The tale of the Market Square (or how the Rubik's cube came to South Africa)

This is the story of our arrival in South Africa, and of the resultant short, sharp burst of culture shock.

  So, it's January the 15th, 1981.  My mother, Freda, has just turned 39 a few weeks ago, and my father, Harold, is 41. I'm twelve, and all three of us have just touched down at Jan Smuts International in Johannesburg in a South African Airways 747. This is surely the largest beast I've ever seen, and it's interior looks even bigger. It's like a Tardis.

The plane has come to a stop but my mother's eyes are still red and swollen from the traumatic goodbyes spluttered to her parents yesterday afternoon, and my old man hasn't been able to shake the half-guilty, half-frightened look that he started wearing about a week ago. 

  England is behind us, our little village, Wyke, is behind us. Were we just bored with that life? I'm not really sure. I find myself thinking of my grandparents again, and I can feel the tears not very far away. There's a short terror inside me, and I'm sure my heart is about to stop; that I'm about to suffocate. The feeling starts to pass, and I manage to squeeze the tears in. Somewhere behind us I think I can hear Safari-Suit John thanking someone for handing him his bag. 

  I’d met John just a few hours back. During the flight, the hostess had asked me if I'd like to sit up-front with the pilot in the flight-deck for a while.

  "Of course, 'e'd love to," my father had answered for me in his loud, bugger-what-anybody-else-thinks Yorkshire accent. "Per'aps 'e'll be a pilot 'imself one o' these days."

  A pilot. Right.

  Without argument I'd followed the hostess all the way to the front, up the narrow winding staircase and through the open door into the cockpit.

  On my way back from this unlooked-for and quite lengthy sojourn involving a few Cokes and a sandwich in the flight-deck, I discovered a small, heavily-tanned man wearing black-framed glasses and a curious open-collar white shirt and matching shorts sitting in my seat and talking intently into my father's ear. The stranger's glistening black hair had lost the fight above his ears and was turning grey, and at the back of one of his orange-brown, legs I could see a plastic tortoise-shell comb tucked neatly into his long white sock. He reminds me of an African explorer from Queen Victoria's time. All that's missing is his pith helmet.

  The aisle seat next to him - previously occupied by a lady who had consoled my mother for a while - was empty, and as the man noticed me he beckoned me to sit. My dad gave a nod, so I edged into the seat and sat down.

The stranger finished speaking to my father, and then turned to me.

  "John. From Johannesburg," he said, extending a hand towards me as well as he could from the confines of my seat. Out of the corner of my eye I could see my father giving me a stern be-polite-and-show-yer-upbringin' look. 

  "I'm David," I replied, giving his hand a firm shake. "From Wyke." My old man seemed satisfied with my answer, and he relaxed in his seat a little. 

  "Ah, where they're all alike," he smiled and small wrinkles fanned out from the corner of each eye like branches of the Nile Delta.

  "I thought only people from Wyke knew that saying?"

  "Ooh, I was born in England, and I've lived there, Up North,  for quite some time, and I've lived in South Africa for many years as well," he said. But his voice seemed refined and posh, and unlike the English I was used to. He sounded more like a news reader or television presenter from the BBC. 

  Of course, that's where we were from - Up North. And the significance of this would only become known to me much later. 

  He certainly seemed to know most of whatever there is to know about South Africa; the slag-heaps above the old gold-mines contain Cyanide and Arsenic; the best biltong - which is dried meat - comes from a buck - a deer - called a kudu; the school I'm going to is apparently world-famous and has spawned a few really great rugby players. And he could speak Afrikaans. 

  As he was trying to teach me how to say "Good morning" in this strange, nasal language, I thought of my new school - Dale College. What's it like," I asked. "King William's Town?"

 John's glasses had slipped down a little, and a skinny forefinger pushed them further up onto his nose. "King's not bad, not bad... A bit quiet. But pleasant enough," he said, and your father's told me where you'll be living; it's a decent area, miles away from the Market Square, and you'll be going to a good school."

  "Market Square? What's wrong with the Market Square?" I asked, doubtfully.

  "Nothing, really. It's where all the natives do their trading and shopping, and it gets really crowded in the afternoons."

  Just then I spotted the lady whose seat I was occupying coming down the aisle. "I'm in this lady's seat," I said with a little motion of my head toward her. John looked up at her, muttering an apology and bade me a hurried goodbye. He groaned a little as he stood up and put his hands on his lower back. I could see the small comb in his sock, and the wiry hairs on his legs, now almost level with my eyes, looked just as greasy as those on his head.

  He gave a little wave to my mother and father as he edged past me, and then mumbled a few more inaudible words of apology to the lady in the aisle. She sat down as I climbed back into my own seat, and John headed further back into the innards of the plane. 

A short while later I'd just started to fall asleep when I heard my dad tell mum under his breath that he would have to get a safari suit. A white one. And he'd need a new comb - his was broken.

  But, now, here we are. Africa is real, and there can be no turning back. The plane’s engines have been switched off, and people all around us are standing up and stretching, but we're still in our seats. A woman's voice is talking over the intercom, something about passport control, but her words are lost in the bustle of people trying to make sure they've got their things and their little SAA toiletry bags and slippers with the winged springboks printed in gold on them. I realise I am feeling a little calmer now, and although my eyes are hot I don't think there's any evidence of tears. 

  "Come on Freda!" I hear my dad say, irritably. I look across to my mum who’s now made her way into the far aisle with my old man, and I can see that she's picked up my small travel bag that has my most valued possessions of the moment in it: A Liverpool Matchday Programme from Anfield with the autographs of Emlyn Hughes and Kevin Keegan on the cover, a set of three joke books by Giles Brandreth, and a brand new Rubik's Cube bought from WH Smith's just last week - supposedly to keep me occupied on the plane, but still untouched in it's shiny clear plastic case.

  People a few seats in front of us are moving into the aisle and making their way to the exit as my father takes the large carry-on case from the overhead bin and my mother takes the other smaller one. I sidle my way across to them, avoiding the discarded earphones and blankets, and she hands me my travel bag. "Have you got everything, love?" she asks.

  "Yes," I tell her, hurriedly checking the little bag to make sure nothing's missing.

  Then there’s some kind of commotion behind us, people are craning their necks to see what’s happening.

  "Harold!" A voice behind us calls urgently. It’s Safari-Suit John: “Harold!” he calls again. I look back and through the mass of other passengers I can just make him out frantically waving one skeletal arm. "Harold, which hotel are you staying in when you get to King William's Town?"

  "The Central 'otel!" my father calls back without turning around.

  "I know it!" John shouts emphatically, as if he can hardly believe his own ingenuity. "I know it! It's the one opposite the Market Square!"

Copyright © 2014 David Rhodes All Rights Reserved.

Author's Note

One of my first attempts at writing. Let me know what you think, please. Criticism I'm looking for, rudeness I'm not.