THE BATTLE WITH THE APPLE STICK
Let’s talk about the magic of wood. In furniture, on doors and frames, in the walking sticks we Afrikaners call kieries. Wood passes through human hands before it is transformed into what we use it for. The magic is not always performed for the better: I saw with my own eyes how my first wife’s brother painted an antique and beautiful yellowwood chest a screaming bright orange.
I have a walking stick of apple wood. She is precisely the right length for me, holds smoothly when we walk. Of course she is a female kierie. Her head is a work of art, a mosaic of applewood and imbuia, but a son-in-law of mine claims to know his wood and swears her leg is made of common pine, not Yorkshire wild apple. According to him that is why the wood is dark, can’t just be varnish. I don’t know why my daughter hasn’t left the man yet.
In the English summer of 2003, my second wife and I live in West Heslerton, a lovely village in North Yorkshire. A million rabbits live there too, perhaps more. The village belongs to a duchess we tenants hardly ever see, her ladyship loves rabbits and no one is allowed to hunt rabbit on her land. Ever seen the massacre greedy rabbits can do to a garden in one night? My wife Dalene and other gardening witches are fighting back, spending time and money concocting an evil potion capable of sending cute bunnies to that Great Vegetable Garden In The Sky.
The dangerous ingredients of said potion my wife buys from a herbal shop in Thirsk, a village west of us where the famous vet Alfie Wright lived. He wrote a series of books about his life and work as James Herriot, and he was clearly not a stupid man: Alfie converted the carriage house behind his house and animal hospital into a film studio and there his books were turned into films and series such as All Creatures Great And Small and The Lord God Made Them All. After his death it became a James Herriot museum and I always enjoy wandering around.
While I visit animal lover James Herriot’s world, my Dalene is just around the corner buying herbs meant to remove certain small animals from their earthly existence. Except on a Saturday, she refrains from murderous thoughts on Saturdays, because that’s Market Day in Thirsk. Dalene enjoys wandering among all the stalls, buying stuff we’ll never use, while I dart down to the stall selling old books and vinyl records I hardly ever listen to.
This is where I first meet her on a Saturday in early summer. The stall decided to share its space with a bearded old sculptor, a weathered and gnarled tree of a Yorkshireman. The man works only in wood, images of forest spirits, strange masks and beautiful walking sticks. And there she stands, in a copse of English sticks, shining with an almost angelic glow.
It’s difficult for a transplanted Afrikaner to haggle with a local Yorkshireman about price. First of all, he speaks an English worse than the verbal noise of a drunken Scot. Secondly, the sly old Yorkie knows I’m in love. He swears he cut her from the best branch of a very old wild apple. The tree grows behind his farmhouse just outside Thirsk, he’ll gladly show me the wound where the branch used to grow.
Of course I believe him.
Dalene nearly leaves me when she hears how much I paid for my new kierie. I already own a bunch of walking sticks and we are supposed to live frugally. It was expensive to leave South Africa and retire near a beloved daughter and grandson. Actually, both in our fifties, we are still too young and poor to really retire. Dalene does translation work and I try to continue my craft as a screenwriter. We are not starving, but we are not overweight either.
Back home in West Heslerton, I immediately need to walk the oak forest next to our village. My apple stick wants to go for a spin. Dalene wickedly suggests I imagine it’s a club for clubbing bunnies. You have to be blind not to see the predatory plushies all over our forest, but I will not besmirch my new walking companion with rabbit blood.
A week later Aidan meets my new stick.
He’s my one and only English grandson. Aidan is Irish for little flame. The six-year-old whirlwind burns with energy. Don’t ask him to speak Afrikaans, it’s much worse than an old Yorkshireman and a drunken Scot attempting English. The child collapses with laughter when he hears the Afrikaans words vrot sokkies. He has no idea what it means, he just knows it sounds hilarious.
I show him the new kierie, brag about it being wild apple. I tell him fruit from the tree is small and bitter, but its wood is the hardest wood in all England. I add the legendary staffs of Robin Hood and Little John were made of wild apple.
As I expected, the light of war immediately snaps on in Aidan’s eyes and he grabs one of my other sticks. “You wanna piece of me, Saxon?”
“I will spill your evil Norman blood!” I threaten back, my apple stick raised and ready to brain him. ” Face me at yonder castle!”
No, we don’t have a clue what the Normans and the Saxons fought over back then, but we watch the corny old TV movies together and we know they always spill each other’s blood on the stone steps of yonder castle.
Our nearest yonder castle is a real one. Make that the remains of one, basically a few walls. They stand two stories high on a hill above the North Sea at Scarborough, the large harbour town we do our shopping in. The first time Dalene and I drove there, we spontaneously burst out in Simon and Garfunkel style: “Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme…”
Naturally we thought we were being clever and very original.
One cannot fight to the death at Scarborough Castle for free. I pay for us to enter, carrying our staffs of war. It’s a wildly windy afternoon with heavy rain clouds over the sea.
“Yield, Saxon!” shouts Aidan at the foot of the castle steps, stick at the ready.
“Yield yourself, Norman!” I yell back, apple stick ready.
My wife and daughter, Aidan’s lovely mom, come over from the tea shop to play audience and remind us it’s going to rain soon.
We ignore them and he attacks. I stagger backwards, up the ancient stone of the steps, pretend to swing at him and miss in a comedy way. He laughs and comes after me furiously, that naughty fringe of hair bouncing on his forehead. I let him to chase me higher. We have to tread carefully now. The stone under our sneakers has been sanded smooth and slippery by eight hundred years of feet. But we know what we’re doing, this is not our first battle on the steps of Scarborough Castle.
The wind starts blowing rain at us. Aidan keeps coming, chasing me to where the steps suddenly stop in the wild air. I keep pretending to miss. Cold rain stabs me in the face. I don’t see the blow coming. His staff, one of my lesser kieries, hits me in the stomach and I sit down right there. He quickly kneels at my side, concerned about his grandfather.
“Are you okay, Grandpa? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I laugh, “stop worrying.”
The rain runs down his cheeks, and he’s looking at me with my daughter’s astonishing eyes. “You took it like a man, Norman, I know you didn’t want to hurt your new staff.”
We hug and listen to my wife and daughter for a change, get out of the bloody wind and rain.
A month later we hear Dalene’s golden time of remission is over and she says, after a terrible night, she would rather be in her beloved Karoo if the chemo doesn’t work. We sell everything, say goodbye to our sweet village, move back to South Africa and a little house with a stunning view of the vast Karoo. She has a special feeling for the awesome spaces here.
Aidan and his mum come for a last visit, we play cricket in the garden, I show him a meerkat city of holes against a dune and we climb a steep tumble of giant rocks in the veld behind our house. I tell him we don’t call this a hill, we call it a koppie. He likes that. Near the crown of the koppie I show him our famous local rock, the prehistoric carving of a giraffe mum and her baby. He looks at it quietly and intently, not blinking, a warm breeze lifting the tousled fringe off his forehead. Usually I want to burst with love when I look at him, now I just want to cry.
He suddenly needs to go and I tell him to do it behind a bush. I perch on a rock and look down at our tiny house and the small Karoo village behind it. Aidan starts giggling. I ask what’s so funny?
“Guess what, Grandpa,” he gulps, “I’m going to tell my teacher I left my DNA on a hill in Africa!”
And he laughs as if someone said vrot sokkies, rotten socks, this delightful and highly intelligent little boy squatting under an immense blue and dangerous sky.