Free Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh Page A

the recurrence of the tense atmosphere I was used to feeling at home and had naively thought that we had left behind in Scotland.
    Kim started crying, and I recall putting my arm around her, displaying a tenderness I didn't really feel in order to try and shame my parents into stopping shouting. It proved completely ineffective. I sat with a sad, baleful expression watching the tears roll down my sister's large face. Vet's pus was pinched with tension and John and Gordon both shook visibly. This was the beginning of the end of my father's South African dream.
    Dad eventually landed a job as a security guard in a supermarket at a shopping mall in a white working-class district a few miles away. Gordon assured him that it would just be a temporary measure; a first step on the ladder, as he put it. He got Ma a job, typing and filing at a city-centre office in a business run by a friend of his.
    I was due to start at the Paul Kruger Memorial School with Kim in a couple of weeks' time. Bernard had enrolled at the Wilheim Kotze High, while Tony had found, again thanks to Gordon, a traineeship as a chef at a hotel in the city.
    Before we started school, however, Kim and I were left at Gordon's with Valerie, the large African woman who was his housekeeper. She was very cheerful, always singing us Bantu songs. She had left her family to come and work here, sending the money back out to the place she came from. We quickly built up a relationship with her, as she was warm and friendly and made a fuss of us. This ended abruptly one day; Valerie suddenly acted cold, off-hand and distant, telling us to get out from under her feet. Kim was puzzled and saddened at this change, but I knew that Gordon had spoken to her.
    Later on, my uncle, who had taken a particular interest in me, came home and took me aside, ushering me into the large garage which adjoined his house. — I don't want you getting friendly with Valerie. She's a servant. Always remember that; a servant and a Kaffir. She'll never be anything other than that. They seem friendly, they all do, that's the way with them. But never forget, as a race, they are murderers and thieves. It's in their blood.
    He showed me a scrapbook he kept of cuttings from newspapers which highlighted what he referred to as 'terrorist atrocities'. I recollect being frightened and fascinated at the same time. I wanted to sit and read the scrapbook from cover to cover but Gordon snapped it shut and looked me in the eye. He placed a hand on my shoulder. His breath smelt sweet and rancid. — You see, Roy. I'm not saying Valerie's like that, she's a good person in many ways. But she needs to be kept in her place. Don't let all that cheerfulness fool you. She's got a chip on her shoulder. They all do. These people are different to you and I, Roy. They are one stage up from the baboons you'll see out in the veld. We had to take this land and show them how to develop it. We made this beautiful country, now they say they want it back. His eyes grew large, — Do you understand me?
    — Aye, I nodded doubtfully. I was staring at the black hairs which grew out of his nostrils and wondering when we would get to see the baboons out in the veld.
    — Think of it this way, Gordon continued, smugly inspired, — if a nasty, stupid, lazy, bad-smelling person had an old garden shed that was falling to pieces and wasn't being used, then you come along and say, I can make something of this shed. So you take on the responsibility of making the garden shed into something better. You put your heart and your soul into rebuilding it, and over the years, through your sweat and toil, it becomes a grand, beautiful palace.
    Then the lazy, stupid person with the dirty-coloured skin which gives off a bad smell comes along and says:—That's my shed! I want it back! What do you say?
    — Get lost! I said, eager to impress.
    Gordon, a thin, spindly man, with tired, watery eyes, which could suddenly glow with violence, beamed and said: