For as long as I can remember, my father has said if I beat him at tennis he would buy me a car. These are the kind of reckless things my dad and I like to say to people. Call it genetics, learning, copying, imprinting, being born under the star sign Aquarius, nevermind, we do it. And then we find that we are in tricky situations. Last year was particularly bad for me. So many situations. A few involving tennis and playing the piano. But we always try to do the right thing, within the situation. The photograph of my dad above is a very good example. My father, on a cricket tour to Britain, at the London Playboy Club. As the caption says, the Proteas were praised for their impeccable behaviour.
On the morning of our last great tennis match – just outside the tiny town of Winterton – we both woke to that familiar feeling. Regret. After an evening of me leading with the chin, exaggerating, categorically stating things to be true and arguing about my car, I had finally said, "Okay the only way to settle this is by doing what we have always done. Seeing if I can beat you at tennis. See you in the morning."
That night my family were all saying, "Jess your car is not safe and you are being irresponsible". I was saying, "Oh no. It's the opposite. My car is very safe. I always leave the windows open and the car unlocked. No one ever steals it". I remember haughtily also saying, "Sometimes even, I can't get the key out of the ignition so I simply leave the key in the ignition. When I get back the car is always there. This makes me feel very very happy. Happy and Justified. And then I say to my friends. 'See its fine. We are all fine. Look at me walking through this park with nothing happening to me. Look at me leaving my car like that'." My family were shaking their heads. My dad was insisting on buying me a car. I was insisting that he didn't. I said, "Dad, you had bad cars. You drove those cars until they collapsed or you decided to give them away to the blind society. And you know that it is nice to do the opposite of what people tell you to do". He said that he had cause enough to be rebellious. That he toppled Apartheid and then the next government.
It is true, most days I do not have a cause and don't know what to do with my reactive nature. I did not topple Apartheid. But I was there, a sensitive child, already on a government list of people to watch out for, arrested as a toddler for watching a multi-racial cricket match. From my step, at the top of our stairs, out of view, I listened to adults under house arrest talking about Apartheid. About pouring hot soup out of windows onto the heads of the security police. About my father leopard crawling along hospital floors to get to the victims of police torture; hiding people; tricking security guards by talking about the rugby; locking would-be assassins in the toilet; always opening parcels around the pillars of our verandas. I watched as thousands of rolls of toilet paper got delivered to meetings of the End Conscription Campaign, and metres of instant lawn was dropped off at our house (which already had grass around it). I answered death threat phone calls and told the 'mystery' caller to fuck off. And when my dad didn't come home, I waited up for him, intuiting that he was in great danger. He says now, we were in no danger. That I have an over-active imagination, and most evenings he was playing squash.
Many weekends we did play sport. He taught me to play tennis and hockey and I bowled cricket balls to him until my shins were bruised. He felt bad about this but I got tough. My dad was a very good sportsman. He played such good cricket at school the masters had to keep giving him roast chicken. We played many tennis matches. I never won. But he said my piano playing was so good I could be a concert pianist, even though it wasn't. He said I could definitely be a prima ballerina and a very good runner. And now I find myself thinking I can do things, that many people would not think they can do. This is enough for me. He was on the school parents' committee and the teachers always remarked that he had good bone structure. He took me to operas all over the world, in Italian colosseums with a candle-lit librettoes, and on floating stages in Austria. We always played very loud music in the car. Still sometimes we cry in the car when the music is very beautiful and he taught me to say 'there has been a death in the family' to newspaper sellers who then bow their heads in sympathy.
Pushing things, like we do, does have consequences however. Too many squats in a zealous competition led to my dad's first knee operation. Many, many more. On the morning of our last tennis match, I woke up to the knowledge that I had challenged a man who can no longer bend, to play tennis. Two false hips, one working knee, a dodgy shoulder. A car – not worth more than R300 000 – was at stake. These were the rules we had set out: one set only; in the morning before it is too hot; win by two; Duckworth Lewis if it rains; as many anti-inflammatories as he likes; no shrieking; if I win he buys me a car. If he wins, I buy him nothing, because I don't have any money. Another very hard rule: no backing out.
I said "What have I done?" to my mum. "How sore is his shoulder, really? How many anti-inflammatories did he take? Do you guys have medical aid still? Was he serious about having a helicopter on stand by? Oh, how could I do this?" She said something like, "Well you can't back out now." Jack was helping my dad do up his shoe laces. My dad was stretching out his replacement knee and and wincing. He said he was trying to push his shoulder back into its socket. I was saying, "Please can we just forget about this tennis match. Can we just knock? Can we rather play for a bicycle?" John was saying, "just hit the ball away from him, and you will win."
We walked together to the tennis court and we took pity on each other. Another similarity we share: always root for the underdog. But we didn't know which one of us that was. We said, let's just knock, for we are too sensitive and emotional. This is silly. So we hit the ball to each other nicely. Then we said, shall we just play one set? And we played and he won, easily. 6-4.