Terry Angelos - White Trash

Maggie

My earliest memory is a secret. It is the first time that I go to a place I am not supposed to go to and do something that I shouldnt.

I am a scrappy four-year-old when I wander away from our house. My mother is distracted with the frazzling demands of my new and unwelcome baby sister. She is always crying, her tiny face red and angry, little fists clenched. She already behaves like the middle child that she will one day become.

The heat of the day has simmered off as it turns to dusk. I crunch along the gravel driveway, following the swaying hips of Maggie to her khaya. I am unaware that I am crossing the lines of segregated living and separate eating utensils.

Maggies khaya is a small cement block room with a tin roof at the bottom of our garden. Its called the servants quarters, as if we are the Lords of a grand manor in our little red-brick house.

Her single iron bed is raised off the ground by several bricks. On my tiptoes, I can almost see the worn blankets and dent left by the memory of her body. The bed is raised as a precaution against the advances of the Tokoloshe, the African spirit demon known to have his way with women and bring a myriad of illnesses, bad luck and even death.

There is a small table in the tiny room, covered with newspaper and a few necessities like tea, jam, salt. I sit on the cool concrete floor in front of the gas cooker, crossed-legged like a skinny Buddha. The quietness of the small room feels secret and sacred. Maggie leans over the pot of maize sadza and gravy made from bitter, salty greens like spinach. She smells of Sunlight soap and her warm musky odour mingles with the cooking smells. It feels deliciously naughty to sit on the floor and eat with my fingers like she does. I watch how she rolls sadza into a ball with her fingers and dips it into the gravy. I copy her, eager to show her that I can also roll sadza and soak up the gravy .

Sometimes we have tea and thick slices of bread my dad calls doorstops. We mix cement, taking a bite of bread and gulping a mouthful of sweet tea to mix with the bread in our mouth. This is bad table manners. This is how the Africans eat. Dont eat like that, its disgusting, my mother would say if she could see me now. I am not supposed to mix cement or eat doorstops like an African. But she cant see me, so I mix cement with Maggie, feeling happy as a pig in mud.

The light dims as the sun slips away, leaving flames dancing on the smokey walls. It feels like another home and Maggie feels like another mother. In these precious moments she is all mine and I have no comprehension that she has any other children, family or life outside our home and her khaya.

When my tummy is full as a fat tick, Maggie says, Hamba, shaya wena, and I run home with no appetite for Shepherds Pie or Eggy Soldiers.

It is the 1970s and generally, children should be seen and not heard. Dr Spock is instructing parents on how to raise their offspring by trusting their instincts and being flexible with routine. He is vilified as the founder of the permissive parenting style of Baby Boomers.

I play outside, mostly unsupervised in the daytime, happy to ramble around barefoot. Children roam around our neighbourhood, knotted together in little gangs. There is no need to worry, we are safe in the perimeters of our White community.

My mom says, Come home when it gets dark. I always wander off. I am not the child that follows her mother around whining and complaining of boredom. I dont tug at her skirt or latch onto her. There is too much to do, to create and discover. My imagination is bright and vivid. It is like a kaleidoscope. Every time I blink, vibrant colours, ideas and wild images burst into my head. I am always exploring, building cities in dirt, climbing magical trees, making forts with sticks and straw. I play with dolls who for some reason are always dying of terminal and frightful illnesses.