Not that he got it.
“We moved into a flat behind the Esplanade about a year after we got married,” Mrs Francis explained. “Palm Court it was called-one of those skyscraper things with sea sand all over the verandahs at the back. Always lots of children around, noisy but nice.
“Tessa was our first. She was a good baby even if she cried a lot at nights. Pat said ‘No more,’ what with him just working on the buses, you see. Leon-he happened to us, if you know what I mean, and somehow we still managed.
“Up till their teens, that was. Then they started wanting all sorts of things. It was Tessa, really. She had such a gift for music, we had to get her a piano. That’s when I started dressmaking to help with the extras.
“Well, Tessa went from strength to strength with her playing. Her teacher, a Mrs Clarke, came up to me in town one day and said it was time our Tessa got herself another teacher.
“I was shocked. I asked, why on earth? What had Tessa done? This Mrs Clarke laughed and said, didn’t I know? Tessa had passed so many of her Royal College certificates she was now as well qualified as she was!”
“You mean she could teach music?” Kramer asked.
“Yes, that was it. Mrs Clarke, the dear old thing, had taken Tessa right up to where she was. She couldn’t take her further, could she? So anyway I told Tessa what had happened and she said the best person was some Belgian or other in the orchestra-municipal, I mean.
“The next day we went along to see him and he said all right if we could pay the fees. They were steep, I can tell you.
“Pat and I talked it over and we decided we must give her the opportunity. I would take in more work, sack the girl, and Pat would try for overtime.”
“And you did that?”
“Yes. Then Lenny-Leon-started to give us trouble.”
“Oh?”
“It wasn’t serious, not then. You see, he wanted to be a pilot but his maths were terrible. He asked his Dad if he could have extra lessons, and he said yes. Tessa was having them, wasn’t she?”
“Was he jealous of his sister?”
Mrs Francis hesitated.
“He said cruel things at times but brothers and sisters are like that.”
Kramer underlined the word “jealous” three times.
“Go on-what happened? Did he pass?”
“He never got the chance.”
“Why? What school was he at?”
“Durban High. But that’s got nothing to do with it. Pat got sick with all the long hours he was working and not getting the proper food either, he was in such a rush. I nagged at him until he went to Addington and the doctors there said it was TB.”
Mrs Francis stopped talking abruptly. Fearful that she would not carry on, Kramer broke off a carnation and handed it to her.
“Nice smell,” he said.
“Funny, that,” Mrs Francis murmured. “It was always carnations in the hospital-I suppose it was because of all those Indian kids selling them outside.
“What was I saying? Oh, yes. Well, Pat went in for what they call observation and the next thing I knew was they sent us a card saying he had been transferred to another hospital. I remember reading it and running in to our neighbours to ask if I could use the phone.”
“But why?”
“I thought there had been a mistake. I said to the girl at Addington that I wanted to know where my husband was. She asked for my name and then she was away from the phone for a long time. When she came back she asked if I hadn’t been sent a card. That’s why I was ringing, I said-the card said Pat had been sent to a native hospital.”
There was nowhere Kramer could look except straight at her.
“By this time my neighbour was getting all excited, she was right next to me you see, and she grabbed away the phone and started to give the girl a bit of her mind.
“All of a sudden she stopped talking. She went as white as a sheet and put the thing down. ‘What’s happened?’ I asked her. I was crying by then-I don’t know why. She started to cry, too. It was terrible, the two of us in the hall like that. Every time I asked her what they had said, she just shook her head.
“Then her man came home and he asked her. She said that-”
“Yes?”
Mrs Francis regained control of herself.
“While Pat was in hospital the doctors had noticed something. I don’t know what, I’ll never know. But what happened was that he had been reclassified Coloured.”
Kramer knew something of what she felt-it had happened to a school friend of his. Quite a bombshell. But laws were laws, so he put an official edge to his voice.
“You were later informed of this through the proper channels?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you go before the classification board?”
“Me and the children did. We were reclassified, too.”
“What about your husband?”
“He killed himself in the hospital with a rubber bandage.”
There was a perfunctory rap on the door and Farthing trotted in.
“Sorry to disturb,” he said, scooping up the flowers. “The old man’s back if you want to see him, Lieutenant.”
Kramer shook his head and waited for the silly bugger to get the hell out again.
“You know that neighbour?” Mrs Francis asked. “She never spoke to me again, she didn’t. We were Coloureds now.
“Oh, well, then we packed up our things and went out to live in Claremont. Everyone there was very nice to us except the usual one or two. I managed to keep on my old customers-I didn’t tell them, you see-and found some new ones.”
“But wasn’t there anything about this in the papers?”
“A little piece, months after, when there was the inquest on Pat. Not so you’d notice it.”
That would be right. The Press did not attend inquests but picked up their stories when the records were filed at the Attorney General’s office.
“And what about the children?”
She drew her fingertips hard down her cheeks.
“It was terrible. I did everything I could but it didn’t work.
“They had to leave their schools for a start. That didn’t matter so much to Tessa, she had her music, but Lenny had still a way to go.”
“They have schools in Claremont.”
“He wanted to be a pilot, though. Job reservation broke his spirit.”
This line did not ring true to Mrs Francis’s way of talking-or thinking. She was bitter but not political. It sounded very much like the sort of thing a Jew lawyer would say.
“Lenny got into trouble, did he?”
“How do you know that, sir?”
“Never you mind. Just tell me about it.”
“He stole from people on the beachfront-in a gang that would go down from Claremont. They didn’t catch the others, just him. I told the magistrate all about it and so did Mr Golder. That magistrate! He said he would be lenient but he sent Lenny to a reformatory.”
“Well, he could have been given cuts, too,” Kramer objected.
“Yes, sir, I suppose that’s true.”
“Of course it is. But what happened to Tessa meantime? Did she go on with her lessons?”
“That bloody Belgian really had me fooled!”
The sudden, totally unexpected profanity was a tonic for both of them. Mrs Francis even managed a smile which did not mean anything else. Kramer leaned forward.
“I suppose if it hadn’t been for him, then none of this would ever have happened.”
“Then I must know.”
She nodded.
“You will understand, sir, it is very difficult to say these things when your daughter…”
He waited.
“I went to this man and said that Tessa could not come any more because there was not enough money. He was very shocked, he said, that such a thing should happen. And then he said that he would give Tessa her lessons for nothing. I knew that like most foreigners he was a liberal but this seemed to be too much to ask. Then he told me it was his duty as a musician not to neglect a talent like Tessa’s. He even said there were things more important than money. I’ve thought about that often. Oh yes, more important to him, maybe.”