Pamela hears her before she sees her: the clang of the heavy wooden chapel door and then the tap- tap of high heels on the stone floor. From her seat in the choir stalls Pamela watches, as the entire congregation turns.
Evensong has begun, the first hymn under way: Now the day is over, / Night is drawing nigh, / Shadows of the evening / Steal across the sky. The girl at the upright piano is having trouble with the hymn, playing it slowly, even lugubriously, and striking a wrong note from time to time, sweating in the heat of the December afternoon.
Pamela’s mother sashays up the aisle, carrying a large straw basket on her arm. She is wearing her shiny mauve silk suit, her leghorn hat with the wide brim, its pink flowers trembling, her elbow-length pink kid gloves, her high-heeled Italian shoes, and the yellow diamond earrings, which Pamela once thought looked like daisies.
Pamela holds her breath as her mother pushes her way along a pew in the crowded school chapel, with its long shadows and stained-glass windows and the two silver flutes of pink and yellow carnations, which she has arranged on the altar. She is aware that people are staring as her mother sits down with a little thud to catch her breath, in a small space by the open window, and as luck would have it, next to the new teacher, Miss Milne, Pamela’s favorite.
Miss Milne is fresh from England, a young, blonde, brilliant woman who teaches history and speaks out strongly and bravely against apartheid. She tells the girls they should not sit idly by but help in some way, take up arms, enter the fray. All the girls admire her tremendously. Miss Milne stands now, slim and straight, stares ahead in her heavy tortoiseshell glasses, her gray hand-knit cardigan and straight gray skirt, her hair cropped severely, her face innocent ofmakeup. Pamela’s mother rises and fumbles to find the page in the heavy hymnal, which in her haste she drops to the stone floor with a clatter, and then, having bent down to retrieve it, stands up with a rustle. She opens her mouth wide and sings lustily: Comfort every sufferer, / Watching late in pain; / Those who plan some evil, / From their sin restrain.
Pamela can see Miss Milne give her mother a piercing look, though from her seat in the choir, she cannot see her teacher’s burning blue eyes or pale, pursed lips. Surely her mother must real- ize that the precious diamond earrings are out of place at evensong in a school chapel in the middle of the veld. But her mother does not seem aware of the attention. She is ignoring everyone, including Miss Milne, singing loudly and out of tune, while craning her neck and looking around, most probably to spot her darling girl, her precious one, her Pet.
The schoolgirls are all sitting in either the choir stalls or the pews near the altar. To Pamela’s mother, they must all seem identical, those slim, blonde, and white-skinned South African girls with their bland, even features, their panama hats and Sunday-white chapel uniforms with the buttons down the front. And indeed, her mother seems to have difficulty spotting Pamela as she casts her dark, bewildered gaze upon that crowd. For a hopeful moment Pamela imagines that she will not be recognized.
Pamela’s mother is singing so loudly and out of tune that Pamela feels obliged to turn toward her, opening her eyes wide, putting a finger to her pursed lips. Her best friend, Josephine, standing at her side, whispers, “Who on earth is that?” Pamela has to say, “God! My mother! She thinks she’s having tea with the Queen!” and Josephine grins.
Then they all sit down, and the thin, gray-haired headmistress totters up the steps to the wood pulpit to give the sermon. Pamela usually finds the sermons inspiring but now hears the words through her mother’s ears, the headmistress’s voice reedy, rising and falling with too much emotion, speaking of God of the Rushing Wind, and God of the Rushing Water, and the beauty of God’s purple mountains, all of which, Pamela is certain, her mother will consider a lot of balderdash. She is always telling her what a waste of time chapel is, when she could be out in the garden, having fun.
At Sunday chapel the parents are allowed to attend the service and spend the afternoon vis- iting with their children in the garden. Pamela’s mother rarely puts in an appearance at the chapel, even if it means not seeing her beloved child. In fact, she has never had much time for religious people, who she maintains are “Bible-punching hypocrites,” supposedly singing to God and praying to be good, all the while ignoring the poverty around them.
The nanny Pamela’s father insisted on hiring when she was a baby, aptly named Miss Prior, had taught her to say her prayers, morning and night, kneeling by the bed. It was this nanny who took her to Sunday school, read her Bible stories, and taught her to sing All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small.
Pamela has tried to love all of God’s creatures, great and small, even her mother. Because she has taken to religion with something like a passion, her mother often says she is afraid Pamela will run off and become a missionary in China. Pamela is always begging her mother to contribute to some charity or the other. She has made her promise to give money to every beggar on the street and has even convinced her to give money to the African National Congress, some of whose members are on trial in Rivonia.
At this Anglican boarding school, one of the best in the area, the girls attend chapel daily. Music—particularly singing—is an important part of their education, and Pamela is in the choir more because of her enthusiasm than because of any particular musical gift. Though she knows how to read music and carry a tune, she is never given any solo parts. At home for the holidays she practices her pieces diligently on the Steinway in the lounge, playing the same pieces over and again, until her mother puts her head around the door and says, “Darling, do you think you could possibly play something else?”
Pamela has been at this school from an early age, and indeed, had begged her mother to send her here as a boarder before she turned nine. Her mother had protested, “I will miss you so much, sweetheart!” Pamela explained to her mother, as her teachers had done, that the discipline would help her to learn. Unlike her mother, who skipped school as much as she could as a child, Pamela actually enjoys reading books, learning poetry by heart, and committing to memory all the dates of world history. She is always reading or scribbling away. “Go outside and get some fresh air,” her mother tells her. “Go and have some fun.” “This is fun,” Pamela replies, looking up from her book.
Pamela is relieved when the service is finally over, and her mother has sung the last verse, In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me, and the doors are thrown open. The girls file out, down the aisle and into the lengthening shadows and the cool, scented air of the evening garden. Pamela pretends not to see her mother waving to her wildly from her pew as she hurries past. Yet her mother, burdened with her basket and tottering in her high heels, manages to make her way through the crowd and find Pamela and Josephine standing in a clot of girls under a seringa tree, their heads together, whispering about Miss Milne. Her mother puts down her basket, kisses her daughter, and says in a loud voice, “I have missed you so much, my darling girl!”
Pamela resists the urge to rub her lipstick from her cheek. She feels stiff, embarrassed, guilty, and washed-out in her Sunday-white dress beside her glowing mother.
“Are you feeling all right? You look a little anemic,” her mother says, peering at her. Pamela scowls, shrugs, and says, “I’m fine, Mummy.”
Pamela has always been certain she looks much more like her father’s side of the family.
All on her mother’s side have dark soft curls, dark soft eyes, and dusky skin, which turns a golden brown in the sun. They are all small and wonderfully round, with tiny hands and tiny arched feet. Pamela, standing in silence beside her mother in the shadows under the seringa tree, feels she could easily belong to someone else.
At 15, she is already several inches taller than her mother, with big feet, endless legs, and long gangly arms. She has remained flat-chested and narrow-hipped like a boy. She has her father’s pale coloring: the nondescript green-gray eyes, the straight pale hair, the pale skin that freckles and does not take the sun. Though he died when she was six, she is her daddy’s girl through and through, hard working, disciplined, and perhaps—oh dear, yes—an intellectual snob. She has already decided she will never marry someone who does not like Dostoevsky.
Pamela is not quite sure what to say to her mother, particularly in the presence of Josephine, who comes from a tobacco farm in Rhodesia and whose mother rides horses and was once at St. Hilda’s in Oxford. Pamela cannot resist whispering in her mother’s ear, “You know you don’t have to wear a hat to chapel, Mummy. None of the other mothers wear hats.” Her mother puts her hand protectively on the wide brim of her mauve hat with all the flowers. “What purpose would church serve if one couldn’t wear a hat,” she says and laughs. Pamela looks around at the other hatless mothers in their dull, dark clothes and their sensible shoes. No one else is wearing even a string of pearls, let alone the triple string with the sapphire clasp her mother has thought fit to don.
The one mother Pamela secretly wishes to have as her own is in jodhpurs and a rather dirty blouse and looks as though she has just got off her horse.
Still, Pamela tries again. She is always trying with her mother and always failing. She turns toward her. “Miss Milne gave me an A for my essay on the French philosophers.”
“The French philosophers?” her mother says.
“Diderot and Rousseau and Montesquieu, the ones who wrote about the rights of man and sparked the French Revolution. She said it was excellent work.”
“Good for you, darling,” her mother says, frowning anxiously, probably upset by the word revolution.
Her mother, too, disapproves of the humiliat- ing laws of the country, the passes that the black people have to carry, the segregated beaches and benches, the censoring of books. She has told Pamela that Brazil, a country she visited with Pamela’s father, has solved the color problem by mixing the races, but she doesn’t want to see her precious girl in jail. She is afraid the teachers in the school are not aware how dangerous revolutionary talk can be. She doesn’t consider the women who have joined the Black Sash particularly helpful to the cause of justice. What do they think they are accomplishing, standing silently at the side of the road, heads bowed, a black sash across their chests?
Pamela’s mother warns her not to be too clever for her own good. She doesn’t think men like women who know too many facts: too many degrees will only hinder her chances in life. “Your father always said he preferred to hire B students who cause less trouble,” she would remind her from time to time.
Now there is an awkward silence. Pamela lifts her eyebrows at Josephine, wondering if she should mention her plans for the coming half-term week off.
“You remember my friend, Mummy?” Pamela asks, gesturing politely to Josephine, who stands close at her side, watching with small, intelligent eyes from behind thick glasses. She is a girl who comes first in the class in math, a plain girl who is looking at Pamela’s mother with what Pamela believes is a smirk.
“Of course I do. Lovely to see you, darling,” her mother says.
“The name is Josephine,” Pamela whispers reproachfully.
Her mother flushes and then busies herself by opening up the basket she has placed at the base of the tree. The girls both watch as she takes out something large, wrapped in tinfoil. She holds it aloft triumphantly, letting the juice trickle down into her elbow-length gloves. She asks the girls if they are hungry.
The odor of roast chicken fills the air. Pamela is hungry, as she almost always is at the school, where the food is mostly watery vegetables or indistinguishable meat in a dark sauce. All the girls are hungry. The two girls look around at the other mothers and the teachers. Miss Milne is talking to a lucky little group of girls and glancing at Pamela’s mother, her fine nostrils flaring.
Josephine explains that the parents are not supposed to bring food for their children after chapel. “You know that, Mummy, don’t you?” Pamela concurs and takes the large chicken in its shiny tinfoil and puts it firmly back in the basket.
“And do you always do what you are supposed to do?” her mother says with a little grin.
“I try very hard to do what I’m supposed to do,” Josephine says, drawing herself up, and Pamela puts a hand on the lid of the basket to push it farther down.
Her mother says, “John cooked that chicken especially for you.”
At the name of the ancient Zulu, whom she has always adored, Pamela looks at her mother and feels the sting of tears. “How is John? Tell him I miss him so much,” she says. She spent many afternoons learning his language, listening to his stories about the Tokolosh, while all the grownups napped.
She sees a look of displeasure cross her mother’s face. Pamela remembers her mother once saying to John, pointing to a malodorous cupboard, “Clean this up, John. It smells Zulu,” and the old man bending down from his great height. It occurs to Pamela that her mother might be jealous of her old servant, who was the only one of the many who remained with the family after the death of Pamela’s father, when they moved from the large house to a small flat, and where John is obliged to live in a minuscule, windowless room.
“We could go to the bottom of the garden, and no one would see,” her mother now suggests, indicating the basket. To Pamela’s relief, a bell rings, and she tells her mother they have to go in to supper. She says goodbye.
“Well, I’ll see you next week for half-term, sweetie,” her mother says cheerfully, holding onto her hand.
“Josephine has invited me to stay on her farm,” Pamela says quickly, glancing at her friend, who is already rushing off. She hopes the invitation still stands. She gives her mother a brief kiss on her smooth, scented cheek, sends her love to John, and is relieved to see her mother gathering up her basket and the uneaten chicken, finding her lonely way down the long driveway to her chauffeur, who is lounging against the pink Cadillac in the dusk.
Only, her mother’s way will not be lonely. Out of the shadows someone walks quickly after her. Someone is urgently following her down the driveway. From the squeak of the rubber-soled brogues and from the slim gray silhouette, Pamela recognizes Miss Milne. Why is Miss Milne hurrying after her mother? Is she going to tell her not to sing so loudly and out of tune or not to come to chapel wearing diamonds?
Pamela stands watching as Miss Milne catches up to her mother and speaks to her in the gloaming, the teacher’s blonde head close to her mother’s dark one. She doesn’t seem to be scolding her. The two women appear in earnest conversation, though Pamela cannot hear what they are saying. Then her mother takes something out of her handbag, writes on it, tears it off, and hands it to the teacher, who nods, almost bowing, putting her hands together in what seems to be a gesture of prayer. Then Pamela’s mother turns toward Pamela and gives a wide wave.
That evening, Pamela sits at her desk with the rest of the girls, doing her homework, trying to learn “Ode to a Nightingale” by heart. She keeps an eye on Miss Milne, who walks up and down the rows of girls, her brogues squeaking excitingly. Let her stop and say something to me, Pamela prays, which to her surprise comes to pass. Miss Milne does stop her pacing. She bends down, bringing her face close to Pamela’s, actually putting her hand on Pamela’s shoulder, leaning, and squeezing gently. Let this moment last, let me never forget this, Pamela thinks. Then Miss Milne whispers in her ear, “What a generous lady, your mother!”
Many years later, when her mother has long been dead, Pamela will not often remember that terrible afternoon in the chapel or the blessed moment with her teacher. An earlier memory will come to her more readily: her mother lying languorously amid the blue sheets of her large bed with her breakfast tray bearing the anchovy toast, the pawpaw, the coffee with milk, and her newspaper with its headlines: “Monkey Steals Baby Out of Pram.” Her mother leans back against the high pillows in her white lace negligee and tells Pamela to bring over her jewels.
Pamela, who must be four or five, pulls out the drawer in the dressing table and thrusts her eager hands inside to release the secret spring, and takes out the Craven A cigarette tin. Her mother helps her climb up onto the bed with the treasure, which she tips out onto the rumpled linen sheets amid the crumbs from the toast: the diamond necklaces and bracelets lying coiled together like bright snakes, and the diamond rings like brilliant spring flowers, suddenly blooming in a blue field. Her mother drapes the necklaces around Pamela’s neck, the bracelets around her wrists, and slips the rings on her small fingers and toes. She laughs at Pamela, and when she does so, she looks very lovely. Her mother lifts her onto her warm lap while she sings: Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross, / To see a fine lady upon a fine horse, / With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, / She shall have music wherever she goes.
It is this refrain that remains with Pamela all her life and comes to her again and again, when she needs it most.
