Read Online Leopold Blue by Rosie Rowell - Free Book Online Page B

and cool. Today it looked ridiculous alone on the dirty white wall. What was I going to do with Xanthe all day? How would I ever manage to be cool when I didn’t know what cool was?
    Outisde on the stoep I cradled a mug of tea in the milky morning. Mum was bent over her sweet peas in a nearby flowerbed. She muttered as she worked – curses and promises of imminent death. Each spring she waged war against the fat green caterpillars that ravaged her flowers. In sheer persistence, they were perfectly matched.
    Her head appeared, red and blotchy from bending over. Her eyes gleamed from a morning’s killing. She was wearing one of Dad’s blue overalls and had tried unsuccessfully to tie back her hair in what we called her Corgi scarf. She looked around and blinked a few times. ‘Morning, sweetheart!’
    I turned away, because if you have nothing nice to say, it’s better to say nothing at all. Dad was at the bottom of the garden, brandishing the weed-eater. He cut the power when he saw me and performed a little turn to show off his khaki safari suit. ‘All in honour of our lunch guest!’ he shouted.
    I felt like throwing up. The potential for any one of my family to embarrass me today was overwhelming.
    Our family did not keep the Sabbath in the way that the Leopold townsfolk thought correct. Occasionally Mum attended Father Basil’s church in the Camp, to prove a point. Dad said he took his religion him everywhere; he did not need to put it on every Sunday morning. Nonetheless we had our rituals, when Mum wasn’t tearing around the countryside spreading the bad news.
    One such ritual was the Sunday Lunch Braai [*] . When it came to braaing, Dad was a fundamentalist. A real braai was an upturned half oil drum. It was made with wood, not charcoal. The occasion demanded beer and decently marinated meat. It required family assistance but never intervention. Dad lit the fire at noon. At that point Mum’s duties lay in the kitchen. Beth and I were the messengers, and the replenishers of empty beer bottles.
    â€˜Beth, tell your mum I’m ready for the meat.’
    â€˜Beth, go and check that the mielies [**] are on.’
    â€˜Meg, tell Vivienne we’re fifteen minutes away. And another beer, princess.’
    As the meat neared perfection, he’d bypass the reluctant handmaidens. ‘Vivienne, are the potatoes done? Let’s eat!’
    At this point, Mum had to appear with salads, potatoes, bread rolls, beetroot, pickles and more beer. When all that remained was chicken-sticky fingers and a purple, green and red-stained plate, Dad would lean back in his chair, close his eyes and pass the afternoon in deep meditation.
    I opened the front door to find Xanthe looking cross. She wore a white polo T-shirt and a pretty floral skirt and sandals. A canvas bag was slung over her shoulder.
    â€˜So, like, firstly they forced me go to church, bunch of religious freaks, and then the matron, what’s her name, the one with the enormous bum, wouldn’t let me leave the boarding house without wearing this, this  … ’ She yanked at her skirt in disgust as she stepped inside. As her eyes accustomed to the gloom, she stopped. ‘You live in a museum!’ She looked around. ‘This is like of those funny little houses in Stellenbosch we visited on school outings. You know, the ones with the loo in the kitchen.’
    I smiled and felt disappointed. I led her past Dad’s study into the courtyard.
    The rows of overhead vines that ran across the courtyard had trapped in the early morning freshness. The air smelled of old stone and thatch and damp earth. The courtyard was a refuge for Mum’s delicate English plants that would never survive Leopold’s summer. Pots of roses and fuchsias and lavender lined the walls. Honeysuckle covered the family room wall, jasmine competed opposite it. A water feature tucked into the far corner burbled and gurgled all