The Smell of Apples: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

duidelik verstaanbaar, which means 'clearly understandable', when he's not going to repeat himself.
    'When can we expect him, Johan?' asked Mum. Til have to get the guest-room ready and plan for meals. I at least want Doreen better prepared than when the Frenchmen were here in July.'
    'He'll be here during the first week of December,' Dad answered, and Use looked up from her dinner and groaned. 'I hope you remember my prize-giving at the beginning of December, Daddy.'
    'I wouldn't miss it for anything in the world, my darling,' Dad said, and assured her he'd be there when she became head girl.
    Mum said the garden wasn't looking all that great, because the Coloured boy who came in Chrisjan's place doesn't even know a spade from a pick. Mum would have to ask Doreen to look out for someone else, because the garden had turned into a jungle since Chrisjan left. Whenever Mum speaks about Chrisjan, you can see she's still angry with him. Chrisjan worked in the garden ever since Oupa's time. But, a while back, he just stayed away from work and never came back. A few days after he disappeared, while I was looking for the fishing tackle in the garage, I discovered that the fishing kit had vanished into thin air. I looked everywhere, even under the boat's sail, and if I didn't know better I'd have thought it had just grown feet and walked off. I went inside to Mum, at the piano, to ask her whether she had seen it. But even Doreen, who always knows where everything is, couldn't sniff it out anywhere. Because Chrisjan liked fishing, Mum knew immediately that he must have stolen our stuff.

    Mark Behr
    Mum says that's exactly the way the Coloureds are. You can never ever trust them. After all the years of supplying them with a job and a decent income, they simply turn around and stab you in the back. Just like the Mau Mau in East Africa. 'Thus the viper sucks from your bosom without you even knowing.'
    If it wasn't for the visitor, we would be leaving for our holiday-cottage at Sedgefield, day after school ends. Because of the visitor we're going to have to stay on a few days longer. With all his work, Dad usually stays for another week before he comes to join us at the cottage anyway, so I wanted to ask whether he and Doreen couldn't just look after Mister Smith so that we could go ahead. Besides, Doreen doesn't go along to Sedgefield because Mum believes Doreen should also get a vacation. Most of Mum's friends take their maids along to do the washing and make the beds. Gloria goes along every year when Frikkie and them go to Plettenberg Bay. Frikkie says Gloria was so boozed-up at New Year that his mother almost gave her the sack.
    The day Mum told Doreen to prepare the guest-room, I thought about the visitor again for the first time. The spare bedroom is right underneath mine. To begin with, it had been one big bedroom, until Dad made it into two. He could do that, because the original room had such a high ceiling. He divided the room in two after Ouma died, and Mum wanted an extra room for guests. They didn't want to wreck Ouma's beautiful garden by building on outside, so instead they turned the room with the high ceiling into two bedrooms.
    High up in the passage wall, they made an extra door with a set of yellow-wood stairs with a blackwood banister, and they built a square window with wooden frames into the slanted roof upstairs. So where I used to sleep down-

    The Smell of Apples
    stairs, the high ceiling of big white tiles with wonderful patterns, became a low ceiling of knotty pine. I wanted to be in the new room with the roof-window very badly, and when Mum got tired of my nagging, she gave in and let me move upstairs. From then on Use and I have shared the passage bathroom next to the staircase, and Dad and Mum have theirs to themselves.
    Our house is at the top of St James Street. On clear days you can stand on the veranda and look out over the whole of False Bay. You can see from the mountains of Cape Point, to where