Treppie kept on telling them they must fix Small Gerty up, ’cause he didn’t want to be stuck with a brood of kaffirdog descendants here on his property. He needed the space for his fridges, he said. The fridge business came with them from Fietas, and in those days Treppie still had big ideas. Watch carefully, he said, Triomf was the place where they’d still get rich.
But they never did, and they never fixed Small Gerty either.
And now Gerty — the daughter of the daughter of Sophiatown’s Old Gerty — now even Gerty is over the hill.
Before they fixed Gerty, she had Toby, who was the size of three dogs in one. They usually kept Gerty inside when she went on heat, but one day she slipped out and a policeman’s Alsatian cornered her. The Alsatian got stuck inside her so bad that Pop had to pull them apart. Gerty was screaming like a pig.
The Alsatian’s policeman still lives just one street away, in Toby Street. And that’s also how Gerty’s puppy got his name.
From the start, Toby was a rough beast who suckled for too long and then wanted to get fresh with his mother before he even had hairs on his chest.
So they eventually decided to get Gerty fixed up.
But what about Toby? she still asked, and then Treppie said no, a dog without balls wouldn’t go chasing after kaffirs, and the way things were going they needed all the protection they could get. Then Lambert said yes, he agreed. So in the end she left it.
Mol’s glad Toby came along, and that they kept him, balls and all, ’cause he keeps them young. He’s a jolly dog, even if he does pee in the house sometimes. And he’s also good company for Gerty, although he still tries to mess around with her, as old as she is. Dogs need dogs, she thinks. People are not really enough for them.
People also need dogs.
That’s ’cause people aren’t enough for people. She and Pop and Treppie and Lambert aren’t nearly enough for each other. They’re too few, even for themselves. Without Toby and Gerty they’d be much worse off. Dogs understand more about hard times than people. They lick sweat. And they lick up tears.
When Lambert gets so dangerously quiet in his den, then she can say to the others that she’s just quickly going to look where Toby’s got to and why he’s so quiet today. Just to put her mind at rest, ’cause with Lambert you never know.
And when there’s too much going on in her head and she can’t get her thoughts up and running, then she can say to Gerty, so, Gerty, what you think, old girl, will Pop make it to Christmas? You think we’ll be okay after he’s gone? And when I go, one of these days, you think Treppie will look after Lambert, or will he leave him to make or break as he pleases, without checking that he doesn’t bite off his tongue?
It doesn’t matter that Gerty never answers. She’s just a dog and she’s happy to play her little part, and at least Mol gets to think things through a bit, with that little dog-breath right here next to her. And those little eyes looking at her with so much dog’s love. Shame.
Sometimes, when things get too much for her in the lounge, or when Treppie’s had too much Klipdrift and his shoulder begins twitching so, and he starts looking for trouble again, or when Lambert gets wild about something, or there’s another one of those speeches on TV, and people start shooting, this side and that side and all over the place, with bullet holes in cars and blood on the seats, then a person can just say: I’m taking Gerty outside quickly; or, It looks to me like that Toby wants to pee against the wall again. Come, Toby!
It’s easy. And no one thinks anything funny’s going on.
Then you’re outside on the lawn, under the stars, and you can take a couple of deep breaths, or smoke a few cigarettes. Or you can look up and down Martha Street to see what’s going on. Even if you see nothing, just the lights in the dark, it still helps. Or when she’s not in the mood to see the inside of Shoprite, all the trolleys and shelves and people who can’t make up their minds ’cause there’s just too much stuff, or the light’s too bright and the music sounds like asthma buzzing in her ears; when just the thought of that Shoprite fish-smell mixed with Jeyes fluid makes her feel sick to the stomach, then she can say to Pop, after he’s finished parking on that parking lot with stripes, no, you and Treppie go, I’ll stay in the car with Gerty and Toby.
Then she can quietly light up a smoke and watch everything with the dogs, ears pricked as the shoppers go inside with empty hands and then come out again with bags full of stuff, back and forth, back and forth, in and out of the different doors of Triomf’s shopping centre: the café, the chemist, the material shop and the Roodt Brothers Forty Years Meat Tradition.
Mol lights another cigarette.
‘You think I’m talking a lot of rubbish, hey, Gerty?’ Gerty looks at Mol and wags her tail once or twice.
‘Let’s go inside and see what everyone else’s doing, hey, Gerty. Let’s ask them to take us for a ride, hey, how’s that sound for a change?’
Gerty knows the word ride. And Mol says it in a way that Gerty understands. The little dog gets up, takes a step backwards, then a step forwards and then she starts wagging her whole body along with her tail. Her ears are pricked and her eyes glitter.
‘Yes, Gerty, ride, ride, ride! You like a ride, hey! Just let the missus quickly finish her smoke here, then we can ride!’
Gerty goes and sits down again, right next to Mol’s feet. Mol is sitting on the old Dogmor tin, leaning her elbows on her knees. She looks at the yard. Winter has made the grass look like straw. There’s only one patch of green, right next to the kitchen drain.
She won’t be able to keep up with the mowing again one of these days when the rains begin to fall. She wonders if the lawn-mower’s been fixed yet. There’s always so much trouble with that thing, God alone knows. She stands up and moves away from the house. Some of the roof’s corrugated strips have come loose. Every year a few more. She’s going to have to put down empty tins and buckets all over the show again. Leaks. Just leaks all over the place.
And then there’s also the overflow that keeps on dripping. So bad, all the wood’s peeling off. Here and there the wood’s rotted through completely. Loose pieces hang from the roof.
At least the fig tree behind the house is still standing. She told them to leave it when it first started growing, ’cause it was the only shade Toby and Gerty could find. And that’s the only reason the tree was allowed to grow.
Mol walks around the house to the front, with Gerty here under her feet all the time. ‘Oops!’ she says to her.
That’s the other thing about dogs. When something’s broken or missing, or if something’s dangling or dripping or it’s causing a lot of trouble and you want something done about it, but you also don’t want to start something you can’t finish, then you can say: Hell, Toby, just listen to that overflow dripping on to our roof again tonight; or, Gerty, where do you think the missus’s bath plug has got to again?; or, Come now, Toby, don’t lean against that sideboard, it’s only got three legs and the fourth is a brick, and that brick’s got a crack in it; or, Calm down, you two, not so wild here in the kitchen, the missus is just getting the empties together, so many empties, we mustn’t leave them lying all over the floor like this, hey?
Then everyone gets to hear what’s bothering you and they can do something about it. And then, if they say what rubbish are you talking now, you can just say, no, it’s nothing, you’re talking to the dogs and they must mind their own business.
Mol’s at the front now, looking into the postbox. Lambert’s postbox. When they go out in the Volkswagen they always put the key for the gate inside the postbox. Then it’s easy to find again.