There is a little while, after a long
flight when your destination seems meaningless. It must be like that for
astronauts. How can you take Earth
seriously after seeing it as a little ball from hostile cold space? So it was
with me as we barrelled along the motorway of where? Yes Capetown. It was solid ground and that was the
main thing. But gradually, as we
drove along, a more lively interest was sparked by the beauty of the craggy
pale purple mountains, the brilliant light and the blatant shame of a sprawling
close-knit shantytown with its web of electric cables looping over the higgledy
piggledy shelters. Later, to my
surprise, I found one of the standard postcards of Capetown was a picture of such
an “informal settlement”. I
wondered who would send one of these, and why.
We were staying in an apartment opposite
the “Company Gardens” a beautiful park full of grassy lawns with oak trees and
squirrels (and also a solid Natural History Museum). Throughout our time in
South Africa I was struck by the number of oak trees, all old and
quintessentially English. They
probably came with Cecil Rhodes
and there must have been a time when they comforted the colonial
overclass exiled from the woodlands and bluebells of home. Now in autumn in modern
Capetown still clad in their crispy dead leaves they seem a little sad and out
of place.
Our apartment complex had been pronounced
safe enough by Jun’s protective employers. It had a guard and both getting in
and getting out required an electronic device. Even so some of the apartment
doors inside had metal grids and padlocks. Our place was at the end of a long corridor on the third
floor and a lasting and lovely memory I have is little grandson Caiden
shrieking with laughter as he raced his mum down it every time we went in or
out.
It was fascinating to see little two and a
half year old Caiden, slender and beautiful as an elf – a perfect fusion of his
Aussie father and Japanese mum. He has dark brown eyes full of toddler feelings
and pale olive skin. He loves
olives and breast milk (“Opa! Opa!) and vacuums up new words in both English
and Japanese. There are rules
about addressing him, apparently gleaned from experts in bilingualism. Native
speakers must talk to him in their first language and none other. Jun, who speaks English as well as I do
lives a Japanese life with him whilst Eddy calls him Buddy and has taught him
amongst other things to count from one to twelve in English which he often does
when especially content with the world.
Sometimes, playfully, I’d toss in a Japanese word that I knew (neko –
cat, ringo-apple) only to be reproved by Ed. “It’s not as if your accent is right”
One bewitching aspect of this little boy is his love of
music. He sings both the Oompa Loompa
song from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the theme song of a lovely
Japanese cartoon from the Gibli studio called Totoro. He sometimes uses a stick
as a microphone. Strapped in his pushchair at breakfast on our last day he
jiggled and nodded to the musak that drifted over our croissants and
coffee. “He likes that cheesy kind
of music” said Jun apologetically.
He dances with passion in any kind of band context, which reminds me to
correct my last blog. I actually
did see Caiden after his birth during Ed and Jun’s last posting in Cambodia
when he was one year old. A memorable image of this time is a rather awful singer
croaking away in the seedy market about the catastrophic influence of his
friends Johnny (Walker) Jim (Beam) and Jack (Daniel) upon him. Tiny Caiden was in a dance floor trance
going with the beat all by himself in front of the stage.
On my arrival there was some alarm. Caiden
had a high temperature although he seemed happy enough. In the past he’d had seizures when
febrile so we were all very anxious and I was glad Jun was still breastfeeding
as he eschewed any other form of nourishment. The thing passed overnight whatever it was and in the
morning I got to hold him, sleepy and cool, slumped on my shoulder.
Caiden went on being lovely with me for
quite a long time. We played for
hours with playdough, packing it in little pots and the pots into the cylinder
they came in. He filled the handle
of an airline toothbrush carefully with olives. He gave me little pursed mouth kisses and his special high
five which starts with the normal open hand clap on the greetees upheld palm
then goes on with a bumping of fists and a touching of the pointer fingers
followed finally by an interlocking of thumbs and wiggle of all other
fingers. I suspect Eddy made it up
but it’s fun and lovely communication.
Then something, I know not what, went wrong
between us. He got cross with me
and lashed out with little slaps when I approached him. “Caiden! Say sorry to
Grandma” his parents would insist, but none of us knew why he did it. “He said sorry in Japanese” said Jun
but whether he did or not I know he didn’t mean it. In Coleridge’s poem The
Ancient Mariner there’s a verse
“An orphan’s curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high
But oh more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man’s eye”
Well all I can say is the curse in a
toddler’s eye is just as potent and it was so unfair. I never shot an albatross or did anything else I knew of to
incur his wrath. I really look
forward to sorting it all out with him when he’s a bit older.
We decided next morning to go to what the
tourist people call “iconic Table Mountain” because it looks flat on top – but
maybe I’ll save that story for next time.
Bye for now!
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