. ‘We found it in the compost heap. Can you believe it? Look at those clawed feet.’

Hannah smiled back at him. ‘We have two at home, but my parents’ bathrooms haven’t been updated since… well, ever really.’

‘Ooh, authentic,’ said Tim.

‘More like neglected,’ said Hannah, grinning.

‘And this,’ Tim continued his tour, ‘is our tiny lounge–study. You know, in summer we live on the deck outside, so it’s really only in winter or on rainy weekends that we sit here. And we do use the fireplace,’ he said, gesturing at a small Victorian stove. ‘It’s heaven on a freezing night – warms up the whole house actually.’

‘There’s Wi-Fi throughout the house and garden – I use it for work,’ said Chris from the doorway. Another French door, like the one in the kitchen, led out onto the wooden deck with a wrought-iron table and chairs.

The garden, in the soft early evening, was lovely. It had been carefully planted to look wild, with roses rambling amid meadow grasses and herbs. Clumps of aloes broke the softness with their thick structured leaves. Hannah could see the hand of a clever gardener.

‘It’s beautiful,’ said Hannah.

‘It’s Chris’s work,’ said Tim. ‘I just follow instructions and do the manual labour.’

Hannah turned back inside and found the last room in the house. The bedroom window looked onto a narrow strip of garden that bounded the property. A tall hedge marked the fence line, and between this and the house was a grove of small trees, planted close together, groundcover spread at their feet.

‘Those trees are just alive with birds in the mornings,’ said Tim, ‘gorgeous to wake up to.’ Chris rolled his eyes at Hannah, who smiled. Cotton rugs were spread on the wooden floor and, like the other rooms, simple antique furniture was used to create a neutral, fresh look.

‘And lastly, the shop,’ said Tim. ‘I told you that Barbara would be in tomorrow to really give you the rundown. She’s lovely. Organised but not bossy, which is the exact opposite of me, so we made a great team.’