We had chops chutney for supper last night, and 'Chops Chutney' is also the title of the final story in Pravasan Pillay's collection, Chatsworth.
Why not buy a copy at Made in Durban?
Independent literary publishing, commentary, reviews, art
We had chops chutney for supper last night, and 'Chops Chutney' is also the title of the final story in Pravasan Pillay's collection, Chatsworth.
Why not buy a copy at Made in Durban?
The cottage remained empty for two months before Mr Essop moved in. Mr Essop was a friend of my father’s cousin Prega.
Uncle Prega, who was seventeen years
older than my father, had known the seventy-two-year-old pensioner for all his
life. Both were originally from Renishaw, a small town on the South Coast of
KwaZulu-Natal.
Mr Essop had worked as a sugarcane-field
labourer in Pongola for much of his early life before opening a fruit and
vegetable store, which he ran with his wife. After his wife died of cancer in
1986, he sold his house and business and moved to Durban to live with his son.
Uncle Prega said Mr Essop had grown to
hate living under the same roof as his son and daughter-in-law. He said that
they treated the pensioner as if he were a child, forcing him to go to bed at
eight each night and taking control of all his money. He wanted to get away
from them and had asked Uncle Prega for help.
This was when Uncle Prega approached my
father. He came on a Saturday afternoon.
“He got nowhere to go,” Uncle Prega
said. He had brought a bottle of brandy along and my father and him had worked
their way through two-thirds of it. “We can’t let a good man like him die in
such a house. That’s not the kind of house you must go in.”
“For true,” my father replied. He had
already agreed an hour before to rent the cottage to Mr Essop, and the two of
them now seemed to be chewing through the decision. My father unscrewed the
bottle of brandy and poured a double for himself and Uncle Prega, and then he
motioned at me to top up their glasses with Coke.
“You know when I was growing up in
Renishaw, that ballie was like a big una to me –” Uncle Prega said, before
stopping and addressing me, and, at the same time, tipping up the Coke bottle
neck with his forefinger. “That’s enough, boy.”
I poured the same amount into my
father’s glass before sitting down behind them.
Uncle Prega continued: “After Apa died,
Mr Essop should help us like we his own. Every month end, when he should come
from Pongola he should always bring back something to give to Auma. Never mind,
it was a parcel sugar, or packet biscuit, or tea leaf or few metres material,
small things, you know, but he shouldn’t forget about us.”
“A gentleman,” my father replied, taking
a sip of his brandy.
“That’s it, a gentleman,” Uncle Prega
said. “And, plus, must know, when big aka needed train fare to come to Durban
for teachers’ college he was the one to give the money. Just like that, no
questions. This man was only our neighbour, but he should treat us like we his
family. If I had a place in my house, I should take him in tomorrow.”
“He got a place here, don’t worry about that,” my father
replied, knocking his glass against Uncle Prega’s ...
*************************
Pravasan Pillay's Chatsworth is available from Made in Durban.
Who was Sinclair Beiles?, a compilation of writings about the South African beat poet edited by Gary Cummiskey and Eva Kowalska, is available from David Krut Bookstores.
It contains essays, interviews and memoirs by writers such as Gary Cummiskey, Eva Kowalska, Alan Finlay, Heathcote Williams, Carl Weissner, Fred Malan and dawie malan.
Gary Cummiskey's interview with South African poet Richard Fox in the latest issue of The Odd Magazine can be accessed directly here.
The latest issue of The Odd Magazine is out!
Gary Cummiskey's selected poems, Outside the cave, is available also at Clarke's Books in Long Street, Cape Town.
You can order online or pop in and buy a copy in person!