Carol’s Column

Surprise visit cleaned us out

The doorbell rang at eight on Wednesday morning. I adjusted my contact lenses, looked out of the upstairs bedroom window and saw a stranger at the gate.

“Who is it?” I yelled.

“It’s Jamie,” shouted the young fellow.

“Jamie who?” I called.

“Your son Jamie,” he replied.

I peered out. “Nonsense, my son Jamie looks like a yak. He has long curly hair. Anyway, Jamie’s in Cape Town.”

“Ma, of course it’s me,” said the doorbell ringer. “I’ve cut my hair, driven all the way from Cape Town and I’m hungry. I want breakfast.”

I called my husband. “There’s a stranger downstairs who says he’s Jamie and he’s hungry.”

My husband looked out of the window. “That’s not Jamie,” he said. “Jamie looks like a yak and that young man has a crew cut. Anyway, Jamie’s in Cape Town.”

“I don’t believe this,” said the bogus Jamie, who then proceeded to climb over the gate.

“Attack,” I screeched to Henry the Hog, who like a bullet threw himself upon the intruder. And licked him profusely.

“It’s Jamie,” I muttered to my spouse.

“Hi, Ma,” he said. “I managed to get a lift up so I thought I’d pop in for the weekend. Besides, I want to take a few things back for the house.”

Our third youngest unmarried son, who is presently gracing Cape Town University with his occasional presence, has moved into a little house in Observatory with two friends. Quaint and ramshackle, it has everything a student might want, other than furniture.

“I can take anything you don’t use or need,” said my son.

“Take your mother,” chortled my husband.

It is at times like this that I regret not marrying the Cuban pilot I once met at a Ban the Bomb rally. I could have been happily married in Havana, enjoying black bean soup and rum for dinner each night.

It was wonderful having Jamie for a few days, not that we saw much of him as like a Cape vulture, he systematically cleared the house of articles he thought would be useful to his future well-being.

“I’ll just take things I know you’ve discarded,” he said.

I looked at my spouse but kept silent.

The pile of goods to be transported to Cape Town grew.

Jamie took my food processor, I substituted it with the egg boiler. “But how can I bake a cake with an egg boiler?” he wailed.

“Creatively,” I replied.

Beanbags, rugs, sheets, two duvets, a kettle, one pressure cooker and a toaster found their way on to his pile. As did an old pram, baby bath and hosepipe.

“Why don’t you take the microwave oven, and the lawnmower too,” I said jokingly.

“Thanks, Ma,” he said. And did. Which teaches one that some things should never be said in jest.

Jamie also acquired a skinny six-week-old puppy he christened Killer. “She’ll be a great watchdog,” he announced as she wobbled around.

“They don’t have dogs in Cape Town?” I queried. He didn’t answer, he was too busy choosing casserole dishes, salad bowls and cutlery.

Three days later, Roland from Emmarentia and Zaria from around the corner arrived to fetch Jamie. The car was filled with Zaria’s iron, ironing board, a plastic bucket and other bulky goods. It was obvious the Davies had also been cleaned out.

With cunning ingenuity, the kids repacked the car and fitted in everything. And thus they departed, waving, the engine straining and Killer the watchdog peering from inside the kettle.

“That was a lightning visit. He came, he saw, he conquered,” observed my spouse as we sat on the floor in the kitchen due to the fact that our stools had also departed.

“What do you think he meant when he said that one of these days the piano should play for Western Province?” he added.

I don’t know, but I have nailed it to the floor and padlocked it to the wall. Just in case, you understand.

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