Free I Heart Beat by Edyth; Bulbring

occupies a place of honour in my file of grossest conversations ever.
    I don’t say much. I just count the liver spots on Grummer’s hands as she talks on and on.
    Here is a paraphrase of it: Grummer has a terrible “burden”. It’s all to do with that old man Mr September, who used to grow fruit and vegetables on this plot and then got chucked off the land in the olden days when apartheid was the big thing. Now tomorrow Grummer’s going to ask (firmly ask) Mr du Plooy to rip up the last of his garden and she is feeling bad about it.
    Why? Now this is the killer: “Mr September lost his wife shortly after they were forced to move to Die Skema. But he came back one night after the funeral and sprinkled her ashes in the garden … among the quince trees,” Grummer says.
    I keep awake by concentrating on making my feet go numb. Then my ankles and then my calves. I move suddenly and it gives me this crazy, tingling feeling.
    â€œYes, I was also terribly moved by Mr September’s story. You see, Beatrice, I scattered your grandfather’s ashes in our rose garden at home. And whenever I see those roses, I imagine that there is something of your grandfather in those wonderful blooms,” Grummer says. And she goes for one of those tissues she likes to hold captive in her bra strap.
    Grummer’s big dilemma is that she wanted to plant a garden that Grandpa would like — an English country garden full of hollyhocks and roses, elms and oaks — not rotten old fruit trees. Grummer asks me what I think.
    I think it all sounds completely gross and boring. I also think Grummer must FOCUS! on her big date tomorrow. I say, “I think you must focus on what’s really important. Like on real live people, not dead things.”
    Grummer sighs and smiles and she thanks me for being so wise.
    The next morning we leave Mr du Plooy starting on the garden and head off to the big city of Hermanus to get “something pretty” for Grummer to wear to the skop.
    We go to Foschini clothing store and Grummer picks out a red dress from the rack. I tell her it’s a bit small. I don’t want to be totally rude, but I also think red’s a bit loud for someone her age. I say the black one would be better. Grummer holds the red dress against me and says she thinks the size and colour are “just perfect”. I take the dress and put it back on the rack. I tell Grummer I’m already sorted.
    â€œI don’t think so, Beatrice,” Grummer says. “I can’t have you going to your first dance dressed in trousers.” And she takes the red dress off the rack again.
    â€œAnd while we are here. Let’s get you a decent bathing costume. I don’t know where you picked up that thing you’ve been swimming in,” Grummer says and she starts off in the direction of the costume rack.
    I can be laid back. I know that there are times in one’s life when one must just go with the flow. One must let things happen. One must take life as it comes. I know that this is definitely not one of those times.
    I look at Grummer holding up a bikini and tell her I’ll take the dress. I lure her past Aye Cee Kermans into Woolworths to pick out her outfit.
    We make it back home just in time to meet Tom and Candy weaving up the driveway. They’re on their way back from a lunch at the brewery and want Grummer to make up a fourth tonight in a game of Rummikub.
    â€œNot that we do a lot of
playing.
It’s talk
mostly
. But it’s
always
good fun,” Candy says. She thinks it might be nice to have it at our house, for a
change
.
    Grummer’s says she’s awfully sorry — not that I think she looks very sorry — but she’s going to the dance at the pubbingrill.
    Tom does his psycho laugh and Candy says, “Oh, you’re
not
, Mavis. Not the
pubbingrill
. None of
our
sort goes
there
.”
    And Tom jabs Candy in the ribs and says they go