Mr Malgas found the approach to the camp more welcoming this time: a teetering fence-post, emitting a tang of fresh creosote and surmounted by a scuffed cement shoe with a little stable-door, two sash-windows and a slot in its toe-cap, marked the beginning of a path through the veld, and he took it gratefully. Several twists and turns dictated by the geography brought him to an anthill, where he rested and enjoyed the prospect. Then he went on, in two minds about whether to announce his arrival.
Nieuwenhuizen saw Malgas coming down the path fending off spider’s webs with his hands and hacking away at lianas with a rusty panga, and in the event it was he who called out a greeting. “Malgas!”
Nieuwenhuizen was sitting in the mouth of his tent, on the untidy pile of his own long legs, busy with some handiwork concealed in his lap.
“Hello Father!” Malgas was pleased at how naturally the name flew from his lips. If Nieuwenhuizen was also pleased he did not show it, but merely waved a pair of pliers in the direction of a stone and went on with his work.
“This is coming along nicely,” said Malgas, turning in an appreciative circle. “Mind if I look around?”
Taking a shrug as permission, Mr Malgas made a tour of the camp and its environs, allowing the rudimentary footpaths that had appeared with time to guide his steps. He took a childlike delight in the signs he found everywhere that the plot had become lived in, that the newcomer had made himself at home. “A dwelling-place carved out of the veld,” Malgas thought happily, examining the bare, compacted soil around the hearth. A soothing smell rising up from below notified him that the earth had been sprinkled with water to settle the dust.
“Where the hell is my hammer?” Nieuwenhuizen asked himself.
Malgas hunted obligingly for a hammer at the foot of the tree, and discovered instead a pile of firewood and fence-posts, which he took to be the raw materials of fortifications that had yet to be constructed; next to that was a leather portmanteau, sturdily made but a little the worse for wear, probably imitation, plastered with name-tags, illegible, every one of them, and stickers — exotic destinations: Bordeaux, Florida, Eldorado Park — and spilling various items of clothing; then a metal drum, lipping with green water, and a tin ladle displaying in its bowl the label of a popular soft drink. On an impulse he scooped a ladleful of water and poured it over his head, and although there was a nip in the air and he was required to suppress the lip-smacking, hair-tossing display of pleasure he associated with the gesture, he nevertheless felt invigorated.
“Here it is!” Nieuwenhuizen said. “I’ve been sitting on it all along.”
Malgas circumnavigated the tree and the tent, noting with approval the prudent depth of the moat and testing the tension of the guy-ropes. Some bulky objects hung in plastic bags from the lower branches of the tree. Malgas, who prided himself on his knowledge of packaging and its relationship to contents, could not resist the challenge. After an inquiring glance at the back of Nieuwenhuizen’s grizzled head he palpated one of the bags thoroughly, but to his surprise could not determine what it contained. Never mind, he moved on. Behind the tent he found some implements that were more readily identifiable: a row of rough-hewn wooden spoons dangling from a length of string (the stirring-bone was nowhere to be seen), a stack of misshapen plates and saucers, a tin of creosote with a brush resting across it, a hurricane-lamp, a slab of discoloured slate supporting a grey liver. He prodded this dismal organ with a blunt forefinger and found it firm. But in a cove under the hedge were yet other gadgets whose functions he could not divine, despite his many years of experience in Hardware.
“You’ve got some fascinating things here,” Malgas exclaimed. “What’s this?” He held up a contraption consisting of a luminous orange traffic-beacon mounted upside-down in a cardboard box and bound with copper wire.
Nieuwenhuizen’s head spun round. He looked at the eager expression on Malgas’s face and at his thick fingers gripping the gadget. “Bush rain-gauge,” he said sadly, “calibrated, measures rainfall. Horn also works.”
“Useful. . And this?”
“Mousetrap. Field-mice.”
“This?”
“Cookie cutter.”
Nieuwenhuizen found the questions tiresome.
“What’s that you’re making there?” Malgas asked, though he was not insensitive to Nieuwenhuizen’s tone. As he spoke he rolled a stone closer and sat down on it. He was disappointed to find that Nieuwenhuizen’s torso blocked his view of the tent’s interior.
“This is a teacup,” said Nieuwenhuizen, holding up a dented tin and turning it from side to side so that Malgas could admire it. “Almost finished. Just got to round off the handle here.” He perked up suddenly, shooting out one leg like a railway signal. “Let’s make a pot of tea and you may have the honour of testing out my cup.”
The coals in the fireplace were warm. Under Nieuwenhuizen’s attentive gaze, Malgas fetched kindling from the woodpile, built up a fire, ladled water into the pot, noting with relief that it had three legs after all, and, following instructions, measured the requisite quantity of dried leaves from a plastic bag. “What is this stuff?” he asked as he sprinkled the leaves onto the bubbling water.
“Herbaceous infusion,” Nieuwenhuizen replied. “Tisane, excuse the jargon. Very good for you. Purifies the blood and builds you up.”
When the tea had steeped to Nieuwenhuizen’s satisfaction, Malgas was instructed to strain it through a shop-soiled oil-filter and sweeten it with honey from a jar.
Malgas reported that the new teacup served its purpose adequately
— it certainly didn’t leak — but its serrated rim threatened his lip and its ear was too small to accommodate his forefinger.
“I’m afraid it’s made for a less substantial digit,” Nieuwenhuizen explained with a good-humoured cackle, holding up his own skinny forefinger to illustrate the point. “Oh my.”
Despite the honey the tea tasted of oil and rust.
“This is the life,” said Malgas, when they were both ensconced on stones with their teacups resting on their stomachs and their legs stretched out to catch the afternoon sun.
A silty silence descended upon them. Malgas savoured its meaningful elements: the rubbery squeaking of his host’s boots against a grease-spattered stone; the hissing of the sticks in the fireplace; insects scurrying in the grass; dry leaves rattling in the hedge; his cup hiccuping as its joints expanded; a distant roar of traffic.
Through half-closed lids Nieuwenhuizen charted the outstanding features of Malgas’s face, ear to ear and quiff to chin.
When they had drained their cups, Malgas sighed contentedly and said, “So. When does the building begin?”
“Patience, patience,” Nieuwenhuizen murmured sleepily, screwing his eyes shut to make Malgas disappear. “I’ve got all the time in the world.” The breathless pause that followed insisted that further explanation was called for. “You can’t rush the building of a new house. You’ve got to get the whole thing clear in the mind’s eye.” Another pause insisted. “Take it from me. I’ve been acclimatizing, building up my strength for the first phase: namely, the clearing of the virgin bushveld.”