“It’s not good man. Droughts, fires, floods … getting worse.”

“Maybe we … nick what’s underground … ship it out …”

“Ha ha … run for it …”

“That’s the fat cats … “

The door begins to slam, its thrashing getting faster, bashing the chat away.

Jacobus stands up, voice loud. “Hey guys I know. I’m going to set up a church and become a prophet.” Laughter ricochets around the room.

“Hey, where you going to get the shiny suit?” Hansie yells back, his torch spotlighting his father.

“Agh …” Jacobus turns, waving a hand dismissively over one shoulder. “Can you get yourself over here … help … with …”

Rudd joins the rush, his hands adding to those shoving the stove hard against the door, while Jacobus pushes it from above, both palms flat against the dark wood. At last the pounding stops, leaving only a tight whistle. Everyone goes back to their seats, and Tonderai throws another log on to the fire. Outside rain taps on the windows, dotting across the roof.

“Anyone know any songs?” Marybelle asks brightly.

Laughter stutters awkwardly. Rudd sees heads shaking. Not many choristers in this lot he thinks, but even as he does, someone begins to sing. He knows immediately that it is Bernard, trying again with the song Rudd hoped wouldn’t come back. The words reach him in surges, like an old radio with poor reception, carried now by two voices, the other frail and familiar. Fred.

“Sweet banana … A … B … C … D…”

Rudd’s body stiffens as the song grows. It nails him back to his childhood.

 “A … B … C… D…”

He sees his father, in his chair in front of the TV. Starts with the news. Beers on the table next to him. Rudd watching through the gap in the door as he sits and drinks. Drinks and sings. It’s this song. Some old Army song from somewhere. This one, always this one, and the drinking would be worse. Cowboys on the screen. Loved his cowboys. Mother in her chair. Rudd off to his bed. Then comes the shouting. The crashing. Some nights he couldn’t even listen.

Now he can’t block the song. Can’t turn it off. It swirls around him, smelling of beer. His heart pumps.

“Sweet banana …”

He forces his eyes up off the floor. Forces himself to look at Fred, at his hand with its half-eaten biscuit beating time. Forces himself to look at Bernard, proud of his song. Neither man his father. He looks away, breath stabbing in his chest, short and sharp. He battles to calm it, to bring himself back from the violence. He breathes deeply, slowly, and raises his eyes again.

“A … B … C… D…”

He looks around the room. His eyes rest on Simi, and then Marybelle.

Marybelle knows this song, but all she wants is to be happy. Singing anything works for her.

He looks back at Jacobus, but cannot see his expression in the dark. Nor can he hear him singing. He knows Tonderai is silent too.

“A … B … C… D…”

Slowly, as the rain sweeps back, the song sinks away into the night, the old voices weary. Gradually Rudd steadies.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

 “Wait!” Jacobus’ shout swings Rudd around. “Wait, man!” he shouts again, as he strides to the door. “We have to shift this.”

Rudd hears voices calling outside. He, Tonderai and Jambee rush to help. They arrange themselves around the stove and begin to pull.

“Hurry … wet as mangoes … here …”

“ … is Fred …?”

Torchlight beams in around the side of the door.

“Hey, you’re blinding us with that thing,” Jambee shouts.

“Sorry.”

“Hold on. The door’s jammed this side. Won’t take long,” Rudd yells, as they grapple with the stove.  

The metal is slick, and the water higher around the base than when they’d first forced the stove into position. Crouched awkwardly, they shove and pull again and again, and at last the stove begins to swivel, slowly releasing the door until there’s enough of a gap for bodies to force through.

First in is Hansie, his torch flashing between them. “Eish … still tipping it…,” he says, wiping the wet off his face as Sal squeezes past him, calling for her uncle, urgency changing to relief when he replies.

“Where’s Jen?” Jacobus asks.

“They’re in Rudd’s old room down there. Their room now. Looks safe and dry. Said they’d stay. Katania did not want to come out in this again,” Hansie says, moving further to one side, to leave more room for the others.

“Sure they’re okay?” Jacobus asks.

“Ja. All looked good when I saw them. Not sure how long ago. I checked on the others, then came up here to look around when this storm started again.”

“They should be fine,” says Rudd. “They did a good job when they refurbed those rooms.”

“For sure,” says Tonderai.

“And Caralee?” Jambee asks.

Hansie reaches an arm around his little brother’s shoulders. “She’s fine hey. She’s in the room with Jen and Katania.”

Jambee nods, his relief silhouetted briefly by the torchlight, as they bend together to close the thrashing door. With the added weight of Hansie, the stove moves easily back into position, leaving only a slim, screaming gash at the top.

Rudd winces as Hansie slaps him on the back. “Good cave this.”

“Agreed,” Rudd says, rubbing his palms together, as they head towards the fire. Voices joke around them.

“Eish it’s lekker and warm in here …”

“How come you got the fire?”

“Any tea for us?”

“Might be some biltong if you’re lucky,” Jacobus shouts from his post by the door.

“Now you’re talking.”

“Good to see you two,” says Hansie, looming briefly over Fred and Bernard, en route to a seat of his own.

Rudd watches as the incomers arrange themselves along the far bench. He counts twelve, and recognizes a few, but not all. He sits and listens to the chat as bodies warm, Marybelle pinging questions into the thick of it, as she sets a fresh pot of water on the fire.

 “Swimming-pool’s just a flood.”

“Steps down to the bedrooms running like Vic Falls.”

“How’s the squash court?” Tim asks.

“Okay, but something hit the roof, and rolled off … maybe a tree …”

“Like a stampede of mombies on top of us. Just crazy.”

“I swear those walls are bending.”

Rudd throws in a question. “Anyone missing?” he calls.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023