The Choice Between Us. Edyth Bulbring

Holly-style, a haphazard mess. Among them is an old black-and-white one taken at the house in Pembroke Street. People posing on the stoep. I recognise my great-grandfather Frank. Holly and I have his eyes. His arm is draped around someone who looks like his older brother. Not as hot, though he has the same cheekbones. Daniel – or David, Holly isn’t sure. His two daughters are sitting on a step in front of them.

      “Tell your mother to ring me,” says Aunt C-C. “She must collect the personal things she left behind. And don’t you be late tomorrow.” She slams the phone down without hearing me say I’m always on time – unless Holly’s been messing me around, of course.

      I make popcorn for supper and lie on my bed, checking out Andile’s Twitter feed. He’s watching the soccer, Manchester United. Soccer sucks, but I download some info and memorise the players’ names. We’ll chat about soccer after class tomorrow!

      In the morning, I don’t tell Holly about the phone call. Or that I’ll be working for Aunt C-C after school. Let’s just say that Holly’s personal stuff at the big house is something I’ve got a keen interest in.

      On my way out, I glance at the photo of the family at Pembroke Street. I guess from the style of the clothes that it was taken more than fifty years ago. The older of the two girls is wearing a black beret, and she’s scowling at the person behind the camera.

      I look closer at the girl’s face. Her expression is more than just sulky, it’s angry. But the younger of the two girls is smiling, mouth closed. She’s hiding something behind those sly lips. And the door to the big house is shut, the family gathered in front, like they’re guarding a secret.

      I’ll be there today after school to claim mine. Because if there’s anything in Holly’s belongings about my father, I’ll find it.

      MARGARET

      Lucy’s got long red fingernails and smokes Texan plain. Sometimes a scrap of tobacco sticks to her lips, which are the same colour as her fingernails. She picks it off, often spits it out. Pffft.

      My sister’s honey-blonde hair hangs like open curtains around her face, which is pale as the moon. She wears a black beret on the side of her head and acts like she’s as beautiful as Yvonne Ficker, our Miss South Africa with the perfect 36-24-36 figure. I think Lucy’s prettier because her teeth don’t stick out like Yvonne’s.

      “Where is she, Mima? I’m going to wring that brat’s neck.” Lucy’s in a rage. Her words are clipped to an inch, like our privet hedge.

      Lucy’s got a hot temper and wears short skirts. She can be wild. Too loud. Too fierce. She likes to argue, especially with my parents.

      When things get nasty my mother grabs her head and goes to lie down. My father chips in with: “Really, Lucy, do you have to provoke your mother? She’s not well, as you know.”

      This makes Lucy even angrier. She’s quiet as death, and her top lip curls.

      I’m sitting as silent as a mouse under the kitchen table, my legs drawn up. Clumps of faded bubblegum are stuck underneath. They look like the brains of dead rats.

      “What’s that girl done now?” Gemima says. I spy her black feet, and, as she steps away, a peep of white sole. Her heels have flattened the backs of my mother’s old takkies. She turns to stir the Maltabella, making it thick like mud. When it’s ready, she’ll add milk and brown sugar. It looks better than Jungle Oats, which is like cat sick. Still, I close my eyes as I eat it.

      Lucy sucks on her cigarette and breathes out a long sigh of smoke. “She took my fountain pen again. This time she filled it with lemon juice. She’s going to ruin it. Seriously, Mima, I’m going to talk to Daddy about her if she doesn’t stop her nonsense.”

      Toughees! My father has already eaten breakfast and gone to his consulting rooms near the Johannesburg General Hospital. He likes an early start. This means Gemima starts early too. Before my father gets up in the morning, she’s already put a pot of water on the stove for porridge.

      As soon as she hears the sound of his feet on the floorboards and the bath water running, she comes upstairs and gets me out of bed and dresses me for school. While my father eats his oats she cooks him his two eggs and bacon, which she serves with a slice of white toast. Gemima’s mummy used to make him exactly the same breakfast when he was a boy on the farm in Natal.

      Lucy stubs out her cigarette, squashing it into the ashtray with sharp jabs. She clips on her earrings and goes outside to wait for Roger the Dodger. He’s been Lucy’s boyfriend for the past six months. Roger drives a clapped-out Morris Minor which doesn’t have indicators or windscreen wipers. My father calls it the red devil.

      Roger is studying to be a lawyer. When he graduates he’ll have to cut his hair, stop shouting his mouth off about the natives, and learn to toe the line, my mother says.

      Lucy is nine years older than me. When she’s in a good mood she allows me to sit on her bed and watch her get ready for her dates with Roger. Sometimes she practises the cha-cha-cha on me and lets me paint her toenails. Lately she’s been telling me I’m a big pain in the neck and I must buzz off.

      Lucy is studying for a Bachelor of Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand but she spends most of her time not studying and raising hell with Roger. My mother says it doesn’t matter if Lucy fails her degree because after university she’ll probably just get married and won’t have to work. Lucy says my mother is stuck in the Dark Ages.

      Roger’s car backfires as it drives off, and Gemima peers under the table with a smile. “Oh, there you are.” She makes me stand still as she sponges the grubby marks off my gymslip. She squints at the shine on the serge. “You can’t go to school like that.”

      She gets her Special Book out of the kitchen drawer and pages through it. I look over her shoulder. “What does Ann say?” Ann Wise’s advice in the Sunday Times is the only part of the newspaper Gemima reads. When my father is done with the paper, Gemima cuts out Ann Wise’s tips and sticks them in my old school exercise book.

      Ann knows a stack about lots of things: how to cure warts, remove perspiration marks and any stain under the sun. She’s brilliant when it comes to making a can of pilchards stretch to a satisfying family meal. One of Gemima’s proudest moments was when Ann published Gemima’s “housewives economise” tip on what to do with old bits of soap.

      “Scrubb’s Ammonia,” Gemima says, and unlocks the cupboard door. She chooses a bottle from her collection of household cleaning supplies. Bottles of Ann Wise potions fill her cupboard. She rations my JIK, and it’s never enough to clear the inkblots in my exercise books.

      During the day she keeps the cupboard key on a string around her neck and at night she hides it in a secret place. I’ve searched everywhere but I’ve never found it. My father says the contents of Gemima’s cupboard could blow a hole twice the size of Kimberley’s in our back garden.

      After sponging my uniform, Gemima spoons dollops of Maltabella into a bowl and grabs Anne of Green Gables. “You’ll mess your nice book.” She puts it back on the shelf and watches me eat. “Just one more mouthful.” I open my eyes and make hamster cheeks at her. Porridge spurts out of the sides of my mouth and she clicks her tongue and says, “Wena!” (That means “You!” in Zulu.)

      I speak the language like a real African because Gemima talked Zulu to me from the time I was a baby. We sometimes chat in Zulu, but Sister Columbanus says I mustn’t speak native at school.

      “Don’t backchat me, young lady. I do not want to hear, ‘My father also speaks Zulu, so there.’ No, don’t dare say that, miss. You are very bold.” Sister Columbanus grips the rosary at her belt, like she’s seeking support from a higher being.

      Breakfast finished, I go upstairs to my parents’ bedroom while Gemima makes my school sandwiches. My mother’s bed is farthest from the window and the curtains are closed.

      “Good morning, Mummy, how are you feeling today?” I speak in whispers. If I talk in my normal voice she tells